Romantic relationships are one of the primary places where the crux of our personal healing work occurs. As our human understanding has opened up to our spiritual nature and the multidimensional reality of our soul and the universe, the search for and experience of romantic love has opened up too. This has come with its hindrances though! How do we reconcile a spiritual connection with a practical (human) one? To begin, I want to provide a foundational orientation I have around the concept of “soulmates”. Soulmates are groups of individual souls who have a similar vibration, harmonic resonance, etc, who have had many incarnational experiences together. I usually refer to this as our Soul Cluster. They are mothers, fathers, enemies, sisters, brothers, lovers, abusers, husbands, wives, best friends, business partners…the list goes on. Most of the people we deal with in our lives are our soulmates. (The strangers on the street or in the grocery store, not so much.) The length of time they stay in our lives is irrelevant to the strength of the connection. Anything from a life-changing romantic weekend with a lover we never see again to the loss of a child in childbirth to a friendship that last 50 years—all are soulmate connections. All have a profound impact on our lives.

One way that a connection with a soulmate can get tricky is if we’re interacting with one with whom we’ve had a previous, romantic incarnational experience. One or both may be aware of a deep attraction and “flow”. However, simply because there was an agreement to be in romantic partnership before does not mean that we are to do so in this life. Free will must be honored and a loosening of the “we’re supposed to be together” mindset has to be fought vigorously because it causes unnecessary suffering for us (and possibly the other person depending on how we handle the situation). If the timing of things isn’t lining up—i.e. one of you is “ready” and the other isn’t, or one person is in a marriage and the other is divorced, etc—that means it’s a “No”, at least for now anyway. Of course, things may change in the future but as Creator Incarnates our job is to operate in integrity with what is here in the Now. These are tough situations to be in and many of us have had this experience at least once! But, it’s a good reminder to develop a deeper relationship with the principle of Unconditional Love, truly loving without condition, I.e. whether or not we’re getting what you want.

This then brings us to Twin Flames. A prominent school of thought is that a “twin flame” is the other half of our soul. If you truly believe and understand the soul to be a perfect, whole emanation from the Divine, then this perspective probably doesn’t resonate with you. If you believe on some level that you need to be fixed or that something is “missing”, then this perspective will one that you align with. I’m in the soul as a “whole, perfect emanation” crowd so I’m diametrically opposed to the idea that some other being completes me.

My perspective on the twin flame phenomenon is strictly tied to our spiritual evolution journey through the material realm. Twin Flames are soulmates who are consciously engaged with their individual ascension journey (spiritual & personal development) and service to the world. The service aspect is not restricted to the spiritual industry—e.g. energy healing, yoga teaching, astrology, etc—but to be considered in light of making the world a better place via unique gifts and talents. Twin Flames are awakened to their purpose and have no choice but to fulfill that work—with or without a counterpart—because they are merged with their soul.

All soulmates in our Soul Cluster have the potential to become Twin Flames.

Of course, this means that we can have more than one Twin Flame. Is every Twin Flame supposed to be a romantic relationship? No. Again, free will. You may have had that experience with them in another incarnation but that does not mean you are obligated to have that now. Naturally, it’d be a beautiful experience to have but that has to be agreed upon by both parties willingly based on what’s actually occurring Now. We are not limited to having deep connections with Twin Flames only; we have a myriad of options with other soulmates in our Soul Cluster that we’ll meet along the way who may be the ones to actually provide us with what we need in terms of romantic relationships. Remember—soulmates and Twin Flames are close, powerful connections. The only difference between the two is the awakening to spirit, the merge with the soul, and the commitment to service. One is not better than the other. Both require conscious engagement. Both require a Yes from both parties.

Given this broader definition that I’ve presented, how many Twin Flames have you actually met or are currently interacting with in your life? Who else is on a similar spiritual journey and making similar adjustments in their contribution to the world? Are you open to seeing the platonic connections?