'Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.'
Robert Frost from 'The Road Less Traveled'
The soul journey begins the moment we take our first breath. For it is not only the body that is birthed in those first moments of life, but also the soul. It is not that we arrive on this earth with a perfect, fully formed soul, but that we are born with the seed of our personhood buried deep within us. And it is, I believe, in those early months of life that this seed begins to unfold. We are already engaged in the lifelong process of becoming a person. We are already birthing our soul.
Sadly, however, the world around us is not always a hospitable space for the soul. The contexts in which we live out early lives – our families, schools, churches and wider society – are at best imperfect and at worst profoundly toxic. Our relationships with the significant people in our lives are at best partially flawed and at worst deeply damaging. All of us are to some degree wounded by life. For some of us, the environment in which we are raised is so harsh and unloving that we can do little more than struggle to survive it. For others, the love that is given is conditional on our feeling, thinking and behaving in a certain way, on meeting the demands of those who care for us. We learn that being loved is dependent on our meeting what Carl Rogers called 'the conditions of worth' that others impose on us. Gradually, we become aware that they do not always see us or the world around us as we do, that they do not always like or value what we value, that they do not always approve of how we are in the world. What feels good or natural to us may seem unacceptable in the eyes of those who matter to us. And when we act in ways that they do not like, acceptance and love are withdrawn.
It is at this point that another self is being born. Some call it 'the conditioned self' or the ‘the false self’. Some call it 'the ego' or ‘the small self’. I prefer to call it ‘the survival self’ for it is the the mask we present to the world in order to survive. It is the mask we choose to wear in order to meet our fundamental human need for acceptance and love in a less than perfect world. And as the survival self emerges, the true self retreats to protect itself from the forces that threaten to undermine it. Slowly but surely, we are building a dividing wall between our outer and inner lives. We are beginning to lose touch with who we are at the very core of our being and if this deeper self stays hidden for too long, we may lose sight of it altogether. We may even forget that there is a wall. And so in the effort to survive, we become who we are not and fail to become all that we have the potential to be.
There is, however, a way back from this loss of soul, no matter how profound it is. For we can break down the dividing wall that we have built within us, no matter how high it is or how long it has been there. We can reclaim what has been lost along the way, no matter how how many years it takes. We can let go of living life on the surface and learn to plumb its depths no matter how fearful of doing so we may be. And it is when the pain of the loss of soul becomes more than we can bear, when it becomes greater than the fear that holds the wall in place, that the soul journey begins in earnest.
I have witnessed this struggle to become many times as a therapist and I have lived it myself. When I have been wrestling with what troubles me, I am often aware that at the heart of my struggle is a deep longing to become more fully myself, to discover and live out the truth of who I am. It is a longing which has grown over the years to the point that it has become an imperative, a fundamental need that will not be denied. It is a yearning to reach within myself to what lies buried and forgotten, to recover what was lost, to release what has not yet come to be. It is at heart a deep-rooted desire to ‘come home’ to my self, to live ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’ of who I am.
Accepting the invitation
‘And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?’
Jalāl ad-Dīn Rumi
The soul journey is a journey into the sacred mystery of our own inner being. Tragically, it has of late become a road less travelled. We have forgotten that the spiritual journey is our search not only for the sacred mystery that is the More, but also for ‘the more’ within ourselves. These two aspects of the spiritual journey are intricately interwoven. Each illuminates the other. Each enriches the other. And neither can be neglected if we are to respond fully to our deepest calling as human beings.
Rumi was a 13th century Sufi mystic and poet and it is extraordinary that his voice still reaches out to us so powerfully after so many years. My hope is that when his words whisper their invitation in your ear, you will listen. Perhaps you will not heed them the first time the whisper comes or even the first few times, for most of us need to hear it many times before the song of soul seeps into our being. When it does come and it will, my hope is that you will accept its invitation, that like Robert Frost, you will take the road less travelled that awaits you. For there is nothing more important, more freeing and more joyful than the search for the song you are meant to sing. It will make all the difference.
©Copyright Kaitlyn Steele 2025
Kaitlyn Steele
Beautifully written Kaitlyn. What you write stirred my soul reassuring me that my current experience of the dark nights of the soul will eventually lead to enlightenment, to being my true Self. 🙏🏽