What's to Come on Dare to Deepen
A soulful exploration of what pulls on my heart-strings, squeezes my soul dry, ails my mind, nourishes my body, and other metaphors that express the full-range of what it means to be alive.
Before I write about only god knows what, I want to take a moment to discuss why I'm here and what I plan to do in this Substack space.
If you’re a friend or colleague you know I’m a mental health coach. I work for a great company, although if you truly know me you know I’m a “go your own way” kind of gal.
Or do you? Well, if you don’t know now you know. I’m stubbornly independent and dream of running my own company. However, it takes connections and money and confidence and time. I’m grateful for employment. It provides the stability (and safety to my nervous system) to be here connecting with others who are or want to be braving the uncertainty of living an authentic, soul-centered life.
The Art of Soul-Centered Living
As a “professional” coach, I’m rooted in evidence-based practices but here I lean on the imagination and the humanities. I may reference evidence-based principles or practices, but more often than not I’ll save that for my personal site and here you’ll get a more creative exploration of psychology, honoring the subjective experience of living.
Rooted in Soul
One of my professors at Pacifica, Mary Wood, describes soul as, “a world located between the world of the senses and the world of the spirit, or the ineffable; the soul is the fertile and generative middle ground between the two. The soul has also been imagined or personified as a being, a personal guide that nonetheless has a life of its own”.
Here you will find writing on what psyche (the Greek word for soul) brings forth into my sphere of interest. I write from my experience, though I tend to be attuned to psychological trends that, not only affect me, but my clients, friends, and family. James Hillman, the father of Archetypal Psychology, said, “What is deeply subjective is not personal.” When I dive deeper into my experience I shine light on themes that have been around since the dawn of time.
Slowing Down
Modern life has us continuously running from one thing to the next. Our attention spans are stretched thin. We often try to do it all, or is that just me? There’s a constant worry that if I let go, SOMETHING will fall through the cracks, and I’m not even a mother! However, living a soul-centered life is quite the opposite. We only have a certain amount of time here, so remembering this, what do you really care about? When you pause from achieving more money, keeping up with the trends, and/ or just trying to feel better what is there?
Finding Your Place in the World
The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek - Joseph Campbell
On one hand, living a soul-centered life is about following your bliss: getting clear about what’s most important to you and following that feeling of being alive. However, living in the modern age is complex. We have certain obligations and responsibilities that often restrict us from living our “best life.” There are real obstacles to following your bliss.
Joseph Campbell is rumored to have said, “I should have said ‘follow your blisters’,” insinuating that following your bliss isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. You will come up against pain, doubt, and difficulty. Soley following your bliss and passion can lead you to disappointment, burnout, and psychological breakdown. The way to find your place in the world is a subtle dance. It requires perseverance as you hold the balance of stubbornly insisting on your joy and a willingness for the world to show you what it needs. This sounds much like a relationship (a lesson I’m learning while choosing the single life)!
Being willing for the world to show you what it needs is fucking difficult, especially if you’ve ever been a caregiver, people pleaser, or parentified-child. Even if you’ve been on the opposite side of this: you were cared for to believe you could do anything and deserve success; I imagine the humbleness in setting down your intended path would be just as difficult.
What do you love so much that you are willing to endure pain? This is the direction you must go to find your place in the world, to feel purpose, to connect with what it means to be alive. You don’t have to totally change your life to live a soul-centered life. You do have to change your attitude toward pain. Okay, yes this is all easy to say, but much harder to actually experience. I plan to live through it as the words come out, not only preach about it.
Nurturing the Pain
I’m reminded of the feeling when I’m exercising and I begin to feel pain. All of me wants to stop. Although, I know from experience that bliss is near. If I stop I won’t experience it. I have to breathe through the pain: acknowledge it and continue to put one step in front of the other. Pain doesn’t mean something is bad, it just means it’s getting worked. Worked ohh so good. Of course, I want to be wary of injury. This requires a sort of listening for when I move out of the stretch zone and into full-on panic in my body.
This metaphor can be applied to many different areas of our lives. One of the top causes of emotional suffering is the avoidance of difficult emotions. So you guessed it, I’ll be going into difficult topics to uncover the gems.
Re-Membering
You’ll see that by diving into different topics I surface difficult emotions. I stumble; I make mistakes and lose my way. However, by working through what is alive and present I am put back together—differently. Through my writing, I’m re-membering myself. I’m healing (continuously breaking free from the paradigm that I am broken and need to heal…) and becoming more of who I truly am. I’m going through the individuation process, as Jungians would say.
This transformational process is why I dare to deepen into difficult, taboo, controversial human experiences. I hope you come along for the ride!