Firstly, some funnies foraged from the web from Debby Gies – D.G. Writes is where you will find an archive full of wonderful posts across several subjects including writing tips, social issues and book reviews.
Welcome back to my spiritual awareness series. As I recently had a session with a Medium who channels spirit and angels, I thought I’d write about the difference between soul mates and life partners.
Soul Mates and Life Partners – What’s the Difference?
I thought I had two soul mates. One is my BFF, Zan, in the UK, and I thought the other is/was my husband. But I was informed differently after a session with the Medium who channeled my husband. She clarified to me the difference between a soul mate and a life partner. They are similar, both having soul connection, except soul mates are also on the same wavelength, whereas life partners don’t necessarily have to have that mind connection, it’s more about the heart connection.
What is a Soul mate?
A soul mate brings us lessons to learn and enters our lives to enrich us and guide us into opening up a new chapter in our lives. Some soul mates may disappear from our lives once the lessons have been delivered, and some may show up again at other times in our lives. Other soul mates will remain in our lives – if we are lucky enough to find one. Soul mates recognize each other instantly by experiencing a feeling of familiarity upon first meeting, the energies attract, yet, this doesn’t necessarily mean our soul mate is a love attraction.
We recognize a soul mate when we feel we can bear our souls openly without judgements and be completely free with that person about who we are inside and out. This is a mutual understanding between both souls. Again, a soul mate can definitely be our spouse, but this isn’t always the norm. There are romantic and platonic soul mates. Generally speaking, a soul mate is someone we mesh beautifully with in thinking, values, likes, and they come into our lives to teach us something. But for many, a soul mate is much more. For instance, we often can feel or ‘know’ what they’re thinking, and sometimes even what they are up to without speaking. We will often find the ability to finish each other’s sentences. Soul mates help us, and often our hearts, evolve and help to improve and enrich our lives by helping to transform us and elevate our lives.
A soul connection with someone feels as though we connected on a same soul level. A soul mate is someone we feel a deep, natural affinity with, someone our soul recognizes and resonates with spiritually. Usually, there is a common bond which has brought the two souls together. This can be in friendships or relationships of the heart. When we find this person, we just know. It’s a special bond that makes us feel as though we’ve known that person in another life. Sometimes soul mates in our life come into our lives because we’ve made a pre-destined pact in a past life to be together in this life, in various capacities.
What are the Elements of a Soul Mate?
Often this person will give us the feeling we’ve met before in another life, and often that is the case. That feeling of deja vu we experience with them is often just that, a feeling you’ve been together before doing something just like in the moment you experience the feeling. Many soul mates together in another life choose to come back to same soul mates, so that is where the ‘familiarity’ can come from. Soul mates often have a mental connection similar to that of twins.
With my best friend Zan, we’ve been through thick and thin and in between for just over forty years. We are completely on the same wavelength of most everything in our lives and have led parallel lives with situations and events similar in both our lives, including our dysfunctional childhoods and mothers. We can finish each other’s sentences and communicate even without words. We’ve also phoned each other so many times at the same moment.
I met Zan when I first moved away from home. I was green! I knew nothing about the world or relationships. I began living when I moved away from home and Zan became my best friend, but more than that – she was a teacher, a mother, a mentor, and sister to me. Twenty-five years ago, she moved to the UK after she met her now husband who came here on a business trip and happened to visit a popular after work drinking hole that Zan happened to be at with a friend. And only months after, packed up her life and went to the UK. She had finally found her life partner. But no distance could keep us apart because we are soul mates. She comes to visit every year, and phone and video chats (in recent years) have enabled us to continue our friendship as though no miles are between us. A soul mate shows up in our life when we are in need of learning new life lessons, and my BFF showed up at the most needed time in my life, even if I was unaware at the time after leaving home and beginning my solo life.
Life Partners
A life partner is someone we form a love and life relationship with. Our life partner is different than the average marriage or living together. It’s a unique relationship with someone we spend much of our time with and we form a special bond with. A life partner is the one meant for us to fulfill our lives with and who is always dependable, nurturing, caring, loving, trustworthy, and always listens to what we have to say, without judgement.
They share our same values and are always supportive and cheer us on to be our best selves, and for our accomplishments. A life partner is along the ride for the long haul regardless of whatever challenges are presented in the relationship. We are comfortable in conversation or in stillness with a life partner who offers stability and unconditional love. A life partner is someone we are in tune with on morals, values, and compassion, that give us that feeling of security and oneness. We may or may not be psychically in- tune with a partner the way we are with a soul mate, but all the elements of a great relationship with them – especially unconditional love, is key with a life partner.
My husband. I was always a fusspot when it came to dating, usually looking for the reasons I shouldn’t date someone. I dated a lot in my long single years, but one thing I’d always managed to stay clear of – getting married. Maybe I’d lived enough in a perpetual broken home, maybe I felt as though I’d served my time as a child playing Mom, but whatever it was, and despite a few near engagements where I realized I couldn’t spend my life with that person, when I began dating my husband, a confirmed bachelor after having been married once before, he told me on our third date he was going to marry me. It frightened me that he may be right. Even though at the time I laughed and told him that was never going to happen. But it did. Because it was meant to be that way. Less than a year later we were living together, and an engagement ring enveloped my finger. If we learn to become aware of what our instincts are telling us and learn to trust in them, we’ll find they usually lead us in the right direction. If we follow our natural instincts without second-guessing ourselves and learn to trust, as opposed to listening to our egos, we will find we’re usually on the right path.
I was blessed to have the most wonderful life partner for how long I was gifted to have him.
The biggest distinction between a soul mate and a life partner is that our soul mates are sent to us through the universe for a purposeful connection to help us evolve, whereas, we choose our life partner (who may well have also been sent us), and they become our grounding stone, helping to keep us balanced. Our life partner brings us peace, harmony, and love, where our soul mates come into our lives when we need a helping hand with changes. A life partner may not share all same interests with us, and may be quite polar-opposite from us, but intentions, morals, values, sharing and caring about the same important things that keep a relationship strengthened is all part and parcel of sharing a life with a life partner.
Soul mates are not always permanent fixtures in our lives, although some may stay, while others fade out after our lessons are learned.
Do you know if you’ve met your soul mate?
Below you will find two helpful videos that talk more about soul mates and life partners:
My thanks to Debby for another fascinating post on the spiritual side of our natures. I know she would love to hear from you.
About D.G. Kaye (Debby Gies)
D.G. Kaye is a Canadian author living in Toronto, Canada. She writes nonfiction and memoirs about her life experiences, matters of the heart, and self-help about women’s issues. Her positive outlook keeps D.G. on track, allowing her to take on life’s challenges with a dose of humor in her quest to overcome adversity.
D.G. began writing when pen and paper became the tools to express her pent-up emotions during her turbulent childhood. She began journaling about her life at a young age and continued writing about the imprints and lessons she learned through people and events she encountered. D.G. writes books to share her stories and inspiration. She advocates for kindness and for women’s empowerment. Her favorite saying is “For every kindness received, there should be kindness in return. Wouldn’t that just make the world right?”
When she’s not writing, D.G. loves to read (self-help books and stories of triumph), cook (concocting new recipes, never to come out the same way twice), shop (only if it’s a great sale), play poker (when she gets the chance), and, most of all, travel
I might be in my sixth decade of life, but DG Kaye’s memoir, Fifteen First Times, brings me blissfully back in time as if I were reliving my youth. She includes tender moments, budding independence, and painful firsts. I felt as if I were sitting across the couch from Kaye, sipping crisp white wine and exchanging stories of our beloved but challenging past.
She draws you in with our commonalities as women, from our first love to menstruation, a hysterical shoe obsession, bad hair decisions, first apartments, and broken hearts. As I read through each story, I laughed, cried, and empathized with Kaye’s Fifteen Firsts. It is a bold, funny, and touching read about life’s endearing moments. An enchanting novel for fans of delightful memoirs.
Welcome back to my spiritual awareness series. Today I’m talking about our intuition, and how to connect with it, learning how to pay attention to it.
Do you struggle with trusting your intuition? Do you feel pangs of anxiety when having to face a big decision in your life, fighting the inner conflict of the two sides of the coin when you know something is off, yet, you don’t know whether you should trust your inside warning system or if you should just simply wave off your concerns as your imagination?
What is intuition? There are a plethora of descriptions and explanations for intuition. But the basic mechanics of how it works is with our natural instinctual reaction – memories usually trigger something from a past lesson, which the mind often overlooks. In the same way we know when there’s danger around, intuition our 6th sense, is automatically activated within us.
All of us have been in these predicaments at various times in our lives. And I’m sure many of us tend to wave off our worries, sometimes allowing the chips to fall where they may because we’re just too afraid to make an executive decision. But often, letting the chips fall where they may because of self-doubt will lead to a negative outcome. So how can we help ourselves become more assertive when it comes to making a decision about things we don’t really want to think about but aren’t going away? We must take a step outside of our worries and delve into the elements of our dilemmas looking at them from a different perspective.
Sometimes removing ourselves from the equation helps us take a better look at facts objectively, and this will help immensely. Nobody ever made great decisions while under duress, and by distancing ourselves from our own inner turmoil will aid in giving us a little breathing room, which in turn helps us to use better logic rather than feeling pressured by staying stagnant in the worry vacuum or making grievous decisions based on fear. When we aren’t consumed with constant worry and we take a breather, we allow our minds to calm and can feel and receive our intuitive messages better while not remaining situated in the immediate inner conflict.
Another way to help us assess our inner feelings is by journaling. Yes, it works! By allowing all our thoughts and concerns to pour out on paper not only relieves the pressure out of our heads, but when reading it back to ourselves we can systemically point out to ourselves precisely what is eating us, and sometimes even find our answers through our own words for resolution.
Did you know that the gut and the brain have a direct relation to stress and worry? It’s not a myth that emotions we experience are linked to the stomach – hence, that butterfly feeling we get in our stomachs when we feel scared, worried, or excited. These are good indicators of the ‘gut instincts’ we receive when something is off or in contrast, when something feels great. When things are feeling off it’s a warning sign to investigate our feelings to help us decide whether they are temporary moments or warning signals. If you are interested in reading up on the true explanation about how and why our gut signals us when something is off, please read this informative article about the brain-gut connection – the enteric nervous system, also known as ENS, which explains the scientific link to the brain/gut connection.
We’ve all had that ‘familiar’ feeling, often labeled as a déjà vu moment when our instincts pick up on a remembered moment from the past – which doesn’t necessarily mean the triggered sense of familiarity occurred in our present life, but perhaps from a past life? Déjà vu translates to ‘already seen’ from French. It’s a common term we all use when we come upon a moment that feels so familiar, having us feeling as though we’ve already been in or experienced that precise moment, quite possibly from another place and time, as it’s an inexplicable feeling without an exact recollection of where the experience was first felt.
Intuition is often referred to as ‘non-conscious emotional information’. Einstein had referred to it as a gift. It’s a sense of knowing without a rational and sometimes inexplicable fact. Many say that only psychics and mediums are guided by intuition, but intuition is a culmination of all things we’ve learned in our experiences that are stored in the archives of our minds, which quite possibly become the catalyst for our heightened alert system, ignited by a situation that feels remembered.
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” — Albert Einstein
When we have two voices in our heads battling each other, sending off warning alerts, we must distinguish between the alarm bell ringing within and our resistance to pay it no mind, blaming our ‘overactive’ panic or deciding if our gut is speaking to us. So, here’s what we can do to help us figure out what to do when our instincts are shouting out to us:
Keep track of the feelings and messages we receive from within in a journal. List our pros and cons of our dilemmas and possible resolutions. And pay attention to signs in our daily lives.
For example, if we’re focused on one particular issue that won’t go away and we begin to start seeing number sequences repeatedly, these can be reminder messages or confirmations that resolutions we are contemplating are on the right track. If something is niggling at the forefront of our minds and we see messages throughout our day through commercial ads, song lyrics or through any other means the universe communicates with us, it’s likely our thoughts are being confirmed. These are premonitions or synchronicities that jump out at us, asking self to pay attention. For example: It’s sunny outside, but we take an umbrella because we have a feeling it’s going to rain, despite what the weatherman says, because we have a hunch it may rain.
Our world is complicated and noisy, and if we were to listen to our inner guidance, solely, without the influences of our own ego getting in the way, we’d be on our way to getting in touch with our intuition. Remember, when we are faced with making a decision, and our gut sends us a message and we in turn begin to question what we are feeling, bringing in doubt and fear and questioning our own inner guidance, we are bringing ego into the equation, which will sabotage the whole point of following our initial instincts.
Pay attention to vivid dreams that often portend messages. And have that journal handy to write down what stands out to us from those dreams.
If you feel unsafe in a certain situation, don’t second-guess your feelings, listen to them.
Speak with a close friends or family members who are familiar with your situation to receive feedback on their views. This doesn’t necessarily mean they are correct with their opinions, but mulling things over with someone else can bring in a different perspective by shedding some light on ideas we may not have thought of ourselves.
These things may help develop your intuition better:
• Listen to your gut without the outside noise and ego and pay attention to your gut reaction because of the neurotransmitters linked between the gut and brain. For example: If someone is telling you a story, or trying to entice you into doing something and you get a twisted knotty feeling in the gut, pay heed and take a timeout to feel out the situation, as opposed to jumping in because it sounds tempting.
• Keep track of your energy levels – feelings and synchronicities. This goes back to an earlier post I wrote about energy sucking vampires if you are constantly feeling drained or uncomfortable around someone, that is intuition informing you with a physical message to exit the situation.
• Pay attention to those insightful flashes that come to you – an idea out of the blue, a person that pops into your head that can help you with a nagging problem or even a positive project. Write down the ideas, and get in touch with that person.
• Meditation can help to calm the noise in our mind and eliminate the thoughts from ego. We only need to take a few minutes by ourselves to mediate and un-cloud our brain. Meditating is like doing the dishes, clearing them out of the sink, only we’re clearing our heads so we can easier receive and become more in-tune with what self, not ego is telling us.
Learn to trust and tune into your intuition. And if we aren’t familiar with paying attention to the warning signals our body sends us from within, we can learn how to tune in better by reading books on the topic, watching Youtube videos, or joining groups which we can mingle in, like-minded people who have more experience to share with us.
Dr. Judith Orloff says in her book, “A highly developed intuition is a “secret weapon … It gives you all kinds of information you wouldn’t normally have. This isn’t the brain analyzing; this is nonlinear knowledge. It’s a second kind of intelligence. You want to use both.” Dr. Orloff adds that anyone can learn to fine-tune their intuition, adding that many of our intuitive messages are stored in the right side of our brains.
Below are some great links to videos and books to get you started:
How the stomach works like a warning system:Trust Your Gut
Do you trust your own intuition? Do you have something to share here where you know your intuition has guided you to making a good decision?
I hope you’ve enjoyed this spiritual series. I’ll be taking my winter blog and life break February and March, and I’ll be back with more spiritual series in April.
My thanks to Debby for another fascinating post on the spiritual side of our natures. I know she would love to hear from you.
About D.G. Kaye (Debby Gies)
D.G. Kaye is a Canadian author living in Toronto, Canada. She writes nonfiction and memoirs about her life experiences, matters of the heart, and self-help about women’s issues. Her positive outlook keeps D.G. on track, allowing her to take on life’s challenges with a dose of humor in her quest to overcome adversity.
D.G. began writing when pen and paper became the tools to express her pent-up emotions during her turbulent childhood. She began journaling about her life at a young age and continued writing about the imprints and lessons she learned through people and events she encountered. D.G. writes books to share her stories and inspiration. She advocates for kindness and for women’s empowerment. Her favorite saying is “For every kindness received, there should be kindness in return. Wouldn’t that just make the world right?”
When she’s not writing, D.G. loves to read (self-help books and stories of triumph), cook (concocting new recipes, never to come out the same way twice), shop (only if it’s a great sale), play poker (when she gets the chance), and, most of all, travel
Welcome back to my spiritual awareness series. Today I’m going to talk about Karma, something we’ve all heard of, but perhaps we aren’t all aware about how it works.
From The Oxford Dictionary: noun. /ˈkɑrmə/ [uncountable] 1(in Buddhism and Hinduism) the sum of someone’s good and bad actions in one of their lives, believed to decide what will happen to them in the next life. good/bad karma (informal) the good/bad effect of doing a particular thing, being in a particular place, etc.
Karma is a word used loosely by many, usually as a term for payback, as in: What you do will come back to you in some form at some time whether it be payback for wrongs or mean-spirited doings or reward for good deeds. But this is not exactly how karma works.
Karma is spiritual and it’s something we carry forward with us from previous existences into our next ones. If bad karma has not been resolved in a past life it accrues and will have effects in the next life. Every action we perform has a consequence. Karma can be material, moral or emotional. The intent of one’s actions generates karma.
Since I was a young girl, I was aware of the word karma and relayed it to one of my favorite cliched sayings: – what goes ‘round comes back! Karma is really energy, and we are all made from energy created as an action, not necessarily a fate, but a result. We all have the opportunity to change our karma by changing our intentions. This statement can be applied to things, such as: when we wish ill fates upon others, it can boomerang and come right back on us. Karma is ethical consequences, which determines what happens in the future of our lives. The punishment for allowing our egos to take over by wishing ill-will towards an outcome or a person is really a psychological suffering as penance for bad actions.
Many people aren’t aware that most of their actions and desires are manifested by karma – acting out of past lifetimes – what we reap is what we sow, what we focus on is what we get. We are our own karmic projection. We’ve all heard clichés like ‘be careful what you wish for because it will come back on you’. Ill-will and evil acts are paid back to us by suffering something in our own life, goodness gives us peace of mind. In essence, we perpetuate our own karma. It’s been said that the sum of a person’s karma upon their death will determine the form of existence they will take on in their next life.
An example of how karma works: perhaps someone stole someone else’s camera, that same camera may very well be stolen again from them. Or maybe, that camera may get them in trouble by some other means. Did that camera have photos of something illegal that the thief got caught with and blamed for? Karma is a strange phenomenon that works with the universe. On the same token, you may have donated something to a charity and later find you won a contest, you found twenty bucks surprisingly on the ground somewhere . . . you get the gist here – thoughts and actions always circle back around.
Karma is never instantly repaid. It is also not an impending punishment. Like I mentioned earlier, we have the ability to change our karma. Spreading good karma is creating positive action through kind words and thoughts, good deeds and good intentions. The more good we do, the more good will come back to us – a simple formula. To put it into metaphoric terms: If you plant beautiful flowering seeds you can expect beautiful flowers to grow. If you plant a bad seed, you can expect nothing from it. This is how karma works.
If you are at peace with yourself, you will enjoy a peaceful life. If you find your life in a constant state of chaos, you are carrying chaos within yourself. What we put forth into the universe with our intentions will find its way back to us in various forms. We are responsible for our own karma. Our pasts, present and futures all connect from our behavior. This all falls under the old adage – history repeats itself, we either learn from it and change our direction in life or we’re destined to live on the same spinning hamster wheel with the same outcome.
How we choose to live our lives will determine the karma we create. The universe responds to our actions and inactions. Most of the conflict and world suffering is because of either no action or bad action.
Below is a wonderful video that explains karma succinctly. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this quote: “The decisions of our past are the architects of our present.” ~ Author Dan Brown. Translation: Our past behaviors and actions will determine the now we are living in.
Enjoy this video below that goes a little deeper into karma: The no BS explanation for karma
My thanks to Debby for another fascinating post on the spiritual side of our natures. I know she would love to hear from you.
About D.G. Kaye (Debby Gies)
D.G. Kaye is a Canadian author living in Toronto, Canada. She writes nonfiction and memoirs about her life experiences, matters of the heart, and self-help about women’s issues. Her positive outlook keeps D.G. on track, allowing her to take on life’s challenges with a dose of humor in her quest to overcome adversity.
D.G. began writing when pen and paper became the tools to express her pent-up emotions during her turbulent childhood. She began journaling about her life at a young age and continued writing about the imprints and lessons she learned through people and events she encountered. D.G. writes books to share her stories and inspiration. She advocates for kindness and for women’s empowerment. Her favorite saying is “For every kindness received, there should be kindness in return. Wouldn’t that just make the world right?”
When she’s not writing, D.G. loves to read (self-help books and stories of triumph), cook (concocting new recipes, never to come out the same way twice), shop (only if it’s a great sale), play poker (when she gets the chance), and, most of all, travel
Books by D.G. Kaye
One of the recent reviews for Fifteen First Times.
‘Fifteen First Times’ is a collection of interesting anecdotes from the teenage years of D.G.Kaye. From crazy diets that she tried to follow to the love of shoes and her first kiss, all find a mention in a witty style, as Bobby “planted a big wet kiss… and it was no regular kiss…yuck!” I smiled at the reaction of a nine year old girl who obviously knew nothing about it.
The candor of Kaye is admirable! She shares her stressful moments of becoming a woman in a brilliant manner, trying to figure out what could have caused “the mini bloodbath” between her legs but couldn’t dare to approach her mother, as she was far from “an average mamma” who never cared to explain that there was no need to feel embarrassed about this natural phenomenon.
Kaye’s resilience and independent spirit shines through her words. She grew up into a fine woman despite her dysfunctional family and heartbreaks. Her love for her father and their bonding exemplifies how a child learns to understand life. The book touches upon various emotions and ends with a loving tribute to her late husband. I finished reading it in one sitting and loved the way Kaye shared the stories of her growing up.
This blog feature amusing and heartwarming stories about our late Leonberger dog Bronco, as well as other Leonbergers. It also has a lot of information about the Leonberger breed, the history, care, training, Leonberger organizations, etc. I also wrote a Leonberger book, which I am featuring in the sidebar.
Smorgasbord Blog Magazine 