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 Paulo Coelho's Brida Do you believe? Do you believe in the one, the only, that special someone? Is there such a thing as a soulmate for each of us? If so, is it possible to go a life time without ever finding your soulmate? Or, is it possible to meet your soulmate and not realize it, passing by as two ships in the dark night?
In Paulo Coelho’s Brida, an exceptional novel about finding one’s soulmate, Coelho describes finding one’s soulmate by taking risks, by making mistakes and by being with the wrong people until you find your soulmate. The other way he describes of finding one’s soulmate is by entering a state of trance in which one can see a bright spot of light over the shoulder of one’s soulmate.
Paulo Coelho is known for taking complex ideas and putting his insightfully thoughtful twists on them. He wrote The Alchemist after all. (Spoiler) And if you have read The Alchemist, you know where the riches were all along – right where the story began. Life is like that, if we slow down and listen to our inner desires closely enough, we can find our answers. The problem comes with the calming down and removing our personal inner critical rational analyzer (whew!).
Brida was an intense read for me because the real twist, at least for me, was that Brida had the desire to become a witch and find her soulmate through spirituality. As with any Paulo Coelho book, you may be contemplating a long time after you are finished reading. I love books that do that, which has made me a huge Coelho fan!
In life we make a lot of mistakes through trial and error, we bang our heads against the proverbial wall time and time again, repeating our mistakes as if our inner record is broken. And we continuously ask the same questions over and over again. Why did I do that? Why me? Why can’t I get it right?
Nobody likes me! I am not worth loving! These statements come afterwards, because, what other answer could there possibly be?
Desperation leads to friction, friction leads to confusion, confusion leads to further desperation and this leads to feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness.
It’s the tricks of the mind we create and put ourselves through, never realizing that we are doing this by allowing too many outside influences to have control of what we think we are looking for – i.e. possessions, style, looks, education, job, etc… none of which, in the grand scheme of things, has anything to do with finding one’s soulmate.
On Paulo Coelho’s personal blog he asks a very good question: Would you try to find your soulmate through magic or by taking risks, making mistakes?
Some may jump to the conclusion, due to the way society hits you with hard knocks and you must claw your way back up again and again, that taking risks and making mistakes is the obvious answer.
Finding one’s soulmate, to me, is about finding our self - understanding our self to the point that we are comfortable with who we are and love our self from within without the need for external assurance. How can one truly be loved by someone else, or give the same love in return, if we are not comfortable with and love our self first?
~Bryan
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Oh yes, you are right…
Regards from Germany from “ADH-Essi”, author at http://www.gehirnknick.de
Reply to ADH-EssiAnd thanks for the book tip. Paulo Coelho ist really a great writer, but I haven’t read Brida so far.
What to do when it seems to have found more than one soulmate??? How to decide?
Hey Bryan! Well, this is a very timely subject for me. That sounds like a heck of a book, I might just look for it myself.
I am having a “crisis” of sorts in my marriage, realizing that I didn’t marry someone I was passionate about (though I love him and enjoy being with him most of the time). I have had many wild loves in my life, felt close to a having a “soul mate” but chose someone who was crazy about me and who I trusted to always be there for me.
Being ADD, this has proved quite a bummer for my “please excite me all of the time” side! Having a STABLE, uneventful relationship has made me depressed at times. I am 40 years old and feel like I may have “missed the boat” a little, allowing my wild side to fall away. So I have been left wondering if I am blaming my marriage because I have become tired and bored of my life in general? I wanted to separate from my husband recently, but I thought that I should work on the ADD first and then see how I feel about things.
I am seeing a very good psychologist and I may try to get some meds and see how I feel.
Deep down, I don’t feel that he is my “soul mate,” but then I don’t feel that there is just ONE person out there who can fulfill us. He fulfills certain things and is a good partner. I need to fulfill myself first, THEN I can say whether or not my relationship is a dud.
I certainly could see myself with someone else, someone more passionate about life, someone who shares my spiritual path, etc., but then would I just end up with another person I’d tire of for some other reasons??? Many questions come up when ADD is the third party in the relationship… Sigh….
Reply to ClarissaI’m ADD compounded by TBI-
Reply to BCDaveSBeen on many “wild goose chases” in search of a “soulmate”– here I am again back to what is apparently the only “soulmate” with whom I don’t experience an endless chain of …’misunderstandings’ –”She” is always there, forever encouraging me to do more but never complaining! “She” has many forms, all of which for me inevitably entail something audible. “She” can be unspeakably beautiful, stoic, supportive, seductive, all at the best possible moment. Alas, how wonderful it would be to have a HUMAN such soulmate! Presumably it would be a “triangular relationship” for both of us; it hasn’t seemed to work out otherwise…. … …. BCDaveS
thanks for the post, it has inspired me to start a book group based on Paulo’s books. He is so inspirational.
i do believe in soulmates and that there can be more than one in a life time. i feel that each time we share deeply with another we exchange a bit of our soul with them and they us. thus we are always creating mates. yet there are some from previous lives that are pulling us to them so strongly that we can and should not resist, there is a reason and a lesson to be learned from them.
i know that i have learned from mine. there was a time i felt that i would spend me life loving just one person but now i know that i can and will love more than one person deeply for all time. love is to be shared and it will does not limit us to one person only our mortal concepts do. so yes find love of self, so that the soul can do what it is meant to do love as many people as possible as deeply as you will allow.
that said i still know that there is one person out there that is better suited to my mortal needs, better able to love and accept me in this life than another. while i have meet many loving and wonderful men in my life i know that there is a man out there that will be able to love and appreciate me for who and what i am better and more fully than others is he more a soulmate than another, i am not sure but i do know that he is better able to assist me is completing my tasks in this life.
i know that the loves i have had so far prep me for the love that will sustain and complete me the rest of my life. the men and women i have loved and been loved by have opened me up to greater love and great knowledge of self and others. there is no limit to the love that the universe holds only the love that we are willing to allow in our lives. thus when i find or am found by the love that will compliment me the rest of my life i will be better able to reconcile my self to it. having known love and felt possession i will know the freedom of the love of my mate. when the energy of two people connects and flows together freely that is when we should take notice and know that our soul mate is not far away. whither it is an indication of our openness to freely and openly connecting to an others energy or that they are the one. each will know for themself the answer.
Reply to marshapeace and love
When you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true..
and this includes finding your soulmate.
Reply to Priyashmita GuhaI don’t believe in soulmates. …
I honestly believe romanticizing the concept of soulmate hinders personal growth and potential for committing to a relationship. People have a tendency to sit back and wait on the fence about a relationship’s possibilities, instead of doing the things that create THE relationship of their dreams. A Soulmates isn’t something we find by accident or attracting. A soulmate is state of being that is a result of putting the effort into CREATING the relationship and life of our dreams.
But I sure love everybody!
Steve
Reply to Steve SoucyFinding one’s soulmate is an alluring proposition, but to me, a misguided one. I believe it is important to seek self – understanding, but in relationship to a Higher power (God, Yeshua) . We could… be comfortable with who we are and love our self from within, but miss an invitation in our universe for a relationship of eternal joy. I don’t need external assurance -from some mystic sign or some quantitative personality test approved by the APA (or the Mistakes of living, Inc.) I believe that if I am right with God, I will experience being truly loved. And if another is right with God, then I may experience that true love with someone else, or give the same love in return, to my earthly brothers and sisters.
Reply to MontanaShepherdessExcellent comments everyone! I tend to agree that searching for the ‘perfect’ person is practically futile. To expect anyone to be perfect is the ultimate act of unfairness. However, I don’t know if a soulmate is perfection incarnate as a partner or human being. I think when we search for perfection we are dooming ourselves from experiencing love, friendship and compassion. When we love our self and are open to imperfections as part of human nature I think we have a greater opportunity to find sustaining love, the lasting kind.
Bryan
Reply to BryanPS: I have always been a romantic at heart, so I enjoy this topic and the varying thoughts, feelings and opinions
Wounderful comments;however, there is the believe that soulmates is just between man and woman. Soulmates is an spiritual experience that go beyond human rationalize
Reply to Tatianayes. i concur
though so-i know that relationship takes commitment to obligate oneself to: putting their
Reply to janne wbest, most safest self that references health, safety, boundaries and edges-practiced of so
well that the field that a person gives off-is
reflected of these mentioned of-as a vibrative Key to being attractive-and attracting “the
one.” the gift i believe that one who is with ADD/ADHD, managing themselves well with
it about theirselves is-these makeups for their
lives to thrivably work out well-are the crutial
foundation to help them gain authencity that
has them truly heal and adulterate self, and his/
her identity meaningful and mattering.
TBC
janne w
While the ideal of a ‘soulmate’ is appealing – MOST if not ALL of the love stories in book and movie form hold this axiom – we live and deal in reality. There are literally millions of people walking around wounded thanks to this concept – either from a partner that briefly felt the annoying pangs of ‘I’m missing something in life’ to surviving a partner that has left for their own narcissistic journey to find “The One’. (I was one of those folk)
Reply to MichaelRather than betting the house on an unrealistic whim, I would much rather learn to put on different glasses! Instead of wearing the judgmental glases that nitpics my partner’s every shortcoming and glorified the ‘perfection’ of the ‘ideal’, I instead wear the only semi-rose-colored glasses of ‘appreciation’ for my mate (This is a brand new relationship and I am far more optomistic than ever before!). Part of this is simply using the wisdom we gain through growing up; parts of it have already been written from eons past (I Corinthians 13) – love is patient, love is kind, love is not boastful…love believes all things, love endures all things, love hopes all things.
I have serious doubts that God honors the relationship of those that broke apart a marriage for the selfish pursuit of a ‘soulmate’; rather we CAN WORK to turn the present partner (which is mostly done in our own minds anyhow!) into that partner we yearn for so desperately.
What a well-written article! I absolutely agree that we need to love ourselves first, otherwise we will never be able to love others or even find happiness.
Reply to LeenaGreat article, but love in itself is not a concept I can graps. I never learned what love is or even how if feels much cause I shut myself off from very unsupportive/not nurture (hugs what are they) family and a society that doesn’t understand
Now at 44 its all about learning self-love, cause there is a big part of me that still thinks I am the devil child
Reply to LisaI think you are right on about that, self-love is the utmost form of love and only then can one truly accept and, give, love.
Ah, the devil child… aren’t we all? Hopefully, the information here and other people sharing their experiences will help demonstrate that we are not little evil creatures with horns on our heads!
Indeed, we have a lot to offer
Bryan
Reply to Bryan