'The soul is like a garden; we must tend to it with love and care.'
Thomas Moore
Just as hummingbirds nourish their bodies by using their long beaks to feed on the nectar from flowers, so too we need to nurture our soul if it is to flourish. When it is unheeded, neglected or deprived for too long, it suffers. It becomes listless and de-energised. It fails to thrive and grow. As spiritual teacher and writer, Maria Harris put it, 'a kind of aridity sets in.... we contract a dry skin of the soul.' For the soul needs to be cared for. It needs to be nurtured, not just once in a while but frequently. The tragedy is that many of us have become so disconnected from our soul over the years that we no longer know what it is that feeds it. As we begin to rediscover the deeper self within us, however, we will come to feel its pain and to sense its hunger. And we will experience a growing desire to find ways of meeting its need.
Nurturing the soul is an art in itself and as with any art, it has to be learned. It takes time, practice and the willingness to make a commitment to the process if we are to find and follow those particular pathways that will feed our soul. Over the centuries, people have discovered countless spaces, experiences, activities and practices that have been nourishing for their souls. But each of us is unique. Each soul needs nurturing in its own particular way and what will feed one soul may not feed another. The first challenge we face, therefore, is that of discovering what it is that has the power to slake the thirst of our own soul.
The first step: Discovering what nurtures your soul
Think back over your life and bring to mind those times when you felt most fully alive or most deeply moved and and those experiences which touched or stirred your soul or lifted your spirit. These will not necessarily have been spiritual experiences or practices. They might include, for example, films, plays, musicals or dances you have watched; music you have listened to; books or poems you have read; places you have visited; buildings you have spent time in; or encounters you have had with people close to you.
Rather than just thinking about these experiences, write them down and then record your reflections. If you are keeping a soul journal, you may want to do this as part of your journaling. Look for themes and patterns as you do so. In what circumstances have most of your soul-nurturing experiences occurred? In what settings or contexts did your most powerful experiences occur? Have there been changes over the years in the kinds of experiences that nurture your soul? What no longer moves you as it once did? What stirs you now in a way that it wouldn’t have done in the past?
Take your time with this exercise. It may take days or even weeks to do it justice. You may also find it helpful to spend some time talking through what you are learning about your soul with a close friend and then to reflect on those conversations as well.
The second step: Making a commitment to your soul
On the basis of what you have learnt about yourself from the first step, choose three simple soul-nurturing activities that you can easily do on a weekly basis such as listening to music, taking a walk in nature or spending some time meditating. Then make a firm commitment to yourself to engage in the two simpler activities at least once or twice a week for a minimum of twenty minutes to half an hour. There is no upper time limit but it is important to be realistic about what is achievable and not to pressurise yourself to do more than you can comfortably fit into your day.
Then identify three more demanding activities that will require more planning and a greater time commitment and therefore cannot be done on a weekly basis such as going to a workshop or a concert or going on a retreat or making a pilgrimage. Then schedule in and make arrangements for each of these more demanding activities, preferably spreading them out over a number of months. You are more likely to honour this commitment to yourself if you plan these times very specifically, setting aside specific days and times in your diary and then trying not to change them unless it is unavoidable.
Finally, write all of this down, either in your soul journal or somewhere else. Commit yourself to prioritising your soul-nurturing times other than in exceptional circumstances. It may help to tell one or more of the important people in your life what you are doing so that they will understand the importance of the commitment you are making to yourself and perhaps even support you in honouring it.
Reflecting on your experience and learning
From time to time as you engage in the soul-nurturing activities to which you have committed yourself, reflect on what you have been doing, what you have experienced, how you have felt, how it impacted on you afterwards and on any insights you gained as a result. If you chose not to keep to your plans, then reflect on that too. What stopped you from honouring your commitment to yourself? How do you feel about not having done so? What have you learnt from the experience of not keeping to your plans? What did you lose as a result?
Finally, after you have been engaged in this process for a few months, take some time to review your experience in greater depth. Record your reflections on what you have learnt and gained from it, how you have changed and grown and what, if anything, you will do differently in future as a result. For example, you might decide to be more spontaneous about the particular activity you choose to engage in during those soul-nurturing times you set aside each week. Or you might decide to set aside more times for soul nurturing during the week but to undertake fewer bigger activities over the year.
It is important to recognise that there is no ‘right’ way to engage in the process of nurturing your soul. There is only what is right for you. The important thing is to decide on a realistic plan that you think will work for you and then to try and honour the commitment you have made to yourself as far as is possible. There will be times when life gets in the way, when you are too busy, too preoccupied, too exhausted or in too much pain or distress to make time and space for your soul in the midst of it all. When this happens, be accepting, gentle and compassionate with yourself. It does not help to become angry or frustrated with yourself or to tell yourself that you have failed. Be non-judgmentally curious and open to learn from what went amiss. And then, try again.
Nurturing the soul in this way is about tending to this dimension of our being. It is about creating sacred spaces in our lives and making time for soul in the midst of our busyness. It is about finding our own unique paths to the soul and treading those paths faithfully. But it is far more than that. Most importantly, it is about about learning to reverence the soul, to honour its sacredness, beauty and mystery and to look on its slow and gentle unfolding with gratitude and delight.
©Copyright Kaitlyn Steele 2024
Kaitlyn Steele
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