Listening to the Messages from Your Soul

Our unconscious belief-patterns can actually become deep soul-messages when given the quiet space to be heard. By witnessing the thoughts and feelings that usually go unquestioned in the busyness of our lives, we can begin to unravel and heal the childlike interpretations to life that we live out unconsciously as adults.

Have you ever sat with the fluid complexity of your thoughts and feelings, witnessing each one and accepting each one as it arises, and then watching it as it dissolves into the next moment and the next? Have you ever acknowledged what your mind and your heart are expressing in this moment, and enquired into what they might be saying to you?

This is the simple practice I would like to recommend to you, as a way of coming home to yourself, in order to step boldly out into life in new authentic, joyful and creative ways.

Many of us move through our lives navigated by a series of unconscious thought and feeling belief patterns. These belief patterns often keep us stuck in a repetition of old behaviours that do not serve us any more. We hold these thoughts and feelings in our bodies, minds and spirits and live them out unquestioningly and unconsciously as if they were our 'truth'. They are actually very often 'truths' that have been passed down to us by our parents and other significant adults in our lives, and the rules and norms of our culture, as well as our own childlike attempts to interpret our experiences as we were growing up.

An example of one of my own unconscious belief patterns that I've become conscious of recently in the form of a thought is this: relationships always eventually end, and I have no control over their ending. There is a kind of resigned sadness associated with this thought. I can see that this unconscious belief may be the result of spending my childhood moving from place to place. And so, as an adult, I have been through a series of monogamous relationships, have very few friends left from my childhood, and have often found the best friends I've made as an adult have been people who eventually move away. There is a temporal element to my relationships that might not be there had I not interpreted my experiences in such a way as a child.

How do we move beyond the unconscious belief patterns that limit us, and into the freedom of authentic, joyful, creative living? We do so by sitting and listening to the voices within us that speak these 'truths', hearing them, witnessing them, and accepting them as they arise and then letting them go as they dissolve into the next moment. In doing so, we become conscious of the belief patterns we carry, and our consciousness gives us the capacity to choose other thoughts and feelings that are more in tune with the here and now.

Each belief pattern that emerges is actually a message from your soul speaking its truth in profound ways when given the space to be heard. I have no control over the ending of relationships becomes a deep cry for the security of continuity and commitment in relationship, a desire for roots, for community, for belonging, as well as a need for me to become a more active force in my world - so that my will and my power are more present in the relationships I form - rather than simply allowing the flow of events to take over and guide my relational life.

As I become conscious of what it is my soul longs for, I am freed up from the compulsion to act out of my own sense of 'lack' and given the grace to begin to change each pattern as it arises. As I sit with myself, and hear the messages my soul brings me, my compassion grows and I can forgive myself every mistake in this journey of life. As I become more conscious of the patterns impressed upon my being from early childhood, I am freed up to risk choosing new ways of living out my 'truths'. As I come home to myself in the space I give to hearing what my soul might be trying to say, I am empowered to act creatively and live more joyfully and authentically. As I begin to recognise my own unconscious drives and desires, I am inspired to look with greater compassion upon those I come into contact with. As I listen to the messages of my soul, I experience integration, and in time become more whole.

Learn more about joyful living on a Karuna Detox Retreat, the UK's first holistic Detox program. See http://www.karunadetox.com or phone 0800 112 3033 for details.

Heather Mullin is facilitator, administrator and lead bodyworker with Karuna Detox Retreats. She is passionate about health and well-being, joyful living, and creating reflective spaces for people to realize their potential.