You do not need a soul mate

"The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new." That is Pema Chödrön, the Buddhist teacher, and it is a good place to start a conversation about love.

I am a student of spirituality. I am not attached to any one tradition, though I feel closer to Buddhism than to anything else, and I feel a strong sense of calm when I study it or practise it. I stay open to other paths as well. What I love about being a lifelong student is that every so often a new idea explains something in your life that nothing you learned before could.

Most people who came to me for help had reached the same point. They had kept moving forward with the methods they had always used, and it was not working. They were finally ready to hear something new.

The soul mate

A lot of them were anxious about love. About finding the one.

We are taught that romantic love is the ideal. Without a soul mate you are not complete. The soul mate will see you exactly as you are, accept all of it, and you will be deliriously happy for the rest of your life.

If you are single again after 50, after a long marriage or a divorce or a loss, you have probably heard some version of this from well meaning friends. Get back out there. Someone is waiting for you.

Maybe. But I would start somewhere else.

Start with you

You have to love yourself first. Who you are, what you are, and be perfectly happy with that person on your own.

Like attracts like. If you are desperately searching for your soul mate, you will attract someone who is desperately searching for theirs. All that desperation cannot bring freedom or joy. What it brings is unrealistic expectations, on both sides.

A soul mate cannot complete you. Only you can do that.

By now you have something you did not have at 25, which is a long look at who you actually are. You know what you like for breakfast and what you will no longer put up with. That is a good person to be on your own with.

Be careful what you ask for

Feng shui works with intention. The tradition says a clear, focused intention, combined with the energy of a well arranged space, can move you toward what you are looking for. So be very clear about what you mean by finding love.

If you believe only a soul mate will make you happy, and you go looking for exactly that, you may well find it. The question is whether you were looking for the right thing.

Love can mean a partner. It can also mean the friends you see every week, a house that finally feels like yours, grandchildren on a Sunday, or a quiet morning you look forward to.

So give the idea some serious thought before you move a single thing in your house. We get what we think about. Are the things you believe about love true, or are they just things you have been clinging to? It might be time to hear something new.

From the archive. First written for my journal years ago, and rewritten for life after 50.