How to manifest the love of your life

Does the idea that everyone has a soul mate make you want to gag? Fight that urge because the first step to finding true love is to believe it's out there, says author Arielle Ford in her new book “The Soulmate Secret.” An excerpt.

Chapter one: Belief
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”  —Rumi

Stefanie’s story: Broken-hearted and disbelieving
I fell madly in love with someone who I believed with all my heart was The One. We had been friends for fifteen years before we began dating, and we fit together like hand and glove. He was an ambitious Hollywood producer, we were well matched in every way, and we had even started house shopping and discussing marriage. Then I found out he had been having an affair. My heart was so broken that I really thought it might stop beating. I had never cried so much over any breakup, because I really thought he was my soulmate. I decided then and there that all the good men were taken or at least not living in my city — maybe I needed to move? I had a hard time believing I would ever find someone who could really see (and love) all sides of me; the serious career woman, the playful girl and the tender lover inside of me. I had given up.  

[Stay tuned ... this story has a very happy ending!]

Stefanie’s story echoes what many of us have felt at some point in our lives. After a few (or many) bad relationships, it’s so easy to shut down, give up, and stop believing that the right person is out there for us. Our hearts yearn to fall in love, but our minds insist it’s not possible, and we enter into a tug-of-war with ourselves. It’s as if one part of us is screaming, “Yes! I deserve a great relationship!” while another part insists, “I’ll never find him or her.” When our beliefs contradict our desires, we experience an inner conflict that not only paralyzes us, but can actually prevent us from recognizing the possibilities for love that exist all around us.  

The universal Law of Attraction states that we draw to us those people, events and circumstances that match our inner state of being. In other words, we attract experiences that are consistent with our beliefs. If we believe that there is plenty of love in the world and we are worthy of giving and receiving that love, we will attract a different quality of relationships than someone who believes in scarcity or feels unworthy of happiness. If we believe the world is a loving and friendly place, then most of the time that will be our experience. If we believe the world is a chaotic, stressful and fearful place, then eventually that will become our reality. So, believing and knowing that your soulmate is out there is a critical first step in the formula for manifesting him or her into your life.

If you do not yet believe with 100 percent certainty that your soulmate is out there, you must begin to look for evidence that will make a believer out of you. When, deep down in the core of your being you believe that your soulmate exists, there is no limit to the ways that he or she can enter your life.

Take for example my friend Trudy, who, while searching for the perfect cantaloupe, met her husband in the produce aisle of Whole Foods market. Or Patricia, a former colleague, whose best friend practically had to drag her out of bed to go to a party, where she ended up meeting her future husband by the coat check. What about the experience of Gayle Seminara-Mandel, whose story you’ll read in a subsequent chapter? Sporting a post-facial blotchy face and sweatpants, she ended up sitting next to her future husband on the exercise bikes at the gym, where she found herself on a dateless New Year’s Eve. Sean Roach, whose story you will also learn, was flying back from a three-week trip to Australia, wondering if he would ever find the right woman to marry and start a family with. After an argument erupted in the aisle, he stood up to defend the flight attendant from the harsh words of a rude passenger and found himself gazing into the eyes of his future wife. Do you think Englishman David Brown had any way of knowing that he would one day wake up with a cell phone number running through his head, send a text message to it, and end up striking up a friendship with the owner of the phone that would ultimately blossom into love?

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The point is, it is not necessary for you to know how or where or when your soulmate will appear. Your only work right now is to begin to nurture the belief that he or she exists and that you will find one another when the time is right. 

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