Soul Mates

“A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. A soul mate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, and make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life.” ~Elizabeth Gilbert

I first came across that quote about a year ago and it got me thinking. As someone who thinks too much it had already dawned on me once or twice that the person I am in love with is probably not my soul mate. No offence at all to him though, I have never been happier in my life. We are just two completely different people who miraculously balance each other out, but I wouldn't call us soul mates. As someone who is also a bit of a romantic it might of been easy for me to start wondering but what if there is such a thing as soul mates? Even worse what if my soul mate is someone else? Even worse than that, what if I know who that person is? 
After careful consideration and with the help of the above wise words I put that minor/potentially major issue to rest. I'm taking the above quote to heart, it's nice to read something and go wow, that actually makes sense. Quite a while ago now, I got heart broken, shaken all about, and came out of it ever so slightly stronger with some life lessons learned. And what do you know it wasn't the end of the world after all? I got up, brushed myself off and fell in love all over again even deeper than before. I was almost going to say something patronising like 'love is hard when you're young' but that would diminish how strongly I felt, or make it sound like it gets any easier, both would be lies. I suppose the point I'm making in a very round about (you'd think I was trying to pad out a 5000 word essay) way is that if I do believe in soul mates it's by the above definition, and thankfully I've been there, done that. My wise Mum always says 'People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.' The tricky part is figuring out who's meant for which. 

Big Happy Tears & Giggles

This is so funny and it managed to bring tears to my eyes - big happy Christmas tears.

The crew of the Royal Navy assault ship HMS Ocean sing to Mariah Carey's 1994 hit All I Want For Christmas Is You.

Utterly heart warming.

The Unsent Letter

I am fast approaching the 12 hour mark of my time in the psychology building and have given up on my critique of an article for today after it dawned on me that in no way have I done enough reading yet to be blabbing away about it being a fundamentally flawed slap in the face to traditional experimental psychology. So I've made the decision to do that tomorrow instead. I do this after remembering some wise words in a pep talk by Rhiannon Nicole at HeyGorg (incidentally, stumbling upon HeyGorg was a big part of inspiring me to blog in the first place).

I wanted to write some advice, I know my advice is only based on my experiences but honestly I've been told it's quite good even if often I fail to follow it myself (see!) so here we go. Today a friend asked me for help and I told her something my Mum told me when I was 12 years old that I've lived by ever since: write it down. 
Without going into any real detail, the first time I used this strategy I was quite young and not sure how to deal with very strong feelings of hurt and anger. My Mum told me to write a letter and then we'd decide if I wanted to send it. I did too, poured my little heart out, but when I was finished I didn't really need to send it, didn't want to any more. I'm not going to pretend this got rid of the pain that the person the letter was directed to had caused me, but it eased. 
I've done that ever since. It doesn't really matter what you do with the letter once you've finished it. Burn it, bury it, save it, keep it in a box under the bed. It's writing that's healing, a chance to clarify your thoughts and calm your heart. In my case I know sending certain ones would have caused more trouble than it was worth, and some things once said you can never take back. Hence the benefit of taking some time to think, is it really worth saying? Not all unsent letters need to be angry though, sometimes it's just something you feel you need to say but maybe it shouldn't really be said or you aren't ready for it, some are all about love. 
My friend and I did this today and I'm wondering if hers will get sent after all, you can really see when anger has filtered out of the person and into the letter. 
Since there's no chance I'm going to broadcast any of my own, you can read lots at Letters I'll Never Send. Submitting something anonymously is always another option for an unsent letter, and proof that I'm certainly not alone in this theory. So that's my first bit of advice; take a deep breath, let it out and let yourself move on.