Healing the Soul
Childhood History
During our childhood, when our consciousness was still quite undeveloped, we didn’t have the capacity to deal with distressing, overwhelming or traumatic experiences. Thankfully our soul has an in-built coping mechanism to repress the overwhelm, allowing us to carry on with our lives. A piece of our soul withdraws from the distressing experience, carrying the distress away to a place deep within us (or in extreme circumstances, outside of our body) where it can no longer overwhelm us. This coping mechanism remains in place throughout our entire life, but since adult consciousness has more capacity than child consciousness, it only gets activated in extreme circumstances, e.g. PTSD.
These repressed ‘parts’ of us are ‘lost’ to conscious awareness, but they continue to affect us sub-consciously. This is evident whenever someone “pushes our buttons”, or when we become angry or upset over something quite small.
Healing The Soul
Being with these ‘parts’ fully (i.e. giving them our full presence and awareness) is all that is required to heal the separation and re-integrate them back into the wholeness of our being. We simply need to do now what we didn’t have the capacity do back then (i.e. feel the fullness of the feeling). That is the essence of healing the soul and awakening to wholeness. It really is that simple!
Alice Bailey wrote in Esoteric Healing “cures are brought about [when] the soul pours through to the point of concentrated awareness”. This means that the healing process is activated by simply focusing our soul’s presence and awareness on the appropriate area of our body, where the ‘part’ is located. Our soul’s presence has to intimately merge with the ‘part’ (which may feel like a blockage, pressure, tightness or hole). Merely putting our awareness on the part is not enough because there is still separation. Healing and reintegration can only occur when there is intimate contact; when the soul’s presence and the ‘part’ become one.
These repressed or lost ‘parts’ of our consciousness usually have a false, distorted or limiting belief at their core. These ‘core beliefs’ are usually a deficient self-image that relates to the distressing event (e.g. I am unlovable, unwanted or not good enough), and they are usually bound up in the associated negative energy and emotions. But the thing that holds a ‘part’ together and gives it a ‘life of its own’ is a piece of our soul – the piece of the soul that sacrificed itself when it carried away the distress or trauma. I purposely used the word “sacrificed” because in carrying away the distress, that piece of soul became isolated and separated from the wholeness of our soul. And because it was carrying overwhelming distress, this isolated piece of soul quickly becomes mis-identified with the distress and the deficiency. It forgets that it is soul and believes that it is the ‘part’. So that little piece/part of our soul has to live with all that distress and deficiency until such time as we start doing “inner work” to rediscover and reintegrate these heroic pieces of our soul. It is our duty and responsibility to rescue these ‘parts’ because they literally left “heaven” (the oneness of the soul) to live in “hell” (isolation, fear, distress and trauma), when they sacrificed themselves for the greater good of our being.
Our soul’s ‘presence’ is absolutely vital for the healing and re-integration process because its intimate contact with the ‘part’ is what allows the mis-identified piece of soul to re-integrate back into the wholeness of our soul (causal body). And without the piece of soul to hold the ‘part’ together, it quickly dissolves and its constituent elements reunite with the mental body, emotional body and energy body.
Discovering & Developing Presence / Essence
Presence is fundamental to personal and transpersonal (spiritual) development, but what is it and what does it feel like? Well, presence is the substance of our soul (or causal body). It is literally ‘who we are’, yet most people have no idea it even exists, because they are mis-identified with their physical body, their emotions and their concept of self, i.e. ‘who they think they are’.
Presence is a subtle substance so it can be felt, with a little practise. It has a palpable feeling – initially it feels like a subtle energetic swelling or presence within the body (or part of the body). It has a sense of fullness; like something within us is expanding and trying to get out. This pretty much describes what our soul is doing – manifesting more fully within us and coming to the fore. Later it feels luminous and fluffy, a bit like cotton wool, only much subtler. The more developed our soul’s consciousness is, the more refined its presence or essence feels. So, depending on our level of development, our soul’s presence or essence may feel fluffy, velvety or smooth an pearly.
Presence requires us to be present; spatially (right here) and temporally (right now). Presence requires us to ‘be’ – right here, right now. It should be easy to just ‘be’; it is our natural state after all, but it is far from easy. We have spent decades practising ‘doing’ and we have forgotten how to ‘be’. We need to put less emphasis on ‘doing’ and re-learn how to ‘be’; both of which require practise and commitment. Thankfully, they can both be achieved through one simple practice – Practising Presence, which is described below:
- Spread your awareness throughout your entire body and sense the subtle but palpable presence of your soul.
- Watch, notice and feel whatever arises, without any agenda. You are an impartial observer.
- Don’t try to do anything or achieve anything during the practice.
- Don’t analyse, assess, judge or criticise anything, including yourself, during or after the practice.
- All you have to ‘do’ is feel your awareness spread throughout your body and notice what arises – that is it – if you are doing anything more, you are doing too much.
The first few times you practise the exercise, you may not be able to actually feel your soul’s presence in your body. But it will happen, when you relax and stop trying to feel it. You will probably notice that there are areas of your body where it is more difficult to feel presence than others. You will probably also notice that there are areas of your body that feel out of balance or feel like blockages – these are the areas where most of your ‘parts’ are held – your psychological “stuff”.
Presence is the key component of healing the soul, so practise it as much as you can. I do it while driving my car, reading, watching TV and lying in bed. With practise it can be done whilst walking or performing simple tasks. I really cannot stress how important and beneficial this simple practice is, because:
- It gets us out of our heads and into our bodies, which allows us to experience life more objectively and live life more fully.
- It takes us deeper into ourselves – deeper into our body, senses, emotions, desires, behaviours and beliefs.
- It helps us to become less reactive, so our relationships with other people improve.
- It helps us to develop an authentic relationship with our true-Self/soul.