THE UNCOMFORTABLE CALL OF OUR SOUL
Today as I was facilitating one of the Soulistic Journey circles, I was struck with a realisation. An angle on understanding the role and meaning of ‘soul’ in my life that hadn’t come to me in quite this way before but revolutionised the way I now see my own growth and evolution.
Often when I ask people what their soul feels like, I get various answers like ‘home’, ‘peace’, ‘knowingness’ or ‘love’. I totally agree with each of these in the context of tuning into a higher place of inner wisdom that sits beyond the realm of human form or stories.
However, as I started to reflect on my own experiences of ‘soul’, I realised that my soul often comes into my life to disrupt habits, stretch comfort zones and generally break me out of my security patterns of behaviour.
Therefore, when I invite my soul to take the driving seat in the vehicle of ‘Genevieve’ then things tend to get more than a little crazy.
In fact, they get positively uncomfortable (if not exciting).
Let me explain.
There is an old story that my first ever NLP teacher told me almost 15 years ago. It has stayed with me ever since and serves as a constant reminder of the role of ‘soul’ in forcing me to evolve and forge into unknown territory.
It goes something like this…forgive me if I embellish with elements of my own story here.
There was once a woman who focussed her whole life on creating ‘success’. She worked super hard in her career and got promoted several times. She had a good salary, a nice husband who worshiped the ground she walked on and lived in a reasonably sized house in the city. She had savings, she had a company car and she had a pension. A life of relative luxury you might say.
But inside she was secretly crying because she had lost any sense of who she really was beyond the mask of a business woman. In the dark hours of the night, she would wake with an un-named fear pulsing in her chest. The fear was called mediocrity. The pulsing was called soul.
Then one day, as she was cooking a lovely dinner of pasta, she heard a knock on the front door. Curious as her husband was already home, she put down her spoon and wiping her hands went to see who was at the door.
Opening it she was surprised to see two huge angels waiting for her. Smiling they said “Are you ready? Let’s go” and turned to escort her to an unknown destination.
“But…but, I have a life. I have a job…” she stammered.
“Exactly, that’s precisely why it’s time to go” the angels replied and without further notice, reached out their wings to welcome her to her new soul adventure.
The first time I heard that story, I never did find out if the women said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to her adventure.
In my own experience of it, I turned around at the door and was able to for the first time acknowledge that the safe, tight confines of the story I had painstakingly built up around me, no longer fit. I had suffocated my soul and it was pulsing louder each and every day until I was finally ready to take the hands of the angels and leave my old skin behind.
So that’s what I did.
Almost 11 years ago now.
And although the first year or so of my new adventure was scary, challenging and required massive amounts of courage to embark upon, I have since lived some of the best years of any life I have ever experienced.
Soul adventures call us out of all our comfort zones and beckon us with the lure of the mystery.
They come to us when we least expect it and most need it, in order to lead us into the forest of life, down unexpected roads, to surprise meetings with people who will love us into a whole new sense of ourselves.
What if we simply allow our comfort zones to melt in favour of the mystery?
What if we are brave enough to acknowledge that there is a reason the angels have come to escort us to a new path and a new reality?
We end up following the pulse of our soul evolution.
We become a savvy cosmic adventurer…
Mmmmm Cosmic Adventurer or Bored Business Woman?
I know which one I chose and will choose again and again.
What about you?
