Ways to cultivate a soulful life… A life of depth and meaning!
There is a quality to life, when it feels most delicious, that can come closest to spirituality. For as long as I have been on path to personal development and coaching, my ideal has been , that I want to cultivate that quality for myself and help others do it too, I have resisted calling it spiritual..
A few months ago I figured out the distinction between spirit and soul..
Now that is a whole another topic to discuss another time, but in summary, spirit flies, ascends to higher realms, transcending human earthly life, and there is bliss and joy and feeling of freedom associated with it… On the dark side (as everything has a dark side), it is associated with self righteousness and transcending humanness, becoming superior in some way.. (unknowingly, of course). Soul on the other hand is concerned with depth, the soul descends, descends from heavens to earth.. It loves moist and dark places, and in some weird way every time when it is being talked about, death is also being talked about…
Spirituality is about immortality, soul is about mortality…
(It’s unfair that I don’t talk about the dark side of soul, well it is dark mainly, on the light side, it values everything, every experience without judging, embraces the entirety of being human, and without ‘soul-making’, you do not become fully human, you DO NOT live.)
And it turns ot what I have been interested in, is the yumminess, the delicious and deep flavor to certain times of life, is soul!!
And a Depth Coach, helps you live a soulful life….a life that is deeply delicious!!
Let’s talk about some ways to cultivate a soulful life!
Most of life passes by us in a flash,to live soulfully slow down your life, examine it in slow motion, become mindful.. Enjoy small pleasures, the colors of spring, smile and smell of a baby, smell and taste of your morning coffee, the cool breeze on a hot summer day, feel of sun on your skin, touch of your fleece shawl on your arms, the softness of blanket against your legs and feet, the fragrance in air after rain, the feel of water and sand while walking on a beach ….The world has a soul too, feel it in small moments of your day…. cherish it, let it speak to you, listen to its whispers!!
Become conscious of your patterns, become conscious of your compulsions and avoidances, notice the excuses you make, notice the beliefs and values that exist outside your awareness…
Ask questions when you are feeling any discomfort.. Why am I feeling this way? Where have I been here before? How is this familiar? Is it true? What triggered me? Why did I suddenly yell at my kid? What is hurting in me to make me act in hurtful and harmful ways to the very people I love? Journal, meditate, or whatever works for you to expand awareness.
One of the reasons to not slow down, and find distraction after distraction is not wanting to face and navigate your emotional landscape. None of us survive to become adults without becoming wounded in some way, and we will be the first people to wound our children, just by being ourselves… So we all have wounded and hurt places within us….that is just how life works… and wounds are a necessary part of becoming human and living soulfully…. But we need to examine and own our wounds! Most of us escape is by one of the two ways.
We can numb ourselves with work and high achievements, and projects after projects, or we can numb ourselves with drugs, alcohol, food or social media… One is the way to go up, other to go down… In first we not only do not know we are wounded, we also lose the right to complain about anything, because we are the lucky ones! In second category we are aware of wound, but here we become identified with it… none of these approaches make us any more human than the other… As far as soul is concerned, we are not living either way….Soul demands us to enter the underworld consciously, put aside the heroic ego, do not become the victim(in that it should not have happened), but come into the right relationship with powers that move autonomously, outside our control…
Own and embrace your “less than perfect self”
Less than perfect feelings, the not ‘feel good’ feelings, the lust, the murderous hate, the envy, the guilt, the self loathing, the less than perfect “self-love”, less than perfect humility… (by the way, how narcissistic do we need to be, to think that we can be perfectly humble, with no speck of narcissism?)
When we give a voice to not so good feelings, they feel heard, live out their natural life and die out, just like good feelings do, in time… when we do not hear them out, they come out in times and ways, totally unbeknownst to us and sabotage us outside our awareness…
Soul loves dark and damp places, soul loves to grow down, in moments when you are trying to take off and you are dragged down into the underworld of loss, betrayal, disease or death.. listen to the soul’s desires…
Growing down is also essential part of developing humility and empathy.
Cultivate curiosity and imagination
Suspend all judgement of good and bad, see things like you are seeing them for the first time. What can be this a part of, what is bigger picture here, how can this setback, this challenge going to serve me… Why people behave the way they do? What if I actually know the answers? Why is the sky blue, how do flowers bloom, why have this unusual topic come up fourth time today, what does my psyche wants me to pay attention to…
Pay attention to your dreams , fantasies, day dreams, ridiculous ambitions…
Soul speaks in images… the images, the odd unexplained moods, the sudden shift in energies… is the soul talking to you… bring your whole self and listen.. If you don’t understand or listen to anything, make up something…That is what imagination is… ability to make up!!
Make space for mystery and magic in your life…. Soul is mysterious, so is love , so is God.. and we as a culture value rationality above all else… So irrational ways of thinking sneak into our collective lives through mob behaviour, and hysteric rages, and somatoform (mysterious) illnesses….So make space for irrational, make space for intuition, synchronicity, magic and miracles in your life…. the truth is we don’t understand natural phenomena at all, we imagine we do… untill something radically changes it, and then we imagine NOW we know how it all works!!
Lastly, soul does not care one bit about your and my comfort, those are our ego’s concerns….All it cares about is manifesting into something, coming into this world through you…. it wants to be birthed, it wants expression… Your soul is your unique expression… It will make you go through hell, bring you down with illnesses, depression, heart breaks, loss of job….. because that is what you need to fulfil your soul’s agenda…. Find your expression, create… create meaningful conversations, sing, dance, play an instrument, cook, teach or write…. Make and create things that make your heart sing… if the good thing about your work is that you do NOT have to work, or it pays so well, that you can retire early, and then NOT do your work…. you are not serving your soul’s desires…
Soul and love go hand in hand… and love of the world.. that is why you can be spiritual by retiring from the world, but not soulful… Psyche (soul) loves Eros (desire)… way to know what soul wants, is to follow your desire, (not the desire which is average of desires of 20 people closest to you, the desire that is uniquely yours)…. what catches it’s attention…what does it fall in love with!!
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