Letting Your Soul Shine

Letting Your Soul Shine

Thomas Moore, in his book, Care of the Soul, states that the soul is not a "thing" but rather a "quality or dimension of experiencing life and ourselves."  I don't know about you, but while I like the idea, I find it harder to relate to a quality than to an entity.  That's why I will write about the soul today as if it is a "thing", and a precious thing at that.  And the cool thing is that every single one of us has one...no need to be jealous or covet another's soul.  We don't have to do anything to keep it either.  We can't lose our soul, ever, no matter what.  But this doesn't mean we don't have responsibilities to our soul, just because we can't lose it.  In fact, if we really could understand how important the soul is, we would spend more time cherishing it and taking it into consideration more often.

But now that I think about it, we aren't very good at taking care of us on most levels.  Often, we struggle to take care of our physical health, we ignore our emotional health, we disregard our spiritual health and we don't even have a clue about our soul.  Or we have wrapped up the world so tightly with our cherished beliefs, we never stop to examine whether those beliefs are still valid in this day and age.

What the heck is going on?  With all the knowledge available to us these days, you'd think we could do a better job of providing our "self" with better TLC.  Tender.  Loving.  Care.
Before I go further, take a minute to reflect.  In what ways have you taken care of your "self" today?  Body?  Mind?  Spirit?  And yes, Soul?

Body    _______________________________
Mind    _______________________________
Spirit   _______________________________
Soul    _______________________________

Did you have at least one thing you did today for YOU in each category?

These don't have to be huge.  Simple is often best.  Taking one second to pause and breathe intentionally counts.  Stopping before you eat and saying a word of thanks.  Choosing to forgo that sweet snack.  Listening to your heartbeat and saying thanks.

Anyway, for this post let's focus on the soul.  Do you have a definition of soul?  Check out the dictionary for interesting responses.  I think I like the one that says that the soul is the "essence of a living being".  Now, let's define essence.  Here's one definition: the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character.  Hey, we're back to the idea that the soul is a quality, not a thing!  Interesting.  At least to me and I hope to you.

This brings up a question:  would you say your day to day life reflects the quality of your character?  What quality does it reflect?  Wait, what's the definition of quality?  OK, here's one:  The standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something.

Degree of excellence.  Interesting.  Sounds to me like letting your soul shine means living with the sense that how you live your life matters, that getting in touch with the deepest, truest essence of yourself matters.  And, importantly, it seems that would include all aspects of our nature, not just the ones we accept or think are acceptable to others.

How might that play out for each of us?  Maybe it means we increase our self knowledge.  Maybe it means we take the time to sit in silence and listen to our soul talk.  The mind, the body, and even our spirit can override our deepest intrinsic nature.  Our ego often likes to take control and can really lead us away from our essence.  It's not that the ego is bad, it's just not always trusting of the quiet, the stillness, the vastness that is the soul.

Today, stop and find the time to listen deeply.  Find a way to communicate with your soul.  Then find a way to let your soul shine out in the world.  We need that light.

Let Your Soul Shine