Soul

An excerpt from a chapter I'm working on called "On Soul":

Soul is what we were created to live from. That is the whole purpose of religion, yoga, meditation, mindfulness. It’s all trying to teach us how to know our true self and live from that place. Unfortunately, most of these things end up adding their own baggage, especially religion.

There are no bad souls, just bad stewards. We get to choose. We all get to choose. Some of us choose to do the radical hard work of knowing ourselves, our souls.

We have confronted our demons, stared the darkest parts of ourselves in the eye, stood toe to toe with our inner selves, and learned to accept these parts of ourselves without shame or guilt. There is a seat at the table, and they get a voice because they are part of me. And I accept them. I don’t justify their actions, but I certainly do extend mercy and grace to them. And when I began extending grace and mercy to myself, it became easier to extend that mercy and grace to others. And I don’t have this nailed yet because there are so many asshats out there that I struggle to extend it to, but I’m trying and I’m still learning. But for fuck’s sake, some people, just don’t be an asshat.

Moving on. The alternative is to not stand toe to toe with oneself and instead guilt ourselves for those things that we hate about ourselves. So, we claim victory over those things, or ignore them, or worse, we feed them. For most of us though, we hide that shit in a closet behind lock and key. And so, we don’t do the hard work, and make no mistake about it, the work is hard AF. But the only way forward is through. So, we remain stuck. And there’s no shame in being stuck. The first step is admitting it.

Living from your truest self, your soul is the goal of life. So, learn to know yourself. Learn to nurture your inner life, your soul. Learn to trust your soul. And then, live from it.

Love.