Sophia, here. This is my first contribution to this search-for-a-soulmate blog, and boy am I ready to get started on this quest. I'm also under-employed at the moment. I should be looking for work, but blogging about love sounds way more appealing than drumming up clients at the moment. It's the middle of a hot, ashy day (from the rampant forest fires) here in Los Angeles. I'm calling on the fire gods to help usher in some spiritual renewal in the love department, to burn the chaparral of my errors in love and leave me with fertile soil to grow love anew.
So, down to business. We've canvassed our library of self-help titles and, at the urging of Blanche, settled upon Calling in "The One": 7 Weeks to Attract the Love of Your Life by Katherine Woodward Thomas as our first text. I brought the book with me to the car wash this afternoon to begin reading and got so riveted by the introduction that I had to pull out a pen and start underlining resonant passages and marking in the margins, all while trying to keep the cover folded over so as not to reveal the embarrassing title of the book to fellow car-wash-goers. What is it about reading about how to find love that feels so shameful? It's like wearing a T-shirt that says, "I'm Single and Desperate."
Embarrassment aside, I did manage to meet my goal and read both the preface and intro. I totally, eerily identified with Ms. Woodward Thomas (shall we call her KWT for short?) and her love tribulations. Like her, I too am someone who has kept dating unavailable men and then has wondered why I haven't yet found "the one." Married men, porn addicts, alcoholics, men without jobs, two-timers, Don Juans on the dance floor -- I've seen them all. According to KWT, the key to finding love is not decrying the male gender as hopelessly fucked up and unworthy. No. The problem is not that men are dogs (though clearly some of them are). The problem is that I have not loved MYSELF enough to keep the dogs at bay. Lightbulb!!!
I've been receiving this same message in various guises over the last few months. Call it codependency, call it love addiction, whatever it may be...the truth is that I don't look out for my own needs in a relationship. I find someone who, within the first week of meeting me, basically says to me that they are not looking for a relationship, and then instead of fleeing for the hills, as most definitely I should, I proceed to give and give and give to this person in the hopes that they will see the light and love me. I will be so irresistible, I tell myself, that they will realize they DO in fact want love and marriage and children and all the things they say they don't want because it's been cosmically ordained with me, their undeniable soulmate. Then, when this doesn't happen, and I realize that I've only been giving and they've only been taking, I wind up drained, depleted, angry, and confused, not to mention with a few more of my precious child-bearing years stripped away. I'm turning 35 in three weeks. Time for a total transformation!
So, as I'm sitting at the car wash reading and connecting with KWT, an email comes in on my Blackberry from my friend, let's call her Carly. It says, "It's been a big week for me. First, I'm married! I also handed in my manuscript, all 83,500 words of it." Carly, like me, is a writer. She has a book contract. And she just married her soulmate this past weekend. In one fell swoop, Carly achieved the two things I want most in life: to publish books and marry my one and only. Amazingly, Carly was able to complete her manuscript and get to the church on time in the span of one year. Why can't I do the same?
In Calling in "The One," KWT writes, "I decided to set an intention around finding 'The One.' To make it official, I called a girlfriend. 'Naomi,' I said, 'I'm going to be engaged by my birthday.'" Guess what? KWT got engaged eight weeks before her birthday! As I thought of Carly's email and KWT's seemingly magical engagement, I thought, why not me? Why can't I too have the things I want? And why not soon?
OK, so here it is, dear readers, here is my intention. I'm setting it. I will manifest it. Here goes: At this time next year (by my 36th birthday), I will be engaged to my soulmate AND I will have a book contract. MARRIAGE + MANUSCRIPT! BOOKS + BABIES! Woo hoo!!!!
At the core of KWT's philosophy is this idea of letting go, of discarding the relationships and internal beliefs that are not working in order to clear space for the new. She talks about spending "Saturday nights at home alone going through old things, burning old love letters and deleting old e-mails that I'd saved for no reason other than to feel less lonely." As a writer who relies on old journals and letters in order to do biographical research of others' lives, I feel reticent to throw out such papers of my own. When I'm a famous writer, won't the Smithsonian want all of these artifacts? But I CAN do something symbolic. For several years, I've held onto a stack of engagement announcements that I made when my ex proposed to me. He broke the engagement before we sent the announcements out. They were so beautiful, really. I was taking a letterpress course at the time, so I designed them, typeset them, chose a beautiful saffron ink, and ran them by hand on a vintage letterpress machine with gorgeous cream Fabriano paper from Italy. I've saved them because they represent a piece of my heart and a sample of my art. But the time has come to part! I'll save one for the Smithsonian, but Dear Reader, witness what is about to happen before your eyes. I AM TAKING THE ENTIRE STACK TO THE RECYCLING BIN, DUMPING IT, AND SAYING GOODBYE.
I learned in KWT's introduction that this book is really a course. It's intended to be 7 weeks long, with one exercise per day for 49 days. I'm glad that Dorothy and Blanche are "enrolling" in this course with me to help motivate me. I can totally see not sticking with it if I were doing it myself. In fact, KWT recommends doing the course with others so you have trusted individuals to "bear witness" to your growth and progress. I feel so grateful for the friends in my life who share a spiritual consciousness and similar worldview. Just as I've tried to rid myself of rotten relationships lately, I've also worked to jettison draining friendships. Today, in fact, I parted with a friend who is a good, kind person yet who has not worked through enough of her own issues or come to any type of spiritual awareness about the course of her life. As a result, she was draining me beyond belief, asking things of me that were unreasonable to ask, judging me by a set of standards I didn't want to be judged by. I've realized that just as I want soulmate love, I want soulmate friendship, friends with whom I can honestly confess my faults and flaws and still be recognized, understood, accepted, and loved. Here's to true friendship...and true love. Now if only I could put this much effort into finding some paying work...
-- Sophia
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