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A soul friend.
What an attractive word and idea, especially in this day and age where we assign the word “friend” to anyone who comes along as a way to ease our loneliness. In fact, you may call your neighbor, colleague, drinking buddies, and acquaintances your friends.
But stop for a moment … and ask yourself, “Are they really my friends?”
Once upon a time, a friend was someone with whom you shared a true connection. You had a fiercely loyal bond and would die for each other. A partner-in-crime who was always there for you, who had your back, and who’d stick with you, through thick and thin.
A soul friend is like that “once upon a time friendship” idea, except it’s … more and not easy to put into words.
I met my soul bestie when I was 32 and she was 37. I remember a quote about soulmates popping on Facebook soon after I met her, and it just resonated. She was my soulmate – my platonic soulmate, my kindred spirit, my soul sissie.
You may have met your soul friend, or you may be waiting to meet them. Nonetheless, you need to know what signs to look for so you can recognize your true soul friend.
What Is a Soul Friend?
A soul friend is a friend with whom you share a soul connection – you are entwined or linked to each other in an extraordinary and significant way. Your souls have always known each other, and in each life, you are bound to find each other.
While I’ve known my soul sissie for four years, it feels like I’ve always known her.
There are various terms people use to refer to a soul friend:
Anam cara is by far one of the most beautiful words to refer to this kind of soul connection or friendship. In Celtic tradition, anam cara (which translates to soul friend) encapsulates love and friendship (or soul love) in a pure way, and when you meet your anam cara, you understand exactly what anam cara tries to convey.
In Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom, Irish poet, priest, and philosopher John O’Donohue defines a soul friend (or anam cara) as a person to whom you can safely share the hidden intricacies and intimacies of your life (aka your innermost self). A soul friendship isn’t limited or confined by morality, convention, or nicely labeled societal boxes you need to fit in.
In fact, you’ll find that a soul connection is unlike anything you can really put into words, and trying to explain what soul friends are pale in comparison to how true, genuine, effortless, life-affirming, and significant this connection is.
When you meet “the friend of your soul,” you just know. You are joined together in an eternal and ancient (and often misunderstood) way, and you belong together. You are at home with this person.
Why Are Soul Friends Valuable?
Not everyone is fortunate enough to meet their anam cara in every life. But I should also add that we don’t always recognize a soul friend. Yes, you’ll have an instant, extraordinary connection, but you may not understand how deep this friendship connection is, and that might scare you off.
If you have been blessed to have an anam cara, you’ll understand how invaluable they are to your life and your very existence.
Here’s why having a platonic soul partner is so valuable:
15 Signs that Someone Is Your True Soul Friend
“A true friend is one soul in two bodies.” ~ Aristotle
It feels like you share a soul, for various reasons that I’ll reveal below. That’s also why these are the signs that someone is your true soul friend.
Do you have a deep connection with a friend that you can’t explain? Here are the signs that you’ve met your anam cara:
1. They Mirror You
The one you love, your anam cara, your soul friend, is the truest mirror to reflect your soul.” ~ John O’Donohue
Your anam cara is a mirror of you. Once you get to know each other, you’ll be in awe of how much of your lives mirror each other – it’s like you’ve lived the same life in essence, but there will obviously be differences too. Your personalities also mirror, and it’s uncanny how similar you are.
This helps foster your already tight bond and makes you feel closer.
You may find that your childhoods were similar, or you have the same type of toxic people in your lives, and you work in the same industry. A larger force must be at work for all these similarities to occur, and it’s brought you together.
My soul sister and I are still amazed by how much we are samesies or twinsies.
2. You Complement Each Other & You’re Better and Stronger Together
Soul friends are samesies, but they also complement each other. Generally, they share similar strengths and weaknesses, but you’ll find that they are strong where you aren’t (and vice versa).
As such, you are better and stronger together, making a mean team when you put your heads and efforts together to work on projects or tackle challenges.
3. You Feel Seen, Heard, Understood, and Valued
One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people.” ~ John O’Donohue
While you can be authentically you around your soul bestie, you also feel seen, heard, understood, and valued – in a way that no other person in your life has ever shown.
You deeply understand each other, often seeing what one of you doesn't actively show the world or even to each other (because we’re so used to hiding, right?). You two truly are kindred spirits since you just get each other.
While you can safely explain your thoughts, behaviors, and actions, you don’t need to because your anam cara sees, understands, and accepts you (all of you).
4. Your Life Starts When You Meet Them
When you make friends with an average person, your life merely continues. But when you meet your anam cara, it’s like your life starts anew. There’s the life before and there’s the after, when your life actually began.
The “before you met them” part of your life feels vague and dream-like. The “after you met them” part is vivid, clear, and feels more like what your life should be. It’s like you finally woke up.
Truly, your life only starts once you’ve met your soul bestie.
5. They Allow You to Be Authentically Yourself
Your Anam Cara always beholds your light and beauty, and accepts you for who you truly are.” ~ John O’Donohue
Your anam cara will never want you to be anyone but yourself – authentically. They’ll even motivate you to want to be who you truly are, even if only around them.
They are your safe space or safe harbor – a home where you can breathe and speak your truth unfiltered with no judgment.
6. All Other Friends Pale in Comparison
Since the connection you share with your anam cara is so significant, they instantly become a big part of your life. It’s not uncommon for them to become one of your primary priorities in life.
And so any other friendships you have just pale in comparison to the soul friendship (or soulship) you share with your soul buddy. The friendship is pure, and with a love like no other, you become aware of just how much work other relationships are, since soul friends naturally gel together.
7. They Inspire You to Heal and Grow
A soulmate is the one person whose love is powerful enough to motivate you to meet your soul, to do the emotional work of self-discovery, of awakening.” ~ Kenny Loggins
A soul bestie sees you and only wants the best for you, and so they inspire you to heal and grow and be the best and most honest version of yourself. With unconditional love, unwavering support, and someone who truly sees you, you can finally understand yourself.
It’s like your eyes have opened, and you become self-aware on a whole new level, sparking your journey for true growth.
Your anam cara cheers you on through the growth and struggles, and they are honest with you when you’re doing something that isn’t healthy for you. They never want to tear you down so they are honest and transparent with critiques.
8. They Love You Unconditionally – Always
Unconditional love sounds like such a loaded or fairy-tale-like concept. But it’s real, and it’s something you and your soul bestie share – an unconditional love for each other.
Since you truly see each other, you are aware of how human you are. And with that, how imperfectly perfect and perfectly imperfect your anam cara is.
Seeing and understanding each other’s weaknesses, mistakes, and brokenness doesn’t make you run away or turn a blind eye. You see, you acknowledge, and you choose to love them – no matter what.
9. You Value and Encourage Each Other’s Boundaries
A true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert
An anam cara is healthy for you (and obviously healthy relationships need work too). That means you’ll both value each other’s boundaries and you’ll even encourage each other to put up boundaries – with the toxic people in your lives and with each other where necessary.
It’s rare that people want you to say no and help you protect yourself. But your soul buddy only ever wants the best for you, and boundaries are part of that package deal.
10. You Speak Butterfly Language
You cannot use butterfly language to communicate with caterpillars.” ~ Timothy Leary
You and your anam cara don’t communicate with each other in the same way you do with other people, whether they are family, close friends, or acquaintances. Soul besties speak in butterfly language, which only you really understand.
Butterfly language is the language of your soul or your heart. Because you just get each other on a whole different level, you speak with compassion, understanding, and an honest desire to love, connect, and see.
Your topics of conversation are often deep, philosophical, and on a soul level. While you have inside jokes and can be as silly as hell, there’s a depth and richness to your conversations that other people just don’t get.
11. You Found Each Other at the Right Time
A soulmate is an ongoing connection with another individual that the soul picks up again in various times and places over lifetimes. We are attracted to another person at a soul level not because that person is our unique complement, but because by being with that individual, we are somehow provided with an impetus to become whole ourselves.” ~ Edgar Cayce
When I first met my soul sissie, I said to her that I wished we met when we were still kids or a lot earlier in our lives. And I still wish that, but I know that she arrived in my life when the time was right. I was ready for a healthy friendship, and I also know I met her at a time when I needed it the most.
A soul connection arrives exactly when you need them, whether it’s to help you through dark and troubling times or to share the joy and happiness of good times. You can also find each other when you need to be guided on a new path or start a new chapter in your life that you didn’t know was waiting for you.
12. You Feel Blessed and Grateful for Their Existence
Practicing gratitude comes with so many benefits, but it’s something we really need to work on. With a soul connection, that gratitude comes a lot more organically.
Thinking about your soul BFF triggers feelings of bliss, blessedness, and gratefulness. And the same can be said whenever you speak to them or spend time together.
You’d think that because a soul tie is forever that it’s easy to take that friendship for granted. But the opposite is true. It’s easy and natural to be thankful for your soul friend’s existence and each and every moment you spend together.
13. You Share a Connection Like No Other
Before we discover our soul friends, life seems quite normal. Then, the soul friend comes along; all of a sudden you cannot imagine a life without them. Most soul friends have never thought of a time when they will have to part ways.” ~ Katya Ki
A soul connection isn’t easy to describe. It’s something you feel, and you know what it is when it shows up in your life.
It’s exactly like the quote by Katya. Life seems normal, and then your anam cara shows up and all of a sudden, they’ve become the most (or one of the most) important people to you and you can’t imagine them not being part of your journey.
14. Time and Distance Doesn’t Matter
In a way, time and distance doesn’t matter when you are soul friends because your friendship is always strong.
That bond is always there; though that doesn’t mean everything is moonshine and roses. Like all other relationships, you need to work on it even if it doesn’t need constant upkeep, but you know that your anam cara is always there for you, a phone call or text message away.
When you haven’t seen each other for a while, you easily pick up where you left things. You never feel like you are strangers; you are soul besties and always belong together.
15. You Have a Need to Be Close
While you remain strongly connected through time and distance, you will feel a need to be close to each other. It’s like you are two magnets and your souls want and need to be close together. When you are apart, you’ll miss each other terribly, and it’ll feel like they hold your heart and there’s a gaping hole in your chest.
I’m an avid believer that you must fill your own cup, but being near your anam cara fills your cup too. You’ll find that you enjoy hugging each other and sitting close – in a platonic way.
Final Thoughts about Soul Friends
Soul friends share a powerful connection that withstands time, space, obstacles, and whatever life throws at you. While it may seem like such a soul connection is fate or destiny and you have no choice in the matter, that isn’t true.
It is fate when you meet your true soul friend, but you still have the free will to choose them, to feel blessed with your connection… to be the best for them, and to do right by them.
If you haven’t yet met your anam cara, you should learn how to be a good friend. So follow these 8 easy steps to become a good friend. This is a great place to start.
And if you're looking for more resources on friendships, be sure to check out these blog posts:
- 7 Ways to Meet People & Make New Friends After College
- 15 Best Apps for Making New Friends in 2023
- 39 Movies about Friendship and Being with Great People
