Have you ever met someone for the first time and felt an instant attraction? I'm not talking about sexual chemistry here, but rather, a deep, soul-stirring, magentic pull. As a relationship astrologer, almost everyone I counsel asks me the same question: "Have I met my soul mate yet?" Well, if you have to ask—probably not! You'll know immediately when you do. It's as if you've known him or her all of your life or more likely knew them in a prior lifetime. However, I do want to clear up a common misconception about soul mates. They are not necessarily your lover, husband, wife, boyfriend, or object of desire. A soul mate can be your best friend, a teacher, a family member, and, for you pet lovers, yes, even your precious pooch or cat Fluffy can be considered a soul mate. In my book, Soul Mates and Hot Dates: How to Tell Who's Who, I discuss the different connections between people and there are many.

Most of our past life ties are with family members. I believe we choose our parents. They are the very first relationships we encounter in our current lifetime, and we use this relationship as a basis for all future ones. Many people have karma with their families and reincarnate again and again to work out issues created over several lifetimes. Most souls reincarnate with promises to meet up with other souls for specific reasons. The majority of time the reasons are as follows:

• To pay back a debt
• To receive a debt
• To learn a lesson
• To right a wrong
• Because of an early death in a former lifetime
• For the soul's growth
• To complete or finish something
• To help other soul on their path
• Out of love

In many of the couples past life regression work I perform, I have found that spouses often have made the same vow, over several lifetimes to come back together. They reincarnate and get married time and time again, lifetime after lifetime. Ever hear of the term "eternal love?" This is probably as close as it gets.

Some mothers carry twins but one baby lives and the other dies before it makes it through the birth canal. The parents wonder what they've done wrong for their baby to deserve such a sad fate. Probably nothing. Perhaps, the babies' souls agreed eons ago that one twin would stay on the earthplane and the other go back to the spirit world. Perhaps the living child's soul was scared and did not want to make his transformation alone and needed the extra support from the selfless soul to get through the process. They may have made pact to spend time together in the mother's womb until it was time to be born. This is a very special soul connection involving great karma.

I believe we all have soul friends, too. These are our very closest and dearest friends that seem closer to us than our own blood family. You and your soul friend will go through everything together: marriages, divorces, secrets, jobs losses, the highs and lows of life. Your soul friend will always be there for you.

There are also soul groups. These are people who come together for a specific reason to fulfill a goal to make the world a better place or right a wrong. They are on a mission but must do it as a team. My client Barbara was let go from her long-term job at a hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. Her severance package was generous and she didn't feel bad about losing the position. In her heart, she felt there was something she was meant to do and was hoping the universe would help her find it sooner rather than later.

Being directed by her intuition, she sold her home and moved to a little Georgia town. There she started working at a free health clinic as a volunteer to fill time. But in a matter of months, she was running the clinic and making plans to expand it. Soon, other volunteers started showing up to offer Barbara help. They wanted to give her support. Her dream of expansion became theirs. Barbara's team was made up of about seven people, doctors and nurses, who all felt like family. They worked hard and soon were granted federal funding and built this clinic into a full-fledged medical facility offering the latest in medical science and care. Patients came from all over and many were well served.

Soon after the facility was off the ground, federal health experts came in and fired everyone, replacing Barbara and her dedicated team with new staff. Barbara came to me upset and desperate to understand why such a thing could have happened when she had worked so hard to build this clinic from the ground up. As I led her back into a past life meditation, we discovered that Barbara had lived in the Civil War and was a nurse in a Confederate hospital in a little Georgia town. She recognized the doctor and other caregivers in that lifetime to be the staff that helped her build up the current medical facility. While in her meditative state, her mind searched for answers and she saw visions of the Yankees charging into the Confederate hospital, setting it on fire! It burned down and all of the injured soldiers and hospital staff perished in the fire, too.

It's obvious, isn't it? Barbara and her team died some 140 years ago and were not able to escape or save their patients and the hospital. So in their current lifetimes, this group of souls all subconsciously agreed to meet up again and rebuild their hospital. Once they did exactly that, their souls' mission was complete and they were fired. Their vow, karma, promise, whatever you want to call it, was finished, so they parted ways.

Soul Mates and Hot Dates explains these types of connections as well as love and relationship ties. I have a special compatibility section in the book featuring 144 combinations of the zodiac signs that will tell you how well each connection will work (or not!). Also included is a numerology formula to predict how old of a soul you are and what your current lifetime mission is. There's also a chapter titled "Is Your Marriage Blessed or Cursed?" By using your wedding date as a guide, couples can determine what their spiritual lesson is.

There are also some fun chapters on how to dump anyone and how to attract anyone based on their zodiac sign. But I think the "meat" of the book is really about spiritual connections with those that make an impact in our lives. I often preach how important it is to cherish even the bad, horrid relationships that have ended, for those are the ones that offer us the most spiritual growth. We learn so much through challenges. Yes, we love the good times but we grow through the bad. So please look at all of your relationships, past and present, and be thankful. There is something to learn from everyone, something to love—a purpose that we come together and a past life promise your soul needs to fulfill.