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“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

Harriet Tubman (c. 1820-1913; Civil War nurse, suffragist, Civil Rights activist)

Chapter 3

The Five Guiding Principles

BEFORE ANY SPIRITUAL being leaves heaven for a lifetime on the earthly plane, he must make a series of vital decisions that will chart his course and determine what he will be able to accomplish.

The decisions you make regarding your upcoming itinerary in this life center on the issues you still have left to resolve. Your decisions are reached along with other souls who are also choosing to return to the earthly plane and with whom you plan to interact. In addition, your plans take into account the existing level of enlightenment you earned from past earthly incarnations and what this enlightenment will allow you to accomplish as a life’s work.

The course you chart will allow you to achieve as much as possible on your earthly journey, although you may be sidetracked from time to time by emotional upheavals, physical illness, and other obstacles.

Have you ever wondered if destiny actually represents an inescapable series of preordained events that propel you inevitably toward certain people, places, or things? Or, is your destiny more accurately defined as a series of open-ended opportunities that you can accomplish by exercising free will?

Destiny can best be described as the blueprint of achievable goals you create for each earthly lifetime that forms your purpose and direction. While each spiritual goal you are meant to achieve is preordained from the moment of birth, the method you employ to accomplish each goal is open entirely to choice and free will.

Although the spiritual destiny that forms the depth and substance of an earthly life is predetermined by each individual soul before birth, how he goes about fulfilling it is up to him. Therefore, despite the fact that you have already specifically created your unique blueprint for this lifetime, the way in which you accomplish it is absolutely a matter of your own awareness, initiative, and perseverance. I refer to the dynamics of your spiritual blueprint for each earthly lifetime as the Five Guiding Principles of Spiritual Destiny.

The Five Guiding Principles of Spiritual Destiny

• Life’s Work

• Issues to Resolve

• Spiritual Contracts

• Awareness of Past Lifetimes

• Preventive Maintenance of the Physical Body

Each of the guiding principles represents a cornerstone in the foundation of your quality of life. It is only through accomplishing your spiritual agenda that you’ll feel a sense of self-worth, direction, and purpose in your life, allowing you to become empowered enough to build relationships with people who will help create joy, peace, and contentment in your everyday existence. Let’s explore each of the Five Guiding Principles of Spiritual Destiny.

Principle One: Life’s Work

Without exception, everyone currently living on the earthly plane has a very specific kind of work to accomplish. Your life’s work represents your purpose in this lifetime, which is one of the most important missions you came to earth to fulfill.

Over the years, many of my clients have confided that they had always believed that their life’s work involved making a substantial difference in other people’s lives.

What I have learned through my channeled sessions is that every soul is destined to make a difference in other people’s lives. We are all reborn on earth to make a significant contribution to the welfare and spiritual progress of other human beings and to leave something positive behind when we decide to return to our home in heaven. If you have already sensed that you have an important kind of work to do, I applaud your awareness! If, however, you remain unconvinced about your ability to meaningfully contribute to the world and make your presence known, you simply have not awakened to the nature of your life’s work.

If you awaken to your purpose and then work systematically and persistently to fulfill it, you are guaranteed success, happiness, fulfillment, and abundance.

But how is this accomplishment possible—when so many people work as hard as they do and never achieve success—or any kind of happiness? What about people who have attained what appears to be the absolute pinnacle of achievement but who are bored and miserable? If success and abundance are guaranteed to everyone, why aren’t more people happy and fulfilled?

The answer is simple. No matter how skilled a person may be in a certain area, no matter how much money he makes, no matter how celebrated he is, no matter how many people may depend on him for their sustenance, he will never feel an ongoing, true sense of fulfillment if he has not discovered his life’s work. No level of affluence or recognition will satisfy the hunger one feels inside his soul if he is not navigating his intended path.

Once we discover the right path, we have the power to manifest material abundance to enjoy a more comfortable life. Although we are all responsible for assisting others on their spiritual paths, we must never forget that we have a responsibility to self as well. Therefore, when we become aware of our purpose and continue to strive toward our spiritual goals, there is ultimately nothing that will obstruct our path to success. If we work through adversity, sidestep unnecessary obstacles, and remain focused on our goals, we are guaranteed success!

Through the years, however, I have learned that it’s possible to have found the right path and still encounter plenty of adversity. The objective is to never give up. Use the adversity that you encounter to fuel your momentum rather than allowing it to be an excuse to become derailed.

But how can you know exactly what your life’s work really is? There are two wonderful sources of information available to you. First, I recommend that you look inward and ask yourself the following question. “If I had only one year left in my life and I could work in any occupation—and I’d be assured of resounding success—what would I choose?”

By answering this question, you’re getting in closer touch with your soul and all the information recorded in its memory bank about your current life’s work. You can be confident that you’re accessing soul information when you sense a passionate emotional feeling in response to your question. If you don’t feel any particular passion when you ask that question, perhaps you need to give yourself more time to become comfortable in accessing your feelings, particularly if you are more of a thinker than a feeler. You may also consider hypnosis, which may be a very valuable resource in opening the communication with your soul.

The second option open to you is asking your guardian angels about your life’s work. From my experience, I can assure you that once you develop your channeling ability, you can learn exactly what you planned for yourself as a purpose, how you can successfully move into your life’s work, and how you can time the transition to make it as stress-free as possible. Having the ability to access such detailed and comprehensive information about your life’s work is one of the best incentives you’ll ever have for learning to channel!

In many of our incarnations, we do not plan to perform our life’s work until we’ve reached our thirties or forties. Up to that point, we expect to be consumed by the business of resolving issues that often hamper forward movement and chances of success. Of course, there are obvious exceptions. Child actress Shirley Temple found the path of her very extraordinary life’s work in Hollywood—at the ripe old age of three—in the 1930’s.

As a side note, I recognize that retrieving information from the soul takes some practice, as does building the ability to channel, and I have developed several practice exercises that are included at the end of this book.

Next, to further your awareness, I’ve created two detailed checklists that will help you determine at a glance if you are currently doing your life’s work.

Key indications that you have found your life’s purpose:

You are currently happy and fulfilled by the work you are doing.

You feel excited about getting back to work on Monday or after taking time off because of illness or a vacation.

You’re recharged and energized after you finish work each day.

You have some control over your structure and can make decisions about your schedule.

You are fueled to inspire, motivate, and encourage the professional success and spiritual growth of the people around you.

Frequent verbal and financial recognition is bestowed upon you for your hard work.

You’re consistently stimulated by the work you do and the goals you have established.

Each day is a little different from the day before.

You feel an ongoing sense of freedom, accomplishment, confidence, and positive self-worth.

You are utilizing your strongest talents and abilities on the job.

There is the opportunity to develop greater professional skills through handling new challenges.

You are inspired by a passion that continually widens the scope of your professional horizons.

You have written goals that represent what you plan to achieve in the coming days, weeks, and months.

You know, on a soul level, that you have found your true calling.

Key indications that you are not conducting your life’s purpose:

You are unhappy and unfulfilled by the work you are doing.

In your heart, you dream of doing something else, possibly a type of work you fantasized about as a child.

Family, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers comment, “Have you ever thought about changing your job and doing such-and-such? You’d be so good at it!”

You feel depressed at the thought of starting the workweek or returning from vacation.

When you get sick, you’re actually relieved that you don’t have to go to work.

You’re drained and demoralized after finishing work each day, and you find it harder and harder to recharge your batteries to feel better.

You find yourself becoming dependent on sabotaging behaviors to emotionally comfort yourself.

You check your watch consistently throughout the workday, longing for breaks, lunch, quitting time, and the weekend.

You feel frustrated because you have no control over your lockstep daily routine. Your boss dictates when, where, and how you work.

You’re tired of working for a demanding boss who isn’t as productive, creative, talented, or intelligent as you are.

You’re resentful for not being verbally or financially recognized for your hard work.

You feel an overwhelming sense of insecurity about losing your job.

You’re angry at being overlooked for promotions and raises or bonuses that you’ve actually earned.

When you’re at work, you find yourself looking around and wondering, “What am I doing here? Why don’t I feel comfortable or connected with anyone?”

You are bored by handling the very same tasks day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

You have significant talents and abilities that you are not utilizing.

You feel a profound sense of having outgrown your job. You feel there is nothing to look forward to in terms of transferring or being promoted within the company.

You are not being suitably compensated for the time, commitment, and experience you contribute daily.

The thought of being in the same job a year from now makes you want to throw yourself off the top of a very high building.

Principle Two: Issues to Resolve

Issues represent all of the different forms of human experience on the earthly plane. An issue is best described as a necessary learning experience that helps an individual evolve emotionally and spiritually.

Simply put, resolving your outstanding issues is paramount in allowing you to improve the quality of your life. You can easily recognize the issues you are currently working through by examining the apparent problems or patterns of turmoil in your life. There are some issues that remain so painful for us that we carry them from lifetime to lifetime, attempting repeatedly to resolve them. Other issues can be easily worked through without much anxiety or suffering.

From lifetime to lifetime, the way in which you plan to address certain issues will vary dramatically because the opportunities for spiritual growth shift and change according to what is happening on the planet historically.

Consider how periods in history have affected exactly when you’ve decided to return to the earthly plane, and also think about what you were hoping to accomplish in terms of your life’s purpose and resolving outstanding issues.

Perhaps in a past lifetime you were a holistic healer on the lost continent of Atlantis, a celebrated performer in Shakespearean England, a victim of the bubonic plague, an artist during the Renaissance, a slave in nineteenth-century America, an American president, a member of European royalty, an “untouchable” living in a Calcutta slum, one of Custer’s soldiers at Little Bighorn, a shipping magnate during the Industrial Revolution, a passenger on the Titanic, a skilled flyer during World War I, a physician who developed a life-saving vaccine, or a Jewish mother of six young children living in Poland at the time of the Holocaust.

Unlike the delayed timing so often involved in accomplishing life’s purpose, working on one’s issues usually begins quite early in life. You may relate to the fact that many people who are on the earthly plane right now have chosen to start tackling distressing issues stemming from very early childhood.

Being exposed to trauma at such a young age often has a shattering, scarring effect on children because they are completely vulnerable to the adults in their household, helpless to make the transition out of a painful living environment. Children are defenseless participants in the hard work of dealing with issues, and the resulting problems they carry with them are sometimes not seen, heard, or considered until many years later when the problems resurface to create havoc in their adult lives.

If your childhood was traumatic, remember you purposely planned that situation as part of your destiny in order to evolve to a higher level of enlightenment. It might be said that those people who exposed you to their toxic dysfunction when you were a child have been your very best teachers.

You deliberately picked those troubled people because you expected them to behave just as they did at their existing levels of enlightenment. Keep in mind that although you most likely suffered many wounds, it was a very strong and courageous decision on your part to plan something so distressing, especially knowing that in your most formative years you would be utterly dependent on those from whom you would experience the greatest adversity. Think for a moment about all of the spiritual wisdom and maturity you gained from those impossible relationships and how you learned what not to do from them. And if you’ve already learned everything you had intended, you’ll blessedly never be exposed to those issues again!

After I had been dating my husband, Britt, for several months, we started to talk about our respective histories, which included some painful memories of past relationships and the fact that both of us came from troubled families. I described how my alcoholic father had brutalized my mother verbally and physically throughout my childhood. Britt’s eyes filled with tears as he warmly embraced me, and then he murmured, “What a wonderful teacher he must have been. I can see why you chose him as a father. You were very fortunate.”

Very fortunate? I thought Britt was nuts! I was aghast that he said such a thing about a man who had traumatized my entire family. What could I possibly have learned from a man I could never respect or depend on as a father? I was fortunate to have a father who rejected and abandoned my brothers and me from the time I could remember because he was so consumed with destroying my mother and himself? Having endured emotionally painful therapy for some time to heal from these childhood wounds, I should be grateful to this man?

Britt saw my shocked expression, and before I could stutter a reply, he explained softly, “Don’t you understand? You chose him as a father because you knew he would behave exactly as he did. You must have had some issues that you needed to address, and your father fit the bill perfectly. You’re the person you are today partially because of that turmoil.”

His statement rang true to me, and I began to listen more openly. I started to see things in a very different light. We discussed the idea that because of the absence of my father’s love, I had no feelings of security or consistency as a child. And due to my father’s drinking and abusive behavior, I grew up in a war-zone environment that was characterized by ongoing financial hardships, fear of the sporadic beatings he gave my mother, and the awareness that at any time he might decide to make good on one of his frequent threats to kill her.

Britt helped me recognize that I didn’t have to respect, admire, or even like someone who had a purpose in my life as a teacher. Spiritually speaking, it was my father’s responsibility to me to act the way he did, and then it was my responsibility to myself to transcend the adversity and learn from it. So what was I able to learn from my father?

The early heartache of his neglect, rejection, and disinterest in me began the process of independence and empowerment that I am so proud of today. His abusive behavior toward my mother taught me about setting boundaries and helped me to understand the emotionally crippling effects of low self-esteem. In addition, as a result of moving beyond this difficult time, I was able to develop the determination to address my subsequent issues with less fear and unwillingness.

Upon further reflection, I realized that I also learned what not to do. In my interactions with other people, particularly children, I always try to remember that every human being should be treated with dignity, respect, and consideration. Although my old wounds are healed and I’ve never been happier or more at peace, I can still vividly recall the terror of cowering from a parent gone berserk because of a combination of anger and alcohol. The memory of those early years helps me to share a heartfelt sympathy and compassion for those who have endured similar experiences.

Even in therapy, I hadn’t considered that my suffering could have been a precious opportunity to learn from my father, who was destined to be one of my most valuable teachers. Britt taught me, with his greater maturity and wisdom, that traumatic or disturbing issues can always be reframed as positive learning experiences as long as I am ready to become a willing student.

Many of my clients have asked why life has to be so fraught with learning experiences. Why does it seem as though they are always starting over? Why, just as soon as they have cleared up one set of problems, are they bombarded by others? Why are they so driven to repeat the same patterns of self-destructive behavior in relationships over and over again? They ask why life isn’t more satisfying or secure, as it seems for so many other people.

What so many of us ask during the most gut-wrenching times of our lives is, “Why me? Why does it always happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?”

Although there are a few enlightened souls who have already resolved all of their issues, rest assured that most people are still struggling with issues just like you are, no matter how flawless or successful their lives may appear from the outside. They may very well be working on different issues, and the nature of what they’re trudging through may seem much less arduous than your current challenges.

In spite of your enlightenment and maturity, it is sometimes demoralizing to see other people create the kind of daily existence that you’ve only fantasized about in your dreams. Others seem to have secured a blissful personal relationship, raised well-adjusted children, reached a pinnacle of professional accomplishment, established financial independence, and maintained excellent physical health and fitness.

When one follows one’s chosen destiny on the earthly plane, that wonderful quality of life is attainable. Nevertheless, when you’re a witness to such fulfillment but not currently enjoying that kind of existence, your life may be extremely depressing—not because you begrudge the other person his quality of life but because his success highlights everything you haven’t yet achieved.

As a defense mechanism, we may self-destructively justify our own lack of initiative by thinking to ourselves: “Well, they have a special talent, so it’s easier for them.” “Having a rich family like they have would solve a lot of problems.” “They didn’t have to contend with a childhood like mine.” “They reached success so early, they’ll never know what a real struggle is!”

These uncomfortable feelings may provide you with an incentive to work toward a better life. If you can replace the “if only I had their success” thought pattern with the type of philosophy that proclaims, “if he or she can do it, then I can, too, by following my own special destiny,” you’ll develop a powerful new ability to move forward and create the quality of life you most desire.

At the same time that we’re feeling sorry for ourselves, it’s amazing how superior we often act toward people who are still struggling with issues we’ve already resolved. For example, have you ever found yourself thinking any of the following thoughts?

“What is taking him so long to see the problem? Is he a nincompoop? I’m going to help by giving him my advice!” “Why is she so self-destructive? Why can’t she just muster the determination and give up the addiction? I’m going to give her the name of my therapist!” “How can she allow herself to be treated that way? Why doesn’t she stand up for herself? If that happened to me, I’d give him a piece of my mind! And I’m going to tell her so!”

If you’ve actually said anything resembling those statements, especially when no one asked for your opinion, you’re attempting to teach someone who has not yet indicated that he or she is willing to be your student. You may be earnestly trying to help, but to an individual who really isn’t ready to move forward, it may feel as though you’re dragging him kicking and screaming. All of us have had that experience, and it certainly isn’t pleasant at the time, especially when you’re the one on the receiving end.

A client of mine describes the situation like this: “It’s like trying to teach a pig to fly. You won’t get anywhere, and it makes the pig very annoyed.”

Do you realize those very same family members, friends, and acquaintances who are still grappling with the issues you’ve worked through may see your life as simple, secure, and so much less difficult than theirs? Have you ever heard someone say, in all sincerity, “Well, you just don’t understand—your life has been so easy. You’ve never had problems like mine.”?

It sounds as if they’re insinuating that you’ve never had to struggle or worry and that perhaps things have simply been handed to you. If you’ve been the recipient—or target—of such a remark, you were probably dumbfounded. When similar statements have been made to me, I’ve discovered that it’s pointless to argue. I try to consider that perhaps I’ve worked through some issues that they haven’t, and my life could very well seem, from the outside, much less complicated than theirs.

I also believe that if you can rely on your sense of humor in the process of resolving issues, the ability to laugh at yourself as well as to appreciate the irony in life will certainly make your earthly experiences more tolerable.

Because it typically requires significant adversity to resolve an issue, life’s lessons often feel as though we’ve been hit over the head with a twenty-pound iron skillet. What’s more, some of us have to be whacked over the head several times before we figure things out—which makes us considerably bruised in the process. Even worse, sometimes we continue to be hit over the head while remaining clueless about what’s happening.

I have to admit that I used to be the poster girl for people who needed to be reminded of an issue several times before finally resolving it. But bruises do heal, and through this process, I finally gained some hard-won maturity and enlightenment. Unbelievably, those of us who take a little while longer to learn have a distinct advantage. When we finally recognize an issue and choose to learn from it—wow, have we ever learned the lesson thoroughly!

Consequently, if you continue to repeat the same patterns of derailing problems from job to job, or from relationship to relationship, you must ask yourself, “What am I missing? What is the lesson I am supposed to be learning here?”

Remember that you attract the learning experiences you need at that time. There are no accidents in the universe. Everything that happens has occurred for a specific reason and at a time that will ultimately be most beneficial for all involved.

Concerning the troublesome people in your life, understand that each stressful relationship has a specific purpose involving the resolution of shared issues. Concentrate on the people in your life with whom you have dissension. What are you supposed to be learning from them? What, if anything, are you contributing to the present dysfunction? In order to streamline your forward movement, it’s important to avoid the self-destructive and self-righteous habit of blaming others for the disharmony. When you fail to recognize your accountability in the spiritual equation, the universe will continue to provide the same frying-pan-over-the-head learning experiences until you understand. And the learning experiences that continue to focus on the same issues become tougher and more serious as time passes.

How can you determine how thoroughly you’re addressing your issues? I’m going to share a wonderful, insightful exercise with you that has been recommended to a number of my clients by their guardian angels.

Taking Stock

Sit down with a notebook and pen to perform what the angels refer to as “Taking Stock.” The process of taking stock is an extremely valuable investment of your time and energy because it will help you understand how you have been investing your spiritual and emotional energies. You will realize how much you’ve actually grown, even if it seems to you as though you haven’t been accomplishing anything at all.

Set aside several hours and find a comfortable spot where you won’t be disturbed. What you’re going to do is look back over the last ten to twelve years of your life. Arbitrarily pick a starting point that reflects a difficult situation that you experienced. It could be a lingering injury or illness, a hurtful relationship, an awful job, or a memorable financial hardship. Just make brief notes about each episode in a sentence or two, and then continue to recall anxiety-filled trials and tribulations that readily come to mind until you reach your life at the present time. You’ll probably end up with quite a list! Then, entry by entry, go back over your list and ask yourself how you would handle each dilemma if it were to occur today. This is the fun part!

Although it might initially sound like a depressing exercise, it is actually one of the most emotionally reassuring tasks you’ll ever perform. I promise that once you start examining how you would respond to the exact same set of problems today, you’ll be amazed at how differently you would react to many of them. You might even find yourself chuckling at imagining how the others involved in these past issues might be affected by your newfound assertiveness and maturity if the same situation presented itself today. You’ll learn how wisely you’ve been investing your time and energy and how much you have actually learned from the accumulation of all those experiences.

Upon reflection, you’ll discover that you’ve grown into a completely different person than you were even a year ago. This encouraging realization will allow you to acknowledge that as long as you work on your issues, you’ll continue to evolve and be able to create a far better quality of life.

You can take stock as often as you like. It’s an extremely important exercise because without it, it’s difficult to objectively measure how successfully you’ve been moving forward with your issues. All of the lessons you will encounter during this earthly incarnation are the learning experiences you intentionally chose while mapping your current spiritual agenda. If you’re beginning to wonder why you should address issues that are hurtful or time-consuming to resolve, consider the alternative.

Ignoring or avoiding issues will ensure that the quality of your relationships, levels of professional achievement, and financial abundance will remain exactly where they are right now. Are you satisfied enough with your current quality of life to envision yourself in the very same position one year from now? Five years from now? Ten years from now? That’s exactly the life you’ll be creating if you procrastinate. One element of predictability on the earthly plane is that the issues you planned for this lifetime that remain unresolved will always be there—hovering—no matter where you go, what you do, or with whom you interact.

Although I resolved the childhood issues I had with my father by the time I was in my early twenties, I was bombarded with a series of different issues in a terrible marriage several years later.

Besides being in a chaotic relationship, I felt clueless about my purpose and direction. Out of ignorance, I fervently denied that I had any responsibility for the state of my life, and instead, I blamed everybody else. I deluded myself by thinking, “I’m a good person. Don’t I often put other people’s feelings before my own? I haven’t done anything to deserve this unhappiness. Why are all the people in my life so impossible?”

As the years went by, I became even more miserable. When I finally realized that the people in my life weren’t going to do anything to change their behavior, I came to understand that I would never have their cooperation to make improvements in my life. That acknowledgment hit me like a ton of bricks. If they weren’t interested in improving our relationship, then was I trapped where I was?

It occurred to me that perhaps I really didn’t need their cooperation to be able to change my life. Maybe I couldn’t improve any of my existing relationships, but I could certainly work on myself. After all, even though my father and I had not been in contact and he did not get involved in my therapy, I was still able to resolve all the issues connected with him.

That moment was like an epiphany for me. I finally began to understand the issue of accountability. I decided to explore my responsibility for the challenges in my life, and I realized that I had been unknowingly perpetuating those problems by denying I played any role. When I started slowly working on them, one by one, I couldn’t believe what I discovered.

All the anger, frustration, insecurity, and unhappiness I’d created by avoiding and denying my issues had been much harder to deal with than the actual process of working through them! Never mind all the precious time and energy I had wasted! Little by little, I could feel my life improving. On a daily basis, the heavy weight of dysfunction I had carried for so long was remarkably dissipating, and I sensed a remarkable, new lightness of spirit that I wanted to share with everyone. I came to an awareness of what it means to release the struggle.

So what happened to the people with whom I had the difficult relationships? What was their response to my work on self? My newfound enthusiasm for becoming emotionally healthy was incredibly threatening to some people but served as an inspiration for others to start their own work. I learned that it didn’t really matter how the other people in my life reacted. Ultimately, as individuals, we are in control of what we decide to do with our lives. I couldn’t nag, push, cry, cajole, coerce, encourage, or coldly withdraw from people in my life who were choosing to remain where they were in terms of their issues with me. I discovered that by doing so, I was being presumptuous, judgmental, and controlling, in spite of what I considered to be good intentions.

The people in your life who are ready to work on their issues will show positive interest in the spiritual work you are doing. They will want you to share what you’re learning and discovering and will encourage and support your progress. If they’re not ready to work on certain issues, they’ll likely be disinterested, negative, threatened, angry, or even sarcastic about the effort you are making.

Again, remember that their response is a decision they are making about their own lives, which they have a right to do. Nevertheless, it’s important to recognize when other people are attempting to make you feel guilty or manipulate you into derailing your progress because they are intimidated or threatened that you might evolve into a different person. Isn’t that the whole purpose in doing the work in the first place?

We all have a personal responsibility to discover exactly what issues we still have to contend with and to resolve them as quickly as possible in order to move on to a future that is happier and more secure than the present. To that end, I strongly recommend that if you’ve been attempting to work through an issue for some time and have been continually unsuccessful, you might want to consider visiting a good therapist who will help to speed up your progress.

Principle Three: Spiritual Contracts

A spiritual contract is an agreement, or commitment, reached on the heavenly plane between two or more souls who plan to interact with each other during an upcoming earthly lifetime.

Have you ever wondered about the purpose behind all your important relationships? Have you considered that each family member, friend, colleague, and acquaintance has entered your life for a very specific reason? All of the significant people in your life have a commitment to fulfill with you, as you do with them. You may even have a spiritual contract with someone who is meant to pass through your life in mere minutes, hours, days, or weeks!

There are basically two different types of human interactions that exist on the earthly plane. First, there is the learning-experience kind of relationship in which two people come together to learn from one another through adversity and hardship. Second, there is the soul-mate type of relationship in which two people come together to provide one another unconditional support and encouragement.

In a learning-experience relationship, you will connect with another person to address a particular issue, or group of issues, until the issue is explored—or in the best-case scenario, completely resolved. Learning-experience relationships may emerge quite pleasantly but in time always erupt into various levels of confusion, miscommunication, loneliness, and frustration. In some cases, these spiritually important relationships begin with immediate turmoil and continue to boil explosively.

There are other instances in which your learning experiences are much less dramatic. The relationship is not abusive or hurtful but instead has become unmistakably stale and sour. At this stage, you may feel bored to tears and quite anxious to move on so that you may start “living” again. Toward the end of a learning experience, at the time when you have spiritually accomplished everything you were supposed to learn from the relationship, you are likely to lament, “My husband (or sister/mother/best friend/business colleague, etc.) is never going to grow or try to work through our issues. Things will never change, and I realize now that I’m not being true to myself if I remain in this relationship.”

The relevance of your learning-experience relationships is that they are intended to provide a sense of balance for your lessons. The people with whom you interact in these types of relationships are either working through your same issues, or they are working through issues that represent the opposite end of the spectrum. Remember that the whole purpose of an earthly lifetime is for you to accomplish the dynamics of your particular destiny and return to the heavenly plane a much more mature and enlightened being.

For example, perhaps when you were mapping out this current incarnation, the soul who agreed to be your sister promised to help you develop the ability to set boundaries because she needed your help with her issue of control.

Maybe the soul who agreed to be your best friend promised to help you address your issues of insecurity and denial by having sex with your husband because she needed your assistance with her issues of honesty and betrayal.

Possibly, the soul who agreed to be your spouse promised to help you resolve your issues of independence and self-esteem because he needed your support with his issues of anger and abuse.

Likewise, the soul who agreed to be your daughter promised to help you work through your issue of procrastination because she needed your guidance with her issue of impatience.