Do Soulmates Exist?

We are finishing off our series on relationships with an episode on romantic love. In this episode, we discuss:

・Why falling in love is so powerful;
・Do soul-mates exist?
・How to create conscious chemistry with an evolved partner.

Watch the next Soul Session in this series on our YouTube Channel.

•••

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Transcript

Do Soulmates Exist?

SPEAKERS

Debra Maldonado, Robert Maldonado

Debra Maldonado  00:01

Welcome, everyone. Oh my god, this is my favorite topic. Well, they're all favorite but do soulmates exist and this just brings me back to my beginning days, when I was writing Let Love In. Even before I met you, getting into personal development and figuring out where is my true partner. Where's my soulmate? Is he out there? Does he exist? What does it mean to have a soulmate? The biggest question we always hear is “How do I know if this is a soulmate or not a soulmate relationship?” We're going to talk about what is a soulmate. How do I know if I have a soulmate, if I'm in a soulmate relationship? What does it feel like, what's the quality? The common myths about soulmates, we're going to probably talk about a bunch of wonderful extensions about romantic love and a few tributaries here. I want to start out with a poll. I saw a poll, it said that 73% of Americans believe in soulmates. So most people believe in it, and it's interesting, 74% were men, and 71% women. I thought it was so amazing that men believe in soulmates more than women. Not that much but I was taught men don't have emotions, they're not romantic. It's the woman that is all the romantic. Dating experts told me “You're the one who's all romantic, they don't think like that.”

Robert Maldonado  01:49

I hung out with guys all my life, from kindergarten to last year or this year. Guys are just as romantic as women, maybe even more like the poll suggests.

Debra Maldonado  02:04

Rob, what is a soulmate?

Robert Maldonado  02:11

From our perspective, the Jungian Eastern philosophy, including the neuroscience, we can see it at three different levels. It is an archetype, which means it's a universal pattern. That's why it plays out in every culture, in every history that you've seen. There are biological elements or biological ways that it plays out. There are psychological patterns to it. And there are social and then spiritual patterns as well.

Debra Maldonado  02:48

I know that many people try to figure out what is love. Some people say it's these hormones that are being triggered, or your brain is doing something that's triggering hormones in the body. It's all about love is in the brain. And I would think that yes, there's evidence that when you have those feelings, it does create responses that you can measure. But it doesn't mean that the brain is the cause of those feelings. It's just recording.

Robert Maldonado  03:19

Exactly. It's unfortunate because people, especially in psychology, have painted themselves into corner because they want to be bonafide science. The only way they can be science is if they go by verifiable data, and the data that's at hand is neurological and neuro physiological. They tend to go with those explanations that if you want to understand love, you have to understand the brain and the hormones. That’s simply the biological pattern of a much larger archetype that has been around forever.

Debra Maldonado  03:58

They're trying to rationalize love, which is the most irrational thing that we can do. It's not this thing that we can measure, have a step to get there. Like step one is, change your biological formula, this controlled, predictable, let's measure it, then we know how to create that. A lot of people say “I have a formula for you to meet your soulmate. Just follow my formula. Put on a good profile, make sure your picture looks good. These are things you say and don't say on a date. Then visualize, and your energy is going to go out there and you're going to find someone, and that's the formula.” We have to be careful. For me it got to the point where I was overly processing the process of love, I lost the romance of it and it became more of a job. We both worked with thousands of people when we started out our career, doing a lot of the love coaching. It's like we lose the magic of it. I have to work on myself to find love and it becomes very heavy and demystified, and we don't want to demystify it.

Robert Maldonado  05:20

Not at all. On the contrary, I think, really understanding it in this broader context as an archetype, as something that connects us to nature. Because if you notice, nature itself is organized in that context of duality. We have the sun and the moon, we have the day and night, earth and sky, etc. All these dualities are playing out the same patterns. Or we can also say that our human nature is playing out those larger patterns of male and female, lover and beloved. It's an incredible way of understanding our connection to nature.

Debra Maldonado  06:12

Also the relationship with humanity and God and the divine, that's a dual a relationship.

Robert Maldonado  06:20

Yes, spirit and matter.

Debra Maldonado  06:22

If you could define soulmate, you would say it has three levels, biological, psychological, and spiritual. Also, it's really bringing two people together in some powerful chemistry that's happening between two people. It can happen with people that are not conscious and evolved, and it can happen with people that are evolved. How you know if you met your soulmate depends on where you are in your individuation process. If you're still operating from ego, it's going to be one way, if you've individuated from your ego, you're more evolved, you evolved away and work through the aspects of your shadow, you're going to have a different experience in love.

Robert Maldonado  07:08

We go back to the Greeks, they were a little bit more savvy as to how to approach this question of what's going on in love. They had different labels or different ways of identifying the different stages of love. It's not just one thing, we tend to oversimplify it in the West and think love should only look this way. But in reality, there's many different forms of that expression of love. They had this term called lewdness, which is a game playing, flirty, uncommitted attraction.

Debra Maldonado  07:52

That’s when you first meet someone, it's a stage when you're texting each other and making jokes. It's not like “Oh, my God, the most serious thing happened to me”, you're more playful, it's like tickling each other's hearts.

Robert Maldonado  08:13

In play, I think nature gives us an opportunity to refine the skills. It's an important stage that we go through, we call it puppy love, or student love, where we're playing at being in love. That leads then to another deeper layer of love, which is eros. Eros is more the erotic sexual attraction, where you start to really feel more intensely, more passionate about this person. Of course, it leads to sex and to deeper bonding with a person.

Debra Maldonado  08:59

Because you're really bonding in a beautiful way. This is not one night stand, this is like “I want to be your sexual partner for a while.” I would say lewdness can have a sexual component if it's just someone who's flitting, the barge rollers, looking to get lucky that night, that's more lewdness and flirty, kind of womanizer. Then there's the love, which is like “I want to get to know you. I want to feel what it's like to be inside of you. I want you to be inside of me in a deeper way for more than just tonight.”

Robert Maldonado  09:37

It’s the urge to merge. It's a very powerful force. But again, if we start to identify love as merely that and say that's the way love should look, we're missing the whole point. It's an evolution. It's a process. It's taking us to a higher level of commitment. After that they talk about philia, which is a friendliness. The partner’s not only your sexual partner, but they're also your friend. You have warm feelings.

Debra Maldonado  10:17

You want to be there for them. You want to help them with stuff that's outside of this sexual relationship. You're like “You have a problem at work. Let's talk about that. I want to be at your side.” You're building a partnership with someone, you see them as if you would have a friend in your life you'd show up for, be there for them not only in the good times, in the bad.

Robert Maldonado  10:43

A lot of couples say that this person is not only my sexual partner, they're also my best friend.

Debra Maldonado  10:50

“I married my best friend today.” A lot of people say that at their weddings.

Robert Maldonado  10:54

Which then leads to pragma, which is the pragmatic decision about is this person really good marriage material? Can we make it in a lifelong relationship and create a family? That's a very different level of love. You're getting to a point where it's not so much about the lewdness and the erotic elements, although they're still there, hopefully. You're getting to a point where you're ready to commit, to create something new in your life together. And then the spiritual element is agape, which the Greeks talked about as universal love. Your love for each other spills over into society, the relationship then gives something to society at large.

Debra Maldonado  11:55

Kind of like what we have, building something together, we train coaches, we help others together. It's like a purpose that we share.

Robert Maldonado  12:05

That’s right, or it can be through children as well, you bring up these great kids that go out there and do things in the world.

Debra Maldonado  12:15

You can only go to the level that you've evolved to be at. Some people will stay at that lewdness level because they don't want any of that intimacy. They could have a fear of connecting on that sexual level because that opens up so much more. It's like, I'd rather just flirt. There's people I worked with when I was doing love coaching, they were dating and they loved the flirtiness. They never wanted to meet the person. They were like “Let’s flirt. I have a boyfriend but I haven't met him yet. We've been dating for a year. We're just flirty, but it's not getting to that sexual level.” Then there's the people, you have great sex and it's fun and playful but there's not that deeper “Where's this going?” Bringing it back to Jungian, what you bring into the relationship is reflecting your internal psyche, you're going to project your insight onto that person. One of the things that I love is what you teach, you've talked about it, I think you got it from Jung, that psyche actually means soul. When we talk about soulmate, we're seeing ourselves in the other person, seeing our own psyche in the other person. If you're unconscious and unevolved, you're going to project the greatness you don't think you have, and all the worst things you don't think you have on to this other person. It's going to be these relationships that are very high and intense, there’re shiny lights, and then they completely crush you, it's extremes. It's because you're seeing yourself in that person, but you don't realize it, you're seeing the unlived self in that person, which Jung called the shadow. If you haven't done Shadow Work, it's a big projection. It doesn't mean that's not your soulmate and you can't grow in that relationship. The more you grow, the more that relationship can grow. It's always a reflection of where you're at. I think a lot of times people find “This is not the right person for me, I need to get someone else”, they keep trying to change the person versus changing themselves. He was the wrong guy, gotta go to the next one — or the wrong girl. I don't have that chemistry with that person. I got to keep searching. They're looking outside for something they lack or something they don't know within themselves, and they end up repeating patterns.

Robert Maldonado  15:08

If we go back to Jung’s model, he's talking about the Anima/Animus. We could just say soul here, that's really what he means in a psychological sense — that you need to be in touch with your own soul in order to participate in a love relationship in a more mature way, because if you're projecting your soul on to the other person, that's part of it, because that gives you that experience of “I met somebody who just is completely different than any other human being.” But we know it's a projection because if it was that person, everyone would love them, everyone would see that beauty and that divinity in them. But it's our projection. We're seeing our potential, our divine essence in that other person.

Debra Maldonado  16:03

Our inner concept is projected outward, in that person, that unknown inner concept in that other person. Let's talk about the Anima/Animus. Jung said that beneath the personal unconscious, we have a soulful self, which in most cases, if you're a woman, takes a masculine form, if you're a man, takes a feminine form — the Anima/Animus. That's the part that compels you to connect with the other person. If you're not connected to that part of your soul inside, it's going to appear that the person out there has all this spiritual power, because you're not really seeing your own, you're not recognizing it within yourself. That's why the Shadow Work is so important, the shadow covers over that soul, that pure nature that we are, that pure potential. All our patterns from our childhood and life distort that other person. We're seeing not only them, we're seeing this divine, but then it's covered up with our own stuff. If we don't see the filter, we're not going to see the person as they really are, we're not going to love the person for who they are. That's why sometimes when you meet someone and you're not really attracted to them at first, then you do some work, all of a sudden, you're like “Oh my God, my soulmate’s been next to me the whole time.” I've had a couple people who read my books say that they read my book, they didn't realize their best friend— or people who have taken our workshops, their best friend who's been there next to them for 10 years, or 20 years — when they did the Shadow Work, all of a sudden, they saw them in a different light. The person didn't change, it's you who changed. Blake says “When the doors of perception are cleansed, we see things as they truly are — infinite.” That's when we really truly have that deep soulmate connection, we see infinity through them, we see our own divine through them.

Robert Maldonado  18:05

That projection is really the key to understanding love in a much deeper way. Understanding that it's the individual that has to connect with their soul, in order to participate in true love relationship. Otherwise, the projection starts to fade, it cannot last forever. Keeping up that projection is impossible. Because when you start to know the person, you see that they're just human beings like everybody else. They have faults and foibles, and peccadilloes. Then the person who is projecting on to the other person feels betrayed, because you presented yourself as this divine light to me. Now you're showing me your human side. That's when they feel like “I'm falling out of love, I don't love this person anymore.” They start to project onto other people. And on they go, you see these repetitive patterns playing out.

Debra Maldonado  19:21

The more intimate you can go with yourself and really connect with your own soul, the more you're able to recognize this soul in another and have that level of relationship versus the ego level where you're defending your ego, it's a power struggle, you're always a little bit defensive, you're not fully open-hearted. It's like an exchange and transactional relationship versus a real true love. We were talking about this this morning, and I said “The soul in us is really the source of love.” You really want to feel it so overflowing in you, you want to feel like you're overflowing, and you're looking for someone to share it with because this is too much love just for this little body. I want to share this experience with another person, it takes two people to hold all this love. That other person feels the same way. The ultimate is that you're just both coming together to love each other, not to take. It's like plugging into your own source of power. We've all been in the airport where our cell phone is running out empty, and we're trying to find that plug to charge up our phone. That's what people are doing with relationships, looking for that plug, where do I plug my power source into to recharge myself. If we can be our own source of power, it's less of a burden you're putting on another person, they want to be with you, you’re naturally more attractive because you're overflowing. When I was in my Zen and happy moments, I felt really confident, I felt like men were trying to pull my power. That's a lower, unevolved way of seeing it. You have to be really open to share that love and not worry about I need to defend and protect this love. There's so much of it, it's so infinite, that no one can take it from me, no one can squash it from me.

Robert Maldonado  21:38

This process, Jung simply called it individuation, where the individual is whole in themselves by connecting with their soul, their Anima/Animus, through their inner work, then that sharing takes place, that free flow of giving and receiving can take place. Because in projection, you're expecting the other person to make you happy. That is very unfair to your partner, you're essentially dumping the responsibility of your happiness unto another human being. That's a formula for disaster basically.

Debra Maldonado  22:30

You have to really, truly be responsible for your own happiness. Because no one can pour love into you like hot soup on a cold day. That's what we want. We want someone to pour love. There's this energy exchange, they're giving us energy. Now we're in charge of our own. What we see is like a bubble around us. We're seeing ourselves in the world, and the people are reflecting our inner world. We went to have a good relationship with ourselves. That's the best sweet thing we can do for others. Then you don't have to worry about getting heartbroken because the only reason we get heartbroken is because we plugged into someone and they disconnected the plug. We're sitting there with no power. But if you have your own plug, I'm self sustaining, self powered, then you're not dependent on this other person to do that. Lewdness really comes into play, and the sex, and the commitment because it's much more light and overflowing. It's like money. People talk about if you want to make money, you have to have an abundant mindset. If you want love, you have to have an abundant mindset of love. You have to be abundant within yourself. One of the things you told me when we first met was that I was really happy when we met. You went on all these dates and a lot of women were bitter and complaining, and then I showed up and I was all smiles and excited about my life. You were thinking "Who this woman is? I don't have to dig her out of a hole, she's already out of the hole, she's coming fully operational.” I think it's because I found my purpose. When you find your purpose through your soul, really discover your soul's purpose while you're here who you are. It's a different type of happiness. It's a different type of joy. Just for years I was looking for a man to give me that purpose. My purpose was to get married and have kids but it was more of an ego purpose. Just to feel like I fit in or feel like I'm good enough, I'm lovable, trying to prove this ego, filling up this ache my ego had. When I found hypnotherapy, the first thing I did out of school, I was just so happy. I was doing what I was meant to do. I was helping people. I was loving life. It wasn't perfect but I definitely felt like I was finally on the right track and in line with me. I wasn't a millionaire or anything like that. I was still trying to build my business, but I was just so happy being in the game, being on the right track in my life. Just doing the Shadow Work cleared out a lot of that distortion of all the projections I put on men to make me happy, to make me feel important, to acknowledge me, to approve of me, all the things we want the other person to do. If you give that to yourself, then you don't need the other person to give it to you, you're not always looking for them to reinforce it. It's like “Wait, what did you mean in that text?” or “How come you didn't call me today?” 

Robert Maldonado  26:12

Just to be clear, we're not saying that you have to be complete somehow before you get into a relationship or before you experience deep love. The relationship itself is a vehicle for that transfer. But you have to, again, bring your best game to it. You have to be willing to take responsibility for your own happiness and doing your purpose already. You're not expecting this other person to give it to you.

Debra Maldonado  26:48

A lot of my clients will ask me “How do I know if he's a good, I should pursue this or not?” I always find that if you're on a growth path, if you're always growing, always learning, wanting to be more spiritual, understanding yourself, you're going to want a partner who's also on that track. Because eventually he may be at your level now, but you're going to outgrow him. You want someone to grow with you. If personal development is really important to you, understanding yourself— I'm not talking about therapy and healing, all that stuff. I'm talking about individuation, you want to go to higher levels of consciousness, you want to expand your life, you want someone who also has that expansive, inquisitive motivation because you're going to get bored eventually with someone who's not doing that, who's playing video games and saying “I have my job, and it's good enough.” And you're like “I want to change the world.” It's not going to measure up and even if you have this beautiful relationship, eventually your soul is going to need to grow and you need someone who's going to complement that.

Robert Maldonado  28:04

This question of “Is there only one soulmate for me?” A lot of people ask us about reincarnation, coming with this preset person. Looking for your twin flame and those kinds of things. Beautiful ideas, beautiful romantic ideas as well. A lot of the past doesn't really matter because everything you need to connect with your soul is right here right now, in this moment. It's not about understanding the past or past lives. Everything is right here right now. There are many ways to connect with many people. But it is about making that mature choice, when you're ready to go to the next level, you understand that I have to make a commitment. That's what commitment means, you're choosing to stay with one person and create a life instead of going back to that playful, flirty stage of no commitment.

Debra Maldonado  29:25

I think a lot of times people have that idea of soulmate, there's only one person, I find this one person, and it's so magical that we can turn into that playful superstition, look at the signs and it's all magical and everything. But when we get lost in that and we don't really look at it from a conscious place, we get lost in the magic. A lot of times another myth about soulmates is that people think when you meet your soulmate, everything's perfect. If he was my soulmate, we wouldn't have any problems, we wouldn't get in fights, he's gonna come in glowing, he's gonna understand me completely. This whole idea that if it's not perfect, then it's not my soulmate. That's what causes a lot of—, like we said, it's a beautiful idea, but we don't want that idea to block out someone who's amazing for you, this “But he doesn't have this or that.” We want to make sure we understand that. Soulmate doesn't mean perfection. It feels like a different level but it's not that everything's gonna be smooth and your life is going to be easy. It's like a lottery ticket, I always say I won the love lottery, I don’t have to work on myself anymore. A lot of people think that too, I met my soulmate, I don't have any more growth to do, because I'm at the top, I met my soulmate. That's just the beginning. Another thing you said about the soul is that the soul is part of the unlimited universe, it's really infinite. To think that only one person can fulfill that infinite aspect of the soul is limiting in a way. We want to know that there's an infinite level of possibilities for us to connect with someone and have a soulmate relationship. A lot of times people— we've had clients over the years that have had their soulmate come in, they had the perfect marriage, but he had cancer and passed away, or they got divorced. Then they think “I had my chance, I already had it, or I screwed up. I had my soulmate in college, I wasn't ready, he went off and married someone else. He's the only one for me, and I just blew it.” We want to open that soulmate idea, we don't want the ego to hijack it and sabotage you having a great relationship with someone else. Another thing too, I think this is one of the most important, this idea of destiny and fate, that there's this fate, you have to read your signs and charts, this is when you're going to meet that person. There's a fate-ness to it that's out of your control. What would you say about that?

Robert Maldonado  32:37

I would say, if you haven't done that internal work, that connecting with your own soul, you are destined in a way because you're playing your conditioning, your karma. If you believe that there's only one person and you missed your chance—

Debra Maldonado  32:57

Someone told you your window for soulmate is going to come up in three years from now, it's no power.

Robert Maldonado  33:08

For example, a lot of people get the message from their early childhood experiences that they're not worthy of love, that love is for other people, it’s not for you. This is totally an emotional interpretation that children make sometimes because of the things that happen in the family, there's divorce—

Debra Maldonado  33:32

Mother could be working all day, and the nanny, so I'm not deserving my mother's attention.

Robert Maldonado  33:38

It's unconscious. That's the importance of that internal work that it teaches you “I'm not that history, I can decide for myself what I want to do with my life.” Once a person understands these deeper principles of the psyche, they can decide if they want to experience love, then they're not tied to destiny. They're free to really create the life that they want to create.

Debra Maldonado  34:10

We talked about consciously directing our own destiny. We can only do that after we have done the Shadow Work. We understand our conditioning and the patterns that have made the decisions for us. Now we wake up and we have a choice. We can go to the old pattern, we can do something else and be more free. Those who might have followed this idea of you don't have your predetermined destiny, it is true for someone who hasn't done Shadow Work, but after you do Shadow Work you're actually free to create your life. Jung always says that until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you'll think of it as fate. You'll think this is what it meant to be. I get so many questions about us. People always ask “Do you feel like it was meant to be? Do you feel like he was your soulmate? How did you know?” I could share that when I met you, it just was a different feeling. I wasn't trying to plug into you as much as I felt like I was plugging into something. It felt like there was this connection that was beyond our persona, there was something underneath, our roots were connected in a way, it's hard to describe. But I felt like he wasn't going anywhere. We were connected at the root versus connected with just the surface. Like a wave on an ocean that's going to drop in and disappear again, it's deeper. Okay, we're getting into metaphors here. But what was it like for you when you met me?

Robert Maldonado  36:01

At that time I was thinking about Jung’s work in the context of persona and the deeper psyche. At the persona level, things are happening, you're meeting people, I met you. You ask yourself “Are we on the same track as persona?” meaning, as personalities who are working towards certain goals in society, the roles that we're playing in society. If that matches up, there's a chance to start that conversation about deeper principles of philia and pragma. Can we build a life together and those kind of questions. If that matches up, you can start to make plans and connect at those deeper levels. Like you were saying, that deeper level is the soul. It is the soul level that connects us unconsciously. When people are working towards their true self, then it—

Debra Maldonado  37:24

— the self pushes you toward people.

Robert Maldonado  37:27

Exactly. You see the people that you need to see because you recognize each other.

Debra Maldonado  37:32

It's interesting though, because on the surface, you and I had some differences. You had mentioned “I never dated anyone like you before”, because I was a Jersey girl, you're so established and academic, I was silly, but also womanly and divine. But we were different. You are very different than the men I dated before. But there was something like you said, unconsciously I felt that, intuitively, that there was something more. When you're more aware, you can see through their soul. You're not seeing with your eyes, you're seeing with your heart but in a deeper way, not flirtiness. It's like the roots are connected.

Robert Maldonado  38:35

That is this agape, it is the deeper soul universal love. If at least you're moving towards that, the universe will naturally harmonize to bring those opportunities to meet people that are on similar paths. When you're only operating at the persona level, at the social level, you have your list of the traits that you want in your partner, this is like a shopping list essentially.

Debra Maldonado  39:17

It's like online now, swipe left, swipe right. You're looking at a snapshot of someone and what they look like basically. Does this person seem physically appealing to me? Yes, no. In my age range? Nope. Yes. We're making such a superficial decision.

Robert Maldonado  39:33

Of course, you'd need to have that initial physical attraction. It's eros playing out, where the Cupid shoots the arrow and pierces the heart. You know you've been transformed, something has happened. You're in another world, you're transformed into, or transported into that divine realm. But you need to understand the deeper principles so that you can make things happen at the soul level, and agape is that moving towards the divine.

Debra Maldonado  40:15

The more you do your own work, you feel like — I was telling my single clients that I want you to search with your soul for the person, not with your eyes and not with your ego. When you're going online, you just check in with yourself and search for your heart, not this practical “He makes this much money.” A lot of times their ego will choose, like if your ego shopping for a partner. A lot of my clients I worked with over the years didn't pick anyone too good looking because they were afraid of being rejected. It's like they're already setting up to avoid heartache, like playing not to lose versus playing to win. I think men don't do it like women, men will go for the most beautiful girl and they won't have that “I don't know if I can measure up to her.” Or maybe maybe not.

Robert Maldonado  41:16

Again, you're thinking stereotypes. Stereotypes don't really exist. I've never met that guy everybody talks about. Everyone is a human being. Powerful emotions is this unconscious that drives you. Most people don't even understand why they do the things they do.

Debra Maldonado  41:40

Also, when you're seeing someone, you're seeing that snapshot of them. But also when you start dating someone, you're seeing a snapshot of who they are in that moment, in that stage, you're not looking at them for who they become and what their potential is. You're writing all of them off before you even give them an opportunity to really— you're only seeing like such a small piece of the iceberg of a person.

Robert Maldonado  42:07

Most of it is going on unconsciously. That is why it's so important to work on yourself in this deeper way. If you're not able to cultivate that, you're just working on the surface. And again, if you're on the surface, you're simply going to play out the patterns you were conditioned with in early childhood.

Debra Maldonado  42:30

You're going to say “I gotta look for my daddy”, the father hunger we talked about in a previous podcast, it's gonna play out in relationships. The idea of love is really the more you can connect with your own soul, like you say that you can't find your soulmate unless you know your own soul. When we talk about soul is that we have to talk about who we are beyond their persona, who we are beyond our ego. What is that soulfulness, and that soulfulness is really with us all the time. A really good way to this is, a really great tip, if you want to connect with your soul, connect with that pure awareness, that witness, that part of you that's just watching your thoughts, that's aware of your beingness — that’s your soul, it doesn't have any past or future, it's pure potential. Connecting to that within yourself is going to be able to connect with the pure potential in others. You're going to see through your heart and your soul versus seeing people through your ego. There's always projections and relationships and things to work out. But that's what helps you grow. We're going to project our shadow in the relationship in the beginning a lot. Just because you do Shadow Work doesn't mean you're done. You're still gonna have those things. But it's the willingness to stick to it and recognize it and have a partner that also understands that both of you are projecting — how do we work through this and grow together, that's really the key.

Robert Maldonado  44:12

It is a spiritual journey at the end of the day. If you think about the power that love brings to us, we have the power to create new life, we have the power to transform ourselves completely. I've seen people change, where there's no trace of the old person anymore once they fall in love and undergo that process of transformation. It's a very powerful experience. Some of the spiritual traditions say that love is the most powerful thing in the universe, it is the power that creates and transforms, we're channeling it through us when we create these relationships.

Debra Maldonado  45:02

It's like the partner can help us purify our mind so we can connect more with our soul. It's a spiritual journey, not just a— what did we call it? The eros’s journey. It's also fun. The cool thing is that having a spiritual partnership doesn't negate the need for flirtatiousness, to have fun, sexual, romantic feelings, all those Valentine's and all those things that are fun about being in a relationship. Just because it's spiritual, we don’t have to be all like “Oh”, we can be real and have the best of both worlds basically.

Robert Maldonado  45:43

And also the social piece, we have to work in the world. Like you were saying, connecting it to purpose. Purpose is an important aspect of love because it gives you the ability to support each other, to help each other to work together to make society better.

Debra Maldonado  46:03

So a man is asking how can he connect to his soul? How can a man connect to his soul?

Robert Maldonado  46:11

The beginning of the process begins with the Shadow Work. After that you get into reconnecting with your Anima. That's the soul in a man. It's an internal process, Jung talks about it as a night sea journey. What he means is that we're going into the unconscious to reclaim our connection with the divine. Because if you notice, in the beginning of life we're so focused on building a persona, establishing ourselves as social beings, being accepted by society. There's nothing wrong with that. But that deeper work, you have to make that conscious choice to go inward. That's how men connect with their soul.

Debra Maldonado  47:14

If you're with a man that you feel like you want him to connect with his soul, the best thing you can do is connect with your own because we only match up with people that are on our level. Someone's asking about law of attraction, we're not really talking about the law of attraction, that's more of a different model. Jungian psychology is really that you're seeing yourself in the other person. Law of attraction is more like there's a separate person out there that you're drawing in, attracting in. Jungian psychology is about you're seeing yourself in everything you do. Your inner world is going to reflect what the situation is out there. The whole idea that you're living in a small town, there's no single man left — that’s what you're creating. It's not about you changing your frequency to pull people in, it's understanding what's the nature of who am I. If I'm an unlimited soul, I'm not limited by anything. I'm not limited by location, or what town I'm in. It's about connecting within and doing the work within to help you. I think one of the biggest questions is asking yourself “Why do you want love?” That answer is the work you need to do. When I was looking for love, it was because I wanted to feel lovable, or prove to myself that I was lovable, or I was lonely. Those are great motivators but they're still from the ego. You want to get to that soulful desire, which is “I have so much to share, overflowing with love, there needs to be another person that I could share this with”, and that's the shift.

Robert Maldonado  49:11

A lot of those principles that they talk about in the law of attraction are true. But they don't mention that you have to do your transformation first. In other words, those things are not going to happen if you believe you're the ego, if you believe you're the persona, because you're in a limited state of mind. Once you do that transformation and you understand the true nature of the mind, true nature of reality, then you can create what you want.

Debra Maldonado  49:46

That's the last part, the mindset of visualizing and creating. You have to go through the Shadow Work first because for me, if I would have found someone from my ego, I would have married the wrong person to not be alone. I almost did actually, I got engaged to the wrong person because I was so wanting to be married and so didn't want to be alone anymore that I just created this false perception. I convinced myself this is my soulmate, and I was just in delusion. Thank God it didn't work out. We want to be clear on who we are, what we have to offer in love, who or what our soul is, knowing who we are on a deep level. Then it's impossible for the person not to show up because you’re being that. Do opposites attract or do we have to choose someone similar to us? You're talking about the persona, the opposite traits. Typically what happens is that if we're not conscious, we haven't done our shadow work, we do pick someone opposite because we're always looking at our shadow, which is the opposite of our persona. That's why it appears that opposites attract. But they're really you. You're seeing parts of yourself that you're projecting basically. The bottom line is, we have to recognize the projection. There's no one out there that internally, they're going to reflect who we are and what we know about ourselves. I mean, there's a person out there, but their experience of them is going to be internal. It's not like they're a cardboard, they have no dynamics to it, but you're going to mix with and have the dynamic with someone that is reflective of what you believe they are.

Robert Maldonado  51:48

I have a poem by Hafeez from that Sufi tradition, very similar to Rumi. But he's a distinct or separate poet. This one's called Love Echo. “Let us be like two falling stars in the day sky. Let no one know of our sublime beauty as we hold hands with God and are burned into a sacred existence that defies, that surpasses every description of ecstasy and love.” There we see the connection to that spiritual journey that love can be. Of course, if we misinterpret it as only the erotic element, only the romantic passionate love, we’re missing the richest part of it, which is the deeper journey of the soul.

Debra Maldonado  53:06

Question is, she says she's already done her inner work. We never ever want to feel like we're done. We say inner work but it's a process. We don't want to stop, you want to keep growing. It's not about fixing the past when we talk about inner work, it's about how do we become more of our true self. You never want to stop that growth. If there's a limiting idea, the ego believes in limitation. Anytime there's a limitation or a belief about limitation, that's coming from ego because the soul is infinite, there's unlimited possibilities. I would invite you to look into that and ask as well who I really am. How can I access more of that part of myself? “Can you talk with your soulmate and want to be alone and not in a relationship? Like they're going through a midlife crisis.” 

Robert Maldonado  54:09

You could definitely be in a relationship and feel lonely if there is not that true connection there.

Debra Maldonado  54:15

She says the other person wants to be alone and not be with you.

Robert Maldonado  54:26

Sometimes you do have to give people that space because maybe it is that they need to re-examine that soul within them. The only way they can do it is to seek that solitude.

Debra Maldonado  54:43

And then, ask yourself if that's what you want. That's where I think we get trapped because we think if that person is the one then I have to settle. Because they're the one I have to put up with what they're doing. It's asking “Is this what I really want in my life? Is this the relationship I want to have?” And always whatever they're going through, something in you is tracking with that. You have to ask yourself “What is that? What is that pulling away? How am I responding to that?” That's something for you to uncover and open up. Then you can be clear on what the next step is for you. I think a lot of times people fall in love and think “This is my soulmate.” I'm not saying it’s you, just as an example. They feel like they tolerate a lot that they shouldn't, but they think “But he's my soulmate, so I have to put up with this stuff.” We want to be clear that we can keep boundaries and this soulmate idea — don't let it cloud what you really want in life and relationships and stop your growth. Because if you're not growing with that person, then it's probably not really— You want to grow, dissatisfaction is your soul wanting to grow and it wants to have more.

Robert Maldonado  56:10

That's one thing about human beings that we're continuously evolving. It's not like we were static. It's a false idea that we are this persona or personality. Even at the personality level, we're always changing, evolving, learning new things, having new ideas, new desires. For couples it's so important to really communicate at a much deeper level and talk about where we want to go not only as social beings but as spiritual beings. What joint venture can we share in this process?

Debra Maldonado  57:03

If someone truly wants to grow out, if they are growing the relationship, they want to be alone, the best thing you can do is let them be on their path, then you have to decide what's right for you. They're always reflecting a part of you. They're not acting in isolation, what does it say about me? What's in my shadow that is creating this dynamic? Where am I pulling away? Where do I want to be alone? How do I respond to that? How do I tolerate and be too patient with it? You have to see how you respond to that. Then also this pattern shows up in my life in other places. I always find that it's great to look at what other places this dynamic shows up. A lot of times people say “This shows up at work too. Or this shows up with money, or with my parents.” You start to recognize that there's a pattern there, that it's not just about that person, but it's about something inside of you. That gives you the power back, or else you're waiting for that person to decide if they want to be with you or not, you have to take control of your own destiny and your own growth, then trust in that because your soul wants you to have the infinite possibility, the greatest love in the world. “What if self work doesn't lead to a soulmate, people shy away as you step further into your own power?” I think maybe people that are shying away are meant to shy away and you have to be open. There is a gap sometimes when we individuate, and I want to distinguish the difference between just healing work, working on your ego and your past patterns from individuation, which is transcending the ego. When we start stepping away from our ego and identifying with our true self, there is a gap, we start to lose people in our life, we lose our desire to be with our old friends. And sometimes there's a little space where we feel alone, but then we reconnect with people that are more on where we're going versus where we've been. That sometimes happens, so I would trust in that “Where do you want to go?” and notice that these people are falling away because you've outgrown them. It's better than just hanging out with the same old people and staying in your same old patterns, and it feels uncomfortable.

Robert Maldonado  59:34

If your heart is open, someone will be there to fill that space. It's a natural law of the universe.

Debra Maldonado  59:47

Really, it's trusting that your soul wants you to be happy. Your soul wants you to have that infinite expression. It always wants to grow, it's always looking for abundance. If that is what's happened, if you know that that's the intention of your deepest self, then anything that's not leading to that is probably from the ego. The more you know yourself, the more clear you'll be on seeing things as they truly are. So a great topic today. We usually do whole courses on relationships. So trying to pack it all in one hour. But great topics on the Greek levels of love and Shadow Work. Make sure you subscribe to our channel here on the bottom to get our lives every week. Next week we're going to take a break, it's Fourth of July weekend here in the US, we're going to be out of town. So we're not doing a podcast live next week. But we are going to be back on July 9 for our wonderful new series on yoga and spiritual practices in the — I don't want to say modern world because you think that's 50s— but in the contemporary world, how do we take these old teachings from thousands of years ago and how do we apply it in our everyday life, the paths to spiritual growth. We're going to explore the yoga, the four yogas, that should be fun. Of course, visit us on our Facebook group, Jungian Life Coaching with Creative Mind. We'll see you in two weeks for our new series.

Robert Maldonado  1:01:41

Thanks for the great questions and participation. We appreciate that. And see you next time.

Debra Maldonado  1:01:47

Take care. 

Robert Maldonado  1:01:47 

Stay well.

Debra Maldonado  1:01:48

Bye bye.