Arielle Ford on Turning Your Mate Into Your Soulmate

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Falling in love with someone is often the easiest part of a romantic relationship. Making the love last and creating a fulfilling marriage is often not as simple. Over time, reality can set in, we may take our partner for granted, push one another’s buttons and forget about the love that brought us together in the first place.

Known as the “Cupid of Consciousness” and “The Fairy Godmother of Love,” bestselling author Arielle Ford’s newest book, “Turn Your Mate into Your Soulmate: A Practical Guide to Happily Ever After,” is dedicated to helping couples rediscover and rekindle love, improve their romantic relationships and change their lives for the better.

And she also set out to bust the myth that once we find our soulmate — something she taught so many to find with her book “The Soulmate Secret” — that everything will be easy, with no problems or disagreements.

“Like a lot of people I bought into the fairytale myth of soulmates and happily ever after. If they are really your soulmate, they will know how to make you happy in every moment, and it will be really easy and effortless,” Ford tells Elevated Existence in the March 2016 issue cover story. “Then I manifested my soulmate, got married and found out it wasn’t true. I had no idea the person you thought was totally perfect when you were in the honeymoon phase, or the phase I like to call the ‘socially acceptable form of insanity,’ when you are literally crazy in love and your brain is flooded with all these good hormones like dopamine and oxytocin and adrenaline, wouldn’t last.”

Ford believes this phase is nature’s way of tricking us into mating so we keep the species going. But often around the 16- to 18-month mark, those “feel-good hormones” disappear, and we are left with a “perfectly imperfect human being to live with, and we don’t know how to do it,” she says, explaining we then start questioning if the person we are with is truly our soulmate because it just shouldn’t be so hard.

“I wrote this book because I really wanted people to know what’s true about love, soulmates and relationships, and what is really normal,” Ford explains. “I spent 130 hours interviewing the world’s top love, relationship and marriage experts, and then took their best advice and road-tested it in my own relationship. That is what’s in the new book.”

Elevated Existence interviewed Ford for the March 2016 issue cover story to get some of her best advice, tools and research when it comes to relationships, including how to communicate, what men really want and much more!

Here are some of the highlights:

“So many people think love is just a feeling. If I’m feeling love then there is love, but it’s so much deeper than that. Love is a behavior, a commitment, a choice, a decision and an action,” Ford says. “So there will be days when you don’t like your soulmate very much, but it doesn’t mean you don’t love them. Just like you might have a favorite dog or a cat, and you might love your pet, but there are days when they misbehave and you don’t like the behavior. But it doesn’t mean you don’t love them. So when your partner is doing something you don’t like, you have to just ask yourself, is this a reason not to love them?”

“You start off with chemistry, but that is actually not the most important thing to predict a long-term relationship,” Ford says. “You want connection, compatibility, communication, and most important, a shared vision for the future.”

“[Men] they are wired to win,” says Ford. “If you can set up a man to win, if you could let him know every day that he is your hero, you could get almost anything out of him. They will do almost anything for you because they want to win.”

For the full article, you can purchase the digital or hard copy of the issue, or subscribe to Elevated Existence’s Membership here!

Soul Connections: Keeping the Spark Alive

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By Dr. Craig Martin

All relationships settle into life’s routine after a while. It’s hard to imagine when we first meet our special someone, that by year 10, five, or dare I say three, we will be looking at them through a different lens.

The lens is not a bad one. Hopefully, we’ve learned we can count on our relationship, that he or she understands us, and that most importantly, the person accepts us for who we are. But there are other things that exist in the beginning of a relationship that are important to us, such as passion, excitement and the enthusiasm of someone new.

As relationships pass through the tests of time, we are often challenged to remind ourselves of the love we share and how to keep that love unburdened. After all, life itself, while immensely beautiful and rewarding, is not always a cakewalk, so how can we expect our relationship to be that way all the time? Over time, our interaction with our partner retains some of the strain and stress any life will have, and issues with money, health, family, children, career and the simple feeling of being in a rut can accumulate. This takes a toll on the excitement we would love for our relationship to maintain.

Rekindling Romance
So how do we keep the spark alive? How do we keep our relationship fresh and exciting? The full answer is not an easy one, but there is a key to restoring a connection with someone we love. It’s to remember the joy.

No matter what we are going through, even if it is difficult, we must remember we’re in this life to love and to extract from that love the joy that results. What more joyful experience is there than the experience of loving?

If we use the metaphor of fire for our relationship, we recognize when we first start a fire we must put a lot of energy into it. First, we gather lots of wood, small kindling and fuel to get it started. Once it’s well put together, it’s blazing right away, and we’re eager to add more wood and keep it going because it won’t stay burning all on its own if we leave it unattended. After some time though, the fire itself takes on a certain life of its own. Coals and embers stay warm for a long time, and as we get comfortable, we are able to take our eye off the fire because it needs less attending since so much energy has been put into it from the beginning.

However, if we continued to ignore our fire it would go out. Maybe we don’t need to add much new wood or fuel, but we need to add something. Stoking the fire is what brings it back to life. In our relationship that stoking energy comes from adding something new so that we can recharge the flame that exists between us.

It could be travel, cooking, reading or anything you always loved together as a couple. Whatever it is, do it! Recall those activities that brought enthusiasm to you as a team. It often involves something creative since creativity is a strong root of excitement. Seek out creative experiences you know you already enjoy together, or build new experiences by trying something you both always wanted to do. Go to a farmer’s market together, walk on the beach, rent bicycles or go to a museum. The options are endless and the rewards in connectedness are great.

Find the joy – you’ll be stoked that you did!

ABOUT DR. CRAIG MARTIN Dr. Craig Martin is an astrologer, interfaith minister and spiritual counselor. Working with both individuals and couples, he resides in Los Angeles, and practices in both New York City and California. He is the author of “Elemental Love Styles: Find Compatibility and Create a Lasting Relationship,” and can be reached through his Web site at www.doctorcraig.com.

Do You Believe in Love at First Sight?

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By Amy Leigh Mercree

Fairy tales and romantic comedies often tell stories of two people meeting, sharing a look and instantly falling deeply in love for life. These stories ignite our hearts with hope of a love so vast and all encompassing – where we feel like we found our missing piece. Who can forget the much quoted Jerry Maguire line: “You complete me.”

Why does a part of us innately seek completion from another instead of finding it within? Perhaps, we are really seeking the divine outside of ourselves instead of delving into the truth of it being within all along.

That being said, I do believe in love at first sight! I believe in the unexplainable alchemy between souls and in the unknowable, sometimes undefinable, strands that connect us in love to another – whether we just met or have known each other for years.

There is a certain charge that can mean soul level familiarity and oftentimes when we feel it, we know. Frequently, it transcends the romantic connotation of soul mates and delves into the territory of soul friends and soul family. How beautiful is it that we can have soul-deep caring in our lives from not only our romantic partners, but also from close friends and family. We are all abundant of the heart if we choose to let love in.

With love at first sight, besides soul connection personal and chemical compatibility come into instantaneous play. Personal compatibility can be as simple as liking one another and as complex as developing a communication style that resonates with both partners. Sometimes in the first minutes of knowing someone this can click or not. I believe we can sense part of what may come with personal compatibility when we first see a person. In reality, we are all immensely intuitive people and intuition can contribute to our love at first sight experiences.

The ever-present, intensely complex world of chemical interaction between people is massively at play in love at first site scenarios. Even from a distance we can imperceptibly smell our chemical compatibility with a potential partner and a complex cacophony of scents and pheromones pull us in or repel us instantly.

But what about the couples who meet virtually first? Do they get the chemical benefit of love at first sight? Answering that question, at this point in time, is 100-percent conjecture. No studies have been done on the topic, but I’ll tell you my observation as a dating and relationship coach for the past 15 years. Sometimes, the chemical becomes the psychic and people receive the same cues at a distance as they do in person. I have heard some pretty amazing stories of the psychic sense of smell affecting romance and attraction across the miles.

The real truth is love, whether at first, second, 200^th sight, is an unstoppable force of nature. Soul connected people magnetize each other at the right times in myriad magnificent ways. Our hearts can be stirred and nourished from within and without, and it is living in true abundance to graciously accept all the beauty that comes our way.

Love at first sight is real, and it happens all the time.

Amy Leigh Mercree is an expert dating & relationship coach, entrepreneur, adventure guide and internationally acclaimed author of “The Spiritual Girl’s Guide to Dating: Your Enlightened Path to Love, Sex, and Soul Mates.” This June, Mercree is teaching “Spiritual Romance: Reawakening the Sacred in Your Love Life,” at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. See more information on the seminar here. And visit her Web site www.spiritualgirlsguide.com for you complete evolved dater’s toolkit!

“Making Marriage Simple: 10 Truths for Changing the Relationship You Have Into the One You Want,” by Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt

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Looking to build a stronger marriage? Bestselling relationship authors, Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt’s newest book is designed just for that!

“Making Marriage Simple: Ten Truths for Changing the Relationship You Have into the One You Want,” will help readers create a union based on true partnership – a solid foundation to grow from when the bliss period inevitably fades. The book offers 10 essential truths they have found to build a successful, satisfying and lasting relationship through their years of workshops, as well as their own marriage.

The authors use cartoons and humor to introduce truths, such as “Incompatibility is Grounds for Marriage,” “Conflict is Growth Trying to Happen,” and “It’s Not What You Say, It’s How You Say It.” Each chapter ends with a simple exercise to put their tips into practice.

Other books by the duo include, “Keeping the Love You Find: A Personal Guide” and “Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, 20th Anniversary Edition.”

Spiritual Dating: Creating a Natural Aphrodisiac

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By Amy Leigh Mercree

It’s time to put he sexy back in spiritual. Here is the truth: you are a spiritual being with an amazing amount of vital life force flowing through you. It’s unlimited, really and truly. And depending upon your degree of awareness of that universal life energy, you feel alive, wide awake and present.

Being present is 100 percent necessary to feel sensual. It’s how you notice what turns you on, whether it’s a lover’s touch as he brushes by you on the way to do the laundry, or the feeling of a warm breeze on your face, or even a crazy thought that pops into your head. Your senses can wake up and pay attention to things you might not have noticed and a beautiful thing happens – you further awaken to your body, and your heart can follow.

Your heart longs to be seen for its love and its sacred, special nature. Everybody’s does. It hopes in its quiet moments that someone will see the truth within and find it worthy of love. When you are present to yourself something cool can happen, you can truly see yourself, both flaws and strengths, and be captivated with your own unique colors.

Coming from the space of experiencing loving and caring for yourself, and even allowing that self love to inform your behavior, means you are solid in who you are. Thereby, you become inherently, effortlessly confident and absolutely magnetic to the right people. These right people can see your radiance and have experienced their own spiritual beauty too.

Imagine bringing two people in this space together to date and eventually be intimate. Both people are emotionally mature and kind to themselves. They are present. As a bond grows and new things are discovered sexual tension grows too. The more these two people honor each other and themselves, the more passionate energy flows between them. It’s effortless and natural. It’s simply energy moving back and forth as they get to know one another.

When the heart and the body get together and experience love, profoundly satisfying things can happen with a partner or even on your own. Sex and love are best when intertwined in an erotic dance. That’s when things can get cosmic. You can connect in spirit this way and love can be experienced in myriad intoxicating forms.

So, how can you feel truly present? This question is asked by people from all walks of life, of every age, in all kinds of ways like: “How can I feel more alive?” “How do I get my mojo back?” (If you’re Austin Powers.)

Start simple. With the palms of your hands, start at the soles of your feet and rub briskly moving up your legs and body and repeat aloud or in your mind, “I am here now. I am present.” And just feel what it is like to be fully in your body. Really bring your awareness to that experience.

Now try to bring your conscious awareness to your feet, really inhabit them. Then do this with your feet and legs. Then be present from your feet up through your torso bringing your awareness all the way to the tips of your fingers. And then from your feet all the way to the top of your head – your entire body. Can you feel your entire body simultaneously? You might feel this awareness like a pulsing or a tingling.

What if you got into that deeply present place and then explored the sensual, whether solo or with a loving partner in the same state of awareness. Would everything be richer and more intense? Would you experience sensations and pleasure in a new way? Would your soul feel fed to know you are seeing your sacredness and if a partner is involved he or she is too? Give it a try and find out!

Amy Leigh Mercree is the author of “The Spiritual Girl’s Guide to Dating: Your Enlightened Path to Love, Sex, & Soul Mates,” a Spiritual Dating & Relationship Coach, and a Medical Intuitive. For more fun articles and her dating advice column visit her blog and website:www.spiritualgirlsguide.com.

Spiritual Dating: The New Sexual Revolution

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Many people believed it was a desirable thing to go out and assert their power and independence by having whatever sexual experiences they wanted. But things have changed and many of these people have taken up yoga or meditation. They’ve gone green, and have chosen to live a more conscious and spiritual life. And for those who are not married or in long-term, committed relationships, that old way of dating and mating doesn’t feel right anymore.

A quiet sexual revolution is happening and it is called “Spiritual Dating.” You may be already doing it and not even know it, or you may be seeking a new, more conscious way to experience your love life and this may be your answer.

Spiritual Dating means dating as if all people are sacred. Imagine that. What would that be like? In this case, sacred means special, a treasure, and worthy of respect and kindness.

The tenets of Spiritual Dating apply in the following three ways:

You – You are sacred. Picture dating as if you are sacred. What would that be like? You would be recognizing your specialness and feeling confident in it. You would accept only dates that resonated for you, and not put yourself in situations that didn’t feel right. You would honor and respect the specialness of your body, and it would transform your sex life and encourage major discernment as far as partners go. In short, you would be on your way to creating emotional safety for yourself.

Your Dates – Your dates are sacred. Each potential date you meet is a sacred being, even if he or she may not be the right person for you. In the case of your exes, he or she may not have been a good person for you to for you to date, but they are all sacred. Your behavior in this case would change because if someone asked you on a date, you would see them as sacred, and treat them with kindness – even if you said no to the date. And if after a few dates you weren’t feeling it, you’d be kind but honest and straight with them, letting them know so they could move on. You’d behave with an extra high standard of integrity, therefore, you would also be more likely to magnetically attract dates with that same high standard for their own behavior.

Being Seen – People you date must see you and themselves as sacred. That means they are doing the above too! For your sex life, this is the revolution! You and your potential partner see each other as worthy of respect and kindness, and as special, sacred people. That is the only way you choose to share intimacy. This one change can transform your entire love life. Really give some thought to how that could apply in your life. It may not be easy, but it is far more satisfying, and creates an internal environment of self-trust and self-love. Your actions will even be demonstrating to your body how sacred you are! That conscious choice can actually resolve health issues in the reproductive and whole body arenas.

Spiritual dating and sacred sexuality are a sexual and spiritual evolution. Have you already started down this path? Share your stories and ask your questions here in the comments section.