Soulmate Success

By David Steele, MA, LMFT

CEO and Founder, Relationship Coaching Institute
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Our life, relationships, and our planet would work so much better if all choices were conscious. What does it mean to be ‘”conscious”? To illustrate, I propose the following three levels of consciousness:

1. Unconscious (awake but unaware)

This is when you forget where you put your keys, you leave the headlights on and are surprised by a dead battery, you drive past your freeway exit, etc. You’re simply not paying attention.

If life is like an iceberg, when we’re unconscious, we crash and sink before we see it.

2. Semi-conscious (aware of what’s in front of you)

This is when you’re sure you know what’s what. We believe that our stories (beliefs, interpretations, etc) and our sensory perceptions (see, hear, feel, etc) are true and correct.

If life is like an iceberg, when we’re semi-conscious we’re aware of the iceberg and truly believe we know how to avoid it, but then we crash and sink because it’s larger than we thought.

3. Conscious (aware of the big picture)

This is when we humbly understand that “we don’t know what we don’t know,” and realise that there may be more to a situation than we can see or understand at the time. We are aware of our goal and do our best to learn more about the situation. We examine our options to make the best possible choice.

If life is like an iceberg, when we’re conscious, we realise that we need to know more about what’s under the surface before making our choices about how to proceed.

Three Keys to Making Conscious Choices

1. Be clear about who you are and what you want.

What’s the purpose of your life? What is your Vision for your life, work, and relationships? What are your requirements, needs, and wants in any situation?

Strive to lower the waterline on the iceberg that is your Self, to achieve the clarity you need to be motivated and empowered.

2. Stay focused on what’s important to you. Don’t settle for less!

Most people “lead lives of quiet desperation.” They want to be happy, but don’t know how and don’t think it’s possible. However, the Law of Attraction can work for you or against you; if you expect less, you get less.

Go after what you really want in your life and assume you can find the resources needed to be successful if you’re looking for them.

3. Be supportable — with enough help you can do anything!

We’re human, and no-one is successful alone. We need to be conscious of our support needs and proactively seek to get them met. Continually ask yourself what help you need and who can help you.

Wishing you a healthy, happy, and conscious life.

David Steele, MA, LMFT is founder of Relationship Coaching Institute and author of the ground-breaking new book for singles Conscious Dating: Finding the Love of Your Life in Today’s World. www.ConsciousDating.com

Copyright © 2006 by David Steele

Guiding Principles for Love

1. You will probably not know your soul mate right away.

When you do meet you soul mate, you will not know him or her by the fanfare and the rush of hormones. You will only know him or her by a very gentle tug on your heart. Instead of looking for the fanfare, look for that gentle tug and build a friendship without expectations of something more. In time, as the relationship blossoms, when both of you reveal your true selves, you will know.

2. Relationships rarely look like romantic movies or books.

Imaginary people fall in love quickly and live happily ever after. Real people fall into real love slowly and live fully ever after.

3. It takes years to really get to know someone.

The gift of being human is our complexity. Is it possible to know someone in a week, a month, a few dates? Can you reveal all of your complexity in that short amount of time? How long does it take someone to truly know you?

4. Great relationships are completely worth the effort.

There is nothing like being in a great relationship. There is nothing like being seen and known by the one you love, and seeing and loving back. Whatever you need to do to get there, do it.

5. In spite of lots of bad relationships, a great relationship is possible.

It doesn’t matter if you have been “unlucky in love.” All that matters is that you take the steps necessary to build a great relationship. It is essential these be different steps than the ones you have taken in the past.

6. A relationship is like a living being - it needs love, caring, space, etc.

People tend to either ignore or smother relationships. In the first case they ignore their partner, thinking that a relationship, once established, will always be there. In the second case they spend every moment with their partner, give and expect undivided attention. If you had a pet, how would it survive under such conditions?

7. You don’t have to do your relationships the way your parents did theirs.

Regardless of the models and world view of the previous generations, your life still belongs to you. Choose how you do your relationships, instead of blindly doing or thinking something just because it comes naturally.

8. You can only have a great relationship when you don’t need one.

When your life is so wonderful that having a relationship loses its focus is when you will attract the right mate. This is not the same as forcing yourself not to think about relationships or shutting down out of disappointment.

9. There is no such thing as boredom in a relationship. There may be anger, resentment, shut down, but never boredom.

How can you get bored with your partner when your needs are being met, when you have great communication, when you feel loved and love back? Could you ever be bored with that? What people think of as boredom is actually the accumulated weight of unspoken resentments and anger squeezing the life out a relationship.

10. Liking sex with someone does not mean you will like a relationship with them.

However, liking a romantic relationship with someone almost certainly means you will like sex with them. So, which should you do first when you meet someone — get to know them or audition them for a sex partner?

Copyright 1998 - 2002 Rinatta Paries