Soulmatch
Actually, I thought I had found my soulmate. Unfortunately, he had found his in San Francisco, Wyoming, and Brooklyn. But I'm not bitter. So when I was approached with the chance to attend a class that would help me identify my spiritual soulmate and use my single years as "down time" preparing for the magic moment, I was intrigued.
I was also terrified. What kind of person attends such a class? Did
these
people really think there were seven magical steps to finding a
soulmate? How thickly would the air be filled with desperation? And,
most terrifying of all, could I be one of them?
There were six women and two men in our small group led by the Rev.
Laurie Sue Brockway. I had never heard of Reverend Laurie Sue before,
but she introduced herself as having spent 20 years as a journalist
covering sexuality and travel. She is now an interfaith minister and a rather prolific author of spiritual self-help books.
After a brief introduction of herself, some plugging of her books,
discussion of spiritual soulmates such as the ancient Near Eastern gods
Osiris and Isis, and a
definition of "soulmate" (some soulmates are supposed to hurt you, so
you can learn), Laurie Sue took us through her "Seven Steps to
Attracting Your Soulmate."
Step One: Acknowledge Your Current Reality
My current reality sucks. OK. I've acknowledged it. But there was more
to this step. We were told to pair off with the person to our left and
discuss "blocks" and "patterns" we've noticed in our heretofore
unsuccessful and disastrous love lives.
I was partnered with a very nice-looking woman who wore a floral chintz
dress and had excellent posture. I went first. "Well," I said somewhat
sheepishly, "I just seem to get involved with the wrong men ... mumble,
mumble ... got dumped by pay phone ... yes, it was very painful ...
mumble, mumble ... especially when he had to get more change to feed to
the phone." My partner assumed the appropriate pose of empathy and
broke into her own story. "I was involved with a great man
for two years, but he just wasn't ready to commit, and I wanted to get
married and have children." Well, don't you have it all planned out, I
thought to myself. "It's good to know what you want," I responded.
