What is Ensoulment? (12 Deep Changes That Happen Within You)

The great malady of the twentieth century, implicated in all our troubles and affecting us individually and socially, is “loss of soul.” When the soul is neglected, it doesn’t just go away; it appears symptomatically in obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning. – T. Moore

What is at the root of all our suffering?

This is a question that has haunted the minds of humanity since the dawn of time.

What we’ve learned from religion and spiritual traditions alike is that the core of our torment is rooted deep within human beings.

It is a canker of the Soul. A fragmentation of the psyche. A disturbance of the mind. A severance from nature. A desecration of the very world around us.

All of this pain is rooted in the loss of Soul.

This is why Ensoulment – being in the soul or living in alignment with the Soul – is so critical.

What Happens When We Are Severed From the Soul?

When we are cut off from the Soul, we are cut off from each other and the world.

It is then that we collapse into a state of fundamentalism, cold rationalism, and mechanistic reductionism that sees the world/others as an object to be used and discarded.

When we are severed from the Soul, human beings become deranged.

Illnesses of every kind begin to emerge, starting within the body as chronic illnesses and eating disorders – ending with mental illnesses, existential crises, paranoia, hatred, suicide, murder, and the psychotic abuse of our most innocent members of society.

For humanity to heal, we must reconnect with the Soul. We must become Ensouled. For us to reverse, in whatever way possible, the direct path of self-destruction we’re forging right now, we must be initiated onto our Soul’s path.

Ensoulment is the answer to Soul Loss, which is the most severe pandemic of all time, afflicting all people of all races and countries. 

Humanity has lost its Soul, and without a move toward Ensoulment, what hope is there for our children’s children to survive in a world that is being laid to waste as we speak?

What Actually is the Soul?

We all possess a Soul. On a fundamental level, Soul is our animating essence – it derives from the Old English word sāwol, which means “spiritual and emotional part of a person, animate existence” (1).

Through the ages, thanks to both religious and wider spiritual influence alike, the Soul has been understood as the indwelling spark of Divinity we all carry. 

In a nutshell, Soul is your innermost essence or Spirit embodied in earthly form. To use a simple analogy, Spirit is like pure light, whereas Soul is the kaleidoscopic, multi-colored lens through which Spirit shines.

Your Soul can also grow and expand throughout life.

In the words of poet Kahlil Gibran,

The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

The Soul is paradoxical in nature and is both wholly human and wholly Divine.

Ever heard the expression, “He’s a lost soul,” or “She sold her soul”? The Soul can become sick, lethargic, and lost. But there is another part of the Soul, the Divine part (the “Immortal Soul”), that can guide and support us.

What is Ensoulment?

There’s a part of every living thing that wants to become itself: the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly, a damaged human being into a whole one. – Ellen Bass

The word Ensoulment is composed of ‘Ensoul,’ which means to endow or imbue with a Soul, and the suffix ‘ment,‘ which means action or process. So, Ensoulment quite literally refers to the process of being infused with Soul.

Ensoulment is about learning how to live more in alignment with your Soul by listening to its authentic wants, needs, and values. It’s a path of embodying your most authentic Self.

Another synonym for Ensoulment is Soul recovery or the shamanic notion of Soul retrieval; however, Ensoulment is more of an ongoing philosophy and lived experience than a single shamanic ritual.

Note on the traditional meaning: Originally, Ensoulment was a term with religious connotations, referring to the moment in which a fetus gains a Soul. But that’s not what we’re talking about in this article. Instead, we have intentionally redefined and reimagined Ensoulment to mean the ongoing experience of Soul Initiation. 

12 Deep Transformations That Happen When You Become More Ensouled

The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. – Carl Jung, Psychiatrist & Ensouled human being

Soul Loss looks like anxiety, depression, addictions, narcissism, violence, and abuse of all kinds. 

Ensoulment, on the other hand, looks like openness, warmth, creativity, compassion, connectivity, joy, and a purpose-driven life.

To summarize, here are twelve transformations that often happen when you start to become more Ensouled:

1. Living more in the present moment.
2. Receptivity, humility, and openness.
3. Creativity and living a life of rich self-expression.
4. Having a strong sense of meaning and purpose.
5. Knowing and honing your unique spiritual gifts.
6. Feeling more connected to and led by your intuition.
7. Greater ability to let go and surrender to a Higher Power.
8. Moving toward internal integration and Wholeness.
9. Experiencing more signs, synchronicities, and doors opening.
10. Feeling connected with other people, the world, and Life itself.
11. Heartfulness (awe, reference, wonder, enchantment, devotion, compassion).
12. Orienting to the mysterious, the numinous, and the magic within and without you.

Ensouled people live with a great sense of creative meaning and purpose, are connected to their hearts, and feel a stronger connection with the Divine.

This journey isn’t something we can quickly “achieve” in the traditional sense. It’s not a linear path. It’s a spiralic, ebbing and flowing journey. It’s a movement of nature: organic but powerful. There is no single “finish line” – Ensoulment is an ever-deepening process of illumination, growth, and interconnectedness.

Four Sacred Paths of Ensoulment

The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door. ― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Writer, Analyst & Ensouled human being

How do we become more Ensouled? That’s the next reasonable question. The answer is that there are different types of doorways, all with their unique potentials, gifts, and capacities. 

I’ve spent over a decade exploring paths of Ensoulment. Here’s a sample of some of the most powerful paths:

Physical/Earth-centered Paths:

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear.

― Daniel Defoe

• Dancing
• Singing
• Solitude
• Drumming
• Nature walking
• Gardening
• Plant Medicine
• Ecotherapy

Emotional Paths:

Love is the nature of the soul.

– John O’Donohue

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. ― Rumi

• Devotion
• Self-love
• Contemplating beauty
• Heart-centered meditation
• Inner child work
• Caring for a family/other beings

Imaginative Paths:

Music and art and poetry attune the soul to God. 

– Thomas Merton 

• Writing/Journaling
• Drawing/Painting
• Crafting
• Music-making
• Ritual
• Mythology/symbology
• Vision quests
• Shamanic journeying

Mental Paths:

Knowledge is the food of the soul.

– Plato

Quiet the mind, and the soul will speak.

― Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati

• Prayer
• Chanting
• Silence
• Lectio Divina
• Meditation
• Reading books
• Dream work
• Mindfulness
• Shadow work

Of course, not all of these paths lead exclusively to Ensoulment. 

Gardening, for instance, can easily become a mindless chore if it lacks a sense of heart and soul. Another example from the above list is chanting, which can become a dead droning of empty words if it isn’t first imbued with deep feeling and intention.

In summary, whatever we do with depth and focus can be a path of Ensoulment (i.e., Soul Work) – it’s all about your heart’s inner attitude and the meaning you infuse into what you do.

Essentially, Ensoulment is inner archaeology – it helps us to go back to the root of our being. Choose what resonates with you and leave the rest.

Conclusion

Ensoulment is essential because you and I – and Mother Earth at large – crucially and desperately need it.

We’re suffering from pandemic proportions of Soul Loss that’s only getting worse, putting us on the fast track to the sixth mass extinction.

We’re not only destroying Mother Nature and the ecosystem, but we’re also experiencing large-scale cultural collapse that is undermining the fabric of our civilization.

We need to think bigger as a race. Whatever we do can’t merely be for the individual – we don’t have that luxury. Our efforts must be directed toward the Whole. And that starts at a root level: becoming reconnected to our Souls again.

Being true to who we are means carrying our spirit like a candle in the center of our darkness.

– Mark Nepo

What does living an Ensouled life mean to you? What are the biggest struggles or blocks you face? I welcome you to share below. You never know who you may reassure or comfort by doing so.