Honoring the Soul - What it is about

Honoring the soul is about, simply put, being true to your essence. It is about being true to that which speaks to your heart. On one hand it can be the easiest thing to do. When we are aligned with our soul and its purpose honoring our soul is second nature. On the other hand it can be gut wrenchingly painful. When we deny the calling of our soul and ignore our connection to the Universe we find ourselves becoming angry, depressed, cynical, and so forth.

The majority of the human race lives disconnected from their soul for 90% or more of their life. There are very few cultures that teach the importance of listening to and honoring one’s soul. The American way of life is somewhat anti-soul. Common conversations speak about how we would “sell our souls” for this or that. Rare is the conversation about how we will deeply connect with our essence and feed our soul.

Capitalism, not soulless of its own accord, teaches us to grab for our slice of the American dream. It speaks of competition and tells us that if we don’t go after it, someone else will and they will get our share. We will be left standing empty handed in line begging for crumbs. It turns us into workaholics, logging long hours at the office losing connection with family and friends. All in hopes to make enough money to be able to do the fun things and have the toys we want so we can enjoy life. But, when will we ever enjoy them?

What will it take for us to reconnect with our soul? Will it take a tragedy; will it take a momentary flash of insight, an illness? How will our soul finally get our attention? And once it has our attention, why should we bother to wake up enough to actually listen and give it any time.

When I was younger I had some scary experiences with rapids while canoeing in the Boundary Waters. The adults leading the group decided to not portage and to take our chances walking through the rapids, against the current. Not a smart move. I lost my balance in the rapids and although the water was less than a foot deep, I could not get my footing to stand up. I was holding onto my canoe which was tied to the rest of them, but the water current was so strong I could not get my footing. I eventually lost my grip and let go. I was pulled back into a safe, quiet pool of water. There I was able to swim to shore and walk the rest of the way.

Fighting the current is like ignoring our soul. It is exhausting to shut out our inner voice and deny our true essence day after day. Problem is we do not realize how fatiguing it is, that is until we stop fighting and start listening and honoring. It will eventually happen. One way or another, our soul is going to get our attention. One way or another it is going to force us to wake up. It will just get louder and louder the longer we ignore it.

It comes natural to us as children. We called it magic or dreams or destiny. It lived in our imagination and is what gave us the joy and excitement to wake up and see what the next day had in store for us. Hope is what we held onto and what fueled our connection. But somewhere, as we were trained in the ways of this world, we started to lose the excitement of living. We started to see life as a burden, as work. We lost our connection to our soul.

So, how do we resoulify? How do we make friends with our soul again and invite it back into our life to imbue us with energy and excitement and joy? First, we need to remember that like a dancer born with the gift of grace in movement we are all born with the gift of being connected with our soul. Our spiritual muscles may have atrophied through years of non-use but with practice they can be strengthened again.

We can start simply by noticing how our body feels when we are going through our day. There is a way truth feels in our body and another way non-truth feels. If we can learn to identify those differences we can start honoring our soul by bringing ourselves back into truth when we feel in our body that we are not being truthful. I try to practice this at work. I can sense when I am not being completely honest and may be covering my butt or over dramatizing a situation. I use the moments to try and bring myself back into truth.

Another way is we can take a moment, shortly after waking up, to center ourselves for the day. We can use this time to focus on the pattern of our breathing in and breathing out. We can tune into how our body is feeling at the time. We can say a prayer of gratitude for another chance to live in tune with our soul, to the best of our ability, that day.

Those are simple starting points. There are many breathing techniques or meditation practices that can be done for anywhere from 30 seconds to 60 minutes or more that can be looked into as well.

In the end, to not honor our soul is a way of disrespecting ourselves in the deepest core of our being. It drains us of our life-energy. The power of our soul is what keeps us alive. Not listening to our soul slowly drains us of that power. It weakens us and can lead to depression, exhaustion, loss of sense of purpose, and in the most extreme cases – suicide. In the end, when our heart is empty and our passion is gone – we are disconnected from our soul. Wake up, listen, honor, and love your self by re-connecting to your soul.