5 Keys To Soul Level Relationships
by Caroline Reynolds • Laguna Beach, CA

We all find ourselves somewhere on the relationship cycle in varying degrees of confusion.
Just like parenting, relationships are something we’re largely required to work out for ourselves and much of our approach is based on our personal history. To really understand how to have successful relationships, we have to expand our thinking and go to the “soul level.” This is where we move from preconditions and knee-jerk reactions to a deeper level of understanding and consciousness.

Here are 5 key soul level guidelines to creating loving and thriving partnerships.

1. The Purpose of Relationships
One of the main purposes of romantic relationships is for us to exchange our “gifts.” We’re always attracted to qualities in someone we haven’t yet owned in ourselves. It’s why we feel they complete us. The idea is for us to learn from each other and become more complete within ourselves.
In the first flush of romance this usually happens–we take up each other’s hobbies, share new lifestyles and consider different viewpoints. We like someone because they are, for example, more free-spirited/creative/calm than us. But then life kicks back in and we resort to our tried and tested coping mechanisms. Instead of dealing with events in the new way our partner models, we find their approach too threatening. Sacrificing growth to familiarity, free-spirited becomes irresponsible, creative seems ungrounded and calm appears inactive. Our gifts are not exchanged and one of the relationship’s main purposes is lost. The secret is to remember why you were first drawn to one another. Connect with the higher purpose of your attraction, try seeing life their way and expand into a fuller expression of who you are.

2. Outer Dramas, Inner Struggles
We’re also drawn to our partners’ more negative aspects because they show us where we need to heal. At the soul level, your outer life is a reflection of your inner reality. Whatever conflict you’re experiencing with others is somehow a mirror of a struggle within yourself. For example, you may be with someone who tests your ability to live courageously and be a risk taker. If you look closely, you’ll realize they’re an outer manifestation of a voice inside your head. You have “created” them so you can work out how to overcome this negativity within you. To do this, you must overcome your own fearful attitude and step into a fuller expression of who you are. We teach people how to treat us and your partner’s behavior towards you is a response to what you believe about yourself. As your self-image and self-worth grow, their opinion will no longer be needed and they’ll either no longer exhibit this behavior or they’ll leave your life.

3. Self-Love
The greatest gift you bring to your partner is your genuine love for yourself. It’s impossible to receive love if you don’t feel worthy of it just as you can’t receive a compliment if you don’t believe it’s true. For example, if someone tells you they love your green hair, no matter how convincingly, you can’t accept it because you don’t believe it’s true. Yet if they compliment the actual color of your hair, you’re likely to accept because you believe it. Your partner can only make you feel good about yourself if you create a place inside where their love can be received. You do that by loving yourself and learning to meet your own needs. Honor whatever helps you feel nurtured, appreciated and empowered--follow your heart’s truth, fully express yourself and surround yourself with environments that bring out the best in you.

4. Respect
The longest-lasting couples always cite respect--loving understanding and acceptance--as a major contributor to their longevity. We come together to witness, support and respect each other on our mutual journeys of discovery. We are not together to be each other’s healer/ entertainer/savior/parent. Judgment, expectations and manipulation defile the sacredness of the journeys we share. “Respect” comes from the Latin word respectare meaning to look again. If you’re having difficulty respecting your partner, go to the soul level and look at them again through eyes of unconditional love until you see what you’re both meant to learn from being together.

5. Freedom
Relationships do not equal ownership. For some strange reason, we frequently assume the minute we enter into relationship with someone, we have the right to decide what they do, where they go and with whom. Most of us would never do this to our friends which is why our friendships are generally easier than our relationships. If we took the “rules” of friendship, which include recognizing each other’s innate freedom, and applied them to our romances, we’d have much more fulfilling experiences. To succeed as a couple, you must accept your partner for the truth of who they are just as you do your friends. Our friendships are also more successful because we tend to have a higher level of self-esteem in them. If you learn to love yourself more, deal with your own insecurities instead of trying to control your partner and respect and honor the divine spark in each other, you will set each other free to be your authentic best selves.

A romantic relationship is where we enter into a soul agreement to gain a deep understanding of what love really means and how we have each come to express it. A soul level relationship allows your union to become a sacred vehicle to bring real love and expanded consciousness into your life.

Based on the book Spiritual Fitness by Caroline Reynolds (DeVorss $14.95) Visit www.carolinereynolds.com or call (949) 715-1039.

Caroline Reynolds has been teaching practical spirituality for the past 13 years and lectures internationally. She has developed a unique form of meditation, Vibrational Meditation, that attunes the listener to a higher frequency and has also created several meditation CDs.