Chicken Soup for the Soul 20th Anniversary Edition

by Jack Canfield

  Crystal and I find great joy in fully engaging in our relationship. We understand that our relationship is the rock that our lives function and flow upon so naturally; it becomes paramount to business, friends, family, church, or any outside offerings.

  As co-creator of the legendary Chicken Soup for the Soul book series, a super busy professional speaker, and a TV personality, the question I am asked most is: “How did you find such a perfect soul mate?” The more frequently unasked question is: “How can I do it, too? You two seem to be in perfect love, outrageous joy, inexplicable friendship, and live in cooperative harmony. How are you able to do this and to be together 24/7 365 days a year?”

  Because this delightful question is repeated with such frequency, I choose to answer it openly and completely. It is my hope that this will serve to expand your love, thinking, being, and becoming a soul mate from the inside out. If you are looking to become a complete soul mate or looking for a soul mate, may this inspire the hope that it is fully possible to do so. The beginning insight I must clearly impart is that first you have to become exactly what you are looking for.

  In our Twin Flame Relationship, we understand that we together create today, tomorrow, and our future. We do that by holding a space that is free from emotional baggage of the past. Because life and emotional triggers continue to happen, we dedicate the first hour of our morning in prayer and meditation together. We dream about how we want to share the rest of our lives together and how we will maximize our life experience and our love.

  So, the question is: ‘How did I get here?’ I witnessed my parents having agreements and disagreements, but overridingly, they loved and cared for their children and each other. They put the family unit and their relationship above the frays and vicissitudes of our life experience. I thought that was what happened in all marriages. They worked as a partnership and ironed out their differences in kind and omni-considerate ways.

  My first marriage experience was something very different. While my ex-wife was an important part of my life for many years, over time the relationship became combative, complicated, and confrontational. After 27 years of giving everything I had to give I knew I had to end the marriage. I felt I had partially lost the essence of who I was and what was left would drain away if I stayed. I filed for divorce.

  Even with scores of friends and fans around me all of the time, it felt frightening and lonely to not be in a marriage anymore. I realized that being married to my soul mate had been my top priority my entire life, which is why I hung on in a dysfunctional marriage for so long. I somehow thought I could turn it around.

  As I pondered where to start over, battling mild depression from what felt like a heartbreaking loss, I came back to the thought that God had painted on my heart long ago, that my soul mate was still out there somewhere, and I would find her. I started dreaming a new dream of what perfection would be like, even if it only existed in the secret places of my own mind.

  In many of my books and teachings throughout the years, I taught manifestation principles: figure out exactly what you want... write it down in detail with specificity... visualize it to realize it... etc.

  So I did just that! I sat down and wrote out 267 things I desired in my future soul mate. I shared them in confidence with only two of my mastermind partners, because they seemed to border on the impossible. I tucked my list safely away.

  A short time after that, I was speaking at an aspiring author’s conference in Los Angeles. From the stage I clearly saw a radiant spirit of a woman in the middle of the audience. I was so drawn to what I saw. She made a dynamic, lasting and irresistible first impression. That was the good news. The bad news was she was seated next to some guy. Later, after the lunch break, she was again before my eyes as a striking human presence, only this time she was alone. My soul rejoiced. I asked someone about her and they told me she too was divorced and single and her name was Crystal.

  During the early evening VIP reception, people surrounded me from my lecture, asking endless questions. I saw Crystal across the room. To my utter delight, another attendee waived her hands wildly and inadvertently knocked over a full glass of red wine, dousing Crystal’s white slacks.

  I quickly dashed from the circle of fans surrounding me and rushed to her side, immediately offering to save her just drenched slacks with club soda from a nearby kitchen in the hotel. Fortunately, I knew my way around the hotel because I had spoken there tens of times. Finally! I had gotten my moment alone with her.

  After solving her stained slacks problem, I asked if she had had dinner. She had not. I kindly asked her to join me, with the proviso that we had to leave the premises because hundreds of attendees would not let us speak privately. She agreed and we were off to a phenomenal Hollywood restaurant.

  When we arrived, there was a long waiting line. We went to the front of the line. The maître d’ ignored me and mumbled: “Who is she?”

  I replied: “You don’t know her?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Jokingly, I said, “The Queen of Denmark.”

  “Seriously?”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Okay, so who are you?”

  My answer would determine whether or not we got a table. So, in the spirit of creating a worthwhile memory, I said: “Who travels with the Queen?”

  He thought a minute, and blurted out, “The King... you’re not...”

  I smiled, nodded and we proceeded to get the best private table in the place.

  Happily seated, we giggled together over what had just happened! Time disappeared as we each unfolded our entire lives before the other. Our hearts and souls seemed to synchronize in a way neither of us had ever felt. It was a brand new experience for both of us. We tingled just being together. We were in bliss. Three years later, under the majestic red rocks of Sedona, Arizona, we were joyfully married.

  About six months into my wedded bliss, I was cleaning my computer desktop and stumbled upon a document called “Soul Mate Goals.” I was tickled because I wanted to see how close I had gotten to the characteristics, virtues, and qualities I had so deeply desired in a soul mate.

  As I read through them, I was astounded. I realized God had manifested my dreams and beyond for my perfect life partner. Crystal literally was everything I had hoped for and more. I believe that my dreams and prayers were heard and answered.

  Here I share 112 of those original soul mate qualities I wrote down. I only share them with you to inspire you to achieve the same or more. If you’re already married, may I recommend that you write down everything imaginable that you want in your ideal relationship and see how close you’re coming to being that person you dream of. Perhaps, as both of you write out your own journey to soul mated-ness, later, you will feel open to sharing, comparing, and growing evermore loving towards one another. Often when people are dissatisfied in marriage it’s because they’re not clearly communicating their most important needs and truths.

  My recommendation is that you generate your own comprehensive list. My list is for inspirational and launching purposes only. Remember, whatever you want wants you. Most importantly, you have to live up to and exceed personally all that you request of another. When I did my list, I knew with the help of my mastermind partners, that I needed to become more of the things I desired and I set to work on myself to accomplish that.

  The question you always need to ask yourself when you address your own wants and needs is: “Who do I have to be to attract this woman/man? Do I and will I demonstrate these attributes myself?”

  Mark’s desires in his future soul mate:

  1. Available

  2. Master kisser/lovingly tactile*

  3. Similar values

  4. Has great personal strength

  5. User friendly

  6. Elegant

  7. Intelligent

  8. Conservative personality

  9. Great lover

  10. Adventure

  11. Lives in So. Cal or willing to move here o
r we agree to another place

  12. Well-traveled and willing to travel

  13. Totally loves me and demonstrates it

  14. Working on self-mastery and spiritual mastery

  15. Likes my business

  16. Beautiful and takes care of herself

  17. We become each other’s number one priority

  18. Excited and enthusiastic about life and living

  19. Vitally healthy, health oriented

  20. Into personal growth and self-development

  21. Happy

  22. Slender and radiantly fit

  23. Has a great personality

  24. Superb conversationalist

  25. Wise

  26. Witty

  27. Wonderful

  28. Imaginative

  29. Magnanimous

  30. Philanthropic before I showed up

  31. Fun to be with

  32. A smile

  33. Clean, neat, and smells good naturally

  34. Inspires evermore love

  35. Cooperative

  36. Financially savvy

  37. Under-spender — lives below her means

  38. Has created some of her own means

  39. Knows herself

  40. Flexible

  41. Social graces and practices

  42. Wants us to entertain and be entertaining

  43. Playful and adventurous

  44. Loves to dance

  45. Thinks abundance

  46. Wants to create superior memories

  47. We can talk forever through the decades

  48. Lives in ideas

  49. Wants to make the world work

  50. Is passionately on purpose

  51. Sophisticated

  52. We have a profound and growing soulular connection

  53. We are soul mates

  54. Loves to exercises, stretch and work on her strength, health, flexibility, aerobics and balance daily

  55. Wants to see the world

  56. Nurturing spirit

  57. Has deep spiritual practices

  58. Meditates

  59. Creative

  60. Non-smoker

  61. Non-alcoholic

  62. Non-drug user

  63. Charitable

  64. Has great etiquette

  65. Is pro-organic foods and healthy eating

  66. My friends love and enjoy her personality and are thrilled to be with her

  67. Loves my family, kids and grandkids and our kids get along — if hers exist

  68. Culturally, politically, financially, socially, emotionally, and spiritually aware

  69. I can fully feel her love for me

  70. Has her own businesses, products, and services to create

  71. My staff loves, enjoys, respects, admires, and appreciates her

  72. My career is second to her

  73. She helps me know and expand my love

  74. We share similar tastes in almost everything

  75. Energetic and enthusiastic

  76. Wholesome

  77. Fresh, Spring-like

  78. Young-minded and thinks forever young

  79. Neat, Clean

  80. Original rich mindset

  81. Loves me in all my dimensions

  82. Disciplines

  83. Not jealous

  84. Monogamous

  85. Enchanting

  86. Seeks out the good

  87. Compellingly joyful

  88. Sacred experiences

  89. Bright-eyed

  90. Eager to learn forever

  91. Wants to serve

  92. Positive mental attitude

  93. Socially adept

  94. Extraordinary

  95. Proud to be with me and vice versa

  96. Great design sense personally, professionally, for the home’s interior, et al

  97. Great dresser

  98. Beautiful to behold

  99. Lives with ease, grace, and spiritual dignity

  100. Adoring

  101. We give ourselves totally and completely to each other

  102. Works on her own wellbeingness

  103. Has mutually agreed upon boundaries

  104. Truly becomes my best and closest friend

  105. Loyalty

  106. Trust

  107. Faithfulness

  108. Integrity

  109. Honesty

  110. Compassion

  111. Passion

  112. Integrated

  *Bold indicates my absolute must haves

  Now you’ve seen the clear intention I wrote about before I met Crystal. In the secret place within my mind, I knew she had to exist and be alive somewhere or I couldn’t have had such a clear, purposeful vision of her. I knew she had to be alive and that with every breath I took, I was getting closer and closer.

  ~Mark Victor Hansen

  The Spirit of Love

  Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.

  ~Rumi

  In the West what we generally call love is mostly a feeling, not a power. This feeling can be delicious, even ecstatic, but there are many things love is meant to do that feelings cannot.

  When love and spirit are brought together, their power can accomplish anything. Then love, power, and spirit are one.

  There has never been a spiritual master — not Buddha, Krishna, Christ, or Mohammed — who wasn’t a messenger of love, and the power of the message has always been awesome: it has changed the world. Perhaps the very immensity of such teachers has made the rest of us reticent. We do not accept the power love can create inside us, and therefore we turn our backs on our divine status.

  Love is spirit. Spirit is the Self.

  Self and spirit are the same. Asking “What is spirit?” is just a way of asking “Who am I?” There isn’t spirit outside you; you are It. Why aren’t you aware of it? You are, but only in a limited way, like someone who has seen a glass of water but not the ocean. Your eyes see because in spirit you are the witness to everything. You have thoughts because in spirit you know all. You feel love toward another person because in spirit you are infinite love.

  Restoring the spiritual dimension to love means abandoning the notion of a limited self with its limited ability to love and regaining the Self with its unbounded ability to love. The “I” that is truly you is made of pure awareness, pure creativity, pure spirit. Its version of love is free from all memories or images from the past. Beyond all illusion is the source of love, a field of pure potential.

  That potential is you.

  What is the Path?

  The most valuable thing you can bring into any relationship is your spiritual potential. This is what you have to offer when you begin to live your love story at the deepest level. Like the seed needed to start the life of a tree, your spiritual potential is the seed for your growth in love. Nothing is more precious. Seeing yourself with the eyes of love makes it natural to see others that way too. You will be able to say of your beloved, as the poet Rumi does:

  You are the secret of God’s secret.

  You are the mirror of divine beauty.

  The path to love is something you consciously choose to follow, and everyone who has ever fallen in love is shown the first step on that path. The unfolding of spiritual potential has been the chief concern of all the great seers, saints, prophets, masters, and sages in human history. Theirs was a carefully charted quest for the Self, a far cry from our notion of love as a messy, emotional affair.

  In India, the spiritual path is called Sadhana, and although a tiny minority of people give up normal life to wander the world as seekers of enlightenment (these are monks, or sadhus), everyone, from those in the most ancient civilization of Vedic India until today, considers their life to be Sadhana, a path to the Self. Although the Self seems separated from us, it is actually intertwined in everything a person thinks, feels, or does. The fact that you do not intimately know your

  Self is amazing, if you come to think about it.
Looking for your Self, the Vedic sages declared, is like a thirsty fish looking for water. But as long as the Self has yet to be found, sadhana exists.

  The goal of the path is to transform your awareness from separation to unity. In unity we perceive only love, express only love, are only love.

  While the inner transformation is taking place, every path must have some outer form to sustain it. In India a person’s nature leads him to the style of path appropriate to reaching fulfillment. Some people are naturally intellectual and are therefore suited to the path of knowledge, or Gyana. Some are more devotional and are suited to the path of worship, or Bhakti. Some are more outwardly motivated and are suited to the path of action, or Karma.

  The three are not mutually exclusive; ideally, one would include in one’s lifestyle daily periods of study, worship, and service. All three approaches would then be integrated into a single path. It is, however, entirely possible to be so taken with a single approach that your whole existence may be centered on reading the scriptures, contemplation, and scholarly debate — the life of Gyana. Or you may spend your time meditating, chanting, and participating in temple rituals — the life of bhakti. Or you could do social work, apply yourself to mental and physical purification, and do God’s bidding in daily activity — the life of karma. Even in the most traditional sectors of India today, these paths have broken down, giving way to modern lifestyles in which study and work have little or nothing to do with spiritual aspirations.

  What does this mean for a Westerner who has never been exposed to sadhana? I propose that being on the spiritual path is such a natural and powerful urge that everyone’s life, regardless of culture, obeys it. A path is just a way to open yourself to spirit, to God, to love. These are aims we all may cherish, but our culture has given us no established, organized way to reach them. Indeed, never in history has a seeker been confronted with such a disorganized and chaotic spiritual scene.

  What we are left with is relationships. The desire to love and be loved is too powerful ever to be extinguished, and fortunately a spiritual path exists based upon this unquenchable longing. The expression path to love is not simply a metaphor; it reappears throughout spiritual history in many guises. The most ancient version is the bhakti or devotional tradition from Vedic India, in which all forms of love ultimately serve the search for God. The Sufis of Islam have their own devotional lineage. Rumi, who I quote so often, was more than a poet; he was a great teacher of this path. To him God was the sweetest, most desirable lover, whose touch he could feel against the skin: