8 Stages Of Twin Flame Relationships & How To Know Which One You’re In
This type of soul connection is rare.
getty If you have met your twin flame, you know this powerful connection is like nothing you’ve yet experienced in your life, and unlike anything you’ll ever experience again.
Twin flame unions have the power to rock and reshape our lives.
This type of soul connection is rare. And because many people never experience one in their physical lifetime, each of the stages of twin flame relationships can feel not only wonderful, but also terrifying.
What is a twin flame?
There are many ancient references to similar concepts, but most agree the theory of twin flames as we know it originated with the Greek philosopher Plato. In "The Symposium," he theorized that all souls start as one but are split into two mirror souls that eternally yearn for completion, leaving us all in searching for our twin flame.
Your twin flame is also not necessarily your true love — at least, not in the romantic sense. Twin flame relationships can be friends or family, not just romantic partners.
And while finding your twin flame connection can be extremely fulfilling, please don’t search blindly for this just to feel complete! Most people lead full lives without ever experiencing twin-flame love.
It's important to note that twin flames are different than soulmates.
Soulmates can appear many times across our lifetimes, while we can only ever have one twin flame. And even at that, many people will never encounter theirs.
Equally, the kind of unconditional love experienced in a twin-flame union isn’t always something to be envied, as twin-flame relationships require deep spiritual work and karmic purification.
When twin flames unite, sparks fly — but like every flame, this must be tended to so it doesn’t burn down everything around it. This involves intense inner-scrutiny that isn’t always easy to do.
A certain level of soulful maturity may be required to find this connection, so it's natural to occasionally doubt whether or not you’ve found your twin flame connection.
If you think this applies to you, a love reading with the advisors at Keen, our psychic partner, can help you answer your most pressing questions.
Twin Flame Stages
Each and every relationship is unique and follows its own personal journey, but twin-flame connections do have a particular narrative path.
There are eight stages of a twin-flame relationship, though different relationships may have different nuances within each.
Each stage is as important as the next, so understanding and appreciating each step on your journey is necessary to this process.
Here's what happens during the 8 stages of twin-flame relationships, so you can understand what you're experiencing.
1. Yearning for "The One."
This preliminary stage begins as a realization or feeling that part of you is missing. You live with a pining, overcome at times by the emotion that part of yourself is out there waiting to be found.
It can be challenging to make sense of this emotion, since you might be lacking the other half of yourself that makes everything clear.
It is essential to view this stage as a chance to prepare for the next stages, rather than as a period of loneliness or longing. You can make yourself available for this connection by taking charge of your inner-soul and loving yourself first.
2. Meeting "The One."
This is a period of intense excitement or intoxication as you first encounter your twin flame.
Often, this will be a mere glimpse of your twin flame in real life. Or in a dream, you might be overcome with wonder or joy, or feel an intense sense of curiosity as you desire to know more about this being.
It is important to acknowledge that this stage can happen without us fully realizing it, since dreams often remain in our subconscious.
If you meet your twin flame in real life, it is always a seemingly chance encounter, even though this meeting will have been agreed upon before your physical incarnation.
You will feel an inexplicable magnetism to this person. It is important to be trusting of your soulful instinct in order to avoid writing them off at this stage.
If you're wondering if you've met your twin flame, reach out to an expert advisor at Keen.
3. Falling in love.
When you fall for this person, you’ll fall hard. And good luck trying to stop it! It may take a few meetings and encounters to get to this stage, but when you do, you’ll know it.
As you get to know your twin flame better, you’ll sink further and further into love. At times it can be disorientating; you may feel lovesick or completely beside yourself with no explanation.
This is a beautiful stage, so don’t hold back. It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
4. The ideal relationship.
No matter who your twin flame is or what role they play in your life, it is guaranteed that you’ll enter some kind of a relationship.
Whether it's a romantic bond like you’ve never experienced before or a best friend who is always by your side, your twin flame will find a way to take up an important position in your life.
This is a soulful connection that transcends all physical attraction. You’ll be able to fulfill each other's needs on a spiritual level, in a way that no one else has before.
Consider it is a taste of paradise that, in many ways, is too good to be true.
5. Turmoil appears.
Once the supreme joy of your initial encounter fades, egos begin to rise. Personal issues and insecurities appear, causing cracks.
You are two souls who have been living separate lives and separate experiences; it is inevitable that some external differences may appear to taint this inner bond.
Our twin flames can often be like mirrors reflecting our deepest desires and darkest shadows back out at us. While you might be emotionally repressed, your twin flame might be explosive with their emotions.
In this way, our twin flames challenge us and force us to look at some of the parts of ourselves we’d rather not see.
While this might feel disastrous, it is actually a transformative stage. A chance to see ourselves for who we really are in order to become who we want to be.
6. The "runner" and the "chaser."
When tensions come to a head, one or both of you will want to run away. Whether this means mentally detaching from a situation or physically fleeing from one another, this can be a volatile time.
One of you might retreat, while the other clings on and tries to pull back. On other occasions, you both might distance yourself from the other, only to slingshot back together eventually.
This "trial by fire" can destroy even the strongest of bonds if not treated carefully. Some twin-flame relationships never recover from the damage done in this stage.
If you are struggling to navigate a twin flame relationship, reach out to an expert advisor at Keen.
7. The surrender.
Once you acknowledge and embrace differences, it becomes much easier to let go of the pain that has come before.
As you learn to look at your shadows, you can open up your wounds to your twin flame — and to yourself — and heal from within together.
In this stage, your ego dissolves and your soul expands, making room for growth and improvement. This is an opportunity for a new beginning, a chance to embrace the role you play in each other's lives as healing, rather than confrontational.
There might still be some bumps to smooth out, but this should be a lot less painful to do now.
8. The Reunion.
As the problems in your relationship begin to fade, you enter a stage of soulful reunion in which the flames are integrated. In a sense, this is like coming home to each other and to yourself.
This stage encompasses all that twin flames are supposed to teach us. These relationships are not meant to be fiery and painful. If that were the case, there’d be no point being in one.
Instead, they are meant to warm our souls into a stage of self-love and understanding. To achieve this, you must both strip away all the things that are keeping you from expressing yourself.
At your essence, you and your twin flame are one. So once you get to this you will have channeled your shared power and all egos will have faded.
How long do the twin flame stages last?
If there was a simple answer to this question, all of our lives would be a lot easier!
The length of each stage varies from person to person. For some, each stage can take years, while others might glide through in a matter of months.
Sometimes, you don’t even realize when each of the stages occurred for you until it’s all over. Other times, you might think you’re out of a stage only to be thrust back into it again. This happens a lot with stages five, six, and seven.
How long each stage lasts depends on the work you do on yourself. Soulful maturity can grow at any age, but it requires a full surrender to yourself and a deep relationship with every part of your being.
Understanding yourself is the only way to understand your twin flame.
How do you know if your twin flame is near?
Is it too cheesy to say “when you know, you know”? Twin-flame relationships can defy explanation.
You’ll know when your twin flame is near if you feel a sense of calm or harmony. When you’re with a twin flame, you never long to be anywhere else. You may feel elation and joy for no reason.
Often, it can feel like our lives have suddenly fallen into place when we encounter our twin flame.
It’s also possible that synchronicities, like repeated numbers or signs, stop appearing for us. While you might ordinarily take comfort from catching "11:11" on your clock, these numbers serve to guide us.
The number 11 is like two twin flames united, so the universe may stop giving you this signal once it sees that you’ve gotten there on your own.
When our twin flames are near, we no longer need to be led to our destiny since these soulful connections will lead us there instead.
Twin Flames Day falls on November 11, which is conveniently just in time for the beginning of cuffing season, the months when people seek out their soulful twin-flame connection to warm them up for the winter months.
With that in mind, if you’re looking for guidance on how you can find your twin flame this year, you can find more with a 10-minute psychic reading for $1.99 with Keen.com, our psychic partner.
— Created in partnership with Keen.
Alice Kelly is a writer and storyteller with a passion for love, relationships and all things related to the soul. For more, you can find her on Twitter.