Adapted from Soulmates: Following Inner Guidance to the Relationship of Your Dreams, by Carolyn Godschild Miller New World Library, 2000).

1. Consider the possibility that there is a source of wisdom within you that knows better than you do which partner will be most likely to make you happy.

2. Look for the sort of person you’d want as a best friend even if you weren’t attracted to her or him sexually.

3. Don‘t cultivate a relationship with someone “superior” whose love appears to “elevate” you in some way, but with an equal you enjoy.

4. Remember that your soul won’t be satisfied with anything less than true love. Accept no substitutes!

5. Focus on finding a partner who wants to share the kind of life you want, rather than adjusting your desires in order to be with some particular person your ego thinks would be perfect for you.

6. Stop holding out for a relationship that is effortless. Intimate relationships are frequently hard work, even when the other person is a soul mate.

7. Trust your heart. Trust your gut. And trust the inner sense you have when the energy closes down around some involvement. Be willing to consider change when some aspect of your life has ceased to be fulfilling.

8. Sometimes releasing a lover to seek greater fulfillment elsewhere is the highest expression of love.

9. Recognize that your happiness in life doesn’t depend upon being loved, but upon loving. You can have a joyous, love-filled life even if you never find a mate.

10. Come from strength, and focus on what you have to give others rather than on what you hope to get from them.