Today’s Brilliance from Deb Hirschhorn

Not every marriage is happy. You may ask, how could this person who makes you miserable be your soulmate? And my answer is that you’re asking the wrong question.

Just like the way to be happy in this world is not to sit back and wait for goodness but to search for it and then see it when it’s in front of you, the way to find happiness in your marriage is to become your spouse’s soulmate. The potential is there already.

So the real question is: How do I see a soulmate in a person that right now I’m feeling unhappy with?

The answer parallels all the good inspirations you’ve seen on these pages: To be happy with yourself, you must reconnect to your own soul. To be happy with your spouse you must reconnect with his (or her) soul. You are both feeling alienated.

It doesn’t even matter where that alienation came from; who started it is unimportant. You have within you the capability to overcome it. He (or she) has in his heart a great deal of pain because s/he feels detached, too.

And part of that pain predated your relationship. Perhaps s/he was searching for the balm from his family pain when you two met. Perhaps s/he thought that your relationship would cure all the wounds. When it didn’t, he got angry or he withdrew.

Nevertheless, it’s never too late to begin helping another to heal. Paradoxically, in doing so, you, too, will heal. It begins with listening. Listening to his heart without needing or wanting to speak. Listening in a way that he knows he is being listened to and he knows he is being heard.

But it will only work when it is quiet listening. It cannot be listening to anger or bitterness. And it cannot be listening in anger or bitterness. That does not come from the soul. Encourage his soul to speak by showing your readiness to listen from yours.

And while you are listening, open your own soul to it. Allow the lost connections to form anew.

This process is not easy. It will take effort to keep yourself from slipping back into a place of anger, bitterness, or victimhood. It will take effort to be patient with the slow blossoming of another soul. You can arm yourself with self-love, self-respect, patience with yourself, appreciation for what you have overcome, and the goodness in your life.

It will not do to wait with anxiety. That is coming from a selfish place, a place of wanting. Your waiting works when it is like waiting for your best friend to open a gift.

Have a vision of “we-ness” when you and this other soul will connect again. When that happens, you, too, will be healed, not only because of your own efforts, but because of the empathy and kindness of this other soul reaching back to you. That’s when you become soulmates again.