David Ghiyam argues that a "soulmate" is not another person but a state of being you must become. Using a coffee-residue-and-expensive-wine metaphor, he warns that attracting excellent partners won’t produce fulfillment unless you first transform yourself (clean the "vessel") so you can receive and appreciate a healthy relationship.
People have this idea that a soulmate is like this one fixed other half that, like, makes me feel euphoric all the time. And it just feels right and it feels all these things. Nothing will ever feel right if you have darkness inside of you that you haven't changed. So you could be with the most amazing person. You could be in a crowd of the most amazing people. You could be with the most beautiful, attractive human who's so kind to you and checks every box. You will never enjoy that or fully experience it. And at some point you'll sabotage it if you have something inside yourself that hasn't been transformed. So a soulmate is not a person. I think a lot of people want a soulmate. What they're describing is they want that fulfilling feeling of a partnership. But that can only come when your vessel is not dirty anymore. So imagine, for example, I'm drinking coffee here. Imagine I finish the coffee and there's some residue of coffee. And then Alex brings me like a very expensive bottle of wine and says, would you like some wine? I said, okay. And he pours the expensive bottle, the wine in this cup. All of a sudden, now this expensive wine has been destroyed. No one in their right mind would drink exp. Expensive wine out of a coffee mug that has the residue of coffee. Okay, so this is an example of sometimes we attract great people into our lives, but we are still the coffee mug. Imagine even it was a styrofoam cup with coffee residue and you're pouring a five thousand dollar bottle of wine in it. So a lot of times we're like begging to receive this high quality person, but the creator's like, you're still a styrofoam cup with coffee residue. To attract the reality of enjoying that wine, we have to first become a soulmate and that we have to switch from a styrofoam cup with coffee residue to like an elegant crystal glass that is clean.
