There have only been four people in my life that I had the feeling with.

Have you ever met someone that, even though you’ve never met them before, feels so inexplicably familiar? You must have known each other before. They’ll say something like, “I feel like I’ve known you forever” after only having spent several hours with you. The moment you met them everything was so natural. Conversation flowed, and it’s as if all the walls and protective mechanisms you usually approach new people with never existed. They are comfortable and safe. They are fun and feel free.

This is often the feeling of meeting someone you knew in a past life. Meeting a member of your soul family or a lover, ally or friend from a past life doesn’t always manifest like this. This is the ‘starter-version’; the spiritual newbie experience of a connection of such a huge magnitude and depth.

Later, it may manifest as a sudden, unwarranted and inexplainable love for someone. To a less-mature awakened soul (me at one time, of course), this can easily be mistaken for romantic love. Deep, intensely intoxicating and beautifully painful romantic love.

As you have more of these experiences, it transforms into a feeling of love and deep caring for the well-being of someone that again, you barely know. It is often sudden and seems unwarranted.

The first time I met a fellow Starseed, I was 19 years old and unaware of the origins of my own soul. Through the lens of my immaturity, the overwhelmingly uncomfortable but addicting sensation of the deepest connection I’d ever had with a friend manifested as attachment. When things were good, we were isolated in a cloud of infatuation with each other. We laughed endlessly and acted completely authentically. Others passed in and out of this cloud, but no one could evaporate or push the particles apart enough to make holes in it, and no one stayed very long. I could feel her from anywhere.

The only one that had the power to sear holes in this cloud was me. The intensity of this feeling became too great, I became dependent on it, and eventually my own jealousy burned the cloud thin, until it not only evaporated completely, but a fiery barrier burned between us. I mourned this loss for many years. I didn’t understand what I had or what I had lost at the time.

The second time, I was only mildly more mature, but I was older. 26. The first time I met him, he acted curiously. He seemed drawn to me, and I thought he was strange. Several months passed before we became better acquainted.

Often with these kinds of connections, the first, or first few meetings feel ordinary and uninteresting. There is always some catalyst that cracks the barriers, leaving space for remembering who we are to each other. Both of us in an unconscious state, we toyed with each other and tested the waters of romance. Nothing ever manifested between us, but we remained drawn to each other for many years. Even after years apart, upon seeing each other, it was obvious that this energy of connection had never changed.

Finally, he said to me, “We’re so similar. Maybe we are soul mates, but just not meant to be romantic.” It was painful to hear, but somewhere deep inside of me, I knew it was true. We cut ties after that day.

I saw a vision of him as a knight in a meditation shortly after. I knew then we had been going in circles with each other for hundreds of years. It was time to end the cycle.

I carried the pain of loss for months afterward, until I performed a ceremony of separation early on in my around-the-world backpacking trip at a statue of a rooster. We never had a chance to explore why we were so familiar to each other, and why there was so much unjustified-by-our-earthly-relationship love.

I can still feel him. It feels like a longing to be together and a knowing that it would never be the right thing.

The third time it happened, was the same day I let my ‘platonic’ soulmate go at the rooster.

I had been walking the Camino Santiago with a new friend for several days. We met, and it was clear the universe had intended for this to happen. Everything felt so platonic and ordinary until later that evening. The walls between us (we were both the self-protective type) dropped when I performed a healing on her. With my touch, energy and psychic connection, I unconsciously offered a portal and she stepped through it into remembrance. We both did.

Minutes afterwards, there we were in the frog pond at the Albergue (a pilgrim hotel along the Camino) staring at each other with new eyes. Do I love her? So suddenly?

Shy curiosity transformed into intense attraction. We must have spent many lives together, because only a day after “remembering” I felt like I was on fire. It was almost unbearable. I felt like my brain was melting and couldn’t sleep. We later found out we had spent many lives together; as warriors, lovers, teammates. In our most recent life together, we were meant to complete our missions, but diverted together instead. We came back together in this life to be challenged again.

After weeks and months of romance turned bad, we succeeded in choosing ourselves over each other. The connection was undeniable; she could see my memories, communicate with spirits from my past, enter a room I was in just by thought and sense my feelings deeply. I could heal her with ease, feel her energy and feelings from across oceans and communicate telepathically by sending memories or requests for contact.

The experience taught me that the intensity of past-life and soul family connections show up with such intensity that is beyond what we are accustomed to feeling in our human bodies that in an attempt to make sense of it, it is easy to mistake it for romantic love. What else could this burning, high vibrational feeling be?

The fourth time was four months ago. She was open about who she was: a walk-in. A Starseed come to take over the life of a soul who became overwhelmed and departed. It seemed obvious that we were meant to meet. We did meet in middle-of-nowhere, rural Alaska. She felt like someone similar to all of the other people I meet, until one day during a healing I felt the switch in my heart flip.

It felt romantic again, but I knew this could not be the case. It felt just like what I had with all of the other soul family I had met before. It was less intense, but I loved her instantly. It was a battle to avoid letting the feelings run my behavior like they had in my previous experiences. The feeling was still addicting, even though it wasn’t nearly as strong as the last time. It felt more mature. I was relieved.

After a Quantum Healing Hypnosis Session, we were able to confirm what we both knew was true. We have known each other before. We were meant to be companions in this life. We could consider each other family.

But sometimes with family, when you love them deeply, you let your guard down and your less-than-desirable habits come out. You have the opportunity to practice and learn, and one of the easiest things to start with is all of the dysfunctional ways you express love.

I love and care still, by hoping the person will take my advice on how to be. I judge and scrutinize. I see myself doing it and I stop myself. I accept that this is what I’m meant to learn to let go of right now, but in the process, it can still hurt.

I suppose I hoped that souls I’ve known before, in some cases many, many times, would be easier to keep around as friends in 3D. We already had a connection of such depth, but this has only resulted in them being the hardest to keep around. We have the most history; that means karma, if you believe in it, troubles, trials and triumphs together.

Often past-life connections have manifested in this life because there is more for you to learn from them, compared to others you meet. They carry the highest concentration of potential lessons of anyone else you may meet in this life. This is why being with them is so challenging, but also so enriching…and addicting.

Learning from your soul family or past-life connection isn’t easy, especially if both parties don’t realize that each is only playing out what the other one needs to learn. It’s not personal or intentional, but it is the fastest way to spiritual growth and ascension, and freedom…to be matched with someone with the right energy and traits to challenge you in the ways you need most. The universe, or you, put them back in your life on purpose.

You always have a choice: to embrace the challenges and let how the person is acting be impersonal, or to resist them and take how the person acts personally.

These connections are beautiful and painful, however it’s an amazing experience to wake up and realize you have an old ally in this world with you.

What are the signs that tell you that you’ve met someone from a past life?