Listen to your Soul
There are a lot of us who feel like there is always that “something more” yet we feel that it is out of our reach, we tend to feel trapped and scared without really knowing why.
This blog series “Listen to your soul” has been created with the intention of allowing us to have a better understanding of our connection with our Soul and the Universe, which will support you in your Spiritual Transformation.
Part I
The Soul tries to speak with you in many ways that we may not be familiar with and we may think to ourselves “I don’t know why I’m feeling this way.” Does this ever happen to you?
To avoid any confusion, I should explain that I refer to the Soul as the part of your inner self, your inner voice, your intuition, the Universal love and light that lives in you and every one of us. It is who and what you are at a Universal level.
Unfortunately, the experience most of us have here on Earth has created a distancing with something that was once familiar to us at a soul level. Our life path and lessons we encounter attempt to drive us back to what needs to make us true to ourselves and allow us to reconnect to our inner selves.
Your Soul has a voice of its own, it speaks in many ways including certain thoughts, feelings and sensations that run throughout and around your body as energy. We are all able to receive this intuitive guidance from within, but the message can be distorted by many factors such as current emotions, cultural and spiritual beliefs, stress and many more.
In the early stages you may receive these sensations and pass them off as not significant, “Oh no it can’t be, it’s just my imagination. . .” but please don’t dismiss it! It is something more than just your imagination.
You’ve probably heard of the term Ego used quite openly, but what does this mean? Well in simple terms, the Ego is our mind and rules the logic in our life. If the Ego can’t see the outcome or doesn’t believe it is humanly possible, it will pass it off as insignificant or not possible.
One important thing to acknowledge is that our brain is designed to see negative things in order to protect us from certain situations and our environment. So it is important to pay attention at certain times; by making yourself aware of this, you will start to see through the fear it can create and allow you to focus on what you are feeling within.
The ongoing war between your Ego and Soul is something that will be a long-term battle, the more you grow spiritually, the louder your intuition gets and the bigger challenge the Ego can create.
Part II
The ability to listen and understand your inner-self doesn’t always come easy and in most situations, it is something that gets left out of the lessons we learn as we grow up.
Fortunately, there are certain tools and exercises you can explore to help fine tune the inner voice of your soul, and although some of them may sound easy, a lot of strength and will is required to work through them. For some of us, this may come more easily than for others, as we are all different, travelling at difference paces and experiencing different things on this life path, so there is no hurry. Simply remain open to the lessons of the Universe.
The first part of your journey is to get to know who you are within by giving yourself some alone time. One of the biggest challenges today is finding the time, and in order to help you do that, I need to make you aware of certain aspects that may not be so obvious already.
Our society has grown with the belief of keeping busy all the time and if you are ever fortunate enough to get some downtime, you may notice a feeling of anxiety that surfaces without a reason. This is because at a subconscious level we are always driven and encouraged to keep busy and are made to feel bad when we are not being productive in the eye of society, so the much-needed downtime is wasted with these unpleasant thoughts and feelings.
There is no doubt about it, we are all busy. There is your partner, children, errands to complete, a busy career, social responsibilities and so forth. You can invest time with your loved ones and in your passions but who will invest time in you?
That is right, it is time to realise that you must do this as nobody else will give you the time you need to nurture yourself. When we nurture ourselves, it gives us the ability to grow.
Now that we have explored the need for allocating time for ourselves, we must now find a way to tune in and listen to our soul, and with this in mind, I introduce you to the world of meditation.
You might be wondering why Meditation? Meditation is one of the most effective ways to reduce stress and relax our mind & body. If you have trouble with meditation, you are not alone. It is normal to have difficulty early on, but the reason behind it is probably different to what you thought.
When we start meditating, we normally join a group and the facilitator is already in the process of doing their own thing, so we are really jumping into the deep end. There are many different styles of meditation; Zen, Mindfulness, Guided, Transcendental, just to name a few. The style you may have experienced may not be suitable to the type of person you are, so exploring a range of meditation styles and techniques will benefit you in a way beyond imagination. You will find certain styles that you love and some that just aren’t for you.
Meditation will teach you that your thoughts are part of who you are and, in most instances, will remain with you during most meditation practice. It will help you to manage them in a way that listening to your inner-self will become clearer and brighter giving you confidence and balance.
Part III
When we are at peace with ourselves the energy that we emit radiates through boundaries beyond imaginable, orchestrating a ripple through time and space. As we emit this radiating energy, we start to feel a sense of belonging and trust in the world, a sense of appreciation as we feel part of the bigger picture.
Over the past few weeks, I have taken you on a journey to help you find balance and peace within yourself and have provided you with the tool of meditation to support you in finding this inner peace. This week I would like to introduce you to an activity you can try with your family, friends and friends of friends to help you “get to know” your higher-self a little bit more.
Before we get started on the exercise, we need to establish something quite important. In Part 1, we established the power the ego can have on us. Well, your intuition is usually the inner-voice of wisdom that we feel first. It is a warm, fuzzy sensation that can be felt in our hearts and our tummy area. The doubt and fear usually follow soon after that, but it is our mind that creates this, so it is important for you to be aware of this while practising this exercise, as to not allow the ego to dismiss your intuition.
This exercise uses psychometric practices, which in simple terms is a psychic ability where someone can read the energy of an object. I have selected this method as it is an easy approach for people who are only learning to open up to their intuitive selves.
What do you have to do?
- Get a group of friends together, say, 2-10 people. The more the merrier, try and keep the numbers even.
- Ask everyone to bring something that is important with them on the day you run this activity, for example; a piece of jewellery, a lucky stone/pendant, keys etc. Preferably something that others may not have seen before to make this effective.
- Set up the space so everyone is sitting in a circle facing each other, you can be either seated on the floor or on chairs this doesn’t matter.
- Using a large container (e.g. ice cream container) ask each person to place their item inside.
- Start with a short meditation to set the right energy – 5 to 10 minutes.
- Walk around the circle and ask each person to draw an item out of the container, if they pick up their own piece ask them to place it back without showing it and get them to try again.
- Ask everyone to close their eyes and focus their energy solely on the item at hand, and to take note of any thoughts, visualisations, feelings and sensations they may experience during this time. Keep the atmosphere calm and quiet and allow everyone as long as needed to pick up the energy from the item they are holding.
- After about 5-10 minutes or once you notice people becoming restless, ask them to open their eyes and go around the room one at a time so each person can share what they felt/experienced. Once they have finished sharing, get the owner of the item to identify themselves and to share how relevant the person’s experience was to the piece they selected. You will find that most of your friends would have connected quite deeply with the item they had and sharing their experience will support each other as a group.
An example of what to expect: Someone is holding a pendant and they may be getting a feeling of love from an older person, they may notice a sweet-smelling perfume and a song may be playing in the background within their mind. When the discussion starts and the owner of the piece identifies themselves, you find out that a loved one had given her this pendant and she loved wearing this type of perfume and enjoying singing and dancing.
So, although things may not make sense (which is where the ego can kick in), it will come together when it is discussed amongst the group. The importance is not to try too hard and to allow the energy to flow as it comes. If for any reason you are unable to complete this exercise, there is nothing wrong – patience is an important part of spiritual growth and dealing with your intuition, so keep practising.
With plenty of practice, you will start to see that the ability to ‘Listen to your Soul’ comes quite easily and is within each one of us. I hope you have enjoyed the ‘Listen to your Soul’ series and I hope the tools I have shared allow you to see your life in a different way I am forever grateful to have you join me and for the lovely feedback I receive each week from you.