You feel lonely, empty, disconnected, and numb.
No one would suspect it on the surface. But these feelings of aimlessness, purposelessness, and worthlessness eat away at you every single day.
The truth is that on a core level, you feel lost. You feel cut off from your authentic self. You’re a lone wolf who’s isolated even when around other people.
This sense of heaviness and restlessness within your heart doesn’t go away, and you don’t know how to feel whole again.
To make matters worse, the state of society and the world overwhelms you with feelings of anxiety, dread, and hopelessness, and your sensitivity feels more like a curse than a gift.
Can you relate to these feelings?
If you can, please know that you’ve finally found two people who understand you.
We’ve both felt the depths of isolation, powerlessness, and frustration that come with not knowing one’s path or purpose, and feeling like an outsider in this world.
What you’re experiencing isn’t a sign that there’s something wrong with you. Instead, what you’re feeling is a normal reaction to an abnormal world.
In the words of philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Through the years, we’ve discovered that these feelings of being lost, alone, disconnected, and without a purpose aren’t a personal defect, but a deep crisis that many are going through.
This shared crisis is known as Soul Loss – and it’s an invitation to come home to the deeper truth of your nature.
What is Soul Loss? Why is it Responsible For Suffering?
Soul loss can be observed today as a psychological phenomenon in the everyday lives of human beings around us. Loss of soul appears in the form of a sudden onset of apathy and listlessness; the joy has gone out of life, initiative is crippled, one feels empty, everything seems pointless. – Marie Von Franz
Soul Loss happens when you lose connection to the wise, wild, and vital core essence of your being – your Soul.
This core wound of separation happens due to the traumas we experience throughout life and societal conditioning that teaches us to live in a state of robotic autopilot.
These traumas and layers of conditioning (that result in the creation of our ‘dark’ Shadow Self) are like thick clouds that obscure the sunlight of our Souls. Our Soul is still there, but we struggle to feel or access its warmth and wisdom. This is why many people describe Soul Loss as the feeling of going through a Dark Night of the Soul.
Soul Loss, the Planet, and Why You Feel Lost
Soul Loss isn’t just responsible for our sense of emptiness, loneliness, and numbness, but also for the destruction of our planet.
When we lose touch with our Souls, we lose touch with the Soul of the world (the Anima Mundi) of which we are inextricably linked. Having this sacred connection severed means that we use, abuse, and destroy nature and each other.
Ancient shamanic, religious, and spiritual traditions have spoken about the phenomenon of Soul Loss since the beginning of time.
Take the words of Jesus, for example, who once said,
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
When we experience Soul Loss, no matter how much we achieve or do externally, it never truly makes us feel happy, fulfilled, or at peace.
A tree that is cut off from its roots withers, and the same symbolic idea applies to our relationship with our Souls. Your Soul is your taproot and connection to the Divine. Without that felt sense of connection, life loses its meaning, vitality, and color.
The Path Home – Soul Work and Ensoulment
Soul is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. – Bhagavad Gita
Despite the pain and suffering that accompany Soul Loss, you can never totally lose touch with your Soul. It’s just buried and obscured under the thick fog of false beliefs, core wounds, and layers of your Shadow Self.
The path back home to your Soul is one of deep introspective inner work – one of Soul Work. Any practice that helps you to remove the blockages that obscure the Light of your Soul is a form of Soul Work – most commonly, this includes paths such as self-love, inner child work, shadow work, and more.
Gradually, Soul Work helps us to experience a more ensouled life, which is the goal of all our Soul Work: to find a sense of home in ourselves and the world, a place and purpose in existence.
If Soul Loss is the venom, Soul Work is the medicine that helps us to experience the healing power of Ensoulment.
Ensoulment means living in alignment with your Soul. It is the process by which you undertake the work of becoming a truly soulful being, where you invite your Soul back into every corner of your life.
Ensoulment means feeling whole, guided, and alive again. It’s about finding the unique gifts and potential of your Soul and actualizing it in this world to make a positive difference, no matter how big or small.
When we’re living an ensouled life, we’re living a whole and integrated life, a life of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment.
Your Compass and Map – How the Journey Works
Coming home to your Soul and living an ensouled life isn’t a quick fix. It’s a way of life that requires commitment. It’s a path and practice that asks you to willingly look deep within yourself.
We call this practice Soul Work.
Soul Work is the deepest form of inner work there is, encompassing the mind, heart, and soul. It incorporates the four pillars of:
- Grounding your body-mind,
- Practicing self-love,
- Healing your inner child, and
- Integrating your shadow self
We approach Soul Work through the ancient framework of spiritual alchemy, which is divided into three levels: nigredo (the darkening, or crisis), albedo (the whitening, or awakening), and rubedo (the reddening, or integration).
Spiritual alchemy is the ancient path of transformation. It teaches us the power of redemption and that even our greatest pain can be transmuted into a source of power, purpose, and potential.
Ultimately, spiritual alchemy is the art of transforming the ‘lead’ of your inner darkness – your wounds, traumas, and shadows – into the ‘gold’ of wisdom, compassion, and purpose.
This alchemical form of Soul Work is divided into seven stages of inner transformation:
- Calcination (Calcinatio, the fire) – Burning away the illusions.
- Dissolution (Solutio, the water) – Dissolving blocks. Processing emotions.
- Coagulation (Coagulatio, the earth) – Getting grounded. Setting boundaries.
- Sublimation (Sublimatio, the air) – Taking a higher perspective.
- Mortification (Mortifactio, the shadow) – Facing the shadow and letting go.
- Separation (Separatio, the sword) – Discerning the truth. Cutting through the fog.
- Conjunction (Coniunctio, the gold) – Integrating wisdom and embodying a transformed self.
All of our work on this website mirrors one or more of these alchemical processes. We also help you explore these paths of transformation more in-depth in our powerful Alchemical Soul Work Workbook.
Your First Step on the Path
If something within your heart and soul says “yes” to what we’ve shared here, we welcome you to join us on this journey of Ensoulment.
You don’t have to walk this path alone anymore. Sign up for our free newsletter to get weekly soul-centered guidance and support for your unique path of healing and wholeness:
Ready to dive deep right away? Explore the Alchemical Soulwork Workbook, our complete guided journey for transforming inner blocks and finding clarity.
Thank you for being here, kindred soul. We are honored to accompany you on your path of healing and transformation.
With love always,
Aletheia Luna & Mateo Sol
Psychospiritual Writers, Guides, and Educators
Amazing!!! I slept in the upstairs bedroom last night…so irritated with everyone and everything…my mind kept repeating…Soul Numbness……and here you are…Soul Loss!! Haven’t even read the rest of the article…and wow…the other word that keeps coming to ne is Mind Numbness…wonder what that could mean!+
Your articles are so positive. Please keep this up as it is so powerful. I thank you both for taking the time to share your thoughts and positivity. It is so profound.
Thank you for your kind words, Sally!
Yes, we are feeling the pinch and cold chill of Winter, and our alchemical fires of rebirth are the only means of keeping warm. Brr!
When “nigredo” and absolute dread happens, and we feel the fears, dread, and what-if this or that scenario happens, until we find constructive ways to tackle the situation. So far this year, we have lost a dear friend to Alzheimer’s and old age. Nearly lost our dwellings due to real estate sales, and M is getting older and needs greater care from me to work as a Carer to her day and night.
As Retired persons, when things are out of kilter, we discuss the problem and focus on what our real intentions are, and formulate a better understanding of the problem through online research and placing love into action. By better understanding, we reduce fears, phobias, and anxiety to ” clarify” our situation and work out the best points of reference or what the focus of our intention needs to be to best serve our needs. If it’s soul loss or personal crisis, we use listening skills and personal instruction to gently see the negative situation as it is presented and attempt acceptance while bending the light to be more positive and put the best case for change forward.
We relate to the feelings mentioned concerning our society and the restless and wasteful destruction of resources and human beings on the war front. Often, I speak to M and mention the shifting plates and defined divisions created by our dear politicians ( bless them), making weapons of war to sell on the open market without feeling for our cost in the human sense.
In conclusion, yes, we both felt the depth of isolation, the feelings of powerlessness, with strange sleep patterns (nocturnal wanderings, dealing with old bladders and body pain) or falling asleep in late afternoon nap time and being wide awake from 3 am onwards. Even though things appear on the surface as doom and gloom, wars, and soul loss, we know we are all heading into alignment and greater things to come. Like two crysalids waiting to form into the beauty of the butterfly. As long as we do not beat our wings too strongly to bring on the apocalypse on the other side of the world too soon, he… he..
Loving kindness from us both in this dark hour before the new dawn of consciousness brings in a bright new day.
“Even though things appear on the surface as doom and gloom, wars, and soul loss, we know we are all heading into alignment and greater things to come” – thank you for this beautiful message, John. For someone who I assume has experienced a lot in life at your age, I’m inspired by your mindset and outlook. Thanks for being here and sharing this!
Home. I’ve decided, not in crisis or anger, that if my last attempt at achieving something worthwhile fails, I’m going home. My actual home beyond this world. I’m tired and can’t take it anymore.
PLEASE don’t do that. Your life has value, even if you can’t see it right now. And there is no “last” attempt. As long as you’re alive, there is ALWAYS a chance to do something different, or of something new and better happening in your life. Once you’re no longer alive, that chance is gone. And don’t believe that you’d be going “home” to some lovely afterlife. That’s not how it works. Those who take the lives that Godde gave them (I like to spell it that way because S-He is both God and Goddess in One), are automatically sending themselves to a VERY unhappy afterlife.
I mirror what Nancy says, with the exception of the last totally unnecessary and insensitive fear-mongering part (which also can’t be proven). Many of us can relate to that feeling of tiredness and overwhelm, Paolo. You’re not alone. I hope you choose to stick around and share your inner Light with the world – we need you here. 💜
Hey Paolo, it happens to everyone. Rest a little. Inhale positivity from the universe. Exhale the darkness inside u. U are a fighter. And ur home is ur soul or ur soul is ur home. It is ur best friend, guide and above everything, it’s ur Almighty. Remember that this companion is with you always. Hold its hand and u won’t slip on a slippery road. All the best.
Dear Paolo,
You are enough, just as you are. Home beckons as an end to the suffering, I know. It seems you’re climbing sand-dunes and it’s exhausting. There doesn’t seem to be a point to this striving beyond mere survival. So you think to yourself: I must try to achieve something worthwhile to make this existence make sense. When all the while, you’re here to be you, exactly as you are now. Your beautiful soul is here to love and be loved. There’s nothing trite about that statement. I, personally, would be sad if you left, and I don’t even know you. I love that you’re here. You’re a gift.
Eckhart Tolle said to someone who wanted to depart: if you want to die, try dying right now, to the desire to die. Just let it be, that thought. If nothing matters any more, then let that thought die within you. Let it go. Be at peace with that thought, because you are not your thoughts. Observe them without reacting to them. Just watch them as they flow in and out of you. Don’t react. Just watch them. See how they don’t belong to you. Xxx
Narendra and Angeline, your comments are so compassionate. Thank you for showing that you care 💜
Thank you for this beautifully written article. It resonates with me so much and helps me integrate all the alchemical terms that I learned throughout my journey and connects them with my spiritual journey/experience. Thank you so much 😊🙏🏼💕
It’s a pleasure to be of service, Sheau 🕯️
YES, Aletheia, I resonate with this. I very much liked this sentence in your writing prompts:”List five of your values. Then reflect on them.” To me, REFLECTING is exactly very important. TIME TO REFLECT. TIME TO BE STILL. TIME TO WRITE. The photo I liked too. It is a beautiful journal. A very valuable journal. Something precious, a gem stone of the soul. I feel very much like writing now.
And about what you say on STILLNESS AND CREATIVITY: YES.
Yes, just like that.
Funny, because I woke up this morning feeling precisely that: I NEED TO BE STILL. To do what is necessary in stillness, with my beautiful journal, my two cats, my creative brain and prayer. Some kind of PURIFICATION. I saw in my mind´s, no soul´s, eye that I went and found or bought some sage. Burned it, sat in that room, and that is when your mail arrived, and I saw the beautiful journal.
I am telling you, you did me good.
THANK YOU.
You asked about life purpose. I do believe I have two: a. Writing (poetry and maybe some larger text too, I am not sure) b. To inspire. I do NOT say this lightly. I know what it means. It does in no way depress me but I need to be alone about it. At least for a while. And, by the way, it was my first thought upon opening your mail that yes, we live in flux. This is something that is so much a part of life that it impedes life if we do not wish to accept it.
ps: Could you explain more about the inner child work, please? And the concept of the “middle world”? I do not intuitively understand the middle world, it does not seem attractive to me as I am much more interested in the lower and upper worlds. So what is the middle world? Is it the world of flux in fact?
I see you have an article on toxic family bonds….I will read that now.
MAY GOD BLESS YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE ALONG THE WAY.
Hi there Alma,
Thanks so much for sharing your beautiful reflections and experiences here.
You ask about inner child work and the middle world. I think you’ll find these two guides illuminating: https://lonerwolf.com/inner-child-work/ and this specific section in the spiritual journey article: https://lonerwolf.com/spiritual-journey/#h-the-3-worlds-of-the-spiritual-journey-which-are-you-inhabiting Thanks for being here <3
I’m feeling lost definitely. In limbo between moving from conditioned thinking from my past and what’s ahead. A hard phase with plenty of crying xxxx
Ego having its fun at mo x
I’m sorry to hear this, Charles. Crying can be so cathartic, though. Sending lots of love 💜
Thankyou for this timely article. I found the questions at the beginning very searching, and answering them was a useful exercise for making me dive deeper & focus on why I am at a loss at making a crucial decision. ⛅
That’s wonderful, Jill; we find questions can be powerful swords in cutting through a lot of the muddiness we sometimes mentally get stuck in.
The disconnection from others hurts the most for me. The continuous neverending search for my herd, kindred spirits alike.
Also the doubt about being “wrong”. Am I to harsh, too disconnected? Is it me that is too judge full, am I subconsciously rejecting others? And how do I find the truthful answer to that question…?
Exactly….this is me as well
Thank you for this honest and vulnerable post, Deborah. I believe what you share is common to so many people (otherwise this site wouldn’t exist!). We’re programmed to be social creatures and yet modern life often isolates us, not to mention experiences of spiritual awakening where our deeper values and perspectives shift. But there are ways of connecting again, to ourselves and others in less obvious ways. Nature, for one, has been so healing for me and a bridge back to others. As for these questions you ask, have you tried finding alternative mirrors of insight, such as asking an oracle or tarot deck (mirrors of the psyche) and noticing what answers emerge? I love this method. Much love and thank you for being here with us 💜