The practice of traditioning

'Just as light spreads silently into a waiting day, whatever is good in life tends naturally to overflow to others. Helping to make this happen [is] an essential part of the human vocation...'

Maria Harris

As I think back over my own life, there have been a number of people who have, in one way or another, enabled me to become more fully who I am: amongst others, my father whose unconditional love and unwavering belief in me first set me on the path of becoming; a school teacher who recognised and encouraged the writer in me; the psychologist Carl Rogers who opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking about what it means to be fully human; the writers David Elkins and John O'Donohue who taught me so much about the soul; and my closest soul friends who have walked the soul journey alongside me.

The practice of traditioning is the act of handing down to others what we have learnt from living the soul journey. When we share with others what we have experienced, what we have gained, how we have grown and changed along the way, we are traditioning. And when our new way of being in the world awakens their deeper longings, inspires their searching, supports and encourages them as they struggle to become all that they can be, we are traditioning.

Exploring your own experience of traditioning

Take some time to think back over your own journey through life. Identify any people who have inspired you and enabled you to become more fully the person you are. They could be people you have known or people you have never actually met in person. Then ask yourself the following questions in relation to each of these people:

What did they pass onto you and how did they do this?

What did you learn from them about life, about the soul journey and about yourself?

What did they awaken within you? How did they help you to discover what you were searching for? How did they support you in your struggle to let go of whatever was holding you back? How did they enable you to birth what was emerging within you?

Practising traditioning

Reflect on any times in your life when you acted as a traditioner for others in some way, no matter whether it was intentional or accidental and no matter how unimportant it might have seemed to you at the time. For what appears to be insignificant to us may be far more important to others than we might imagine.

What was the context of these acts of traditioning and what role were you in at the time?

How did these acts of traditioning impact on the other person as far as you are aware? How did enacting them impact on you?

Explore ways in which you might intentionally engage in such acts of traditioning in the context of your daily life. This might involve, for example, listening to others as they tell the story of their soul journey, sharing with them something of your own journey experience of it or recommending books, poems or other resources that spoke to you as you journeyed.

Not the end of the story

Some think of traditioning as the final stage of the soul journey but in my experience, this is not so. For entering into the process of traditioning can happen at any point in our journeying and it often brings with it new awakenings, new discoveries, new challenges to wrestle with and new parts of ourselves to embrace.

And so the journey of becoming continues...

Bibliography

Maria Harris (1989) Dance of the Spirit. Bantam Books

©Copyright Kaitlyn Steele 2025

Kaitlyn Steele

www.insearchofsoul.co.uk 

kaitlynsteele16@gmail.com