Soul vs Spirit
It seems to me that …
… the soul pulls one inward and downward, while the spirit calls one upward and outward.
In other words, one’s soul is rooted in being, carrying one (through stories, emotions, shadows) into deeper truths. Some of which I’m sure most of us would rather avoid, by the way. It wanders through dreams, and heartbreak, through joy and beauty … all to break one open. It says “I must feel. I must become more … human, real, authentic, whole”.
Spirit seeks meaning, the divine, cosmic connection, and reunion with the source. It’s expansive. It’s filled with light. It may be inspiration, or flight, or awe. It is the part that connects one with guides, with energy, with everything. Spirit says “I want to be free; I want to rise. I want to remember what I am beyond the mundane, beyond this body, beyond this dimension, beyond this moment.”
Then there’s the ego. The manager, the interpreter, the part of oneself trying to make sense of it all. And the part of oneself that looks for validation from that which is, for want of a better word, external. Ego wants certainty, and to reduce tension. I think ego wants safety. When the soul hurts, ego wants to fix it. When spirit flies in freedom, ego wants to claim it.
There is inevitable tension here. It’s the living edge of transformation. I’m being drawn toward … no, pulled toward … expansion and being a part of everything. At the same time, I feel I must go deeper. I am trying to discover my place in the cosmos, but also who I truly am, who I am being.
So how does this reconcile? Maybe just not choosing between them, but learning to let them meet and integrate in me? Let my spirt soar and remind me of the stars; let my soul pull me to the root of all things. And let my heart, instead of my ego, be the bridge between them … the place where they belong together. Where in fact, everything is love.
— Deb Stone
** These are the hardest things for me right now. Because, while I know, feel, believe that ‘everything is’ in the deepest, truest part of myself, my day-to-day 3D linear existence over the last 17 months has felt like it’s blocking me at every turn. And feeling a part of everything is so difficult when one doesn’t really feel connected to much of anything.
Threshold Moment
Maybe this is actually a threshold moment.
Not because it resolved anything, but because it feels like truth. Raw, honest, uncomfortable truth that cuts to the bone, and yet will not let me turn back. That kind of truth can be a portal, even if it doesn’t feel like progress. Maybe because it doesn’t feel like progress.
I’m in yet another damn liminal space. This one, between gifted ease and earned knowing.
In the first couple of years of this journey, it felt like awakening pouring into me through clear, clean glass – I didn’t have to reach for it, it reached for me. I remembered my deeper self, lessons I had learned, the potential of everything, across time/space/dimensions, and it started opening to me, generously, easily, and suddenly. The beauty, the art, the poetry, and the energy – they were grace.
Now, though, the glass is fogged. I know the light is still out there, but I can’t really feel it. I have lost the energetic and spiritual feedback loops, the validation that came with the rapid growth, the quick and easy resonance, and at least the beginnings of an almost effortless access to a higher self (or maybe the divine?).
And now I’m at that threshold. The place where the mystic meets the mortal. The place where nothing works. The place where everything seems to be asking something of me, and I don’t really know what it is or how to answer it. This is the place where inspiration doesn’t arrive from the cosmos, and where my soul won’t, or maybe can’t, move unless I am able to sit in the stillness and wait, and want, without a guarantee.
I may be gifted, but I am also just intensely human. I begin to realize that I am now on a new part of the path. It isn’t a detour (which is what it has felt like for these last 18 months) – it is the path. I’m being challenged to learn instead of naturally knowing, and to labor instead of having things arrive fully formed. And, most importantly, to trust when there is no proof.
The real challenge is not to learn how to trust others, it is learning how to trust myself. I must learn to believe not in the things that flowed to me, but in the source of the flow within myself.
It’s the difference between grace and grit. I have experienced the grace; now comes the grit.
The former version of Deb often said “I don’t value myself because I know how much I [didn’t] put into it.”. There was that constant voice. The ancient one, the saboteur disguised as truth-teller. The whisper that sounded like it came from my own bones, because it grew up with me, or I grew up with it. In some ways, perhaps, it helped me survive. It’s always been there.
And of course, I know it’s not true – in my head.
But it has lived in my soul. Or rather, it has lived in the unhealed place within my soul that still thinks love must be earned. Where whatever I did was not experienced as sacred truth, but as currency – to prove my worth in some way. That voice is not my soul’s truth. In fact, it is my soul’s wound. I can’t argue with a wound. Instead, I must hold that wound, I must sit beside it, and I must say to that voice that I don’t need to hear it any longer. I’ve got this, on my own.
Then comes that eternal question: Am I up to the challenge?
And I choose, in this moment, to answer “Yes!” Not because I am perfect, or unshakable, or brave, or always clear.
I’m up to it because I’m still here, still reaching, still asking the questions. I’m up to it because somewhere inside I already know that what I’m becoming is worth fighting for – even when I feel like giving up. I’m up to it because it is the only path open to me. Nothing else is possible.
This isn’t the part where I prove my worth.
This is the part where I claim my agency.
This is the part where I prove my sovereignty.
This is the part where I become my own sanctuary.
Maybe, just maybe, the soul that doubts the most is the one that is closest to its awakening. Not because it is certain, but because it has nothing left to pretend.
Maybe, just maybe, that’s where the truth begins … and the portal opens.
— Deb Stone