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.
MARIA: Mmm-hmm, that's a misconception.
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: If that's one of the misconceptions is that soulmates or your twin flame are just romantic. Could you have a twin flame, with your mother or your father?
MARIA: Mm-hmm, why not? Here’s the problem is that the “pop” part of the spiritual world. There’s a very “pop-like” fun, polished Cosmo version of us that is kind of inaccurate a lot of the times. It can mislead people by feeding them what's popular, what they want to hear and so it's been branded as like your soulmate is love, your twin flame is love, but that's not always the case.
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: There are so many different types of love that we don't acknowledge.
MARIA: Amen.
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: Yes, especially I feel like in this culture I don't want to blame everything on culture but I feel like this is just you find this. It’s like with these movies, like the love stories and romantic novels, it's all very, again, sensual, very sexual, very romantic, but there's all just types of love. You have a love for your family, love for your friends, love for your neighbors, your co-workers. There are all different types of relationships and all different types of love. They’re not comparable as one being really better than the other.
MARIA: If you were able to give advice to a client that you see that they're in a toxic relationship, thinking its twin flame. If you could just tell them everything you wanted to tell them, what would you say?
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: Oh man, we would require a lot of questions on my art. I think it would be more of like an interview like, why do you think this person is your twin flame? What are they doing for you? How have you grown since then? How have I not grown? What are the challenges? Instead of me just telling someone it is your twin flame or it's not your twin flame, I feel like it would be kind of like a question process, where we can kind of sit through some things and it ends up being the client is been able to kind of realize themselves “Oh, those were the red flags that I'm admitting to you now. It feels weird to admit those things.”
MARIA: That makes a lot that's great it's awesome. Again, its great asking questions as that's a great way to because it's helpful when someone could come to that conclusion themselves for sure.
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: I think that's the most empowering.
MARIA: Also a note about twin flames, if you do happen to be someone who found that rare twin flame experience, a lot of times you're not actually supposed to stay with that person. They’ve incarnated to teach you a lesson but it could be very temporary. There’s such a pool that through time and space, you keep wanting to get back together. Then you keep wanting to get back together, but you have to ask yourself: If it didn't work the first time or the second time, maybe it's time to move on, and let each other be. You could still have a soul connection with someone and live loving lives separately. Also keep that in mind, if you do find that twin flame relationship somehow, then you also have to be cognizant if it's actually healthy for you. It doesn't matter what label you put on it, if it's not healthy for you, you shouldn't really indulge that experience because, then as you said earlier, you get stuck in a place where you're not growing in all these other areas.
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: It's kind of like what you're saying is like a Harry Met Sally – where they keep getting common connectivity. There’s kind of this holding up for one day and that's what also kind of a red flag for something that's unhealthy, especially with women. They’re like, “Oh, one day, he will or she will be that person that I want them to be with X Y & Z. I see so much potential.” Holding onto potential is holding on to hope, which isn't the reality of the situation. That's an indicator that this isn't healthy for you now, and I think that people were like, “Well, I'll just wait for them to do their work” and they put their heart on hold, where they could be meeting other great partners, but they have their heart set on this person who they know this isn't where that person needs to be. So “I'll just wait for them.”
MARIA: See…that the person you should be working on is yourself. Don't worry about them!
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: But that’s harder.
MARIA: It is and that's why people avoid it like the plague. It’s like when we look in the mirror and see all the things we don't like about ourselves, we don't want to see it. We photo filter our faces with these apps and we project a certain persona in the world, but if you're not happy putting through who you are head-to-toe inside and out, then it's time to turn inward and understand why you're not happy about those things. There's not a person on the planet who will fix all that for you because that is a power that has been gifted to you, and you chose to incarnate in this life. A person should enhance your life but not be the be-all-end-all. You should be able to live a completely separate life if you needed to. And when you meet that person you're 100% whole already and you don't feel like you need a relationship. It’s something that happens naturally. That’s a big indicator for yourself when you're feeling like you've done a lot of work: “You know, I'm happy I'm doing what I want and he's kind of cute you know, we’ll see what happens.”
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: Yeah, it should be easy, not drama right off the bat, or passion. Sometimes I think these can be confused. How do you know if you're in a healthy relationship?
MARIA: Well, one of the big things to understand about knowing you're in a healthy relationship is...
1) Are you changing yourself in extreme ways, even small ways to like fit yourself around that person? That's a big indicator. So if you're like constantly walking on eggshells like “I'll do this, okay. I'll give up this hobby for you. I'll do this. I'll give up this for you.” Why are you doing that? Someone should plug into you and compliment you, not because you gave up all the things you enjoy about yourself or change your life drastically. Also, both people should be accepting of what each other is interested in, like encourage each other, even if it's something thing you're not into and being able to say “I would love for you to just be happy and do what's best for you.”
2) Also, another thing is that there's emotional support. There’s not manipulation and pulling people away from their family and friends, subtly making little comments about your weight or how you look. All those little manipulation tactics - that's not someone you want to spend the rest of your life with.
3) Another thing, too, is like being able to go somewhere together and have fun. Sometimes people go and travel together and they're just bickering the whole time. If you can go somewhere even if it's like a little quick trip and you had a great time together, you didn't really argue and it was nice, that's a good indicator that you're able to let the little bickering things go that weigh people down. Those are some like kind of things I can think off the top of my head.
SUNGODDESS ASHLEY: I would say along the same lines: Is this person supporting your dreams? Are they giving more to you to enhance who you are or are you changing in different ways? I think that's a big thing. Is it easy? You shouldn’t have to try so hard to make something work because that's an indication that it's not working. Of course you'll run into challenges if you're in a long-term relationship that you can work on, but there's a certain kind of threshold for that. Is it too much too soon? That’s the thing with love: you don't think with your head. You think with your heart. It’s so tough and I think that's why it's beneficial to get another perspective from an astrologer or psychic medium to help you kind of get back into your head about things and sort of logical process. That's where the benefit of getting a reading.
MARIA: You're talking about those kind of two separate things that kind of should be in a column and what if someone's healthy and working on themselves, being able to balance the head and the heart so that they're respecting one another. Your head's not overbearing your heart and vice versa, so you're learning to accept these at various facets of yourself and blend them together, then you can make more well-rounded decisions rather than just doing something out of trauma.
Let us know if you have any questions for us about soulmates or twin flames. We'd love to hear your comments and your feedback! You can find us on The Happy Healing Shop for either of our services and you can find Sungoddess Ashley on Instagram at Sungoddess Astrology or Sungoddess Ashley and her YouTube channel.