Living from the soul

‘Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.’

Meister Eckhart

Over two thousand years ago, a call began to emerge in cultures all over the world. To draw on the words of the Greek philosopher Plato, it is the call 'to know thyself'. Mythologists, philosophers and wisdom teachers from both East and West have been speaking of it for over two thousand years and more recently, psychologists and psychotherapists have been doing so too, though the language they use is somewhat different. Carl Rogers speaks, for example, of 'becoming a person', Abraham Maslow of 'actualising the self', Carl Jung of birthing 'the true personality' and Rollo May of enabling the self 'to emerge'. Essentially, these are all ways of describing the same lived experience. They are all speaking of the soul journey. To become, to self-actualise, to birth the true self, to emerge is to come home to soul. To come to know ourselves in this way is not only the process of becoming more self-aware, of developing a deeper understanding and acceptance of ourselves, of coming to know the many facets and layers of our complex personalities. It is not only the process of coming to know ourselves as we truly are, of discovering the deeper self that resides at the very core of our being. At its deepest level, the call ‘to know thyself’ invites us to embark on the journey of becoming this self.

‘May you enjoy the critical and creative companionship of the question: ‘Who am I’ and may it brighten your longing.’

                                                         John O’Donohue

The first step in our journey of becoming is that of regaining the habit of soul. When I first came across these words of John O’Donohue, they stopped me in my tracks. Do I ever give this question my attention, let alone enjoy its companionship, I asked myself. Before I heard the song of my soul in midlife, it was rare that I spent much time pondering those deeper questions that take us beneath the surface of our lives, the 'naked questions of existence' as David Elkins calls them. Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of my life? What is mine to do? Though such questions visited me from time to time, more often than not, I paid them little mind. So preoccupied was I with the outside world, that rather than immersing myself in them, I would often brush them away. Gradually, the questions I most needed to ask myself faded into the background and, for a time, the promptings of my soul went largely unheeded. I had as the writer John O'Donohue put it, 'lost the habit of soul'.  

To regain the habit of soul is to turn our attention to the inner landscape of our being. It is to make space and time for soul in our lives. As the poet Mary Oliver tells us in her poem 'Low tide', the soul 'is built entirely out of attentiveness'. And it is through engaging in these acts of deeper attentiveness that we will discover the soul within us. We no longer need to prove its existence or penetrate its mystery for once we have found it, we will know with utter certainty that it is neither illusion nor fiction, that it is real and that it is fundamental to our nature. And it is as we open ourselves to its presence that we will come to know it, to listen to it and in time, to trust its intuitive wisdom. For the soul is a faithful and trustworthy guide, a reliable inner compass that will not lead us astray.

The second step in this journey of becoming is that of bringing the soul into being, of learning to live as fully as possible from the very core of our being. It is about coming to see through the eyes of the soul, to draw on its deeper knowing and wisdom, to be guided by its higher values and principles, to allow the wellspring of soul love within us to shape our way of being and relating to ourselves, each other and the world we inhabit. As Parker Palmer puts it, it is about learning to live 'from the inside out'.

At its heart, the soul journey is the act of birthing of the soul. It is the sacred path each one of us must take if the seed of selfhood within us is to become all that it has the potential to be. Giving birth is a powerful metaphor for this journey of home-coming. As the body labours over many hours to give birth to a baby, so the journeying we do over many months and years prepares us for giving birth to our soul. At times, it is gentle and almost imperceptible. At times, it subsides for a while, giving us space to breathe and rest. And at times, it is intense and painful. It is not without risk, it is not without cost, and it is not without pain. But, no matter how difficult the journey may be at times and no matter what it may ask of us, it is a journey that is well worth the making.

Bibliography

John O'Donohue (2003) Diving Beauty. The invisible embrace. Bantam Books

Mary Oliver (2001) 'Low Tide' in Amicus Journal Winter 2001

Parker Palmer (2018) On the Brink of Everything: Grace, gravity and getting old. Berrett-Koehler

©Copyright Kaitlyn Steele 2025

Kaitlyn Steele

www.insearchofsoul.co.uk kaitlynsteele16@gmail.com