Soulmates and twin flames — what the words really mean

Is it really possible to meet your soulmate? Almost everyone dreams of being in a happy relationship, and almost everyone has asked me some version of that question. And right behind it comes the next one: what exactly is a soulmate? How would you even know?

When I started this work, most people had never heard the word. Now it's everywhere — so overused that the original meaning has fallen by the wayside. And that's a shame, because understanding what the old idea actually said goes a long way toward explaining the relationship struggles so many couples live inside.

The classic twin-flame story goes like this: the original soul was created whole, masculine and feminine as one. The soul split so it could experience life in two — and ever since, there has been the ache of separation and the longing to reconnect with one's other half. It's an ancient story, told in different clothes by different traditions for thousands of years.

Now — do I need you to take that story literally? No. I don't need you to believe anything in particular to sit with me. What I want you to notice is what the story names: that longing you can't argue yourself out of. The sense that love, at its best, is recognition — not negotiation. Nearly everyone who calls me knows exactly the feeling I mean, whether or not they'd ever use the words "twin flame."

Here's where I'll be straight with you, because I always am: nobody — not me, not anyone — can tell you who your soulmate is, or promise you when you'll meet. Anyone who guarantees that is selling you something other than the truth. What a reading can do is something quieter and, I think, more useful: take a clear-eyed look at the love in your life, or the love you're longing for, and name what's actually there. The connection that feels like remembering. The relationship that's really a habit. The difference between the two — which, once you see it, you can't unsee.

That difference has been the center of my work since January of 1999. If the word "soulmate" has been on your heart lately — about someone you've met, or someone you haven't — that's usually a sign it's worth an unflinching look.

— Shannon Rose

If your heart has a soulmate question, bring it to me as it is — Book a Reading and I'll call you.