by Azriel Reshel: The whisper of our soul comes at pivotal times in our lives. Perhaps when we’re faced with heartbreak, rejection, loss, or when life just doesn’t make sense. It often comes with ‘failure’ as a signpost leading us in the right direction for our lives, if we listen to it…
When I was 27 years old, I lost a dear friend to a car accident. The grief triggered by his death opened the floodgates to all the past pain I had shut out and suddenly it all came rushing up in a whirlpool, and for six months I had the craziest outpouring of tears; like a massive and unstoppable river I had absolutely no control over. It gave me the opportunity to release the past pain I was carrying, which was hugely cleansing. It also opened my heart and propelled me into a new direction. I moved countries, quit my great job and started studying the healing arts more deeply.
While it was tremendously painful at the time, it was an amazing gift at a soul level and I’d probably be a really different person today if I hadn’t had this experience. Not to say that everything just flowed once I made the changes. In fact, it was a fairly topsy turvy time of tremendous growth, experimentation and the overall messiness of life. But I was learning about myself, stretching and growing in ways I could have never imagined.
Sometimes in life, we don’t give ourselves the space to mourn the daily losses. The everyday pain and grief of the small things we lose. In each moment we are changing, people move in and out of our lives, situations come and go, opportunities are lost and created. Ill health can come knocking at our door at any time, and along with aging, or, for example, illness, pregnancy, or weight gain or loss, we can lose our identities, our independence, our sense of who we are. While ultimately this can be a powerful thing and help us to find our truest self, it can be deeply shattering and painful.
In my own journey, the more I gave in to the feelings instead of trying to suppress or block them, the more I discovered about myself. Too often we are afraid that if we actually let ourselves feel deeply, we’ll be overwhelmed by our sadness or our fear, and that we’ll never find our way back. Yet it’s actually the opposite: when we welcome and accept our feelings, they dissolve in that acknowledgement and we discover peace.
Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom. – Dalai Lama
When we turn and face our deepest feelings; our pain, our longing, our betrayals, and our abandonment, we start to wake up to our soul.
Letting the Soul Lead
Our soul knows the way. It brings us back to being present with life and what really matters. When we relish the sand between our toes, the extraordinary colours of sunset, the fragrance and taste of a ripe mango, or the beauty of human touch, something magical happens. Things that seemed so important, the worries, stress, or anxieties, seem to just melt away. We discover what is real. The soul always offers us a new way of being. An opportunity to have a fresh start, to embrace a way that is fulfilling and ultimately renders deep happiness and inner peace.
In my own life I’ve discovered that the most unexpected things in my life, those u-turns, the losses, those times when I didn’t get what I wanted, are always blessings in disguise and opportunities for the deepest transformation. They are often messages from my soul, nudging me back on track.
