Balance Trilogy: Balance for your Soul
Written by Larissa Link
We’re finishing up our Balance Trilogy: Balance for your Mind, Balance for your Heart, and this month we’re looking at Soul or Spirit. (Some would say there are important differences, here we’ll use these terms interchangeably: more pragmatics, less semantics for this blog 🙂 )
Let’s start with a little question: What is your Soul?
Ok, I jest, this is a BIGGGGGGG question! And at the same time, it’s very simple…
The COMPLEX: (yes, both meanings of the word)
We’ll get to the simple, though beginning with what a few sources, philosophers, Buddhism, and my personal study have revealed about the Soul:
“It’s who you are before the world told you who to be.” ~ wise 200-hour yoga student, Nicole O.
“The immaterial, immortal essence of a living being” (crowd-source Wikipedia)
“The soul is truth, not a possession but a process of purification… a spiritual path, guiding the soul upward toward illumination.” ~ Hypatia of Alexandria (She is a powerhouse 4th century mathematician and philosopher. If you’re into that, more here.)
“… every human soul needed to be free and that the responsibility of being free required one to be a person of integrity.” bell hooks, Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place
“You open the gates of the soul… you produce the divine child, the supreme meaning beyond meaning and meaninglessness.” ~ Carl Yung (Yung also writes that the Soul is your humility and your courage, the deepest parts of you, the whole of you, your freedom, your knowing, your loving essence.)
In Buddhism, there is no fixed Soul; there is non-self, anatta. Anatta is often described as the flame of a candle. If you use an old candle to light a new one, it’s not a brand-new flame, nor is it the same as the previous one; it’s a continuation of both old and new in the present. Similar process, though always changing. The Soul/Non-Self is ever-changing; there is no fixed self.
Your Soul or Spirit meets life where it is; it is movement and stillness. It is immaterial, and yet you live in a material body here. It is truth, a path, a divine child, freedom, courage, integrity, humility, and everything else that you are. It is what learns as you invariable grow and change.
We could continue gathering information for days, years, eternity, but the essence is that Soul, your Spirit, is you. It animates you, and it is ever-changing.
The SIMPLE: (kind of 🙂 )
The simplest answer to what is a Soul?
It’s YOU. And ‘you’ is always changing.
That’s where it gets rather complex again…
I have met myself in darkness, in shadow, in grief and despair, in light and joy and delight, and the Soul that greets me there always has room for the WHOLE of me.
The layers of “not-self” or “not-soul” – this includes the thicket of views and opinions that surround us, shoulds and supposed-tos, things I’m embarrassed about, things that feel impossible to love about myself, things that feel impossible to love in others – these are not things I need to get rid of but rather integrate into my wholeness, into the Soul that loves everything.
Get to know all the “not-selves” that have claimed you, to protect you. ALL parts of you are wise and are part of your Soul. You know how. It’s already all right here. It’s very often a matter of unlearning all the patterns of not-self, not-soul.
Soul is Love. Soul is Wholeness.
So, How Do We Balance Our Soul?
There’s a very simple answer here, too.
Be YOURSELF
Simple? Yes.
Easy? Not often, and yet, the simplest tools tend to be the most profound.
Where we start is by getting to know who you are today. Take a deep breath. Where do you feel it most? Can you appreciate the fact that you can breathe?
This is getting to know yourself beyond the constructs of the mind and getting into your body and heart. This is your Soul at work. This is loving. Simply appreciating this experience. Not looking for a particular outcome, not a particular experience, just this one right here while you’re reading and breathing. This is the beginning, and you’re already right here.
The second answer to how do we balance our Soul:
Give yourself permission to change,
and trust that change is slowly happening all the time.
We can’t force change within ourselves, and at the same time, change is constant. There is no fixed version of you that will be perfect (sorry to all my fellow recovering perfectionists out there!), happy, joyful, connected, engaged, etc. AND it’s also true that as you find yourself – allow the whole of yourself, as you uncover your naturally radiant Heart and Soul – you will experience more joy and connection. If you uncover and allow the “not-self” parts, you will also inherently uncover and allow more of your joyful parts.
Change isn’t always easy, that’s why my invitation is to meet yourself with tenderness, to the best of your ability. Go slow. Take a few deep breaths. Give yourself permission to feel. Give yourself permission to make mistakes. Give yourself permission to forgive, learn, and love yourself more fully, as your Soul already knows how to do.
I’ll end with this beautiful line from Emory Hall’s poem. This is just the beginning of your Soul’s endless and boundless love:
Make peace
with all the women (humans)
you once were.
Lay flowers
at their feet.
Join us in our free morning meditations at 7:30a Mon-Fri to get to know who you are today and settle into a community who is growing, learning, and spreading more love into our world. You can also find us on Insight Timer (a free app), if that timeframe doesn’t suit you.
P.S. You are welcome to join us live while you’re commuting, getting ready, or otherwise on the go. Let your meditation move with you into the world. (Eyes open if you’re driving, of course 🙂 )
