The landscape of life

I've been inspired by a conversation I had with my special friend. We'd been talking about the notion or belief in soulmates and whether or not they exist or if they're simply a myth. Soon after our chat, I was listening to Placebo's song called "sleeping with ghosts" and Mister Molko was singing about the very subject. The lyrics are beautiful and tragic;

The sea's evaporated
Though it comes as no surprise
These clouds we're seeing
Their explosions in the sky
It seems it's written
But we can't read between the line

Hush
It's okay
Dry your eye
Dry your eye
Soulmate dry your eye
Dry your eye
Soulmate dry your eye
Cause soulmates never die

This one world vision
Turns us in to compromise
What good's religion
When it's each other we despise
Damn the government
Damn the killing
Damn the lies

Hush
It's okay
Dry your eyes
Dry your eyes
Soulmate dry your eyes
Dry your eyes
Soulmate dry your eyes
Cause soulmates never die

Soulmates never die
Never die
Soulmates never die
Never die...
Soulmates never die
Soulmates never die
Soulmates never die
Soulmates never die
*******************

So, this notion of soulmates got me thinking and I've read a significant blog on the subject, which is posted by two doctors of psychology.
Here are just a few of their insights into the subject:

"The idea of a soulmate has both conscious or unconscious elements. Even if we do not intellectually believe in soulmates, we are still affected.
Many people openly and consciously yearn for a soulmate. They may even believe one person is out there for them, that "right" person.
We all hold some unconscious list of notions describing an "ideal" relationship partner. Often we recite parts of this list as what we want in a partner.
But reality inevitably fails to match our ideals. And we judge and react to real people according to our ideals.
As a result, many relationships that have potential are blocked, if not lost. And dissatisfaction, unhappiness and upsets are unconsciously generated.
Unlike a couple just falling in love, for us this feeling was not a dream or based on hope for the future. It's easy to feel like you are soulmates in the midst of a passionate and seemingly endless honeymoon.
When you feel like soulmates at the end of a decade, something else is involved. It is not a fantasy, but a realization based on a real-world track record, already well tested by time."

Our authors maintain that there are two types of soulmates, one that is real, while the other is more the myth and doesn't last.
"1.Love at first sight = Potential Soulmates
2.Love that overcomes challenges = Real-World Soulmates
Real-world soulmates are tempered by time, like metal by fire. Time reveals that they persistently chose to learn and grow when confronted by challenges.
When couples first fall in love, it is the honeymoon — a time of magic and wonder. Hearts open. Spirits soar. In this expansive state, with ecstatic feelings of being in love, couples may feel they are soulmates.
Here is the sense we make of this. The feeling of "being soulmates" is all about the incredible openness and receptivity, the expansion so far beyond our norm and comfort zone, the heightened clear access to energy and passion.
It takes more than just love — or that incomparable opening and expansion in the honeymoon — to have a lasting relationship. Countless couples start with total positive feelings of being in love, and then somewhere down the road, they painfully split up. What does this reality tell us?
In the honeymoon, we coast along in a purely receptive role. There is nothing we have to do. We just enjoy all those great honeymoon feelings of being in love. During this phase, we feel our partner inspires and uplifts us.
Yet when differences or upset feelings arise in a relationship, as inevitably they will, we find ourselves without our source of inspiration. Both partners want that missing uplift, and neither is able to inspire it.
We are the ones who must realize it is our own openness that is the key to keeping a relationship great and growing — and then learn to re-open ourselves — even when there are challenges. Especially when there are challenges!
In some ways, the myth of "soulmates" is about a relationship that is blue sky forever. Always sunny, and that sunshine pours down on us, brightens us up, lifts us.
In a real-world relationship, challenges come. The sky occasionally clouds. We are asked to stay present with what is — not run and hide, waiting for the rainy day to pass. We are challenged to put aside limiting beliefs and embrace the rain, realizing that even rain has a positive purpose.
Relationship is our greatest teacher. It tells us what we need to learn next in life for our personal growth. In love we are called on to do work — to become more skillful in relating, move beyond our past wounds and limits, and grow as human beings. This personal growth will include learning new tools and strategies in how we communicate, behave, and process emotions.
How Do You Know if You Are True "Soulmates"?
You are real-world soulmates if you're both doing your personal growth work in the face of challenges.You cannot know it by the honeymoon phase alone. To know you are real-world soulmates, you need to see how you both show up to work with real-world upsets, sensitivities, differences and challenges.
Some couples start with all the magic feelings about being soulmates — and then it fizzles. Continuing to want a passive solution to love, they conclude their partner was not the "right" person after all. They then look for the next honeymoon high, hitch the next passive ride — until it crashes.
Other couples do not even think the word soulmate, nor do they believe in magic. But they commit to personal growth and face each lesson that love brings up. After awhile, doing the work of relationship over the years, they can see the solid trust and intimacy they have built, and there is little doubt in their hearts — they are soulmates. The solidity and clarity of this feeling of being "soulmates" is based on the personal growth which enables you, yourself, to stay open even in the face of a challenge, problem or emotionally-charged issue. It is in that openness that these difficulties resolve and love grows even stronger. But paradoxically, it is in the willingness to open, and re-open again — as often as needed — and embrace the obstacle directly in front of you — that you finally get to a more continual and expanded state, a reliable fullness of love, and the deep core sense of being soulmates. This is very different than the early sense of openness and expansiveness in the honeymoon, where you get your first glimpse of the feeling of being soulmates. It is based on real world experience, and passing the tests where most couples fail. And you know that. There is no longer doubt. Soulmates happen, of course, when both partners are simultaneously doing this. Becoming soulmates is not a solitary process. It is the result of two people opening, even in the face of challenges.
In conclusion, you know you are with a "soulmate" if you are both doing your soulwork together. Soulwork is that courageous self-opening, expanding and growing as a chosen response to challenges that close down most people. In doing that work, you evolve yourself and your soul matures. The requirement is being willing to take a challenge to heart and respond to it by learning new tools, strategies or understandings to overcome it. Doing that enables you to succeed in building a partnership so unparalleled that the best way you have to describe that in words is that you are truly soulmates."