Confessions of a Tarot Reader

Searching for your soul mate? Have a romanticized vision in your head of what it will be like? Living happily ever after and never having a harsh word pass between you? Is this what you have come to believe your soul mate is all about?

WRONG!

Soul mate relationships, although the most SIGNIFICANT relationships in our lives, are also the most DIFFICULT, or CHALLENGING, or CONTAIN THE MOST OBSTACLES!

People look at me like I am nuts when I say this as they have been led to believe by modern marketing practices that soul mate relationships are an instant connection with the fairy tale ending guaranteed, oh lord, do we need to talk about this!

First of all, there is a common misconception that people have that each soul here on earth has but one soul mate. That is not true. We have multiple soul mates. Each soul mate that we encounter is here with us because we have created a specific kind of karma with that soul. Dependent upon the karma created......we teach each others lessons relevant to that karma.

There are also different types of soul mates. Some soul mates are considered "twin flames". Twin flames are typically souls that are on a very similar karmic path and we encounter them during certain growth stages of our lives, we support them, they support us. They are typically friends, family members, or sometimes even casual acquaintances that we feel that instant chemistry with. They are not here so much to teach us a soul lesson as to support us while we learn it. They can manifest as children and parents, etc. etc.

There are also "twin souls". Twin souls tend to have extremely similar life paths to ours and we tend to cultivate these relationships quite easily, the twin soul is probably the type of soul mate that the average person imagines when they reference the term. The compatibility quotient is high, interests similar, experiences similar, etc., they typically are not the type of soul mate that passionate relationships arise out of.

Then we have the pure essence soul mates. These are the soul mates that have been romanticized in literature etc., however, the relationships with these soul mates are NEVER easy, smooth or effortless, they can be quite painful in fact, but if we work out the lessons karmically imprinted on our souls together, we achieve the reward of being able to be happy together.

The best example of a soul mate relationship portrayed in modern media that I can think of right now is the movie "What Dreams May Come". If you have never seen it, please rent it and pay close attention. Robin Williams plays the male lead and I can never remember the woman's name, but this is a soul mate relationship. In this story the man and woman meet and are very happy and productive, soul mates, but then, the soul lessons begin.

WARNING: THIS IS A DESCRIPTION OF THE MOVIE, A "SPOILER" TO DEMONSTRATE A SOULMATE RELATIONSHIP, DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO SPOIL THE MOVIE FOR YOURSELF!!

I warned you! This is the spoiler. Robin Williams and his wife are happily married with children and very successful and productive. Everything you could imagine a soul mate relationship being based on popular belief (fairy tale life), and then......one day......their nanny takes the children in the car and there is a terrible accident. Yes, the children die. It's horrid.

The wife falls apart and so does the husband, but the husband is capable of healing and begins to do so, the wife continues to fall apart as does the marriage, the wife even becomes suicidal, but their soul mate connection allows the husband to somehow pull her back into the living of life......just as they are about to celebrate reconciling their marriage and her recovery from attempted suicide, HE gets killed!!!!

It's so sad!!!! He dies and the story follows him to "heaven" where he encounters certain characters..........and he is allowed to see how his estranged wife is doing. Needless to say, she becomes depressed and suicidal and to his dismay he cannot stop her this time and she kills herself.

Well, they are soul mates, the most difficult relationships to work on, but the most connective. He finds that she goes to hell because of her suicide, and he is successful in rescuing her from the depths of hell...........it is an excellent movie about what it means to be a soul mate and what true love is.

The movie ends with a little boy and a little girl on a dock by a lake playing who meet for the first time, yes, it is Robin and his wife again, getting yet another chance to get things right, that is the nature of a soul mate relationship. You go through hell together and you keep getting the chance to do it over and over and over and over until you get it right.

Soul mates...ah, the irony. I have mine and I must tell you I spent my time in hell and he did come and pull me back out. We went through nine years of working out our karma until we were allowed to be happy (I hope it lasts).

So when someone asks me "Is he my soul mate?" in a reading, the first thing I tell them is "You realize we have more than one soul mate, right?".

Careful what you ask for, you just might get it.