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Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach

I specialize in soulmate journeys. While getting to the heart of your issue with a straightforward approach, I’ll help you see the choices you make that lead you into the same cycles that have yet to bring you happiness and help you see why. I deeply feel emotions and can connect quickly. I’m LGBTQ, polyamorous, power exchange, and non-traditional relationship friendly.
Tarot Reading
Career Coaching
About Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach

I specialize in soulmate journeys. While getting to the heart of your issue with a straightforward approach, I’ll help you see the choices you make that lead you into the same cycles that have yet to bring you happiness and help you see why. I deeply feel emotions and can connect quickly. I’m LGBTQ, polyamorous, power exchange, and non-traditional relationship friendly.

5 years of practice
On Core Spirit since September 2021
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Services
Relationship Coaching
Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
$99
Relationship Coaching

Are you ready to stop settling for what you can get and start getting what you deserve in love? I can help you. I have a proven process of coaching and support to help you get into energetic alignment with your soulmate partner. I will be by your side with regular coaching sessions as you clear your energy, boost your self-love, and get into alignment with how you best receive love and how to align with others who will love you that way.

Tarot Reading
Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
$49
Psychic Reading—Love

Looking for insight into your current, past, or future relationship? In this reading, I will use my oracle cards and connection with the universe to give you my understanding of what Spirit shares with me about your relationships. The more open and honest you are with yourself and with me, the more useful the reading will be for you in the long run. I will not stop with just the information Spirit shares with me, but will continue on to give you action steps and suggestions for how to move forward toward happier and healthier relationships.
I've been a professional psychic reader since 2009. I am also a certified Law of Attraction, Spiritual, and Relationship life coach. I can help you understand what's happening and where you're headed in your love life.

Eclectic medicine
Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
$60
Chakra Cleanse and Balance

Feeling out of whack and want to get your energy back in alignment, this service is what you need. I will work through all seven of your chakras and help you clear blockages and welcome balance in your energy centers.
This is energy work, done at a distance. You'll need to set aside the time for our session and have a quiet, comfortable place to sit or lie down during the session.

Articles
Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
Radical Transparency in Your Relationship

How often have you held back sharing something with your partner because you thought you should? Maybe you felt your partner was too busy to deal with the issue, or you just didn’t want to fight with them. Instead, you push down whatever it was you wanted to share with your partner, setting up resentment, withdrawal, and distance between you. What if you could, instead, share with your partner as easily as you share with the world when you post on your social media accounts?

Radical transparency can be a conduit for sustaining intimacy and connection in your relationships. You can also use it to restore and rebuild relationships when they’ve broken down.

The two parts of Radical Transparency are: Being open and revealing about yourself to your partner and being open to your partner’s reality in the way you ask them to be for you.

Radical Transparency means letting go of inhibitions or defensive feelings you harbor about what you haven’t revealed to your partner, as well as acknowledging your reluctance to reveal these things to your partner. It also means being open and receptive to your partner’s reality--their feelings, wishes, desires, fears, and differences from yourself. It means openly encouraging your partner to express these things with you.

Research supports the value of Radical Transparency because studies have found that those who are truthful about themselves experience more relationship intimacy and wellbeing, and better romantic relationships. These studies have also shown that positive connection and intimacy grow from being transparent about what’s inside of you, but not from making negative judgments about your partner. Your communication should focus on the positive in your relationship rather than zeroing in on the negatives and bombarding one another with them.

Radical Transparency can be painful, and even relationship-threatening, but it’s more likely to strengthen the foundation of your relationship, especially if it is present from day one of the relationship. Transparency in your intimate relationships can have wide-ranging and long-term impacts on your physical and mental health.

Radical Transparency is meant to be a connective process to help you stay close to your partner. It should help you feel more connected and less alone in your relationship. It’s about opening up your private, inner life to your partner and sharing it with them rather than using it to escape them.

If you’re ready to introduce Radical Transparency to your relationship, you can start with these steps:

Start with revealing one thing about yourself--about your inner life--to each other. This should be something you haven’t expressed before and may involve fears, aspirations, desires, or thoughts.
Tell each other what you really want in your life. How you want to live and work as you move forward. Do this without judgment. Just receive these statements as new information about your partner.
Describe your sense of purpose in life. Why are you on this planet, at this moment and what does that all mean to you?
Reveal how you experience your work and career at this point and why you continue to do it. Explain to each other how work does or does not feel in sync with your true self, capacities, values, and vision of life.
Stop censoring what you share with your partner based on your preconceived notions of their available time, interest, and/or reactions to what you share.
Be open and fearless in your communication, but remain as positive as possible when you share yourself with your partner.
Don’t expect you and your partner to be 100% in sync with each other about all topics and areas of your lives. You aren’t twins, you’re two individuals. Honor that and accept that sometimes you’ll disagree.

There are more steps, of course, but these will get you started. In essence, Radical Transparency says to those around you, “This is me,” without filters, without judgment.

LaBier, D. (2012, October 13). Want A Killer Relationship (And Sex Life)? Try 'Radical Transparency'. Retrieved June 16, 2020.

Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
Learning from Mirrored Relationships

It occurred to me recently…six years into my relationship with my soulmate partner…that my last relationship before I met my husband was a mirror relationship meant to show me how frustrating my behavior had been toward past partners.
I was writing about using contrast (when the universe gives you the opposite of what you’re wanting for yourself) and it suddenly dawned on me that my last relationship before I moved from North Carolina to Georgia was not only contrast, but a mirror meant to show me all the behaviors I had exhibited in previous relationships and how they did not serve me when I was seeking my soulmate partner.

Now, just because it took me six years to realize this information, that doesn’t mean I didn’t put what I’ve learned into action before now. I absolutely did. I remember in the moment thinking about how frustrating that partner was and why and how it was similar to how I had behaved in the past, but I didn’t make the full connection until yesterday.

Many people who talk about Twin Flame connections talk about how twin flames are often a mirror of their shadow self. I have to admit that for the most part, I view twin flame connections as trauma bonds, but this experience and epiphany may change my view a bit.

I can see how this particular relationship may have fallen on the side of the continuum of relationships as more of a twin flame than anything else. He and I did share trauma, but that trauma was mostly self-induced and based on the behaviors I recognized as mirroring my own.

So what behaviors did I see him mirror? He was passive aggressive, uncommunicative, and emotionally manipulative. I remember writing him a letter to help him understand why I no longer wanted to see him and including specifics of how his own behavior was hurting him far more than I ever would. He was so focused on getting attention that he once allowed himself to be nearly taken over by sunstroke because he refused to ask for help until he nearly passed out and someone “noticed” that he was in trouble. What followed was an hour or more of everyone at the event paying attention to him, which he thrived on.

The thing is, had he simply said he was feeling too hot and needed to go inside and get some water, I would have joined him in an air-conditioned hotel room not 10 feet from where he nearly passed out. But he didn’t want a solution, he wanted the attention. And he wanted attention from as many people at the event as he could possibly garner.
99% of the issues I had with him came from him not speaking up about his needs.

Thinking back, I can see this kind of behavior in myself. I would go off on my own and sulk until someone asked me what was wrong rather than just speaking my needs to my partner. The fact that I had chosen partners who didn’t care, had far less to do with my emotional manipulation than my own desire to be seen and paid attention to. I remember a trip to Phoenix, AZ where I was tertiary to the relationship. While the other woman was along to play and have fun, I was left to handle the business, the formal dinner service, and cleaning up after the other woman and our shared partner. I spent a lot of time that weekend by myself because I felt invisible around them and didn’t know anyone else. I went for walks, found corners to sit and watch people, etc. On the whole, I was miserable and I am pretty certain—at least subconsciously—I wanted them to be miserable, too. I didn’t get anything I wanted during that time. My surly demeanor meant the partner and the other woman felt justified in leaving me alone and cleaning up after them. My refusal to speak my needs to them left those needs unfulfilled.

At the time I was dating that last man before I met my husband, I was running 3+ miles a day in the morning before the North Carolina heat kicked in. My partner spent the night at my house and insisted on getting up with me to “run.” He was significantly older than I was and in poor health, so he didn’t really want to run with me—in fact, I’m pretty sure he couldn’t have run if the hounds of hell had been chasing him. The problem wasn’t that he wanted to come with me, or that I thought I’d have to slow down my run for him to keep up, but that he wanted me to walk with him instead of sticking to my routine of running to the track down the street from my house and then running my three miles before walking home again. But he didn’t tell me any of this. He just cried as he walked home from the track as though I had purposely left him behind.
I have memories of what it felt like to be on his side of that equation. When we don’t love ourselves or believe we are worthy of love, everything feels like a rejection because we don’t speak up and let others know what we need from them. We often feel left out of others’ interactions because we have isolated ourselves. And then the resentment builds even more as we watch others do what we wanted to do with the people whom we wanted to do it.

When we don’t speak our needs to the people we expect to fulfill them, and later build resentment toward them because our needs aren’t being met, we are being incredibly unfair to people we claim to love. Emotional manipulation is something I know I’m guilty of from past relationships. I know that in the moment, it can feel very much like the only way we get attention from a partner is to act out or have an emotional outburst. When we are involved with narcissists, this behavior is exacerbated. Narcissists often don’t give us attention in healthy moments and only pay attention when they’re being inconvenienced by our emotional outbursts. When they finally do pay attention, it’s often negative attention to a negative attention-seeking behavior.

So, I’m unpacking this mirrored behavior I recognized and want you, my readers, to understand that everyone goes through what you’re experiencing. I’ve been the emotionally manipulative person I couldn’t stay with when I was on the receiving end of the behavior. I have used emotional outbursts to get attention, even negative attention, because I didn’t believe I could get what I needed any other way. I know what it feels like to watch others get what I want, from the people I want it from, and be resentful of the situation, but also knowing I’ve put myself in that situation by isolating myself in the moment.

What mirrors have you found in past relationships that you now know are showing you the behaviors that didn’t bring you the happiness you sought in your relationships?

Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
How the Relationship We Have With Ourselves is Mirrored in Our Other Relationships

Every relationship we have represents a mirror to the relationship we have with ourselves. Yes, even the awful ones. Actually, ESPECIALLY the awful ones.
When we are connected to others in relationships we find unfulfilling and even abusive, it’s time to look at what drew that person into our lives. I’m not blaming you for this, only helping you to see the parallels I’ve seen in myself.
If I start with my ex-husband, I can see that when I met him while we were in college, I was insecure about myself, my body, and my smarts. I was feeling lonely and rejected after my high school fiancé dumped me over the phone a week after I arrived at my university, which was more than four hours from home. I felt like I was never going to be good enough for someone to love and I didn’t love myself in so many ways.
My ex-husband was a guy I worked with on one shift a week at the cafeteria. I remember justifying the fact that I worked at the “nice” cafeteria to offset how ashamed I was of having to work at a cafeteria at all, a sentiment reinforced by the nasty cat-calls and “tricks” played by the frat boys who almost exclusively ate at the cafeteria where I worked because it was right off Frat Row.
My ex was nice to me when so many times a day other men were pointedly nasty. I took that as a sign that this was the kind of man I could get and I settled. I settled for someone who drank far more than I was comfortable with. Someone who lived in his own past as an Air Force Academy Cadet who washed out on a medical after destroying a knee on an obstacle course. Someone who wasn’t as dedicated to his present life as I was before we connected.
I can see myself in all of those points now, 32 years later. I didn’t drink, I ate. I lived in the past where I was smart and well-liked by my circle of friends in high school. I let things in college slide, like not getting up for 8 am classes, because I figured, “what does it matter?” I dedicated my life to being what I thought my ex wanted. I supported and ran the campaign for him when he said he wanted to run for state representative in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I supported his conservative views even though many were outside my comfort zone. I didn’t bring up my views because if I could drop them for him, how important could they be?
I didn’t love myself in any healthy ways back then, so is it any wonder I began attracting narcissists as partners. Men who knew they could use me and leave me, taking everything I gave without giving in return. If I didn’t value myself enough to stand up and say I wanted or needed something, why should they care? And it took another 30+ years before I would really come to understand how much my connection to other people, and especially the men I dated, was based on how I felt about myself.
When we don’t give ourselves healthy love, we create unhealthy connections with love interests. How can we expect others to love us if we don’t truly love ourselves? Often people around us will treat us in the ways they see us treat ourselves. I was the “funny girl,” for a long time and I can’t tell you how many self-deprecating “jokes” I told about how ugly and fat I was. It makes my heart clench to even think about it. I catch myself beginning to say similar things now, but the difference is that I catch myself before I speak those words aloud and give them power.
Yes, I’m overweight. However, I am happy with myself in so many ways that the pudge is far less important now than it has ever been to me. I’m beautiful in so many ways that even if I trip over my own feet, I can’t feel bad about myself because of it.
And I no longer get the looks or catcalls I got about my weight that came with frightening regularity through college and my life in my 20s and 30s. When I embraced that part of the relationship with myself, the outsiders took notice and kept their thoughts to themselves…or maybe they didn’t have them at all.
One of the habits of the insecure is to assign meaning to everything someone does or doesn’t do. Often, this meaning is completely arbitrary and conjured out of our own insecurities. I’ve been making a habit of asking myself, does “so-and-so” really think I’m fat and ugly, or is that a reflection of what I think they’re thinking with no basis in fact? That’s been an extremely important shift for me, as it has required me to accept responsibility for imposing my thoughts on other people. And as my thoughts about myself have grown more positive, this attribution of thoughts to others has been more positive as well. I still have the behavior, but recognizing that I have it makes it that much less effective in making me feel less-than.
The more you love all the parts of yourself, the healthier your relationships with others will be. As you align your energy with loving yourself in the ways in which you receive love, the more you are aligning your energy with people who will love you in the ways in which you receive love. That alignment is the key to your future happiness in a relationship with your soulmate partner.
How can you improve the relationship you have with yourself in order to improve the relationships you’ll have with others?

Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
When Your Twin Flame Disconnects

I had someone ask me recently what the point was if a twin flame was only going to leave after they helped them heal their trauma. Why would they want to help their twin flame if they were going to leave and their next relationship would reap the benefits of the hard work and heartache they put into the twin flame connection. I understand how it might feel that way when a twin flame disconnects and moves on, but the truth is, you were supposed to be healing, too.

Twin flames come together so they can heal from their shared trauma. You both have to work at the healing for the trauma bond to be broken and for you both to move on to happier and healthier relationships. I realize this is not an easy concept to come to terms with. It starts with understanding that twin flame connections are not supposed to be permanent. That's a soulmate connection where the bond that joins you is based on shared energy and love, not shared trauma.

A lot of people misunderstand how I define a twin flame connection, so let me be clear. A twin flame is not the other half of your soul. The universe doesn't split souls and then send them on a scavenger hunt to find each other. You have your own, independent soul and so does your twin flame. You are not two halves of a whole, you are each whole unto yourselves. Instead, a twin flame is someone with whom you have a shared trauma bond. The trauma may be current or spread out over lifetimes. The goal of a twin flame connection is for the two of you to work together to heal the trauma bond so you can each move forward to find happier and healthier connections.

The lifecycle of a twin flame goes something like this:

  1. You meet and your shared trauma bond is formed.
  2. You each work independently and together to heal that trauma.
  3. One or both of you reaches a point of healing.
  4. If you reach it together, you part ways with love in your hearts and healed souls.
  5. If you reach the healing independently, the one who has healed soonest will disconnect because they recognize the fact that what brought you together wasn't healthy and to move on, they have to release the trauma bond.

It's that last part of the cycle that so many people have trouble accepting. When your twin flame moves on before you've healed, it can leave you feeling abandoned and betrayed. You may fall into obsession with who the twin flame was before they healed and find it difficult to continue your own healing so you can move forward.

The best thing I can recommend to those who feel lost when their twin flame disconnects is to step back and examine what you and your partner were working on while you were together. Were you healing from past relationships with people who hurt you? Were you healing from addiction? Whatever it was, that is what you now need to focus most on for your own healing.

For example, I had a twin flame friend for about 13 years. Our shared trauma was relationships with narcissists who used us for whatever they could get from us and then discarded us like so much trash. In fact, we met because we were both dating the same narcissist at the same time. Later, when I was ready to heal, I left him and completely disconnected from him. She left him, too, but more slowly and allowed him back into her life several times that I know of. I later learned she was an addict as well, something I honestly didn't notice because she never changed. She was the same woman I had met 13 years earlier as she was when I fully disconnected from her to save myself heartache and pain.

She allowed her addiction to become an excuse to return to old habits and relationships while I moved on and found that when I loved myself enough, happy and healthy relationships came into my life. So much so that I changed a long-standing determination to not marry again and got married in October of 2020. This twin flame friend was supposed to be my maid of honor, but when the wedding time came, she said nothing and didn't show up. I didn't hear from her until 8 months later, at which time I privately (I didn't even reconnect enough to speak to her message) wished her well and released her from my life completely. I knew I couldn't go back to that kind of energy ever again if I wanted to be happy and healthy with my husband.

I'm sure she feels betrayed that I walked away as I did. I'm sure she wishes our friendship could be a part of her life again. I'm sure she feels these things because she hasn't healed the trauma behind our bond and so cannot move forward herself. She only knows I've moved on and without healing, she may not understand how I could so "easily" leave her behind. Believe me when I say it was not an easy decision on my part. I still love her. She was still my friend and my rock when I needed someone to rely on. But she's also toxic to who I am now.

And that's something to consider when you are looking at your twin flame and wondering how they could have walked away from you. You were both toxic when you met, but they healed their toxicity and became a different being. If you didn't heal, you're now especially toxic to who they have become. You represent the things they've released and may even be a strong temptation to return to the trauma and live in it again. Ask yourself, if you were in their position, would you want to come back to who you are now? If the answer is not just no, but hell no, look at where you can heal your own toxicity.

Think about your twin flame connections. Were you the one who healed and left, or the one who stagnated in the healing process and was left behind? If you want to be able to release your connection to that twin flame, you're going to have to find a way to heal yourself without their input and influence. Look at what they healed and start working on that part of yourself again. Find ways to release your trauma and baggage and you'll find ways to release that twin flame connection as well.

And understand that they didn't leave you because you were a bad person or because they didn't love you. They left you because they loved themselves enough to know the two of you weren't good for each other. They left because they needed to honor who they had become when they were with you by not returning to the toxicity in themselves ever again. It really isn't you, it's them.

So now, rather than seeing your twin flame disconnection as a punishment, use it as a wake-up call. Use it to shine a light on what you still need to heal and then get help healing that trauma. Find a coach or therapist who can help you find the trauma and the blocks you've used to keep it anchored in your heart so you can learn to let it go. When you do this work, no matter how hard it is, you'll find it much easier to be happy and healthy in your life and relationships.

If you're interested in working with me to discover and heal your relationship traumas, please feel free to book a session and we can work together to get your soulmate journey on track.
I'm a certified Spiritual, Law of Attraction, and Relationship Life Coach who specializes in helping you align your energy with your soulmate partner.

Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
When You’re in a Relationship And Your Twin Flame Arrives

I have seen a lot of people ask what they should do if their Twin Flame arrives in their life when they are already engaged in a relationship with someone else. It's a heart-breaking situation for many folks and one I think I can help you with.
First, it is important that no matter how strong your feelings for your twin flame may be, they are only going to be in your life temporarily. Twin Flame connections are meant to be temporary. They're only meant to last as long as the two of you are working to heal the shared trauma energy you have between you. Keep this in mind as your libido and heart scream that maybe you should give up your primary partner in favor of having that intense relationship with your twin flame. Your primary partner, to whom you have made a commitment, it unlikely to take you back when your twin flame connection fades after the healing done. It is unfair to your primary partner to ask them to accept that what you did was "out of your control" or any such nonsense. You are in control of your own actions. That's really all you control in this world. If you choose to leave your primary partner for your twin flame, you're likely setting yourself up for heartache.
As for what to do when your twin flame comes into your life while you're engaged in a relationship with someone else, here are some tips on how to handle it.

Set Clear Boundaries
I'm an advocate of setting and holding to clear boundaries in any relationship, but with a twin flame, I'm even more so. As I mentioned, the emotional connection to a twin flame can be overwhelming. Suddenly you have this connection with someone who is so much like you, probably even more than your primary partner, that you can finish each other's sentences, and connect on the deepest levels. Because these feelings are so strong and feel so deep at the time you meet, you may allow yourself and your twin flame to explore them. If you love and cherish your primary partner, this is where you have to set clear boundaries. What are you willing to give up with your primary partner in order to explore the connection with your twin flame? How much are you willing to hurt your primary partner? Have you and your primary partner discussed what level of physical, emotional, and energetic intimacy is permitted between yourself and your twin flame? All of these questions will lead you to a boundary to maintain with your twin flame in order to not destroy your primary partnership.

And remember that these boundaries are in place to protect YOU, too. You know this is a temporary relationship. Are you willing to give up your integrity, honor, and love with your primary partner for something you know won't last? Knowing the answer to this question prior to engaging with your twin flame will make you life so much easier.

Set Clear Expectations
Do you expect your twin flame to be a part of your day-to-day life? Do you expect to be kept informed of any other emotional connections your twin flame engages in? Do you expect your twin flame to leave their primary partner for you? These are all important questions to ask yourself and then share with your twin flame.

It's okay to have whatever expectations you want to have, but you have to share them with your twin flame—and your primary partner—if you want to maintain healthy relationships with both partners. And understand that it is perfectly acceptable for either your twin flame or your primary partner to tell you that they cannot meet your expectation. You can only share what you expect, not demand that those expectations be met.

Hold to Your Boundaries
I know that in the moment, it can be difficult to stop your twin flame and say, "no, this is beyond my boundaries and I cannot do this." However, this is how you keep yourself and your primary partner sane. Sure, there might be a few moments when you consider breaking a boundary when your twin flame asks for more than you agreed to initially, but if you want your primary partnership to survive the twin flame connection, you have to be willing to tell your twin flame, "NO."

And that might be one of the hardest things you have to do in a situation like this. You and your twin flame often have nearly identical desires. When one of you says, "throw caution to the wind, let's do this," you may be sorely tempted to do so. But before you give in, ask yourself is the moment of pleasure in the twin flame connection worth losing what you have with your primary partner. If it is not, you must stand your ground, no matter how much your twin flame plays to your emotions and the shared trauma energy.

Remember that you and your twin flame are both damaged in some way, in the same way even. That kind of damage requires healing, not feeding. This person has come into your life to help you heal from that shared trauma, so if they ask you to break your boundaries, ask yourself why they're wanting to do that. It's likely part of what they came to you to help you heal. This is where you can start to see why healing the trauma is so important.
For example, you are trying to heal from having been cheated on and treated like an option in many past relationships, both in this life and others. When your twin flame says, "We can do this. We won't be hurting anyone. I love you, and I need this from you," what they're really doing is offering you the opportunity to be on the other side of the trauma you have suffered. To choose the path those in your own lives did not. To choose to be honorable and loving to your primary partner rather than to cheat (physically, emotionally, or energetically) with your twin flame. It's a teaching moment, but you have to be willing to tell them no to gain the benefit and healing from that moment.

Talk to Your Primary Partner
The most important thing to do when your twin flame comes into your life while you're in a relationship is to talk to your primary partner about what that means. Your partner is going to feel the connection between you and your twin flame unless they are a complete psychic null. That means, they're going to get insecure and wonder if you're going to leave them for the twin flame. It's up to you to clearly communicate your intentions—either to stay or go— and your expectations.

Talk to your primary partner about what it means to you to have your twin flame in your life. Talk about how much time you will want to spend with the twin flame. What kind of intimacy is allowed—and take your partner's feelings and desires into account here. Tell them everything that happens between you and your twin flame, in so much as your primary partner wants to know the details. Don't keep any secrets when it comes to your twin flame and your primary partner.

Look at the situation from the outside. If your partner's twin flame came into their life while they were involved with you, how would you feel? What would you want and need to know? Share all of these things with your primary partner and let them choose whether or not they are comfortable with the situation. You can ask them to stay, to be understanding, but you cannot make someone choose a path that will bring them pain.

Absolute transparency with your primary partner is really the only way your relationship with them can survive the arrival of a twin flame. They need to know you are being open and honest with them at all times—and you need to be open and honest with them at all times. You have to be willing to be reassuring to your primary partner when they feel lost and disconnected. You have to be willing to continue to invest yourself in your primary relationship, and demonstrate that willingness to your primary partner regularly if you want the relationship to survive.

Include Your Primary Partner
Allow you primary partner to be a part of your twin flame relationship whenever you can. This will help your primary partner find a level of comfort with your twin flame and help them to feel more secure in your relationship.
Including your primary partner in your twin flame connection also demonstrates to your twin flame that the boundaries you set, you meant. It will make sticking to your boundaries easier in the long run because then your primary partner is a person, not just an idea, to your twin flame. It's often much more difficult to hurt someone you know than it would be to hurt the idea of someone else in the world.

Listen to Your Primary Partner
There will be times when your primary partner is uncomfortable with your twin flame, no matter how well you prepare them for the situation. At these times, it is up to you to be understanding and willing to make changes to maintain the health of your primary relationship. It's all about priorities now.
Yes, healing your trauma is a priority. However, doing so at the expense of someone you love is likely not your focus. If your primary partner comes to you with a concern about your twin flame, listen. Don't react immediately, just listen. Hear what your partner is sharing. It is likely a fear of loss or rejection that they're sharing with you. When you hear your partner's concern and respond with love and compassion, the situation often dissipates more quickly than if you react and approach the situation with indignation and anger. Don't let your high emotions answer for you. Be calm and considerate and your primary partner will appreciate you more.

Twin flame connections are often volatile and burn out fast. Keep that in mind when you are deciding whether to stay in your primary relationship or leave in favor of your twin flame. Nine times out of ten, your twin flame connection is less than healthy. They're there to help you heal from trauma, but because they are also trying to heal from similar trauma, the two of you may trigger each other. That's why so many twin flame relationships blow up after a short time. Your primary partner shouldn't be a casualty of your twin flame connection. They deserve better than that from you. But only you can choose to be better for them. I hope these tips will help you better handle this kind of situation.

Oh, and that 10th time out of 10 when a twin flame relationship lasts? That's the unicorn situation where you both heal your traumas at approximately the same time. How likely is that, really? You are the rule, not the exception, for the most part. Are you willing to gamble the love you have with your primary partner on that 10% chance? Know that before you choose to go blindly into your twin flame connection or you'll likely regret your choice.

Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
When You or Your Twin Flame are Already in a Relationship When You Meet

First, let me say I'm an advocate for ethical non-monogamy. Ethical non-monogamy, according to Kelly Gonslaves in her article, "What Ethical Non-Monogamy Really Means and Why People Practice It," is "an approach to relationships wherein people can have more than one romantic and sexual partner at a time, and everybody involved is aware and enthusiastically consents to the dynamic. Polyamory, open relationships, and swinging are all forms of ethically non-monogamous relationships, which are also referred to as consensually non-monogamous relationships." The idea here is that everyone involved in the relationships is both aware of and consents to the others in the relationships. Ethical Non-Monogamy is my suggestion for how to handle a connection to your twin flame when one or both of you is already in a relationship when you connect. This is not to say that the primary partner must have a close, loving relationship with the twin flame, only that they must be aware of the relationship between the twin flames and agree to allowing it to be a part of their partner's life.

I do not, under any circumstances, advocate cheating on a partner in either emotional or physical ways. Nor do I advocate breaking up relationships to make room for yourself. Keep in mind that a twin flame connection is not meant to be permanent. Once the shared trauma bond has been healed, the twin flame connection fades until you are often left wondering why you were with the twin flame at all. Why would you destroy a primary relationship through infidelity or ultimatums (it's them or me) for a relationship that has an expiration date? I feel to attempt to do so is unethical and carries a karmic debt you may be unwilling or unable to pay.

The central concept behind ethically non-monogamous relationships is open, honest, and transparent communication. Without this, the partners cannot hope to be successful in either relationship. You have to talk to each other, all of you, regularly and without filters. You have to feel comfortable sharing your deepest thoughts and feelings with not only your twin flame, but also with their primary partner, or your own. Failure to do so negates the concept of ethical non-monogamy and leaves everyone open to pain and heartache.

Radical Transparency
Radically transparent communication covers all three kinds of communication needed to make ethical non-monogamy work. Radical transparency can also be a conduit for sustaining intimacy and connection in your relationships. You can also use it to restore and rebuild relationships when they've broken down. It should also be a central part of your twin flame relationship as it is a way to get to the root of the trauma bond you share with your twin flame.

The two parts of Radical Transparency are: Being open and revealing about yourself to your partner and being open to your partner's reality in the way you ask them to be for you.

Radical Transparency means letting go of any inhibitions or defensive feelings you harbor about what you haven't revealed to your partner, as well as acknowledging your reluctance to reveal these things to your partner. It also means being open and receptive to your partner's reality--their feelings, wishes, desires, fears, and differences from yourself. It means openly encouraging your partner to express these things with you.
Research supports the value of Radical Transparency because studies have found that those who are truthful about themselves experience more relationship intimacy and wellbeing, and better romantic relationships. These studies have also shown that positive connection and intimacy grow from being transparent about what's inside of you, but not from making negative judgments about your partner. Your communication should focus on the positive in your relationship rather than zeroing in on the negatives and bombarding one another with them.

Radical Transparency can be painful, and even relationship-threatening, but it's more likely to strengthen the foundation of your relationship, especially if it is present from day one of the relationship. Transparency in your intimate relationships can have wide-ranging and long-term impacts on your physical and mental health.

Radical Transparency is meant to be a connective process to help you stay close to your partner. It should help you feel more connected and less alone in your relationship. It's about opening up your private, inner life to your partner and sharing

Boundaries To Set
When you engage in an ethical non-monogamous relationship, you're likely to spend a lot of time laying down "ground rules" and setting up boundaries to make certain everyone involved in the relationship is having their needs met and fears alleviated.
You need to set boundaries on how much time you'll spend with your primary partner and how much time will be spent with your twin flame. You need to be transparent about the level of intimacy, both emotional and physical, that is acceptable between yourself and your primary partner and yourself and your twin flame. Often the emotional intimacy level is more difficult to maintain the boundary for than the physical intimacy is. It's hard to say, "don't fall in love with your twin flame," and have that boundary maintained, so keep that in mind when you start talking with your partner about having your twin flame in your life.

You also want to discuss the levels and methods of communication for the twin flame to use. Is your primary partner okay with you getting text messages from your twin flame during dinner with your family, or in the middle of the night? These are things to consider as you decide when and how you and your twin flame can communicate while you're with your primary partner.

And finally, there needs to be a method for calling all the partners together to calmly discuss necessary changes in the boundaries set at the beginning of the relationships. Over time, you may find you need more time with your twin flame, or your primary partner may feel they need to be more involved in your connection to your twin flame. Before you get defensive when your primary partner asks for more from you than your initial negotiations did, consider that this is the person who will be with you after the twin flame connection fades. You have to choose whether or not you're willing to give your primary partner what they need while you're connected to your twin flame. If you are, be prepared to have your primary partner ask for hard things—things like no physical intimacy between you and your twin flame, little or no emotional intimacy. If you cannot honestly say you can give these things to your primary partner without reserve, you may be better off ending your primary relationship rather than attempting ethical non-monogamy.

If you are the twin flame coming into a relationship between your twin flame and their primary partner, know that there will be times when you feel left out. When you feel like your twin flame has higher priorities than you. The fact is, they will. They are attempting to integrate you and your connection to them into an existing relationship. Sometimes you won't be your twin flame's top priority and it is okay to have feelings about that so long as you can discuss them with your twin flame as part of your radical transparency.

What the Twin Flame Connection Brings that the Primary Relationship Does Not
One of the toughest conversations you and your twin flame will have with each other and any primary partners will be about what the twin flame connection brings into your life that the primary relationship does not and likely can not. This is a difficult discussion because it involves sharing the trauma the twin flame relationship is meant to heal, as well as explaining why the primary partner is unable to do the same thing(s) for you that your twin flame can.

This is a discussion that must happen, but also must be conducted with compassion and love. Consider how hard it will be for your primary partner to come to terms with the idea that there is something in your life for which they do not have the answer. How difficult it will be to reveal your traumas while simultaneously showing your primary partner that they are not the key to your recovery. Now see it from the primary partner's point of view and have empathy for what they are going through.

You may not feel the same kind of connection to your twin flame's primary partner as you do to your twin flame, but try to leave room in your heart for love for them. Jealousy and envy will not serve you or your twin flame when it comes to the primary partners in your relationship. Only love will help those primary partners feel more comfortable with your relationship with their partner, and therefore allow more of what you need to be part of your twin flame relationship.

How to Explain Why You Need Your Twin Flame
Sometimes it is hard for a primary partner to understand why you might need your twin flame in your life as well as them. The easiest way I've found to explain this is to use specialists as an example.

For example, if you have an ingrown toenail, you're not going to go to a dentist, right? They don't have the skills you need to fix the problem, nor do they have the desire to learn those skills. Only a podiatrist can give you what you need to fix that issue. The same is true of twin flame connections.
You don't want your primary partner to feel burdened by helping you heal the trauma you share with your twin flame, so you need to have that twin flame connection to work through your trauma. Ask your primary partner if they feel comfortable helping with your trauma, once you've shared with them what your trauma is. If they are interested in helping you work through your trauma, include them more in your twin flame relationship. If not, you'll see how relieved they are to have the burden of helping you with your trauma lifted from their shoulders.

Integrating your twin flame connection into your primary relationship is not going to be easy, but it will be worth it in the end. You or your twin flame are with the primary partner for a reason. Healing your trauma with your twin flame does not justify destroying that primary relationship on either side. The temporary nature of twin flame connections should be enough to to help you see that the relationship should not overwhelm and replace the primary relationship, but that may become difficult to see when the heightened emotions and depth of connection between twin flames comes into play. You have to choose, in the very beginning, to approach the separate relationships with ethical non-monogamy or break off the primary relationship before engaging with your twin flame. The idea that the universe brings twin flames together is not justification for hurting others or breaking up happy relationships. Choose the ethical path, either choice, or you'll be left with yet more trauma to heal.

Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
Soulmate Versus Twin Flame—What does it mean?

When I hear the term "twin flame," I often cringe because I feel it gets tossed about as the end-all and be-all of romantic connections. Soulmate often gets used in a similar way, but it's the twin flame connection I feel is most misunderstood. My first point for either soulmate or twin flame connections is that they don't have to involve romantic love, and often do not. These terms apply to energetic connections, not necessarily love connections in a romantic sense. The only "soulmate" romantic connection I've had is my husband and we were definitely connected energetically first as friends and later as lovers. That's not to say I haven't loved the soulmates I've come in contact with throughout my life. I absolutely have loved them all, but not in a way that ends in marriage and children and a white picket fence.

According to Sarah Regan, author of What's the Difference Between a Twin Flame and a Soulmate, a soulmate is someone whose soul is cut from the same cloth as yours. This energy creates a strong connection that can be for both romantic love and strong friendship.

Twin Flames, also according to Regan, are two individuals who very intensely connect, usually as romantic partners, because of a shared trauma. The connection is not necessarily about love and will often require a lot of personal internal work, on the part of both partners, to make a partnership work. Regan cautions that Twin Flames do not and should not "complete" one another because every individual should be complete in and of themselves.

So while both soulmate and twin flame connections can give you a sense of knowing one another deeper than your acquaintance time might warrant, you need to be more cautious in your approach to twin flame connections. The energetic connection found between soulmates is generally somewhere between benign and beneficial since the soul's composition is similar in energetic construction. Conversely, the energetic connection between twin flame energies is often co-dependent or damaging because both partners are working out a shared trauma, be it physical, mental or karmic.

Regan cautions that Twin Flame connections and relationships can quickly become toxic because a twin flame may mirror your own issues, unhealthy habits, or impulses. Imagine the difference between a healthy friendship you develop with someone who enjoys similar activities and has similar values and beliefs and a friendship with someone who enables all your worst habits and addictions. That's how I see the difference between soulmates and twin flames as explained by Regan. The twin flame can often be an enabler because they have similar traumas and reactions to them. If one or both of you does not do the internal work to heal the trauma, neither of you will be happy or healthy with the other. If only one does the internal work on the trauma, the other will often feel attacked and lash out, while the one doing the work will usually move on.

I have so many clients who come to me seeking to reconnect with their "twin flame." The truth is, if one of the partners has moved on, the twin flame connection is no longer there, even if one partner feels it is. When the lesson of the connection has been learned (the healing of the trauma), the connection begins to fade for one or both partners. Think of it this way, you spend years getting sober, living with and loving the partner who continues to abuse whatever substance they have chosen. When you finally get sober, you choose to move on so you can remain sober and continue to grow, but your partner is still stuck in the cycle of addiction and you know that if you stay with them, you'll fall off the wagon. You know that the reason for the relationship, whatever it was originally, has come to a conclusion and that going back will only bring you pain. Your partner, on the other hand, has not tried to get sober, has continued with whatever unhealthy behavior originally brought the two of you together (your shared trauma) and has no understanding of why the relationship has ended. This partner may chase the connection for a very long time, unless something happens and they begin to work on their own trauma.

When you're in a relationship and you KNOW you and your partner are no good for each other, but you keep coming back to each other, that's often the hallmark of a twin flame connection between partners who have not begun to work on their individual traumas. Twin flame connections are great for encouraging you to work on growth and awakening, but they are difficult to make work in the long run. Your job is to recognize the energy and find the traumas that need to be exorcised from your energy. Then, you need to know when to let go of the other person, no matter how much you love them, because you know they're not really good for you.

Soulmates, on the other hand, are often more stable individuals who come into your life ideally suited as life partners and close friends. I've had a few soulmates and one or two "twin flame" relationships in my life. The most significant soulmate until I met my husband, was my best friend of 16 years. Rick came into my life with the same calm, loving energy I have, at a time when I really needed a different perspective on my life (it was the end of my first marriage). We stayed friends and saw each other through other relationships, even his own marriage where I performed the handfasting ceremony a year before their church wedding. We were the ear we each needed when we needed to hash things out and we loved one another deeply. When he died in June of 2019, I was devastated. I still think of him nearly every day. Thankfully, for my own heart, I met my husband in 2015 and he started to connect with some of the energy that Rick brought to my sight when we were together.

The most hurtful twin flame relationship was another friend, one who came into my life in a way I wouldn't recommend to most (we were dating the same man at the same time. We left him and kept each other for some 13 years). She was an addict, something I hadn't known for most of our friendship, even when I lived with her, because she didn't change. She was exactly as she'd been when I met her. It wasn't until 2020 when she disappeared instead of attending (or letting me know she couldn't) my wedding in October. She never said a word about not coming or even the wedding itself, despite being my Maid of Honor. That was my clue that our connection was done. We'd worked out the trauma we'd connected over (relationships with narcissists) and I'd moved on. She hadn't. I could no longer stay connected with someone who didn't love me enough to just own up to not being able to, or wanting to, travel during the Pandemic. I'd have understood, but in her mind, I wasn't worth the effort. I'm still sad that she's not part of my life any longer, but I also know that reconnecting with her would not be healthy for me. She worked very hard and got sober, but she did it without the internal work she needed to do to heal her trauma and she'll likely continue with her self-destructive behavior, no matter what I do or say to help.

It breaks my heart when clients call me and ask about their twin flames because often, those are not healthy or happy relationships, but because there is work to be done the client isn't' ready or willing to do, they feel they're still "connected on a very deep level." They are, but that doesn't change the fact that the relationship isn't particularly happy or healthy. There's also the fact that when twin flame partners define themselves by their relationship, they often have difficulty functioning when they're apart. This inability to function can often lead the individuals to believe they are nothing without their twin flame--something that is patently untrue. You are, and always will be, your own divine spark--your own flame so to speak--and while you may see increased light when you join up with another flame, you may be missing the fact that two flames burn through you and your energy faster than one and can be twice as destructive.

So why do some twin flame connections last while others burn out fast? It has everything to do with the shared trauma and how willing the partners are to work on it. If you and your twin flame partner are willing to do the individual internal work to heal your traumas, you have a better opportunity to come to the end of the lesson to be learned from the trauma at relatively the same time. When this happens, the connection between the partners can continue in a happier and healthier way. This is pretty rare, however. How many times have you gotten into a relationship with someone and known they were reluctant to work on their own issues while you dove into the healing pool head first?

What soulmate and twin flame connections have you had in your life? How did each type of connection work out for you? How might you approach a similar energetic connection in the future? What changes might you make to your expectations and actions?

Works Cited
Regan, Sarah. What's The Difference Between A Twin Flame & A Soul Mate? 13 Dec. 2020

Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
SELF-LOVE AND CONTROLLING YOUR MEDIA CONSUMPTION

​I was looking through Pinterest, as one is apt to do in the mornings, and I came across a list of self-love activities. It had the usual activities, but one really caught my eye. It was, “Control Your Media Intake.” This is a critical self-love/self-care activity that doesn’t get enough attention.

My husband pointed out to me some time ago that many of the television shows I enjoyed, especially reality shows like Hell’s Kitchen, were nothing but hyped up conflict that conflicted with his peace. He asked me to stop watching those shows.

At first, I was angry that he thought he should control what I watched on tv, but then I thought about it. If he needed me to stop watching those shows for his peaceful mindset, I could do that for him. Then something amazing happened. I started to feel better, too. I stopped filling my mindless time with angry, hateful sounds and images and I felt better. I thanked my husband later for asking me to stop watching those television shows for him because of what I gained from abstaining as well.

We have all come off more than four years of conflict and anger and hate on social media. I know that several times over just the past 18 months, I have chosen to remove someone from my social media circle because seeing them and their posts just made me angry. I wasn’t angry with the person, so I didn’t block them from ever contacting me again, but I did remove their posts from my view so I wouldn’t always be angry with them.

If you’re feeling highly emotional and stressed out about what you see on your social media, I would highly recommend culling your friends list to remove the ones who only make you sad and angry. Take breaks from social media the same way you would take breaks from anything else in your life that brings you continual stress and strife.

You may also want to consider changing where and how you get your news. For the majority of this pandemic and even before, my husband and I watched The Daily Show nightly to get an overview of the national news we needed to know. The Daily show was news with humor and it had less focus on the political stories that raised our blood pressure. It was a welcome way to get the news without getting more stressed out. Unfortunately, after 18 months of doing the Daily Show from his couch in New York City, Trevor Noah has taken a leave of absence and the show is on hiatus right now.
Because our usual news outlet has disappeared, we have taken to watching parts of larger news shows on YouTube. The only full show we watch is NBC Nightly News.It is usually short enough that the anchors can only handles gloss over of the biggest stories and this is about all we can handle anymore. We are able to then get more information from shows like Rachel Meadow, Ari Melber, and Brian Williams, but we only have to watch clips from those shows on things that interest us.

I recommend taking a close look at your own media consumption. If there are parts of it that make you unhappy or stressed out, eliminate them. You don’t have to know everything about everything to be a productive part of society. Find ways to release your need to know in favor of having a peaceful day to take better care of yourself and show yourself love.

The same goes for your social media. Cull your friends lists until you feel comfortable with what you see each day. I’m not saying you shouldn’t see or react to opposing views from your own, but don’t let those views make you sick.

And remember, as a species on the planet, humans are feeling an overwhelming grief from the loss of millions of souls in the past 18 months. That makes our stress levels even higher than they might otherwise be. And, I think, makes it harder to release people and information that bring us pain and stress. It’s fine to be sad, stressed, and angry. But don’t let these feelings run your life and make you less loving toward yourself. Your love for yourself is more important than any facebook post or news story ever will be when it comes to living your own life.

If you’d like more information on how to clear your energy to be in better alignment with your soulmate partner, book a session with me and we will get you started on your soulmate journey path.

Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
SELF-LOVE AND CONTROLLING YOUR MEDIA CONSUMPTION

​I was looking through Pinterest, as one is apt to do in the mornings, and I came across a list of self-love activities. It had the usual activities, but one really caught my eye. It was, “Control Your Media Intake.” This is a critical self-love/self-care activity that doesn’t get enough attention.

My husband pointed out to me some time ago that many of the television shows I enjoyed, especially reality shows like Hell’s Kitchen, were nothing but hyped up conflict that conflicted with his peace. He asked me to stop watching those shows.

At first, I was angry that he thought he should control what I watched on tv, but then I thought about it. If he needed me to stop watching those shows for his peaceful mindset, I could do that for him. Then something amazing happened. I started to feel better, too. I stopped filling my mindless time with angry, hateful sounds and images and I felt better. I thanked my husband later for asking me to stop watching those television shows for him because of what I gained from abstaining as well.

We have all come off more than four years of conflict and anger and hate on social media. I know that several times over just the past 18 months, I have chosen to remove someone from my social media circle because seeing them and their posts just made me angry. I wasn’t angry with the person, so I didn’t block them from ever contacting me again, but I did remove their posts from my view so I wouldn’t always be angry with them.

If you’re feeling highly emotional and stressed out about what you see on your social media, I would highly recommend culling your friends list to remove the ones who only make you sad and angry. Take breaks from social media the same way you would take breaks from anything else in your life that brings you continual stress and strife.

You may also want to consider changing where and how you get your news. For the majority of this pandemic and even before, my husband and I watched The Daily Show nightly to get an overview of the national news we needed to know. The Daily show was news with humor and it had less focus on the political stories that raised our blood pressure. It was a welcome way to get the news without getting more stressed out. Unfortunately, after 18 months of doing the Daily Show from his couch in New York City, Trevor Noah has taken a leave of absence and the show is on hiatus right now.
Because our usual news outlet has disappeared, we have taken to watching parts of larger news shows on YouTube. The only full show we watch is NBC Nightly News.It is usually short enough that the anchors can only handles gloss over of the biggest stories and this is about all we can handle anymore. We are able to then get more information from shows like Rachel Meadow, Ari Melber, and Brian Williams, but we only have to watch clips from those shows on things that interest us.

I recommend taking a close look at your own media consumption. If there are parts of it that make you unhappy or stressed out, eliminate them. You don’t have to know everything about everything to be a productive part of society. Find ways to release your need to know in favor of having a peaceful day to take better care of yourself and show yourself love.

The same goes for your social media. Cull your friends lists until you feel comfortable with what you see each day. I’m not saying you shouldn’t see or react to opposing views from your own, but don’t let those views make you sick.

And remember, as a species on the planet, humans are feeling an overwhelming grief from the loss of millions of souls in the past 18 months. That makes our stress levels even higher than they might otherwise be. And, I think, makes it harder to release people and information that bring us pain and stress. It’s fine to be sad, stressed, and angry. But don’t let these feelings run your life and make you less loving toward yourself. Your love for yourself is more important than any facebook post or news story ever will be when it comes to living your own life.

If you’d like more information on how to clear your energy to be in better alignment with your soulmate partner, book a session with me and we will get you started on your soulmate journey path.

Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
Forgive Yourself to Love Yourself More

How often do you look back at your life and feel like you’ve done it all wrong? That you’ve chosen the wrong partners, took the wrong career path, or walked away from something at the wrong time?

It’s okay to look back at our lives to see where we might have made other choices, so long as we use that information to move forward with our lives rather than beating ourselves up for making the “mistakes” we believe we’ve made. The difference between learning and blaming is forgiveness.

A critical part of loving yourself is forgiving yourself for the things we perceive as mistakes from our past. You have to remember that when you look back at your past, you’re doing so with new eyes that have (hopefully) evolved from the person we were in that past moment.
It’s important to forgive yourself because we all do the best we can with what we have in the moment. If you feel you handled a situation badly in the past, consider what information you have now that you didn’t have when you were dealing with the situation in the moment. Is that information vital to how you feel you “should” have handled the situation? If so, forgive yourself for doing what you thought was right in the moment with the information you had.

It’s also important to forgive yourself for all the “shoulds” that pop up in our lives. We “should” have done this. We “should” have done that. Should is your present self judging your past self unfairly. We can only do what seems right in the moment and Monday morning quarterbacking the situation only brings us pain after the fact.

Instead of judging your past self, celebrate the present self. You’ve grown and changed since the situation you’re judging yourself for. You know you’d handle the situation differently now, so celebrate that. Forgive your past self and acknowledge that she did the best she could. Then celebrate your present self for having recognized past issues and made changes to how she behaves now.

Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
Clear the Clutter Out of Your Emotional Connections

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Marie Kondo Method of “tidying up.” The idea is to clear out the clutter in your life by asking if items you keep spark joy in your heart when you hold them. While Marie Kondo focuses on the physical clutter in your world, her method of choosing to keep or release physical items can be applied to actions we take and people we have relationships with as well.

  • Kondo’s method of decluttering your life has six rules.
  • Commit yourself to tidying up.
  • Imagine your ideal lifestyle.
  • Finish discarding first.
  • Tidy by category, not location.
  • Follow the right order.

These rules can be applied to clearing out the clutter in your connections, too. While clearing out your connections might not be as easy as clearing out a closet, you will find the process and result to be equally, if not more, satisfying. Releasing connections that no longer serve you will help you align energetically to your soulmate partner as you make more space in your energetic field for new, happy connections by removing old, miserable ones.

Commitment
If you’re truly ready to align your energy with your soulmate, you must commit to clearing out the relationships in your life that no longer serve you. Take a moment, right now, and write this down in your journal, or on a piece of paper you can hang somewhere you’ll see it often.
I am committed to releasing ties with any relationship I’ve maintained, but that no longer serves me or brings me joy.
Letting go of relationships will probably be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. Making a commitment to it and seeing that written commitment regularly will help you stay the course as the choices become harder and harder.

Ideal Life and Soulmate Partner
You’re on the soulmate journey, right? So have you considered what you want your relationships as a whole to look like when you’re done clearing out the clutter? (If you’ve been working all the parts of the Soulmate Fundamentals Program, Step 2-Know What You Want should have given you a Soulmate Wishlist and Step 3-Align with your Soulmate Partner should have given you a detailed visualization of your life with your soulmate partner.)
I just cleared out my Facebook friends. Now, I’m not the usual Facebook user and I know it. Yes, I’ve had a facebook account since you had to have a .edu email account to get one (around 2008, I believe), but I’ve always treated Facebook as a way to stay in contact with people I know in the real world. I never approached Facebook as a way to meet new people, though I do have a few friends I met via social media that I consider actual friends. Otherwise, my Facebook friends list includes mostly people I went to high school or college with and family.

When I decided to clear out my list, I had about 500-600 friends. I got it down to under 500 this morning because I realized I was tired of seeing posts that made me angry, frustrated, or sad on a regular basis. If seeing your name in my feed didn’t bring me joy, you got the ax. I want the time I spend on social media to be fun, interesting, and relaxing.

As you consider what you want your relationships to look like going forward, it’s important for you to clearly understand what you do and don’t want to connect with.

Under your commitment statement, take a moment to write down the general feel of relationship connections you’re going for in your life. Do you want to connect with people who make you laugh or cry? Smile or grind your teeth?

Clean Out and Then Choose New Connections
It’s important to first clear out the relationships that no longer serve you before opening yourself up to new connections.
Marie Kondo speaks of releasing those items we don’t find joy in with gratitude for the lessons we learned by having that item in our lives. I recommend doing the same with the connections you’re releasing. Let those people fade from your life with gratitude for what they brought your way, even if you outgrew them, learned the lesson they were in your life to teach you, or taught you what you don’t want for yourself. These are all valuable lessons to learn from connecting with people and releasing them, so take your time releasing these connections and give yourself permission to be sad or disappointed by the acknowledgement that some people have just drifted out of your life.

Clearing out the relationships you no longer find joy in, or need in your life opens up energetic connection areas for new connections. I think of it kind of like an old telephone connection board with all the wires and holes in which to put the wires. Each hole represents a space in your life for a particular type of connection. There are holes for friends, family, romantic connections, etc. If you’ve allowed all the holes to be filled with connections to people who no longer bring you joy, there’s no room for new, joyful connections. Only by unplugging ourselves from the connections that no longer serve us do we open ourselves up to new connections. I realize that in the Kondo method, the idea is to not refill the spaces taken up by the things we release, but in the case of emotional connections, we likely are looking to connect with others who bring us joy once we’ve released those who don’t.

Use Categories
In the physical world of clearing clutter, it’s easy to use categories to organize your clutter clearing. Start with clothes, then move to knicknacks, etc. rather than starting with a closet and then moving on to the junk drawer in the kitchen. Sticking with categories helps you get your brain to focus on one thing at a time, rather than the pile of craziness that might come out of the catch-all hall closet.

The same is true in clearing out the clutter in your relationships. I recommend breaking up your connections by categories such as social media, acquaintances, work relationships, personal friendships, and family and romantic relationships. There may be some crossover, but if you stick with a category until you’re done disconnecting from those folks who don’t bring you joy, you’ll find it might be easier to fully disconnect. For example, you may want to disconnect from an ex you no longer need in your life. If you start by removing them from your social media sphere, how much more contact might you have left with them? Remember that the first step is going to be the hardest. The first time you hit the unfriend button, or block button, it’s going to feel like you’re ripping part of yourself out by the roots, but as time goes on and you find yourself living a more joyful life, removing the connections that don’t bring you joy will become easier and easier.

Stick with the Order
The order I recommend for releasing connections that no longer serve you is:

  1. Social Media
  2. Acquaintances
  3. Work Relationships
  4. Personal Friendships
  5. Family and Romantic Relationships

The reasoning behind this order is that you begin with the most impersonal connections and move through layers of personal connection. Each level may get progressively more difficult as you move through them. It should be pretty easy to unfriend and unfollow anonymous people on the other side of a screen, but it will likely be much more difficult to release connections when you reach personal friendships and family.

That’s not to say it will be impossible to release those connections. It’s not. It’s just hard.

For example, I recently released my ties to a friend I’d had for 13 years. Why? Because being connected to this person no longer brought me any joy, only sadness. Was it difficult to walk away? You bet. I’m the kind of person who will give you chance after chance, excuse bad behavior and give you the benefit of the doubt when you hurt me, but even I have limits. I’ve had to do the same with family members over the years. When my step-father passed away in 2009, I let the connection to his family remain until I realized how much their behavior hurt me and my mother. When my step-grandparents were mean to and dismissive of my mother, I stopped connecting with them. When his sister made sure everyone at the funeral knew I was a step-daughter despite the fact that he had never called me that, I stopped connecting with her and her part of the family. I’ve even released my connection to a cousin I was once very close to in my own family after she was cruel to me, my mother and her own mother.

You don’t have to have such dramatic reasons for releasing connections to anyone, anywhere in your list of connections. It could just be that they make you unhappy when you connect with them. That’s enough. Your peace of mind is worth more than any societal admonition that we should love our families no matter what.

Now What?
First, decide that you’re fully committed to completing this process with all of your relationships. Next, start with your social media friends. ALL of your social media. I’ve done my Facebook, but I haven’t touched my twitter or instagram yet, mostly because I don’t spend a lot of time on them, but I will tackle them. I’ve committed to it. When you’re finished with your social media, move on to acquaintances and so on through the categories I’ve shared with you. If you don’t like my categories, create your own! The idea is to start with the easiest connections to release and work through to the most difficult.

Examine each connection and ask yourself, does it bring you joy to connect with this person. If your answer is a resounding yes, that connection has made the cut. If it’s a “meh” answer ,you can choose to see if that connection can be repaired or boosted to be a joyful one rather than releasing it, but it’s important to review those connections regularly and if the repair or boost isn’t working, release it. If your answer is no, they don’t bring you joy, release the connection with thanks for the memories and lessons and move on from it. Don’t keep anyone in your life who is there out of guilt or obligation. You deserve to live a joyful life, surrounded by people you love and who love you back in healthy ways. You are under no obligation from anyone but yourself to remain connected to anyone else.

This won’t be an easy activity. It will be tough. You’ll probably cry and bemoan the loss of connections you once treasured, but if the connection isn’t a YES! Are you really losing anything that wasn’t lost a long time ago? Have you kept those less than yes connections because of what you once had, or because of the current state of the connection? Consider the goal here. You want to live a life of joy, with your soulmate. Will any of the less than yes connections you’re releasing bring you any closer to that goal? Then why are you clinging to those connections?

If you feel like you need more help in clearing out the clutter in your relationships as you prepare yourself to meet your soulmate, consider booking a coaching session with me and I can be by your side as you work through this process.

References
“About KonMari: The Official Website of Marie Kondo.” KonMari

Shari, the Soulmate Seekers Love Coach
Shift from Loving Your Partner to Nurturing them to Improve Your Relationship

If you are anything like me, you spend a lot of time saying the words, “I love you,” to your partners, family members, and friends. But to me, it sometimes feels like the words don’t do what I want them to. They almost feel like they’re disconnecting me from those I love because something is missing.

Love is not just a feeling, it’s an action, a choice you make every moment of every day. If you’re not acting in alignment with your feelings, you may find your partner drifting away from you as the action of love is lost between you.

D. Hutton of Balance by Deborah Hutton recommends you stop using the word “love,” and switch to “nurture” instead. The shift will help your partner understand that you intend to take action toward their happiness in the relationship rather than hoping to smooth over issues with the word Love. Hutton’s suggestion is based on the idea that when we say we want to be loved, we really mean we want to be nurtured. We want our partner to see us as we see ourselves and help us become that person in our day to day life through their support. When we use the word nurture with our partner, they hear that we will “listen, be present, mindfully attend, make a cup of tea, and provide comfort and support,” to them.

Hutton goes on to explain that because we understand nurture as an action verb, something we actively engage in and do for someone else, it’s easier to come up with specific actions we can take on a daily basis to show our partners that we are actively nurturing them and engaged in the relationship.

Using “nurture” instead of “love” in your relationships can also, according to Hutton, help us shift any negative associations we have for the word love to those more positive associations we have with nurture. For many of us, we saw the first example of two people who supposedly loved one another in our parents. In my home, I can say without a doubt that I found it terribly confusing that love meant fighting, yelling, and divorce. I spent a significant part of my own life looking for love that didn’t hurt. Didn’t mean an end and a sense of abandonment.

Works Cited
Hutton, D. (2017, February 20). The secret to real relationship transformation. Retrieved February 02, 2021

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