There are two kinds of people in our lives: those who come to us as teachers, and those who come to us as soul mates. The former are the tumultuous relationships that are painful, but teach us a lot. The latter are our lifelong friends, romantic partners, close family members. So much of our misery within relationships comes from confusing the two – usually trying to make a teacher into a soul mate, to be honest. Here are a few ways to tell the difference between the people who are meant to be with you and the people who are meant to teach you something.
1. Your soul mates are the people you feel completely at ease around. You do not have to win or work for their validation or love. This can seem confusing if not off-putting if the only “love” you are used to is that which you have to earn – but of course, that is not real love.
2. You can talk to your soul mates forever and never run out of anything to say. You talk about everything, nothing, the same 10 things over and over again – and it never becomes less interesting.
3. It doesn’t seem like you choose to be with your soul mates as much as you just… are. There’s a certain kind of effortlessness with the people you end up spending your life with – you just “click,” and gravitate back to one another over and over again.
4. The only time your relationship with your teachers becomes unbearably painful is when you try to make them soul mates. The tumultuous love we want to last forever, the person whose approval we never had but desperately want, the person with whom we feel a deep attraction, yet total discord that we can’t reconcile… these are traits of people who are not long for our lives, but they’re not meant to be.
5. Your teachers come back into your life again and again until you’ve learned what you need to know. Most often, that lesson has to do with learning to love yourself or change the way you think and see the world. (It’s always heavy!)
6. You spend time mentally and emotionally laboring over whether or not one of your teachers will re-enter your life – or if you’ll spend your lives together. With your soul mates, that does not happen. Sure, you may have a fleeting concern or consider it, but it’s not an existential crisis.
7. You are severely in denial that one of your teachers isn’t your soul mate. In fact, just reading up until this point makes you want to click off and completely disregard it altogether.
8. You are the one who decided they didn’t want a relationship with one of your teachers, yet at the same time, you’re wishing and begging for them back. This applies to both romantic relationships as well as friendships – you cut it off, and now you have a problem with it.
9. You never take time to consider what it means that you and your soul mates are together. You don’t do anything but when you think about you and your “teachers.” You honestly just don’t think or care about how other people see you or what it “means” about you that you’re with this person. When it comes to a “teacher,” that is almost the entire appeal (or crisis).
10. Sometimes habits you developed in dealing with teachers will bleed over to your relationships with soul mates, but you’ll stick it out. You’ll end up more close to those people because you’ve worked through your old issues and habits together. 
