SOUL: WHAT IS IT and HOW DO WE LIVE IT?

“Tuning your body out is the single greatest harm you can do.”

~ Deepak Chopra

My body speaks to me. How well I listen is a function of how connected I am to myself on any given day.

Recently, I’ve been connecting and listening deeply. And it’s uncomfortable. My body is unwinding from years of chronic stress.

Yeah, stress. People say that I’m the calmest person they know. If I am, it wasn’t always like this. I learned to meditate in 1996, during my second pregnancy, and it saved me from myself – my ego self – while connecting me to the deep, still sanctuary of my soul. I practice living from that place every moment of every day, practice being the operative word here! Just when I think I’ve mastered myself, I am surprised by the level of intense emotion that can rise through my physical body. This “rising” happens mostly while I’m sleeping and dreaming. And that’s exactly what happened yesterday morning.

Just before dawn, I re-experienced a personal betrayal – a traumatic event of years before. I could hear myself gasping and sobbing; I could feel my body quivering. In my dreamworld, I felt an arm tighten across my chest and the support of what felt like generations of men holding me up, as I stood strong in confrontation to my betrayer. A low whisper in my left ear told me something I did not want to hear. But I couldn’t deny what was in front of me and I felt it move through me from depths of emotion that I was surprised to find in me. When I awoke, it was the embrace of the man I sleep with that steadied me.

My yoga teacher taught me that whatever enters the body leaves the body the same way. She was referring to the feelings and sensations around the bodily experience. I’m beginning to understand.

Tuning in

When we tune in, our bodies have amazing capacity to self-correct. Sometimes it’s just a matter of processing the events of the day. Other times it’s a release of deeper moments that have been held in cellular memory for years. When we focus on our body, it will speak; it wants us to wake up. For me, it has been about freeing what I call “stuck energy”: words unspoken, anger unexpressed and fear repressed. And when stuff like that starts rising to the surface, it can feel like a rollercoaster ride! And here’s an enigma: It’s when I feel most safe and protected in the world that I release. In other words, I finally get my act together in some way and wham! here comes another layer of emotional excavation. Of course, it’s no surprise that most of my internal work deals with personal experiences that have left me feeling unsafe, homeless and unprotected. Ah, the paradox. Do you see it? If I want to commit to feeling my life, then I have to engage those feelings that I once wanted only to lock away and forget about. But the body serves us better than that when we want to live consciously. Deepak Chopra teaches that the body is the junction between the visible and invisible worlds. And the act of tuning in means getting through every layer of healing to a new place of awareness. When we land on pleasurable experiences of “love, warmth, beauty, bonding, and nurturing” then we’ve bridged the two worlds.

They do come eventually, those pleasurable feelings. I can attest to it. Releasing old wounds empties some place in me that is then filled with peace, possibility and placidity. It really does feel like a calm after the storm, a place where I can rest awhile and appreciate the powerful forces of nature that are within me.

A map of the soul

Speaking in a way that is in no sense religious, I know that the soul is essential to an authentic life. We know the universe contains almost infinite amounts of energy, love, creativity and intelligence. Deepak Chopra says a complete map of the soul would be at least as complex as the human brain. He uses the metaphor of the soul as a step-down transformer. The infinite energy, love, creativity and intelligence of the universe is much too powerful to flow directly into our human body. The soul, our transformer, channels it into our mind/body at levels we can absorb. He teaches that “the soul serves to get us past the blocks put up by materialism” and “at the same time it also gets us past the faith demanded by religion”.

There is potential for great emotional release when the soul becomes a functioning part of our processes of living. Chopra also gives us a new basic flow chart of life that reverses what science espouses, where everything begins in the brain.

Soul carries the potential

Mind carries the intention

Brain produces the result

An active soul gives us the desire to evolve. Our mind carries the desire into thinking. Our brain receives the message and begins to shape it physically.

If we remember what it’s like to learn a new skill, this flow chart makes perfect sense: our interest is perked, we pursue that interest, we practice until we get better and then through practice, we master a new skill.

These steps seem simple. But they require awareness. The brain simply can’t trigger the whole process.

To be interested, we must be inspired. To pursue our interest, we turn to our inner landscape. Practicing until we improve takes discipline and commitment. Awareness doesn’t force change; it deconstructs old patterns so new ones can take hold. This process is subtle and it takes time. It begins in awareness and then reaches into the body.

Where does awareness come from?

It comes from the soul.

And it is not a religious construct, it is part of ourselves.

Boundaries

As we can see from the flow chart above, the connecting link between the soul and the brain is the mind. With an open mind, we can connect to soul; with a closed mind, we cannot. In my experience, it takes more effort to keep the soul at a distance than it does to soften into it because I’ve learned that the soul is actually my default position. What gets in the way is my conditioned mind.

Boundaries are made of “frozen awareness” – beliefs that we don’t want to challenge. Questioning a belief can feel like a threat to our identity. I work with many people who are in transition – through the death of a loved one, divorce, loss of a job – and the deepest well of emotion rises with the words I hear so often: “I don’t know who I am anymore.” Yet it is in these most empty-seeming moments that we can find the greatest potential for a breakthrough to soul. When our conditioned mind is shaken, our boundaries can soften and when that happens, soul rises to the surface of experience and calls us into new possibility.

Softening into what we feel is a way to access our emotional guidance system. We are meant to feel good. And if we learn to trust what makes us feel good, we can find our way through the maze of our experience. As Chopra teaches, “Every boundary is made of nothing but awareness that has decided to contract instead of expand.”

If we appreciate our body and its honesty, it can allow our soul to shine through even when our mind is attached to the limiting beliefs that keep us stuck. The closer we move to our souls, the more at ease we will feel.

Anxiety & Wonder

I recently visited my naturopath for treatment of my TMJ, a dis-order I’ve had for more than 20 years. As he was reading my pulse, my tongue and my jaw, he told me, “The body doesn’t lie.” This was his response to my statement that I thought I was doing just fine, thank you very much, and I couldn’t understand why my jaw was giving me so much pain.

Through dreamwork, acupuncture and journaling, my body is finally releasing deeply held emotion that I’ve been cradling in a set of beliefs about who I am and what I’ve lived. As I learn to tell a different story, I’m simultaneously letting go of stuff I no longer need. I am relating to my body consciously by trusting what wants to move through me, understanding the sensations are questions looking for answers. My body will not be ignored. And it will assist in my growth by releasing what needs to leave even when I am asleep … how powerful is that?!

There is a flow to life; flow is self-renewing. Every day is a new day with new challenges. Anxiety disconnects us from our soul. If we are not living connected to our souls, then our creative energy is blocked from rising. Now, as I deepen my relationship with my world, and myself, I experience a life that is rich in meaning and purpose. My body knows it is time to release the deep anxiety that has been causing my TMJ. Moving beyond my anxiety feels expansive and opens up possibilities that were once invisible. As my facial muscles learn to relax, I feel a sense of jaw-dropping awe as I explore what it feels like to be in wonder rather than to be restricted by anxiety.

Talking about the soul might seem mystical, but in fact, it is really about everyday experience.

How tuned in are you?

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