What Is A Twin Flame?
Today we're going to be discussing “Twin Flames” with Vedic astrologer, Sungoddess Ashley. We're going be talking about the idea of twin flames and the misconceptions behind twin flames from both an astrologer’s point of view and a psychic medium’s point of view.
MARIA: Okay, so a twin flame is basically the idea that you have another part of your soul that has split off and inhabited another body or is residing in another dimension in a spirit that you can connect to. So people will try to find these twin flames on earth, searching high and low for this other half of their soul, or other parts of their soul that's split off, that's basically a replica of them. There can be all kinds of mirrored traits or sometimes extremely similar traits, and usually twin flame relationships because that can be very challenging for people.
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: I think this is what people say when they're looking for their other half. There's this notion of you complete me as if there is fundamentally something missing within you for someone else to complete like you wouldn't be a whole person without this twin flame or your ultimate love match. Is that right?
MARIA: Yeah, I think that is probably intuitively what people are kind of talking about, but they may not know about Twin Flames. There's that fundamental feeling that they're half of something which is not very healthy.
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: That's not healthy, and I don't feel like this video is going to be about how to find your twin flame but it's how to recognize who is not your twin flame.
MARIA: Yeah, exactly.
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: As an astrologer and a psychic medium, we get approached a lot about people wanting to know about love and usually prefacing with, "Oh I've already met my twin flame" or "Can you look at me and my twin?" They're already telling you: I've met my twin so you can't argue with that. You can't as a reader and say, “No, you haven't” or “No, that's a false flame or whatever that is” because they've already kind of set out the precedents for how this reading is going to go. So do you find that when people start off with that, they're wanting just validation that “Yes, you've met your twin flame” and they want you to tell them just all lovely beautiful things about how you're going to fall in love and have a million babies and live in Bambi land?
MARIA: Yeah, it definitely concerns me because I feel like it creates almost an obsession, and then it becomes almost a delusion. People don't want to wait. I think they want it now, and they want something immediately. They don't like the idea of waiting and getting to a good place before they find someone to be in a relationship. So they're like “Yeah, you know what? This is hard. You must be a twin flame relationship.” I think some part of them knows there's something wrong and so they immediately with that insecurity say, "This is my twin flame right? I just know it is!" And you're like, “Well, why are you coming to me?” Something in them is saying that something is off about this and those insecurities come out which is interesting.
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: Because why are you going to a reader then, if you know that this is your person? You don't need validation. You don't need that verification or that signing off from somebody else. So this can be dangerous. Let's talk a little bit about why this is kind of a dangerous path to go down. I feel like recently---I don't know who coined this term or where it came from, but it did pop up recently as a very popular pop-culture term just like “Mercury retrograde”. I don't know where it came from but now everybody now has to meet their twin flame and that can be a lot of pressure on someone. The idea of “If I don't meet this person, I'm not whole,” and that again is unhealthy. Why did this start? What are your thoughts on why this even came to be in the first place? We've heard of soul mates, we've heard of kindred spirits twin souls, whatever. Why the Twin Flame and why do you think this popped up?
MARIA: I think when I first started finding out about Twin Flames about 6-7 years ago, I remember there were these old websites from the 90's, talking about twin flames. It sounded great but they also were talking about how it's extraordinarily difficult and that a lot of twin flame relationships don't last. So this came about I think by some psychic medium may be starting to channel this information to put it forward, and anytime you put a label on something it can be good or sometimes it can be really bad because it creates almost like a creature that runs loose, you know? And people hear it on Instagram or they have all these popular YouTube psychics or astrologers talking about and throwing it around all the time. The truth is that everyone's path is different and maybe you weren’t meant to meet. A lot of people have aspects of themselves in another dimension already and they're there guiding you. It's like you can even refer to it as your higher self. It's a little different, but it's still an aspect of you that's in another dimension. So it feels like it kind of branched off from people trying to understand the complexity of our souls, how they exist in different dimensions, and how they can incarnate because you can have the same soul split to several people and incarnated at the same time, although it can be more on the rare side from what I understand.
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: I like that you said that it takes you away from trying to understand the progression of your soul. Going back to this sort of immediate gratification culture that we live in, especially in the West we want everything. We want it now. We don't want to wait and if something is rare then it's more valuable and of course, everyone wants the valuable thing because then it's a validation of “I'm a worthy person”, right? It's like a self-esteem booster, right?
MARIA: People also want to feel like they want the best. They want the cream of the crop, so they're like, "Oh no, I don't just want a soulmate relationship I want a twin flame relationship. I'm gonna have the best freakin relationship!" But here's the thing: you should really be aiming to find a relationship that's healthy for you. Take the labels off of it, take the soulmate, take the twin flame, take the past lives thing out of it and just ask: What is the healthiest relationship that helps you to grow in a positive way and makes you feel what's already whole in you, instead of thinking “This person's going to complete me.”
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: Bingo, that's what you have to look for. What is a healthy relationship and not just the title because if you go to a reader and they say, "Oh you're gonna meet your twin flame" then you have that expectation of “I'm going to meet the love of my life. It is gonna be easy.” It's not an easy path sometimes. This can be devastating when people meet very strong soul ties with somebody, whether it's a twin flame or just a very significant soul mate. It's usually for your growth of your soul which isn't compatible with you. A lifestyle of love, sex, money, pleasure: all of that the soul has nothing to do with. Does it show you what needs to be healed?
Now when I look at a chart and I see two people's compatibility charts together, I do see red flags with certain combinations. Usually, when a person is coming with a partner that they want to look at, there is a strong tie with that other person. There's going to be conjunctions. There's going to be common planetary placements between the two people's charts. I have seen a lot of the times, especially the planet Rahu being an influence in the person's chart. So Rahu, let me just explain a little bit about it since it's not really a common term unless you really are into astrology. Rahu is a Vedic Astrology term for what Western tropical use as the North node, so it's the North Node of the moon. There are two points that are opposite to each other. So we're just gonna do a little brief astrology lesson: So we have Rahu on one side, and on the other, Ketu--- and they're always 180 degrees away from each other. You've got the North Node and the South node. They're polar opposites and they are extremes. These are actually shadow points that create the eclipses, so anytime you have a new moon or a full moon next to these Eclipse points, that's when you'll have the Eclipse happen. Rahu is the north node the qualities of it are obsession, compulsion, addictions, insanity, delusion - anything that completely grips your mindset and it feels like it's taking control over you. A lot of times Rahu can be an influence because it's very alluring. It's very tempting. It's very potent. I would say it can be toxic. Medicine isn't toxic; it's like an elixir that stimulates the senses and you're vibrating on every level when you meet this person. When you have that connection, it can then turn into unhealthy traits. When you start seeing unhealthy things come up in the chart or there are unhealthy behaviors in a person's life, what they're doing is really the red flag. People can rationalize away red flags because it feels so good, right? Oftentimes it's a very magnetic draw, so it can be very sexual and everybody likes that feeling of being lit up and feeling attractive, right? Or the strong attraction to somebody, but oftentimes I've seen in compatibility charts: If your partner has their Rahu on your moon, which is your personal psychology, it can cloud your vision and basically your mental process. You wouldn't be able to see clearly and it can be disruptive to sleep. You can't eat. You're consumed with the thoughts of this person. I've also seen Rahu on Venus, and this is also another toxic combination where it's like hedonism times x1000. This type of relationship can be very addictive, and it's very sexual based. Sometimes a lot of times drugs are involved, and it's something that feels like it's bigger than you.
MARIA: Yeah, I could see how it's easy to get wrapped up in something like that. What are some things that you've noticed that attract people into this kind of relationship? Is there a certain trauma?
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: Certainly, I think that there's trauma bonding for sure so. If someone has trauma especially at an early age, there's something that as a young person…you are not old enough or have the tools to really work through. There's a wound. Then in early adulthood or in adulthood, you work through. That wound is a core trauma that's been layered on top of life circumstances over the years, and it can be buried and forgotten. So you have a coping mechanism to just get through life and when you meet someone that's a twin flame-type person or a soul mate, that person triggers that original wound and you don't recognize it because it's familiar. It’s so deeply ingrained and that trauma is so deeply familiar to that person, that the person feels familiar because they were a mirror to what that trauma is. when you feel “Oh, I've known you for so long, we must have had past lives together.” Yes, maybe that's true but also what that person could be saying is “You're so familiar because I recognize you showing me this wound that I've been living with for so many years that I'm not consciously aware of anymore.”
MARIA: That is powerful. Actually, the way you described that was dead on. When I'm looking at people's energies as a psychic medium, I see these same things. There's usually some major childhood trauma and people like to experience that pain as a way to process, and they don't realize they're doing it. Soul mates and Twin Flames - I think people could potentially get confused a lot by them. What is your understanding of the difference of Twin Flames versus soulmates?
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: Well, I don't actually know the answer to that. I'm not a hundred percent certain that I even really believe in a twin flame relationship. As we said, it's very very rare. Even if you find or do have a twin flame they're likely to be on the other side. They're not likely to be here, so this can be showing up like a guide, a guardian angel, or something that's like that it's a significant soul being on the other side that's on one dimension mirroring this dimension. I don't know if you really do ever meet the other half of your twin flame, and when you die your soul goes back up to the other side. Then the other soul can incarnate as well, so there's this sort of teeter-totter balance of switching lives and switching roles because that person is the other part of you. They’re not separate from you. So do we ever really meet our twin flames? I don't know. I'm not an expert; I don't know everything. This is just what I've seen and what I've observed from my personal experiences as a reader, an astrologer. If you were to meet your twin flame, what's the purpose of continuing, right? If everything was perfect in existence, we had complete perfect lives, and we lived in this utopia, what would be the purpose of improving on another day? If everything was perfect then there would be no need to continue the human race at all. What do you feel like is the difference between Twin Flames and soulmates? I would like to know your thoughts on this as it as a medium.
MARIA: There's the part of it that way before I became a professional psychic medium when I was just trying to understand my own gifts and stuff, I came across the idea of Twin Flames and everything and soulmates. I was like “well what's the difference?” and there's what I read and what I feel and in some ways, I feel like they're fairly aligned. A soulmate is from what I understand what I feel to be true is that a soulmate can be anyone you've had past lives with, that is coming in to serve a certain purpose for growth in this life. For example, your annoying boss at work could be a soul mate, but also the person you marry can be a soul mate, and the soul mate is not from the same soul like you. They can be from the same soul family or soul tribe, whatever you want to call it. Maybe it's a group of souls that was created at the same time to experience the same kind of stuff, so like a soul family that's really about literature or a soul family that's really about science, like maybe they tend to incarnate in those roles. It can be like that too but also other people that you've had past life experiences with. And you can also get kind of get confused. There’s that connection again when you meet someone that you get a weird feeling about what you're weirdly attracted them. It could also be a soulmate or just a recognition from a past life, it doesn't mean you're supposed to connect. But usually, if you're not going to connect with them, they're outside of your sphere of who you'll meet. And then a twin flame, you know is the other split off of your soul that has traits that can mirror yours and things. That’s kind of my understanding of the two. A soulmate relationship and how it feels when you meet, you're more likely to meet a soulmate than a twin flame because you're meeting soulmates all the time, and you don't just have one. Here’s the thing is that a soulmate: you can have a romantic soulmate and maybe you do have one but maybe you also have three. Maybe your first two marriages they taught you up to this point: thanks for the lesson, oh now I have this one. You know like after spouses die you'll see someone else: I never thought I could find love again. And then they do. That could be another soulmate relationship. And then also you can adopt a cat and that's your soulmate. So it's really whose supposed to come in, in this life.
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: It's not just romantic.