SOULMATES.

Priorities.

We all in some way or another, regardless of what we work at, have to prioritize, to accomplish anything, in work, family or otherwise.

Prioritizing is not as easy as we might think, at least for me it wasn’t. Every time I focused on one thing, I ignored another of equal or more importance.

In a way, I was like a bulldog in a china shop, to accomplish one thing I would destroy another. Whatever I did, I put my heart in it. Looking back, the saying “hindsight is twenty-twenty vision” is not all bad, if we learn from our mistakes.

It has the potential to improve the future.

I had four main responsibilities for a good part of my life, there were many other lesser responsibilities as well, but four I focused on, or tried to. The four were my wife, children, work and church.

When I think about it now, I realize every time I focused on one aspect of my responsibilities, I ignored another, so I was constantly changing gears to facilitate the task or responsibility that I was working on, and not doing justice to either.

What ever I went at, I PUT MY HEART IN IT, this gave the project or responsibility passion. when I put my heart in it, I gave it life, this is where the passion came from. I have come to realize, not only did it give life to something it also took life from something else, or someone else, that was of great or greater importance.

If I did not put my heart in whatever I was doing, it was mechanical and I was not good in that department. To succeed was the million dollar question. Did you notice the one I ignored was MYSELF. My thought was if I succeeded at those responsibilities I succeeded as a person. More than I realized, I was what I did.

My previous post ““SOULMATE” (singular) was necessary to launch into “SOULMATES.” (Plural) For me, everything began with me mating with my SOUL, yet I did not realize or know at that time what was happening. My parents had not prepared me for the experience, nothing or no one had prepared me for that experience.

Priority One.

In my post The Women In My Life, how I met Norma and Sandra is pretty much dealt with.My first notice of Norma came when I was fifteen. I had attended school with her, but until that amazing day I had not been very much aware of her. But this day everything was different.

I fell in love.

I could not get her out of my mind, a year later I began dating her. I thought I had fallen in love with her, so I did what was normal. I gave her my heart. I attributed the euphoria that I felt to Norma.

A couple of years after Norma passed away I met Sandra, there was a similar euphoria. Thinking back, a number of times with family, work and church there was a euphoria, sometimes for no apparent reason, other than this overwhelming feeling.

There may have been other instances as well. However, I always attributed the euphoria to something or someone. This was the mind taking control of the situation. When that happened the value of what happened was immediately lost. I had this tendency to put everything in the world of relevancy.

When I met Sandra, there was an awareness of the journey I was traveling on. I did not understand it, yet I knew so much so, that I said to Sandra, I’m on a journey and would like for you to travel it with me. She was Ok with that.

It may have been because of the similarities between my connection with those two women, who were different and over fifty years between those incidents, that caused me to really look for an answer.

This is where I communed with myself, looking for an answer to this euphoria that centered, for me, around two different women.

In the book “The Brain That Changes Itself” by Norman Doidge in the chapter on love he mentions the difference between Dopamine induced love and Oxytocin induced love.

What became apparent to me the Dopamine induced love was like Fool’s Gold, it looked like the real thing but had very little value. Whereas Oxytocin induced love was the real thing and had true value, it was TRUE LOVE.

Oxytocin love was centered on the energy force within. It was loving myself in a positive way. This made sense to me, if I was able to love myself, it would be easy to love others and at the same time be fair to myself.

Over the course of forty-seven years with Norma we had our disagreements, but managed to work out those differences, sometimes through compromise or other.

I was never big on compromise not for myself nor for Norma, it meant in one way or another one had lost. I always felt both should win. But how was that possible?

I was fifteen when I fell in love with Norma. I did the accepted and normal thing, I gave her my heart. She did the same and the relationship followed it’s normal course, we were married.

Now, my understanding is VERY different, that understanding of giving each other our heart was the problem. We gave each other a part of our life, leaving us incomplete and going after each other, trying to retrieve or complete ourselves.

That was the cause of disagreements in our marriage, although neither of us attributed to that, we always centered it around the effect, not knowing the cause or placing the cause to some childish reason.

Norma, took back her heart a couple of months before she passed away, things changed. I was aware of a change in her attitude, it was two weeks before her passing that my heart was restored to me, but it was a year or so after her passing that the understanding of what had taken place was real for me.

When I asked Sandra to marry me, I said “I don’t want you to give me your heart and I can’t give you mine.

“THE BASIS OF MY RELATIONSHIP.

Some of this may seem strange to you, for me it is very real, because it is part of my experience, hopefully it may be an encouragement to anyone on a similar journey or looking to find more answers to life.

The understanding that I now have, still limited, but that is changing almost daily, was helped along by understanding Dopamine and Oxytocin induced love.

This euphoria I experienced when I met Norma was Oxytocin induced love, when I gave her my heart, I attributed my love to her and reduced the Oxytocin induced love to Dopamine induced love

Dopamine is the lowest form of love, from the Greek language it’s “Eros,” whereas Oxytocin is the highest form of love it’s “Agape.” My next obstacle to overcome in my relationship with Sandra was centered around my religious beliefs. She was not a religious person, which eventually became a blessing for me.

Moving away from religion is not easy but essential.

There was a fear that she would take me off my journey, although she said she would follow, no doubt not understanding what I was alluding to. At that point my understanding was limited as well.

Meditation and communing with myself has allowed me to better understand what is taking place.

My fear related to my study of the Bible in respect to David and Bathsheba, Samson and Delilah. Both Samson and David were taken off their journey with God by Bathsheba and Delilah. That was my fear, the same would happen to me.

I tried explaining the spiritual journey to Sandra and this caused problems, so much so that I began to doubt our going ahead together, Sandra also began to have reservations. When Sandra said say she was ready, I hesitated. I went to my inner self for answers. There was no doubt that she was my Soulmate.

Finally, she said “Don’t tell me, show me.” I realize now trying to explain spiritual things, (it is a spiritual journey) is not difficult, it is impossible. It is a journey taken alone, taken by faith, making it very personal. The Bible can be a great help if it is used as a guide book, it becomes comforting, rather than challenging. The understanding comes from within. Trying to learn it takes you off that journey. It is not a journey of interpretation but a journey of revelation.

The choice is allowing an inner energy force or higher power to guide you on this journey or undertake it on your own. I began to realize that taking it on my own, I did not need a higher power, I was the higher power. Me being the higher power had let me down too many times.

The choice to allow the inner higher power to guide me has been my greatest blessing.

I began to talk less and less to Sandra about spiritual things, meanwhile my journey was moving in a positive direction. She is very positive towards my journey and encourages me daily,

To put my journey into a scientific perspective my journey was taking me from a dopamine induced love to an oxytocin induced love.

To put my journey into a spiritual perspective my journey was taking me from an “Eros” love to an “Agape” love.

To put my journey into a religious perspective my journey was taking me from being God to choosing to have God guide me.

God is a Spirit, making it a spiritual journey.

In between love on the “Eros” level and the “Agape” level is “Philia” this is more of a family love. Eros is more self love, “Philia” a higher plane, is more family love and “Agape” the highest plane encompasses both Eros and Philia.

LOVE IS OUR STRENGTH.

I always knew Norma was stronger than me, she was the glue in the family. She experienced and maintained “Philia” love. I experienced a similar love when our children were born, but quickly gave it away, not knowingly.

I’ve come to realize why women are stronger than men and the negative effects it has on a relationship. The man is always trying to prove himself, in one way or another, that he is stronger than a woman. Deep down he knows the woman is stronger, although most men will be reluctant to admit it. This can be subtle or sometimes very pronounced.

The way our society views men and women and the strengths of each is wrong and can only cause problems. In actual fact, the woman is and always has been in most instances the stronger of the two.

The woman has “Philia” love, this is a physical love, the focus of that love is the children, it is a female instinct even without children. The man’s basic love is “Eros” which is also physical and the focus is himself. However, for me, there was an instinct something was incomplete or missing, this may be a thing for men and is different then for women.

Most men will also experience a significant change when their children are born, however, because of societal direction, like me, he gives it away. It could have been a journey into “Agape” love. It is a spiritual journey.

PLEASE, don’t equate spiritual with religion, there is very little if any bearing between the two.

It’s a personal thing and has to do with choice, rather than requirements to perform. It is a growing period in another dimension and it takes time.

With that transition the man actually becomes the stronger, the woman becomes the beneficiary of this journey that he has to take. There is a laboring involved to transition from dopamine to oxytocin induced love, or from Eros to Agape love.

As I said before, Agape love embraces both Eros and Philia. This completes the man and makes him well rounded out as husband, father and what ever other responsibilities he may have.

Though I was content with myself and my surroundings after Norma’s passing, when I met Sandra, it did complete me in another dimension.

We are SOULMATES.

My last few weeks with Norma, we were SOULMATES. I didn’t fully understand and Norma may not have either but there was a fulfillment for both of us and there were no words.

When Sandra said to me “Don’t tell me, show me.” it has become a relationship that is built on something much stronger than words, it also reminded me of what Norma and I had. It may have taken forty-seven years to really come to enjoy it, but it was worth it. Norma enjoyed that relationship for a couple of months and she was instrumental in putting me on the right path.

It’s so easy to say “I LOVE YOU” but to show that love is a whole different dimension.

Words can change, but actions are different. One picture is worth a thousand words.

SANDRA and I are SOULMATEs, and I love it.

I can’t speak for her, but I don’t think she would be overly negative about our relationship. Unless it is when I try and explain to her something that is going on. Her eyes glaze over and I shut up.

I mentioned my four main focuses wife, children, work and church. This post the focus is wife or the wives in my life. In future posts I will have one for children, one for work and one for church.

My previous post “Soulmate” is really a look into how I have come to handle each of the four and still be my own person. Each post will deal with some of the things I have had to deal with in getting to this point.

Unless you open yourself up to LATERAL thinking this post will not mean much to you. Lateral thinking opens up a whole new world.

Until the next time stay positive, stay safe and stay healthy.

Any questions or comments appreciated.