Originally published at elephant journal as Don’t Miss Your Soul Mate Flags
It can be exhilarating to meet a soul mate—that feeling of having known them forever as I look into their eyes is familiar and strange all at the same time.
It can be pleasant, funny, loving and soft. Or it can be like two freight trains colliding head-on. It can also be hauntingly sad.
I have met and loved several soul mates—in many different forms and relationships. Years ago, a soul mate came into my life and only stayed for a few weeks; it was very intense and somewhat confusing. I came home to a Dear Jane letter. I have neither seen nor heard from him again.
One was only in my life for a week or so, before vanishing back into the universe again, exiting my stage to step onto another one somewhere else. This relationship was so intense and immediate, that we burned the karma quickly and completely, no longer romantically/sexually attracted to each other by the end of those short days, but still loved each other.
Upon meeting, we tried to play by society’s rules. We really did. But we couldn’t.
Within a day of meeting we were naked in my house, breathing each other’s breath again, just like before in other places and times. His mouth was familiar, his kisses exquisite; they felt like coming home. I have not had such beautiful, satisfying kisses since. Just the memory of them can make my breath change tempo. 
As soon as we immediately, easily and mutually rotated into one specific and unusual sexual position, we looked at each other in exposed recognition, “Having you right here, right like this, is all I have been able to think about since I met you yesterday.”
I could only agree. It was exactly how I had seen us together too.
This was a man for whom I had no attraction whatsoever until I looked into his eyes. When I looked at his body, I felt no attraction. When our eyes met each time, however, I fell in love all over again. I quite literally, for the first time in my life, felt weak in the knees every time he looked at me.
All I wanted to do was be as close to him as possible as much as possible. It always felt like he would be taken from me. I felt almost desperate to love him as much and as intensely as possible in what felt like the very short time we had together.
Perhaps needless to say, we spent most of our time together naked—talking, crying, laughing, making love, f*cking; it was intense, beautiful, raw and cathartic.
We split amicably a few days later, having processed through whatever it was we needed to process together. We gave each other those karmic gifts and were done. We did, indeed, it turned out, only have a few days. But this time we were not torn from each other. This time we truly were complete at the end of our time together.
I have come across many soul mates in many different lifetimes over the years. As a hypnotherapist, I find them all the time—mine and for clients too—in past lives and in this current life. So much so, that I had to change my definition of “soul mate” at some point.
I now define “soul mate” as a soul with whom I have had so many meaningful encounters in so many other lifetimes and dimensions, that I feel I know them almost instantly upon meeting them again. They feel so familiar, like family, like instant friends. We can play just about any role for each other too: friend, lover, child, grandchild. I think most folks think of soul mates only as lovers, but I have found that is not necessarily the case.
From so many years of working with past lives, it is my understanding that we, as pure souls/energy, get together before each lifetime and kind of plan out how we are going to meet each other. We set up “flags” for ourselves, so that we recognize the significance of the meeting.
A “flag” is anything that happens in our current life that grabs our attention enough to make us stop and take a second look, or make us become aware that we need to pay special attention to someone/thing. Flags often look or feel like déjà vu, or like something weird and surreal. It gets our attention. It causes us to “wake up,” to come up out of the habitual, treadmill, hazy state we usually coast along in.
“I knew I had known you before, because when I saw you, time seemed to slow down and everything was moving in slow motion,” was what one lover said to me, explaining the flag he experienced on seeing me for the first time.
I have met and loved soul mates that feel like friendly companions—like the only reason we agreed to meet again was just because we love and miss each other and want to be together again. We don’t necessarily have any big lessons for each other. We just want to give each other the gift of resting into a nice, easy, calm relationship.
The ones that are heart breaking, though, are the ones where timing is an issue. We meet them as planned, we experience the flag and know it is important, but we have made past decisions that prevent us from being lovers.
It is not that I love my current lover less after I meet a soul mate, but I can very clearly feel the missed opportunity with the soul mate and must accept it—maybe even mourn its passing. I have never broken up with a current lover to be with a new soul mate, but I have been very attracted to and tempted by that idea.
It can be so sad when it happens—to meet them, recognize them and maybe even admit and discuss it with them, but to be unable or unwilling to actually do anything about it.
Brian Weiss, the famous hypnotherapist who has written several books on the subject, writes about this in Only Love is Real, a book about hypnosis and soul mates finding each other again.
When I think of them, those unrequited soul mates, I can still feel the sudden sting of recognition, how my heart seems to fly up out of my chest into the sky when I look into their eyes, followed quickly by the descending realization that we will not be lovers this lifetime, the heartache, and finally the soft longing and sadness that still linger for paths not taken.
Of course you are thinking, “But you can still be friends with them, right?” Yes, that is possible, but I find it can be difficult, because as the friendship grows, so does the longing. Have you ever had a friend that you fell in love with, only to know (or find) that they cannot or do not or will not reciprocate? It is not fun for anyone involved.
My wish for you, Dear Reader? May your flags be obvious and your timing and decisions always impeccable. Godspeed.
Grace is a Certified Hypnotherapist and Registered Psychotherapist in Ft. Collins, CO, USA. She sees clients and facilitates Divine 
Feminine Hypnotherapy workshops for women. She’s a flaming, Earth-loving, tree-hugging, save-the-Planet, believes-in-faeries, bike-riding, card-carrying, spiritual but not religious, hippie cowgirl liberal poet—yep, they do exist. You can find her blog here and her creations here. You can also connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Steve Horsmon is a Certified Professional Life and Relationship Coach and founder of 
USA. She sees clients and facilitates Divine Feminine Hypnotherapy workshops for women. She’s a flaming, Earth-loving, tree-hugging, save-the-bees, believes-in-faeries, bike-riding, card-carrying, spiritual but not religious, hippie cowgirl liberal poet—yep, they do exist. She writes for 
a wilder grace 