False Starts and Hang-up Calls

November 2021

One day at work I received a phone call where there was just silence on the other end of the phone. It reminded me of high school - a time I received many calls with nothing but silence coming down the line. This was back in the days when we only had landlines. My family got so jack of it that we changed ours to a private number. 

During this more recent encounter, I had a strong sense of who was on the other end of the phone. His is an energy I know well, but in physical reality we have no relationship, bar a few brief interactions. He wants to know if I’m at work was my instinct. Somehow, after a long absence that I had planned on being permanent, he knew I was back.

Less than an hour later I saw him walk past my workplace, chewing gum nonchalantly. 

Despite appearances, there was nothing casual about this person. I could feel the most intense energy, as I had felt so many times before, something like galloping horses bounding towards me, and yet here he was, playing the easygoing, Aussie role. 

People who have naturally powerful energy often suppress their life-force because they’ve been told, either directly or implicitly, that they need to tone themselves down to make others more comfortable. They fear all the times that virtually no-one has been able to handle them, when they’ve opened up a bit only to be judged, rejected, asked to conform, asked not to make waves, where their experiences have been beyond another’s understanding or they’ve been told they’re too emotional, too angry, too sexual or just too much. 

Particularly strong ones can remain solid and authentic in the face of persistent resistance, denial, fear and rejection and push other people’s standards to elevate rather than tone themselves down, like Gordon Ramsay. Though most of us, at least for some time, will make suppressing who we are a full-time job, to the point of depression or despair. 

In that individual walking past my workplace, we could recognise each other as people who could not only handle each other’s energy, but relish in it. But the fear was still strong in that one…

Something that had developed over the two years we were previously in each other’s orbit, was my ability to sense whether he was in the building or not. I cannot pinpoint when I became conscious of it, but I ended up being able to predict, with certainty, if he was working that day from the moment I walked into the building. 

I would describe it as more a sensory awareness than an intellectual knowing - when he was there the building somehow felt warmer, fuller. When he wan’t there, it felt cold and empty. I began to recognise the feel of his distinct energy just like I would recognise someone’s face, car or voice…

He, however, seemed to have a different ability. He was aware of my awareness. Every time I saw him, whether he be one metre away or one hundred, he would stop in his tracks, turn around and look at me immediately. I witnessed this occurrence on more than one hundred separate occasions, and I can’t recall any occasion that he was unaware of me. 

This was one of the things that helped me to realise the connection was mutual and affecting the both of us; I could see that he could feel and recognise my energy - whether he wanted to or not.

So, while I didn’t know where he was in the building unless I saw him, but had a general sense of his presence or absence, he seemed to be able to do the opposite - he could feel when I was near him or aware of him, but would have to walk past my workplace to see if I was in the building.

That dance went on for some time, him keeping a safe distance but staying in my orbit to some extent as runners tend to…

Now an astute reader may be thinking that if we could sense each other and read each other’s energy, then couldn’t that ability be applied to others? Well, here I am years later reading and working with energy for a living. But I chose the path of discipline and dove as deep as I could possibly go, becoming a cosmonaut of inner space so to speak…

The difference in this example, and in soul connections generally, is that it was involuntary. 

Outside our connection, I don’t know how far his abilities extended. The soul connection will present the both of you with some sort of growth and perhaps newfound abilities but, as in this case, often one will lean in and develop them and the other will not. The one who doesn’t you’ll also often see doing work that is unfulfilling (even if it’s prestigious) and in a relationship with someone they don’t love i.e. living a life that is disconnected from their own soul - and yours. 

Since he was the runner, and didn’t surrender to the connection, I moved on to other connections so the work could continue and escalate while he was experiencing resistance.

It becomes clearer and clearer when I look back at how that time was working as a training ground for us, increasing our levels of awareness and perception into the extra-sensory. Life invited us to look beyond what our head was saying and how that could be in direct contradiction with what we could sense and feel. 

No matter how many times I would look at his behaviour and try to write it off as either, “Well this guy’s not interested because he’s not talking to you” or “Look out, this guy is an obsessive stalker” the energetic connection we have continued to override those attempts at rationalisation because your brain is ultimately no match for your soul, though it can suppress things for a time. 

It is only years on that I can see what the connection was doing and how it was working through the both of us, often against our will, and frequently the cause of great distress, but for the purpose of spiritual growth.

And now, despite no longer working in that building himself, he had returned, but was still just walking past my workplace - looking for that jolt to the soul to remind him he is alive, while having done none of the inner healing or transformation.

Sure, on a human level it would have been great to sit down with him and compare notes on how the connection had affected us, changed us and what we’d explored and experienced since. Spending time with someone your soul is already familiar with is a rare and magical experience,  but we don’t control others, their fears or the speed of their awakening. 

One of the last times I ever saw him was when he was sitting on a seat about 20 metres from my workplace as I knocked off work. I slowed my pace, looked at him with an open face and body language and experienced a completely open, even radiating heart that was willing to sit and talk with him, despite some of his diabolical and completely unacceptable behaviour over the years. There was a moment where it looked like he was going to stand up and approach me, but instead he placed his phone to his ear. I hadn’t heard it ring and I didn’t hear him speak into it as I walked away. 

Fear of intimacy and fear of rejection don’t come close to describing what a soul mate runner feels when looking at your face, looking in your eyes and facing the possibility of your criticism and disapproval. The runner in the connection, who is still mostly spiritually closed-off, will choke and at that point may drop the hovering on the periphery of your life and completely bolt. 

If you’re experiencing a life-changing connection, I invite you to look at what the universe has presented you with and ask yourself if you’re prepared to accept and work with those gifts to become who you were designed to be? Or, like many, will you choose instead to live inauthentically, and continue forcing yourself to conform to the life script as laid out by your culture and time? 

The powerful soul-level connection you’re experiencing has cracked your heart open, allowing you to experience life and every emotion in its infinite vastness. Will you learn to work with your energy and allow every last drop of love and pain to flow through freely? Will you accept the call from the universe?