Dissecting and developing an internal relationship with your own soul can become one of life’s greatest adventures.
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Something within us all, far beyond flesh and blood, provides an energy that sparks not only creativity but love, emotions of all sorts, and guidance.
In essence, this is the human soul. I’ve had a fascination with the human soul for a long time, possibly bordering on an obsession. Yet you do hear people or read about people “soul searching” or receiving encouragement to “take care of your soul.”
Before starting an excursion into the mysteries of the human soul, here’s a definition from Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary. This will act as a baseline for uncovering the mysteries that lie beneath your everyday life:
“Soul. Noun. The spiritual part of person that is believed to give life to the body and in many religions believed to live forever; a person’s deeply felt moral and emotional nature; the ability of a person to feel kindness and sympathy for others, to appreciate beauty and art, etc.”
Spirituality? Morality? Emotional nature? Oh man, these are weighty topics for sure. Thankfully, I don’t have all of the answers yet it is worth investigating.
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In the midst of discerning what having a soul means to a man and woman, there is a whole lot of “navel gazing” that takes place. This is an essential part of soul work. Yet a wee bit of danger creeps in here, too. Overdoing it can lead a person to become swallowed up in their own strands of life.
The soul’s mystery provides a plethora of spiritual insight all the time. No one truly has all of the answers for their lives, but I choose to believe that the soul knows.
See, I readily admit that I feel a deep spiritual connection within me to all that is around me. Environment, people, places, etc. … you name it. At times, I can muck up my own world pretty quick.
Many writers over the centuries have delved deeply into matters of the human soul. To be clear, a clinical physician will not be able to pinpoint direct you where the soul resides inside. It is not a body part or an actual physical presence that appears on an X-ray.
The soul is a mystical, spiritual, metaphysical part of all humans. Everyone has a soul. The question then becomes whether or not you are aware of it and if you really give a damn about it.
Thomas Moore, one of the best writers on soul work that I’ve come across, penned “Care of the Soul: A Guide to Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life” a number of years ago. I recall picking up this book at a traumatic crossroads (one of many) in my life and I gorged on every word over three days. There was something in me that just kept reading and reading Moore’s words. They were soothing and healing.
Moore writes, “When we relate to our bodies as having soul, we attend to their beauty, their poetry and their expressiveness. Our very habit of treating the body as a machine, whose muscles are like pulleys and its organs engines, forces its poetry underground, so that we experience the body as an instrument and see its poetics only in illness.”
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Through these upcoming pieces on the human soul, I will endeavor to look at this topic from different viewpoints. Definitely, there will be discussions of masculine and feminine aspects of the soul. This cannot be diminished or pushed aside.
Is there something even beneath the soul?
What is the eternal message our souls are trying to get us to hear all the time?
Words like nurture, care, support, guidance and grace come to my mind.
Why do this? Because men and women—from different walks of life—either care or don’t care about the human condition. I choose to write about the human soul as a way to express what I discover through my own journey with you.
Millions of people are familiar with the words of Jesus of Nazareth. According to the Gospel narratives, Jesus once said, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul?” Mahatma Gandhi said, “Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is a daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”
If you have ever listened to Lee Carroll, an internationally-known author, workshop leader and the channel through which the entity known as Kryon speaks, then you’ll know that Kryon uses the term “old soul” a lot.
You may feel old, yet do you feel like an old soul? Like you have lived through enough lifetimes to last another lifetime?
People joke about this stuff all the time, never giving it much thought. Even writing about this, to some, may seem trite and unimportant. It is not about the “burning issues” of the day, those that fill social media platforms and get chaos stirring.
My intention throughout these pieces is to help us all discern, from a spiritual and emotional basis, where our souls can provide strength and peace all the time. No, I’m not a preacher. I do see myself as a soul healer, one with a vast ocean of compassion and kindness within me. Perfection is not part of this process. The soul itself has perfection within it, providing glimpses of our lifelong journey.
In some way, even with our agreements and disagreements, you and I are connected.
The mysteries of the human soul have been observed and discussed for centuries. Let us keep this conversation going, not only for the wellbeing of our lives but for our entire world.
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Photo: Getty Images