Have you ever wondered what it takes to find the love of your life? Is it your dream to find a life-partner who will love, cherish and adore you?

Arielle Ford, bestselling author of “The Soulmate Secret,” has been called, “The Cupid of Consciousness” and “The Fairy Godmother of Love,” and she joined Elevated Existence Magazine founder, Tammy Mastroberte, as part of the Living an Elevated Existence Mind, Body & Soul Summit to discuss how to attract a soulmate using the tools and techniques she herself applied to attract her husband, Brian, at age 44.

“For me, a soulmate is first and foremost somebody you can completely be yourself with, and somebody who you share unconditional love, and when you look into each other’s eyes, you feel like you are coming home . . . it can be a lover, parents, kids, business partners, co-workers, and even your cats and dogs fit into that,” Ford shared on the call.

But when it comes to romantic love, the fastest way to manifest it is to start being grateful for the soulmates we already have in life, such as family and friends, and to understand there is no such thing as only one soulmate.

“I don’t know who started the big fat lie that we only get one love in a lifetime. I know one woman who is married to her third soulmate because she outlived the first two,” Ford explained. She also pointed out there are 7.2 billion people alive on the plant and approximately half of them are single, so statistically we can’t not meet our soulmate!

Ford woke up one day at 43 years old and realized she forgot to get married, she explained. She had worked hard on her career and loved her life, but her bed was empty and she knew something was missing. Upon looking at her life and how well she had done in her career, she got the idea of using the same techniques – special prayers, rituals, intentions – to find love. Within six months she met her husband Brian during a business meeting, and three weeks later she was engaged.

“As soon as Brian and I got together, I suddenly became the poster child for women over 40 to fall in love,” she said, explaining she would share the soulmate secret process with people watch them having amazing success. Even her 80-year-old mother-in-law used it to find new love!

“I shared it with my mother-in-law and within three weeks she had a date, which led to her being with her next soulmate,” Ford said. “This has worked for men and women in over 40 countries around the world, and I get emails every single day from people about finding love. It works if you are wiling to put a little time into it.”

If we got fired from our job, we would know exactly what to do to get another one, said Ford. We would update our resume, go online to look for work, network with people and go on job interviews. We would take action, and we need to do the same with our love life.

“What happens, particularly with women, is if they have to find a job or a new car or a place to live, they go into action, but when it comes to their love life, they kind of lean back on the couch and say, ‘well, if it’s meant to be it will happen.’ You would never do that about a job,” Ford noted. “Not only are you looking for your soulmate, but your soulmate is also looking for you. But they can’t find you if your not leaving the house, or if your not online, or if your not in the game. It’s your job to put yourself in the game – that is the first thing that has to happen.”

Steps for Manifesting a Soulmate
Ford shared her key steps  to manifesting love – steps she followed herself and has taught to people all over the world.

Step 1: Forgiveness — The first step is all about forgiveness, especially forgiving ourselves for any judgments we placed on ourselves for not doing the right thing in past relationships. But we also need to forgive others we think have done us wrong. This step is about also clearing out the emotional blocks we carry from the past.

Step 2: Clarity – We need to uncover and get clear about the traits we want in our soulmate, and not jut the physical appearance, but the heart traits, said Ford.

“You want to be looking for things that are going to contribute to your long-term happiness,” she said. “Most people are clear about what they don’t want and not clear about what they do want, so they can start with the ‘don’t want’ list and then turn that into what they do want.”

We should start by looking at the last two or three relationships and list all the things we don’t want in a person, such as lying, cheating and smoking. Then write a list of things we do want, such as loyal, kind, generous, monogamous, and puts my needs first.

“Having this clarity is really critical, and in some ways the hardest because it requires the most time to really ponder and think about,” said Ford. “Then once you do that, you write out your soulmate wish list all in positive statements.”

This is also when we can add some physical qualities we would like our soulmate to have, such as gray hair – something Ford had on her list and actually found in her husband Brian.

“I also had on my list that English would be a first language because I had dated a lot of foreigners and even thought they spoke English it’s different from having it as a first language,” she said. “I also wanted somebody who could walk unassisted because I like to go for walks every single day, so it was a mix of heart traits and physical qualities.”

Know what your ‘must have’s are,’ she explained. We don’t always get everything we want, but be specific on the things most important to you. After you have the list, give it to a trusted friend to make sure you have not missed anything important.

“For example, I’m a big cat lover, and I always have been, but I once dated a guy who is allergic to cats and the first time he came to my condo he started coughing, sneezing and chocking. So a cat lover was on my list,” she shared.

Step 3: Release Ceremony – We need to release the list to the universe, and while we can keep a copy, we should not be obsessive about it or checking it every day, said Ford. For her release ceremony she looked on the calendar for the next new moon, and she wrote out her list on a beautiful piece of stationary, and took it to the cove near her home at noon. She read through the list, said a prayer of gratitude to thank the universe for sending her the perfect and right partner, and then burned the list and tossed it into the ocean. Then she took herself out to lunch, ordered a glass of champagne and toasted her soulmate.

“I said, ‘wherever you are right now, just know that the cosmic welcome mat has been put out for you, and I’m ready whenever you are,’” she explained.

Some of the things we can do with our list include:

— put it above or below an altar

— put in under our pillow or a mattress

–put it in our favorite spiritual book

–roll it up into a scroll, put it into a red or pink helium balloon and release it into the heavens

“The point is just to let it go,” she noted. “Of course, keep a copy. Three years after Brian and I were married, he came running down the stairs holding this beat up yellow legal pad, and he was saying, ‘I found your list, your soulmate wish list, and I’m everything but two.’”

Feathering the Nest
It’s important to get into the state of the mind where our soulmate is already with  us – even before he or she arrives, and Ford calls this “feathering the nest.” It starts with literally preparing our home energetically to receive our soulmate.

“If you were living with an ex, or they spent time there, even though they are not physically there anymore, they have left invisible energy that you need to clear out,” she explained.

There are several ways to do this. Here are a few of her suggestions:

— Hire a professional energy worker or feng shui expert

— Buy white sage and burn it over a bowl while walking around the house. Pay special attention to the window jams, door jams and inside the closets.

— Open all the windows and doors on a nice sunny day, and take a broom in your hand. Using your imagination, literally sweep the other person’s energy out of the doors and windows of your home.

Additionally, if there are photographs, souvenirs, or momentos of things that are from an ex, they should be removed from the home. Even if we are not conscious of them, they are having an unconscious effect tying us to the person and our past. We can get rid of it, or at least put it in the garage. If we don’t have a garage, give it to a friend to store for us.

“I was talking to a friend of mine who is a well known tapping expert,” said Ford. “He was recovering from a breakup and tapping about it, but he still was not meeting anyone. I had a conversation with him and he found photos of his ex in the home. He got rid of them and then two days later he met the women he is now married to. This stuff is really important to do, and it really works.”

It is also important to physically make room for our soulmate in our home. Even if we live in a very small apartment, it is showing a sign of faith to make room for them. This can be an empty drawer in the dresser, half of a shelf in the bathroom, or an inch of space in the closet, she said.

“If you are living in a bigger place and have two car garage, park on your side of the garage and not in the middle. If you have a bigger bed, sleep on one side and not in the middle,” she noted. “Start to symbolically show the universe you literally have room in your home for another.”

We can also do this with our time, and start scheduling time in to spend with our soulmate. For example, block out three hours on a Thursday night. If that time comes and your soulmate is not there, then go out and get a manicure, or go to the movies with a friend, said Ford. But actually put it into your schedule.

“I call this ‘living as if,’ when you’re ‘living as if’ you are knowing and trusting what you’ve asked for is already yours and your behavior is following your beliefs,” she said. “One of the things I did when I was manifesting my soulmate was every time I passed a card store I went in and bought birthday cards, anniversary cards, I Love You Just Because cards, Valentine’s Day cards – I had dozens of cards, all of which Brian now has because I knew that someday I would be giving it to him. So it wasn’t like I was waiting for the soulmate to buy the cards. I was anticipating and trusting that the soulmate was on the way.”

She told the story about a Hollywood actress who loved to cook, and every night she would come home from the set of her TV show and set the table for two. The woman would use the good China and silver, and have flowers, candles and music. She would make a delicious dinner, and by the end of six months, her soulmate was there at the table with her.

“We can’t see gravity, but we know it’s there, and it’s is the same thing with the law of attraction. It’s working all the time whether or not you believe it, whether or not you are using it in your favor,” Ford explained. “The law of attraction states, we draw to us the people, places and experiences that match our state of being, so if our state of being is –‘I am so lovable. I am so grateful for all the love in my life.’ – you will have one experience. If it’s, ‘I’m such a loser, nobody will love me, I’m too old, I’m too fat, I’m too broke,’ the experience you are going to have will be that.”