DO SOULMATES EXIST?

Growing up, I religiously followed the ABC Soap Operas All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital.  For my grandmother and mother, these were their “stories” and they passed on the tradition to me.  I would rush home from school to see what was going on with my favorites (AMC Nico and Cecily, OLTL Tina and Cord and GH Frisco and Felicia).  Thank God for our VCR because I could keep up with “my stories.”

Today I still come home and watch “my stories” thanks to my DVR.  I am still addicted to the ABC Soaps, specifically All My Children and General Hospital.  My former favorites during the 80s are long gone and have been replaced by AMC’s Zach and Kendall and GH’s Sonny (formerly AMC’s Nico) and Brenda.  These couples keep referring to themselves as “soulmates,” which is very rare in the Soap Opera world.  So I started to wonder “do soulmates really exist?”

Webster’s defines a “soul mate” as “a person who is perfectly suited to another in temperament or a person who strongly resembles another in attitudes or beliefs (ideological soul mates).”  So if this is the “true” definition of a soul mate, then what about the old cliche “opposites attract.”  This definition feels in complete.  Why would your “soul mate” be exactly like you?  Isn’t it a bit narcassistic if you are basically falling in love with another version of yourself?  And if I am using my Soaps as my reference, then this definition is all wrong.  Zach and Kendall are not at all like each other–but they compliment each other.  Zach grounds Kendall when she gets caught up in all of her drama.  And he is a huge Red Wings fan (making him the perfect man in my eyes) and she is not exactly a sports fan.  The examples could go on and on–and just for this couple.  In the real world, looking at my friends and family, once again I would have to say that this definition is inaccurate.  So I have to look further.

According to Wikipedia (yes, I can’t believe I am citing Wikipedia either), “a soulmate is a person with whom one has a feeling of deep and natural affinity, love, intimacy, sexuality, spirituality, and/or compatibility.”  This sounds a little more like it.

Wikipedia also mentions that the “twin flame” or “twin soul” is a related concept.  The twin flame is considered by some to be the “ultimate soulmate, the one and only other half of one’s soul, for which all souls are driven to find and join.”  Ahh, the Jerry Maguire theory where people run around saying “you complete me.”  According to Jenny McCarthy, in her book “Love, Lust and Faking It,” the only person who can complete you is yourself.  If you are looking for someone to complete you, you are dooming the relationship.  You have to be a complete person and they have to be a complete person in order for your relationship to work.  If you click on Wikipedia’s link “What is a Twin Flame?” on the SoulEvolution.org website, you can see that Jenny knows what she is talking about.

According to Soul Evolution, “twin flames, also called twin souls, are literally the other half of our soul. We each have only one twin, and generally after being split the two went their separate ways, incarnating over and over to gather human experience before coming back together . . . Each twin is a complete soul, not half a soul. It is their task to become more whole, balancing their female and male sides, and ideally become enlightened, before reuniting with their twin. This reunion is of two complete and whole beings. All other relationships through all our lives could be said to be “practice” for the twin, the ultimate relationship.”  I like this definition.

Soul Evolution then goes on to define a soulmate: “A soulmate is someone you are close to at a soul level, and with whom you have had many shared experiences in different lifetimes, in various kinds of relationships — siblings, parent-child, best friend, as well as romantic relationships. There is a deep love for each other, and a spiritual bond that sets them apart from the superficiality of most other people in your life. Conversations are generally deep, about personal growth and service to make the world a better place. We can have many soulmates in our lives, and they come to us to help us grow spiritually.”

Ahh, Okay.  So soulmates do exist but you can have more than one in your lifetime.  It can be a friend or a lover–someone whom you have a deep connection with.  It is your “twin flame” who is your ultimate soulmate, the one you spend your lifetimes searching for.

So should General Hospital change their current storyline from “Brenda and Sonny: soulmates reunite” to “Brenda and Sonny: they could be twin flames”?