Carmen Harra, Ph.D.

An old proverb says, "In life, God doesn't give you the people you want. Instead, he gives you the people you need - to teach you, to hurt you, to love you, and to make you exactly the way you're meant to be." Indeed, we know in our hearts that every event is for our ultimate good. Every experience, good or bad, is a learning lesson, and we can choose to search for the greater meaning behind what happens in our lives, or we can decide to close our eyes and miss what we're meant to learn. The decision is yours, but in my opinion, life is a great adventure if we watch attentively and participate actively.

Sometimes, though, we go through experiences we're unsure of. This holds especially true in relationships, because we can never be sure of how they will end. We ask ourselves: Will this be a good or bad experience? How, if ever, will this relationship come to an end? Are my partner and I meant to be or am I losing my time while a better person is still out there? These are difficult questions to answer, because while a new relationship signals a beautiful, fresh beginning, you want to ensure that you're in the right relationship. So on the one hand you're excited, but on the other, you're apprehensive. And this is perfectly normal.

Perhaps you've been in a relationship for a long time, and you're still not certain if it's meant to be. That's fine, too. I have many clients who have been married for 10, 20, even 30 years, and they're still not sure whether their partner is the right person for them!

Then again, you might not be in a relationship, but might be interested in someone in your workplace or community. How do you know if the interest is reciprocal? Is there a chance you could be with this person in the future?

Relationships are most often evaluated by physical compatibility, yet this is certainly not the first or only valid component. It is crucial that we learn how to identify whether we're in the right relationship and be able to evaluate our relationships from a spiritual standpoint.

TEN WAYS TO KNOW IF IT'S SPIRITUALLY DESTINED:

• 1.) It's NOT meant to be if: your relationship is plagued by frequent arguing, constant disagreements, yelling, bickering, angry outbursts, or any form of violence. No matter how much you both swear you love each other and want to be together, unless the angry emotions are controlled, the relationship is not healthy for either party involved.

• It IS meant to be if: your relationship is mostly peaceful and harmonious. Everyone becomes angry once in a while, and that's tolerable. And as long as your relationship doesn't involve a daily display of anger, there should be no reason why it can't continue forward.

 

• 2.) It's NOT meant to be if: your partner is constantly dishonest with you. Pathological liars are characterized by serial dishonesty. And to them, a lie is simply easier to tell than the truth. Everyone will get caught telling a little white lie here and there, but if your partner is repeatedly lying to you about where he or she is going, who he or she is seeing, and what he or she is doing, the relationship cannot get too far.

• It IS meant to be if: the integrity of honesty is alive, and both of you place trust in each other's words as being the truth.

 

• 3.) It's NOT meant to be if: the numbers in your birth codes don't match up.

• It IS meant to be if: your numerology is compatible. This is as true as any other compatibility test you could do. As a rule of thumb, the more numbers you have in common in the month, day and year of your birth, the more you're compatible. Also, the more numbers your partner has which you are missing from your life code, the better; so that your partner has your missing numbers. To calculate your compatibility, simply add up the numbers in your birthday. You will have one number for the month, one for the day, and one for the year. If you add these three figures, you get your life path number. Do the same for your partner. How many numbers coincide? How many numbers from 1 to 9 are you missing that your partner has in their own life code? There is no coincidence between numbers, timing, and the people we meet in our lives! For learn much more about how to calculate your numbers and others' numbers, I recommend buying my book, Decoding Your Destiny published by Simon & Schuster.

 

• 4.) It's NOT meant to be if: one side is always doing more than the other.

• It IS meant to be if: your relationship is fair and balanced, and both sides do their parts and put in the necessary amount of effort to keep the other person content.

 

• 5.) It's NOT meant to be if: you don't share any life values in common.

• It IS meant to be if: you have similar outlooks on the world, and your beliefs of how things should be done coincide.

 

• 6.) It's NOT meant to be if: you no longer feel love for the person. Though you may stay with them for the sake of not splitting up, if the love is absent, you will feel a persistently nagging feeling that something is wrong.

• It IS meant to be if: you remember the reasons why you fell in love with this person each day, and the feelings have remained the same over time.

 

• 7.) It's NOT meant to be if: there is any form or addiction or unhealthy behavior present. It can become extremely difficult to live with, for example, an alcoholic or a person who suffers from bipolar disorder in the long run, and these forms of unhealthy lifestyles take their toll on both persons involved: they not only hurt the person who suffers from the condition, but they also hurt the person who watches over them and suffers for them.

• It IS meant to be if: both partners are of a pure mind, body, and soul, and understand the importance of physical and mental health.

 

• 8.) It's NOT meant to be if: your partner makes you feel uncomfortable about any part of your self or plays on your insecurities.

• It IS meant to be if: your partner points out the many ways in which your perfect and brings out your more secure traits.

 

• 9.) It's NOT meant to be if: the person doesn't engage you, intrigue you, or mentally stimulate you in any way. Relationships have to be alive on a mental note just as much as in the physical sense. If your love interest doesn't provoke your thoughts in the least bit, it probably isn't a compatible match.

• It IS meant to be if: your partner can stir up your mental senses with their philosophies, wisdoms, and everyday life learnings. We were meant to match each other on a brain level, too!

 

• 10.) It's NOT meant to be if: your own intuition is telling you not to get involved in this relationship. Always trust your intuition, no matter how far it may be from the reality of the moment.

• It IS meant to be if: your gut feeling is that this is a person you're destined to growth with, learn from, and embark on many adventures with.

 

KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS:
For a season or for a reason?

Karmic relationships must happen for the growth of both people involved. Karmic relationships come from past lives and must be resolved in this lifetime or they will repeat in a future reincarnation.

Some karmic relationships are meant to last for a lifetime. Others are meant to exist only for a certain period of time. When we enter a relationship, we always take the optimistic stance and assume it will be lifelong. No one wants to imagine the relationship they just became involved in is doomed to fail within three months! You can decide to stay in a relationship because you don't believe in break ups or divorce, but your emotional or mental self may not be present anymore. Divorce used to be seen as a horrific act, but what did this do to us? It kept us trapped in sometimes destructive relationships.

What we're now beginning to understand is that some relationships aren't meant to last forever. We're finally elevating our thinking to acknowledge that divorce doesn't make us sinners or bad people, and that sometimes it's quite a blessing to be able to walk away from a person we no longer wish to be with.

Perhaps what's most important to reflect on is: What follows a relationship? The entire destiny of a human being can be determined by one relationship which was meant to spark a great shift in their life. So what happened after one of your relationships which you believe was meant to be? Did you change your thinking? Did you become a better, different person? Did your physical or financial conditions change? In the scheme of things, every event leads to another, and every door opens to another. You can't live by the thinking "whatever will be, will be," because then you'll miss the train you had a ticket to board! You have to see past certain events and understand why a certain experience is happening. Both my late husband, Virgil, and I saw something in each other which transcended well beyond that moment of brand new love. I saw how much I could learn from this man, and he saw the potential in me to make it in America (having recently emigrated from Europe). What's meant to be breaks down the barrier of time and opens the gateway to the future. When you understand the meaning behind something which is predestined and part of a larger purpose, then you begin to view all of your relationships as necessary tools of self-betterment.

In retrospect to your previous relationships, did you do your part? In relationships that are karmic, did you resolve what you needed to resolve or did you leave some aspects unsettled? It's never too late to resolve your karma; even if you think a relationship is finished, its karma may still be lingering about you, causing you to become blocked or stuck in one situation.

The relationships which come into your life can come for only a season or for a lifelong reason. You have to put your own effort to acknowledge whether it's meant to last. Or you can experience something amazing for a while and then move on. Either way, you must learn to see beyond the moment and catch a glimpse of the spiritual purpose of your relationship.

With Love & Gratitude,
Dr. Carmen Harra