by C. Ann Cunningham

Created on: October 28, 2009

My belief in whether or not soul mates exist differs from the beliefs of a lot of people I know, in that my belief is not based merely upon the possibility of lovers being soul mates, but that there are others in your life that are also your soul mates.

Yes, a spouse, lover, significant other, boyfriend/girlfriend...all of these people are commonly referred to by people as being their soul mate. It makes it easy to explain why you chose to get involved in an all-encompassing relationship with one another, and even in the unhealthiest of romantic relationships, the term has been used, usually to explain the reasons why a person stays when they are being abused in some way.

But what about those people that you consider in your inner circle? Those who are so close to you it seems the two of you are two halves of the same person? I have a close friend to whom I have grown so close, have gone through so much with, have so much in common with, that we consider ourselves each other's soul mates. I have a cousin that I feel the same way about, because to be separated from her, or from my friend, or from my husband, would be physically and emotionally devastating to me.

By my own personal definition, a soul mate is someone outside your immediate family, who is joined to you by fate, meant to be a part of your life, to whom you feel an honest kinship and whom you share multiple facets of your life with. To know your soul mate is there holding you up, standing at your back and watching over you protectively can make you feel ten feet tall and bullet proof.

Not everyone you meet or that is a special person to you is a soul mate, obviously. There is a pull that happens between two people when they are soul mates. It is an immediate response to seeing them, hearing them, communicating with them. You know it when you feel it. That intangible feeling of being drawn to someone else. That is the feeling. You don't necessarily hear the orchestra playing a crescendo or hear birds twittering in the trees and see angels singing the praises of the other person, because life is not a movie. But you do know the feeling, and I would be willing to bet that even those that claim that they don't believe in soul mates have felt that at one time or another in their lives about someone else.

It doesn't even matter if you feel the pull and then it diminishes later on, and you break up with the person or if the two of you go your separate ways out of the friendship. You and your soul mates can and sometimes do pass in and out of each other's lives, at times temporarily, at others , for good. But they have changed you by being a part of your life, just as you have changed them. You have enriched one another, learned and taught one another, lived and laughed and loved together, and because of that, they have touched your soul, and that is what makes them your soul mate.

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