Experts Reveal The 4 Paths To Finding Your Soulmate
Here's the secret to finding true love.
SrdjanPav | Canva If you’ve been unsuccessfully dating for a long while, it’s easy to feel defeated. After a few relationships fail to go anywhere, you can find yourself asking, “How am I EVER supposed to find my soulmate?” The “soulmate” is a very intimidating concept when men and women are dating. When you’re having a hard time meeting someone, it’s almost impossible to wrap your head around the idea that there's a perfect person out there, who perfectly complements your heart and soul on every single level. How does anyone find their soulmate in this big, scary world? The odds against it must be astronomical. And yet, people do find their soulmates out there every day. So how can you become one of the lucky ones?
Former Senior VP of YourTango Experts Melanie Gorman sat down with a panel of relationship experts and asked: “What do people need to do to find their soulmates? Their responses were enlightening, to say the least. YourTango Experts Deni Abbie, Melanie McGrath Knuts, Lewis Brown Griggs, and Helen Fisher offer their best tips for people who are struggling to find their soulmate. A soulmate isn’t just going to tap you on your shoulder and say, “Can I love you forever?” You have to search for them. You have to be prepared to bring them into your life.
Here are 4 paths to finding your soulmate:
1. Before you can find a soulmate, you have to know what you want first
Too often, when we’re entering a new romance, we let chemistry take the wheel. That initial spark feels so exciting that it makes us ignore the important questions we should be asking — questions like, “Is this the kind of person I’m looking for?” or “What do I want from a partner?” If you want to find the perfect match for yourself, you need to know what’s important to you and what you truly want to find in a soulmate. Because if you haven’t had those hard conversations with yourself first, you’ll find yourself letting chemistry drag you down a lot of dating dead-ends.
Pexels / cottonbro studio
2. You have to actually be looking for your soulmate
Every year, Helen Fisher does a research study for Match titled “Singles in America,” and one of the most surprising results from the annual data is that only 16 percent of singles are actively looking for somebody to fall in love with. Only 16%! The respondents talk about how they'd be open to something if it just happens to come along (if it drops in their lap), or that they’ll look in their immediate social circles (where they already know everybody). But only 16 percent of those surveyed are actually going out into the world wanting to find a soulmate. So, if you want to increase your chances, just start looking. You’ll already be doing more than 80 percent of most singles.
3. You have to look beyond the surface to what's inside
Superficial details can be important in a relationship (we live in these bodies full-time, so it helps if you like them). However, when you’re trying to make a true love connection, you have to force yourself to look beyond the surface details — because there’s so much else you have to fall in love with to make a relationship work. Yes, you should be attracted to the other person, but the importance of that physical spark lessens over time and other details become more important. Those things matter, like if they’re funny, if they want to have kids, or if they’re empathetic and kind. True soulmates love what’s on the inside and the outside, so make sure that you’re considering both when you’re selecting a partner.
4. You have to have an open mind when searching for your soulmate
Remember when we said that it’s important to know what you’re looking for? We stand by that advice. But it’s also important to leave yourself open to surprises. Just because a person doesn’t score 100 percent on your personal “what I’m looking for in a partner” checklist, doesn’t mean that you might not fall madly in love with them someday. There are core emotional values that should be non-negotiable deal-breakers for you, but keep an open mind about the more superficial deal-breakers, like tattoos, careers, music preferences, or political affiliations.
Pexels / Dziana Hasanbekava
Maybe you never imagined yourself with a blonde banker from Wisconsin, but who knows? That finance-loving Cheesehead might understand you better than anyone ever has before. Give yourself time to look beyond the surface, and keep an open mind while dating. You just might find love in an unexpected place or with an unexpected someone. The fact of the matter is… If you really want to find your true soulmate, you need to make it a priority in your life. Figure out what you want, consider your options, reconsider your deal-breakers, and go out and start looking for your "one!"
Deni Abbie is a certified Life Coach, Dating and Relationship Coach, Hypnotherapist, syndicated author, and public speaker. Tom Burns has served as a contributing editor for 8BitDad and The Good Men Project, and his writing has been featured on Babble, Brightly, Mom.me, Time Magazine, and various other sites. Melanie McGrath is a marriage and family therapist, a personal development coach, and the founder of Whispering Baby. Lewis Brown Griggs is an experienced personal and executive leadership coach and facilitator with over 40 years of experience. Helen Fisher Ph.D., is a biological anthropologist and Senior Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute and Chief Scientific Advisor to the dating site Match. She is the author of the book The Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray, among other titles. Melanie Gorman is the former Senior VP of YourTango Experts.