Dear Soul Arcanum:
I had a striking experience in a shop last Saturday. Someone quietly asked my husband and me if we were assistants in the shop. We turned around to answer “No, we’re just waiting for our son,” and when I saw this man, I was just transfixed. I had an overwhelming feeling that I can’t really put into words. He was a Frenchman, and while he was handsome and had a soft voice, that wasn’t the source of this overwhelming feeling. The best way I can explain my feeling is to say it was one of deep love – the kind you might feel for a child or someone very dear and special. While this was happening, I was partly conscious of my reaction and how I must appear to others, but I just couldn’t pull myself out of it, it was so warm and peaceful. He too had an obvious reaction, for he sort of shook himself after a moment like he was coming out of a daydream. Since this experience, I’ve had a feeling like I said goodbye to someone I should have embraced. I have never felt anything like this in my life. Is there an explanation for it?
– Jaki
Dear Jaki:
I love this question, for I have had a similar experience. My children and I attend two karate classes every Monday night, which makes it tough to cook dinner, so on our way home those evenings, I started to take them to a sandwich shop. The first night we went in there was a tall handsome man working the counter. Something electric happened the minute we made eye contact that was strange and special. I could feel that he could feel it too, and because I am shy (and also very happily married), I quickly placed our orders and left the shop.
Every Monday we would return, and over the weeks, I began to relax a little bit more, though I was still quite nervous around him. (I am accustomed to being the only one who can sense such things, and therefore I don’t speak of them. I often know it when I’m meeting a “future friend,” for example. It was very clear that he sensed it too, however, though I wasn’t sure how he was interpreting all that energy).
Over the nine months of Mondays that followed, we would talk bit as he was preparing our orders. He had a strong accent, and when I asked, I learned that he was from Hungary. He told me his name was “Gabor – like Ava Gabor.” As I make a habit of using people’s names often, I kept repeating “Gabor” to myself all the way home. I kept mixing it up with “Garbo” (as in Greta Garbo), and I was afraid I’d make that mistake in addressing him someday. All that night I was going around in my head, telling myself that there was a very strange connection between us, and then telling myself that I was being ridiculous, that he was just handsome, kind and flattering, etc.
Well, the day after I learned his name, I got a story submission here at Soul Arcanum. The subject of the story was the author’s phenomenal connection with Ava Gabor. (I kid you not!) That was a message from Spirit, telling me to trust my feelings and quit second-guessing myself. After that I would go into the shop planning on speaking to Gabor, but I didn’t know what to say. (“Do you know we’re spiritually connected? Can you feel this energy?”) One day my husband visited the shop with me, and I could feel that HE could feel the energy too. In fact, he went outside to wait for me, he was so uncomfortable. That’s when I knew I should not encourage whatever this connection was.
Not long after that my kids and I visited the shop, and Gabor seemed very sad. He just kept staring at me like he wished he could say something, but in my anxiety about not encouraging him, I hurried out. I learned later that this was his last day there – that he had returned to Hungary, and would not be coming back. I felt this profound sense of sorrow, like I’d found an old friend and been given the chance to reconnect, but I’d blown it.
So, what is my explanation for these strange feelings? Just try for a moment to estimate how many people you have had some kind of relationship with in this lifetime alone. Go way back to childhood, to the children you played with and attended school with, the teachers you spent your days with, the neighbors who were friendly to you, or whom you helped in various ways. Scroll forward through all the years of your life, including not just friends and relatives and lovers, but also coaches, teammates, coworkers, doctors, dentists, nurses, therapists, bosses, ministers, mentors, etc. Now let’s say that you’ve had a hundred or so past lives here on Earth, and multiply all those relationships accordingly. Then try to imagine that you’ve also had other “lives” in other dimensions, relationships while in the non-physical, etc. to try to get some concept of how many other souls you have connected with at some point, somewhere, sometime.
I’m trying to illustrate that the odds that we will run into people we’ve known “before” in our current lives is very high. The experiences that you and I had are very similar to what one experiences when they meet a “soul mate” or new best friend. It’s like “love at first sight,” but without the subsequent relationship. So if nothing more comes of them, why do these encounters happen?
Sometimes I think they’re quasi “accidental.” If someone we’ve had a strong tie to in some other time is in the vicinity (and the odds of this happening are very high, remember, given how many people we’ve been in relationship to before), then I believe that natural spiritual law creates sort of a gravitational force that draws us together. The stronger our bond is with someone, the stronger the gravity will be that draws us back together again. (This is how we “find” soul mates again in future incarnations).
This is what I think is happening in the two stories mentioned here. That Frenchman gravitated toward you because it was natural to do so. Perhaps I chose that sandwich shop because I was drawn there by the unconscious gravity of my connection to Gabor. Sometimes these are past life connections, but there is an even deeper resonance when we meet up with someone from our soul family.
When we are between incarnations, we review and assimilate our experiences much as one might in school here, and we do that in groups. The souls in each such family form profound bonds, and share a very distinct vibration. We also continue to work with these soul families while we’re incarnate via dreams and unconscious interactions. We might compare the intimacy of these spiritual relationships to what might develop if we were in “group therapy” with the same people for hundreds of years. These are indescribably powerful connections. When we meet up with those souls, we recognize each other at a very deep level.
So given the sum of our experiences throughout our existence, we are connected to a vast number people. When we “bump into” someone who inexplicably touches our souls, we may pick up the relationship where we left off in some other time and place. When we don’t, however, we are at least reminded of how magical a place the Universe can be, and how we never know when serendipity will place a special soul in our paths.
If I ever have an experience like this one again (and I expect to), I’ve learned that I’d rather seem a little weird than let an old friend slip through my fingers. I won’t let myself be so shy next time. Those strange feelings exist for a reason. They’re our inner homing device telling us that we’re in the presence of a kindred spirit, that something special is taking place – and that should be honored.
So, dear reader, if you’re ever in the throes of an undeniable, unexplainable connection to an apparent stranger, I hope you will be wiser than I was and do something about it!
– Soul Arcanum
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