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» Home » Starting The Journey

What is a Soul? (and Can it Die, Escape, or Break?)

by Aletheia Luna · Updated: Apr 3, 2025 · 155 Comments

Image of a smiling child in a white globe representing the soul
what is a soul healing soul quotes soul spiritual

Understanding the nature of the soul is perhaps one of the most fundamental and essential tasks on the spiritual path.

Without knowing what the soul is and how it relates to our life here on earth, we can easily get lost, confused, and stranded.

Below we explore this mysterious force, how to get in touch with it, how to distinguish it from Spirit, and more.


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Table of contents

  • What is a Soul?
  • Can Your Soul Disappear or Die?
  • Do Plants, Animals, and Other Lifeforms Have a Soul?
  • Can a Person Be Born Without a Soul?
  • Soul vs Spirit – What’s the Difference?
  • What’s the Ultimate Purpose of the Soul?
  • How to Find Your Soul (3 Mystical Paths)

What is a Soul?

What is a soul

What is a soul? To put it in a nutshell, your soul is the immaterial essence and totality of who you are at human level – it is your authentic Self.

As all of life at its core level is energy, a soul is the whole of this energy; a unique expression of the Divine which we call Spirit. Indeed, your soul can be thought of as Spirit embodied.

As the force that animates, moves, and even speaks to us, our souls are said to be the source of our intuition and higher knowing.

As psychologist and shamanic teacher, Christa Mackinnon writes,

… it is our soul that provides us with a kind of inner voice, a moral compass and direction. It is our soul that we hear as this ‘little voice inside’ reminding us that there is more we can become, and it is our soul that suffers when we don’t nourish it by integrating a spiritual component into our lives and striving to give our lives meaning and purpose.

The precise origin of the word ‘soul’ is unknown, however, it derives from a variety of words from Old English (sāwl, sāwol), Dutch (ziel), German (seele), and Old Norse (sál) languages.

Can Your Soul Disappear or Die?

Image of a man with a fragmented soul experiencing soul loss

Probably one of the biggest questions that we’re left to try and figure out as humans is whether the soul can die, become lost, or disappear. It’s a scary thought! So let’s address the elephant in the room right away.

So can your soul die?


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In short, the answer is no, your soul can’t die (thankfully!). It can transform and merge back with Spirit, but it cannot die.

As the ancient sacred Indian text known as the Bhagavad Gita writes:

The soul is never touched; it is immutable, all-pervading, calm, unshakable; its existence is eternal.

This mirrors the first law of thermodynamics which states that energy can transform from one state to another, but it can neither be created nor destroyed. 

The same can be said for your soul, as your soul is energy: the life force energy. Therefore, it can never die, only change form.

How’s that for mind-blowing? This realization can change the whole way you approach death!

What about being losing your soul?

While you can be what we refer to in the West as a “lost soul” (or someone who loses their way in life) – your soul in reality never “runs” away or gets lost. Instead, you lose connection to it due to trauma and inner wounds.

In other words, your soul is always there like the sun or moon, it can just get obscured by the trees or high-rise apartments (that is, your thoughts, beliefs, and traumas). We’ll explore this topic more a little later.

Do Plants, Animals, and Other Lifeforms Have a Soul?

Image of anima mundi the soul of nature

If we understand the soul as the unique essence or essential life force of something, we can see that everything has a soul because everything has one-of-a-kind life force energy. No two things in existence are ever exactly the same (even identical twins have differences).

When you go outside in nature, notice the trees around you. If you pay attention, you’ll discover that each one has a certain uniqueness, not just in appearance but in energy – that is the soul of the tree.

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The same unique essence can be felt and observed in just about anything you come across such as a dog, a bird, a cloud, a mountain, even the phone, tablet, or laptop that you’re reading this on. Everything has a specific ‘such-ness’ that differentiates it from other things.

Even the world – also referred to as Mother Earth or Gaia – has a soul, according to numerous philosophical, spiritual, and religious systems of thought. The world’s soul is known as the anima mundi or the universal soul because it encompasses the sum total energy of all beings.

Can a Person Be Born Without a Soul?

Image of a human soul mandala

“Can a person be born without a soul?” This is a somewhat controversial question and everyone has a different response. 

Do serial killers, psychopaths, rapists, and so on have souls? 

Those that react with extreme hatred and disgust toward these types of people (which, by the way, is a normal reaction) would scream NO WAY.

But my understanding is that we’re all born with souls, it’s just that some people lose connection to them due to ancestral, societal, familial, and childhood trauma.

Sometimes this trauma is so intense that the person loses complete connection with their soul – it is barricaded behind wall after wall of rage, hatred, pain, grief, toxic beliefs, core wounds, and defense mechanisms.

As a result of this inner ‘barricading,’ a person can appear to be “soulless” or “dead inside” – and in some sense, they are because they’ve become totally separated from the warmth and compassion of the soul.

When this separation from the soul happens despicable acts of cruelty can be committed because the person doesn’t really feel anything (or becomes possessed by one particular emotion like rage).

Here’s an analogy:

Picture a large room. Within the room is a single, bright, pure light. It floods the whole room and illuminates everything. But what happens when you build a wall around this light? The room becomes dimmer and dimmer. What happens when you completely bury this light? The room becomes pitch dark: you can’t see anything, and you stumble around in a state of chronic fear and confusion. 

Eventually, you are so used to feeling scared that you become numb – it becomes too much to handle. As a result, you become a creature of the darkness, not really alive, but not really dead either. 

Those that experience this will often resort to the most extreme measures to feel something, anything – and when they do feel something, like lust for someone, it may possess them so completely that they become like a demon: unable to feel or see anything but that emotion.

When our inner room is illuminated by the light of the soul, however, we can see and feel clearly. We don’t need to live in a state of fear – life is vibrant and fully alive.

So how can we let this inner light permeate our being? There are a number of different ways (this whole website is dedicated to it, in fact). And we’ll explore some below. But first, let’s explore the difference between soul and Spirit – something important to understand.


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Soul vs Spirit – What’s the Difference?

Soul vs spirit

Most people are confused about the difference between the soul and Spirit. These terms sound similar and are often used interchangeably – but they’re not the same thing.

While the soul is connected to the earth, Spirit is connected with heaven. While soul is a doorway into the mysteries of the personal unknown, Spirit opens a door into boundless Oneness.

Soul is discovered in the subconscious or “underworld” realm, while Spirit is encountered in states of super-consciousness (or the “upperworld”). When we directly experience both the soul and Spirit we experience mystical feelings of bliss, but the soul is connected with wild dreams, ecstasies, and visions, while Spirit results in the experience of pure, illuminated, content-free Oneness.

Here we can see the fundamental difference between soul vs spirit summarized: soul is earthly, mysterious, and accessed through the subconscious in dreams and visions. Spirit, on the other hand, is heavenly, content-free, and accessed through states of purified awareness (such as meditation).

I like to envision Spirit and soul in the following way: Spirit is a dark room and soul is the candle and spark of light in that dark room. This light that is our soul is consciousness (or Spirit) that is aware of itself.

But can we say that soul is separate from Spirit? We can’t. They both appear in the same space. Soul is using the oxygen and space of Spirit to fuel itself.

Perhaps a chart will simply and easily define the difference between soul vs Spirit (even though these distinctions may be a bit crude):

Soul:

PersonalIndividualFeels clearlyPurpose = fulfillment
UnderworldUnconsciousYinSymbolic
Shakti energyWater and EarthDescending into oneselfDoing

Spirit:

ImpersonalUniversalSees clearlyPurpose = enlightenment
UpperworldSuper-ConsciousYangContent-free
Shiva energyFire and AirAscending beyond oneselfBeing

As explored in the book Spiritual Ecology,

The idea of the human soul … calls us toward our individual and unique relationship to the world. In this sense, soul and Spirit suggest opposites—the unique versus the universal, that which is approached by way of descent versus that which is approached by way of ascent. Ultimately, however, each soul (each thing in its soul aspect) exists as an expression of Spirit and serves as an agent or emissary for Spirit. Our individual relationships with Spirit and soul are not contradictory but complementary. A complete spirituality embraces our relationships to both Spirit and soul, not just one or the other. Together these two realms of spirituality form a whole. Either one alone is incomplete.

Here we can see that both soul and Spirit are really only two sides of the same coin. Ultimately, soul must serve as an agent of Spirit, and Spirit is incomplete without soul.

By being who we authentically are, by walking a path that is true to us, we connect with soul and thus serve Spirit. 

What’s the Ultimate Purpose of the Soul?

What is a soul

Now that we’ve answered the question “what is a soul?” we need to dig more deeply and understand the ultimate purpose of the soul.

As I explored in my article “What is the Meaning of Life?” we all have an innate purpose, something that is programmed into us at a core level, something that we fulfill.

We can observe this in the world around us: life is programmed to grow, change, and expand. All beings (trees, animals, galaxies, etc.) go through cycles of metamorphosis. And so do we.

Therefore, the ultimate purpose of the soul based on this fundamental observation is to grow and mature. In fact, it’s said that the soul goes through many different stages (known as soul ages), in order to fulfill this basic purpose. Those souls who have grown and matured over many lifetimes are referred to as old souls.

But what is the culmination of all this?

Inner Work Test image

Since the dawn of time, philosophers, poets, saints, mystics, and sages have referred to the ultimate purpose of the soul by many names: to achieve Buddha-nature, Enlightenment, Heaven, Christ-Consciousness, Moksha, Illumination, or Oneness.

As individual conduits of Spirit, we are ultimately trying to return back to the embrace of eternity; to remove the veil that makes us feel divided and experience the joy of Unity once more.

When enlightenment occurs, the individual soul merges or ‘dissolves’ back into the universal Spirit – or as author Michael A. Singer writes:

When the drop of consciousness that knows itself as an individual drifts back far enough, it becomes like the drop that falls into the ocean. The Atman (Soul) falls into the Paramatman (Supreme Soul). The individual consciousness falls into the Universal Oneness. And that’s it.

This is often known as the experience of returning home or returning to our true nature beyond the limiting ego that likes to control, manipulate, run away from, cling to, and fear life.

But this journey can take a moment, a day, or a lifetime (or more), and even enlightenment isn’t the end (for whatever is static is dead – and there’s no such thing as death ultimately). There are still layers upon layers of deepening, opening, and expanding to be experienced.

How to Find Your Soul (3 Mystical Paths)

Image of a smiling child in a white globe representing the soul

I write how to “find” your soul because, while the soul is always there, its light can become obscured, barricaded, and blocked out of daily life.

Our souls all share one great craving: to be free of our limited selves and the narrowness and suffocating emptiness of our thoughts.

We need to move through the emotional, mental, physical, and etheric pollution of our lives to reconnect with our souls. And this is not always an easy path, especially when we are so habituated to a certain state of living.

To find your soul you need to question everything. You need to walk the path less traveled, be the lone wolf, and go in search of something more. This can be an uncomfortable path, hence why most people prefer the comfort and complacency of mediocrity. But learning to reconnect with your soul is a core part of the spiritual journey.

Are you ready to listen to the inner call? Are you sick of feeling lost, alone, depressed, and empty inside? Do you want to find out your gifts, life destiny, and personal meaning? Are you ready to practice some soul work?

If you’ve read this far, it’s quite clear that you’re being called to live a life more imbued with soul. Here are three sacred inner work and soul work paths that will help you to reconnect with your soul:

Path 1 – The Body, Physical Realm

Image of a soul mandala

Practices that correspond to path 1 include:

  • Ecotherapy (including deep ecology, nature immersion, vision quests, etc.)
  • Yoga, tai chi, qigong (physical disciplines that help you to connect with your life force energy)
  • Breathwork (using your breath to move through blockages, increase vitality, sharpen awareness, etc.)
  • Bodywork (this includes various methods of therapeutic touch that release trauma from the body, increase health and movement, and promote mind-body connection)
  • Somatic psychotherapy (counseling that involves connecting with the wisdom and healing capacity of the body as a vessel of the soul by releasing trauma and healing)
  • Plant medicine (ingesting psychoactive substances to expand consciousness and soul connection under the watch of a shaman or healer)
  • Solitude (physically removing yourself from the chaos of life to look within)
  • Dancing (intuitive movement to express the soul)
  • Singing and chanting (using the voice to connect with and express the soul)
  • Tantra (an esoteric tradition that honors the body and all facets of life)

The body is the vessel of our soul, and connecting with it means reuniting with the wisdom and intelligence we innately carry. The body also carries a lot of tension and trauma (known as body armor), so releasing these blockages simultaneously releases the barriers that surround your soul.

Path 2 – The Heart, Emotional Realm

What is a soul?

Practices that correspond to path 2 include:

  • Cultivating gratitude (feeling thankful for all that you have – an innate quality of the soul)
  • Developing intuition (listening to the quiet wise voice within you; the voice of the soul)
  • Devotion (love and dedication to a certain quality, guru, teacher, etc.)
  • Prayer (communing with the soul through the heart’s longings)
  • Cultivating loving-kindness (commonly practiced through Metta meditation)
  • Increasing self-love (learning to love and embrace yourself, flaws and all)
  • Philanthropy (actively serving others with compassion)
  • Inner child work (healing the wounded inner child within you)
  • Letting go (learning to surrender, release, and discharge old emotional pain)

The heart is the doorway to the soul, and learning to dive into it provides us direct access to the essence of who we really are. Opening, expanding, and removing (or making peace with) the burdens that weigh on our hearts helps us to invite the presence of our souls into daily existence.

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Path 3 – The Mind, Mental Realm

Image of a soul mandala

Practices that correspond to path 3 include:

  • Meditation (quiet inner observation and thought-awareness)
  • Mindfulness (paying attention in the present moment to all sensations)
  • Journaling (writing down thoughts and exploring inner self)
  • Shadow work (exploring one’s inner demons that block the soul)
  • Dream work (using one’s dreams, such as lucid dreaming, as a gateway to the soul)
  • Active Imagination (also known as “Astral Travel” – or using the mind to go on inner adventures)
  • Visualization (using mental imagery to increase clarity, wisdom, love, etc.)
  • Parts work (or exploring one’s inner archetypes and establishing more internal harmony)
  • Changing core beliefs (reframing the beliefs that prevent us from accessing the soul)
  • Spiritual psychotherapy (also known as “transpersonal counseling” which is receiving guidance from someone who integrates spirituality and psychology together)

The mind perceives and expresses the soul, but when our minds are contracted, polluted, attached to thoughts, and filled with fear we cannot access this essential part of us. Working with the conscious and unconscious mind will help us to dissolve the ingrained patterns, conditioning, and habits that obscure the divinity within. 

Ensoulment & Spiritual Awakening

Image of the sun creating beautiful colors in the sky

Ensoulment is the path and practice of becoming more imbued with soul.

When we learn to live more within and from the soul, life becomes alive and fresh again. We’re no longer in a state of suffering – or at least, we aren’t as strongly identified with the thoughts attachments associated with it – instead, we find a Home in the present moment.

The spiritual awakening journey is about awakening to our True Nature that goes beyond the individual personality and sense of self. Reconnecting with the soul within (and around) us frees us to operate from a place of Loving Presence. It’s rediscovering this very Loving Presence that is the whole point of the spiritual awakening journey and spirituality in general.

So if you’ve been longing to find a “home” or place to rest, the key lies in your connection with your soul – that part of you that goes beyond the personal ego, beckons us through breadcrumbs of intuition, and unites us with Spirit; the All That Is.

Final Words

If the soul is the core, animating, and unique expression of the Divine within us, it makes sense to focus our efforts on reconnecting with it by removing the blockages that obscure its light.

To quote psychiatrist Carl Jung,

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.

It can be uncomfortable to come face-to-face with the inner blockages that obscure our Light and to move out of autopilot living. But without seeking to live an Ensouled life, we’ll always feel that there’s something “not quite right” or “something missing.” Our lives will feel insipid, empty, and aimless.

But when we reconnect with that Loving Presence inside of us, we gain direction, hope, joy, peace, and the ability to fully enjoy life.

Tell me, how do you know you’re living from a place of soul? What is a soul? I’d love to hear below. 

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About Aletheia Luna

Aletheia Luna is a prolific psychospiritual writer, author, educator, and intuitive guide whose work has touched the lives of millions worldwide. As a survivor of fundamentalist religious abuse, her mission is to help others find love, strength, and inner light in even the darkest places. She is the author of hundreds of popular articles, as well as numerous books and journals on the topics of Self-Love, Spiritual Awakening, and more. [Read More]

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  1. L says

    March 26, 2022 at 3:18 am

    This article was great thank you

    Reply
  2. katarzyna izdebska says

    March 22, 2022 at 4:45 pm

    Thank you so much for another, of a great value article.
    xxx,

    Kasia

    Reply
  3. Josephyne says

    March 16, 2022 at 10:34 am

    Does a person have a soul if they were conceived as an act of rape?

    Reply
    • Mateo Sol says

      March 16, 2022 at 1:56 pm

      Hey Josephyne,

      We’ve covered in the past that we don’t subscribe to the idea that anyone is born without a soul regardless of the circumstances of their birth. That said, being the by-product of rape could lead to trauma passed on from those who raise the child and this could lead to more difficulty finding a sense of Ensoulment due to the internal chaos they experience. This is when necessary healing and therapy or other forms of support would be necessary.

      Reply
  4. John says

    March 11, 2022 at 12:39 am

    This is a brilliantly clear work which I completely identify with. Thank you for creating and sharing.

    Reply
  5. Erik (Rik) Arfeuille says

    March 02, 2022 at 11:06 pm

    Succinct, concise and to the point. Another great article.
    As an academic consideration: why would we want to be reunited with Source? After all, we chose to enter into this realm, in these specific life conditions and challenges. Why not experience the journey to the fullest extent?
    From Roger Zelazny’s book “The Courts of Chaos”, the third book in the Amber saga.
    The protagonist, Corwin, meets a raven, Hugi, who appears to be a Buddhist bird quoting all the ‘ego’-mantra’s such as “The whole problem lies with the self, the ego, and its involvement with the world on one hand and the Absolute on the other.” A bit later in the discussion, Corwin replies: “The ego, as I see it, exists at an intermediate stage between rationality and reflex existence. Blotting it out is a retreat, though. If you come from the Absolute – of a self cancelling All¬ – why do you wish to go back home? Do you so despise yourself that you fear mirrors? Why not make the trip worthwhile? Develop. Learn. Live. If you have been sent on a journey why do you wish to cop out and run back to your point of departure? Or did your Absolute make a mistake in sending something of your caliber?”

    Just some academic ramblings, not to be taken too seriously.
    Rik

    Reply
    • Rion Raugaj says

      March 04, 2022 at 5:51 am

      Pretty straight to the point and nicely put Rik but even endeavors we take on in life can be more than we bargained for. I often think of all the souls getting together as another troop of spirits descend into the realm of flesh. Spirits that have come here many, many, times before. Are the older souls all watching and betting on their favourites?
      So lets pretend I was one of those warrior spirits taking on humanity again in a form I have never experience before now. Well I do feel like you say. I will take this to the very end as I have always done but… I have never had a body so chronically wrapped in pain. Well the first 50 years I’m just barely getting the hang of it but wait, this is when everything starts to fall apart. This can only get worse. And believe me it does and when you can honestly admit that you really only have one good day out of 60 that’s 59 days of agonizing hell. At what point is the suffering sufficient to justify the release from it. Every torture scene in the movies repeats the phrase, ‘Everyone has their breaking point’. And the worst one of all is ‘If God brought you to it He can bring you through it.’ I lost a lot of very faithful individuals that just didn’t have that strength.
      ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ How do we reconcile that with PTSD? I was shocked when my doctor told me that that was what I had from a previous operation! No war, no atrocities, just pain at such a level few will ever experience. Sixty years of severe chronic all body pain feels a lot different than it sounds so I expect no one to understand why home looks so good. But I have a deep pride in what I did with what I had to work with and I feel I’ve more than earned that reward.
      These are not cut and dried cases. There is no black and white. Nothing but varying shades of grey everywhere you look. Every person is as a snowflake, as unique in their make-up as the next. Don’t let dogma fool you into thinking that those that just couldn’t handle what they took on failed. They just were not prepared for it. My little snowflake has a particular dislike for giving in to any adversary yet I have met beautiful gentle souls who would gladly just fade away back home than deal with it. Who am I to say which is right? If they tried every possible avenue to get through and found none, what is left?

      Reply
    • Aletheia Luna says

      March 10, 2022 at 1:28 pm

      Thanks for these interesting thoughts Rik.
      Regarding: “why would we want to be reunited with Source? After all, we chose to enter into this realm, in these specific life conditions and challenges. Why not experience the journey to the fullest extent?” – why not both?
      I think ultimately being reunited with Source is a matter of definition. Some people see it as a cessation of suffering (liberation), others see it as delusional (they don’t believe in anything Divine), and other such as perhaps yourself see it as a form of despising or avoiding life. Some people may indeed use the thirst to return home as a way of escapism while others may use it to give greater meaning and context to their lives. It all depends. There’s my Taoistic answer. :P

      Reply
  6. Rion Raugaj says

    March 02, 2022 at 10:33 pm

    Hi Josephyne. I was surprised to actually read of someone else feeling this way. I have no fear of death and welcome her embrace when she comes but there can be as many reasons for that as there are people feeling it. Everyone who knows this of me think I’m touched. They’re right we are, but in a very special way. I’m extremely fortunate to have walked many spiritual paths beginning at the age of seven that profoundly affected my life in a positive way and therefore I was totally unprepared for a midlife crisis I thought I would avoid. I call it ‘manic depressant’ because that is what it feels like. A constant cycle from full on depression and only a hair away from going walkabout to ‘everything is cool, I got this covered’ and then on to my mind telling me to do a dozen different things all at once. I could probably point to several reasons why but your point really defines them all. I’ve tried shutting the world out and for seven years a ray of sunshine never penetrated the closed blinds on my windows. I thought I had finally found peace but there is always something trying to shatter it. When mine was shattered a series of events brought me face to face with this crisis and I am still fighting through it and other demons that seek to destroy or compromise my thinking. It’s horrifying to think of someone facing this that hasn’t had the good fortune of strict mental self discipline as I have had. Even so I am here, on this amazing site, thank you Aletheia, looking for help and guidance. For even things we are taught here on how to achieve I have stumbled upon by accident and it so frightened me that I did everything I could to never face them again. Now I learn I have attained what many others seek and never find and knowing that does not make them any less frightening. We face horrors those numb to the world never face and we do it alone. I am a loner by nature and spent my entire youth and young adulthood alone in the deep woods of my home just being. But every age brings new variables that have to be fit to our desires and that is not always simple. Like Lisa I tried reaching out for help locally and was almost done in by the depth of apathy that is out there. It could have driven me back to my prison had I not the clarity to remember the 1 in 10 of those were compassionate. They couldn’t help me but they were not loathe to say that they deeply wished that they could. I didn’t find this site, it found me and being a stickler for details I am still trying to figure out why because this was not the direction I sought. The thought of possibly being a shaman never, ever, crossed my mind yet somehow that was what brought me here. Since then I have lost track of the number of synchronicities I’ve encountered. Though numerous it is not always easy to figure out how to utilize or understand the message. I wish there was enough space to explain but it would fill a good sized novel. My recent personal crisis left me with a sense that I have something yet to do. The catch with that is how do you know when or if you have done it? I have pulled my estranged daughter back under my wing and with her, her four grandchildren one of which I haven’t even met yet. I have opened the door to my estranged son and another grandchild I have yet to meet but I still wait. Those are two major changes that would have never happened had I not survived and yet I still feel… lost, wondering if there is more to do and whether I can even do it. Yet I still continue and every person on this site, the creators and the commenters, had a hand in that progress, thank you all. How do I repay you for that wisdom? Loners need to connect with someone sometime and my particular situation prevents that and loneliness can even affect a loner. I dream of a day when we can send out a mental call and anyone from anywhere can be immediately by our side to help us or just chase away the loneliness so we can find our own way, but that may be a long way off. Until then we have this site and I will return, so if you ever need to know what helped me and may help you or just to talk to someone who knows exactly how you feel I will answer or be what I can, with Aletheia’s permission of course. Until then please stay strong and never forget that everything could change in a second. Find the crack.

    Reply
  7. Rene says

    March 01, 2022 at 2:26 pm

    hay you all I went a few times already thru the dark night of the soul, also yesterday it happened again after a very very long time, it was I think triggered and in motion set by all that happened last two years. not nice stuff physically to me and financially and emotionally , I know even whats right and not even its ok with others I do not like what happened ( so my souls speaks ) but it takes it toll as I have also sadly PTSS … and that has been caused in the past by my deepest downfall in life ever . and nearly it feels I went there , normally I drink not a home but because of all QR bs en etc en now the WAR in the EU , I drank way to much at home ..so I my mind went blank maybe better than saying blackout as I could see walk act but not really in full knowledge of why . after long time slowly the toxication went and I could think with my soul again and feel nope this is not what I want or even like . the very left behind me came back shortly .. but I shows also it brings you back to God as he tries now today hey that’s not the way you wanted is it … no I do not that’s very very clear again, now I have to work more with my soul and real feelings again and hide it under the carpet as it brings it up wrongly like a pressurized bottle . so anyone who has ideas or what to read or to do I am trying to get physically help here .and tlk with a good friend I will , but soul work is different for many … so yes please advice me …. i read E.Tolle as my mind was off again yesterday the wrong way …. nothing I did harm I did came to senses before it went wrong. but I drove my car ??? can not understand even why ( no never had an accident really) thx if and this helps also writing as journaling and listen tot gods words …

    Reply
    • Aletheia Luna says

      March 02, 2022 at 7:41 am

      Hi Rene,
      Thank you for sharing the trials and tribulations of your journey. I’ve shared (near the end of the article) some helpful practices — might they help you?

      Reply
  8. Claire Gallagher says

    February 28, 2022 at 9:38 pm

    This arrived at a critical moment for me. I have always been a spiritual seeker, wary of the way that psychiatry, psychology and mainstream mental health systems attempt to claim spiritual crises or practices as mental health problems. Yet against my own intuition, I walked into a paych hospital five years ago, and have been trapped in this awful system ever since. I kno that medication does not help and that talking to a psychologist about my past has ruined my life and sense of self, and I don’t know who I am anymore. I have totally lost myself. I began to attempt to reacquaint with my soul and sense of spiritualism during Covid, but still ended up back in hospital in January this year, feeling I wanted to end my life, yet telling the doctors that this was about my soul not my mind. And I was right. On the ward I met a woman who was also a seeker, who kept trying to connect with me. I persisted in being in my head, I kept trying to change the past in my head. I felt like I was fighting for my soul against my mind, yet I was addicted to manipulating past events in my head On the night before I discharged myself against medical advice from hospital, this woman told me she saw an unusually bright white light surrounding me, and to ask my guides for the answers before going to sleep that night. What happened was that exactly the same pictures and sequence of events were shown to me, except they were telling me to remain grounded in this hospital with this wise woman, and to meditate. She had a Buddah by her nightstand, perfectly opposite my bed and in my eyeline. I erroneously listened to my fears and I ran from the hospital. On the way home from hospital I began to have extraordinary experience. It felt like something was trying to come out of me, at that point through my face and pores
    Alone the next morning, after once again playing with my past in my head, I felt what seemed like electrical shocks in my brain, there was a taste of metal in my mouth. Much more frightening was the rising up of what felt like my soul up through my chest, as it passed my heart it felt like my heart was pierced and switched off, and my soul fled through my head, it was like it had wings, a large bird like creature but ethereal, and it flew out of me. Immediately there was a cold air sensations right beside “me”. I wasnt scared, but deeply sad. My instinct was to go back to the hospital to meet this woman, but I was too in my head and waited too long. I carried on as if nothing had happened, and for 5 days I still felt the cold air next to me, than it disappeared. There had also been a smell of perfume accompanying this, and actually I had been aware of that scent for a few months before, in other places. I believe I had been meant to go into hospital that time, only to meet that woman and save my soul. A month later and I feel sadder than ever, and that I really have nothing to live for anymore. I would love to get some guidance on this, can I still reclaim my soul or was that a Higher guide abandoning me?

    Reply
    • Aletheia Luna says

      March 02, 2022 at 7:50 am

      Hi Claire,
      At the end of your message you ask whether you can still reclaim your soul or was a higher guide abandoning you. I hope in this article I’ve made it very clear that our Souls can never shatter or escape, they are always there, it’s just that we overlook them for the most part. So don’t stress about trying to “reclaim” your Soul as it’s not going anywhere, it is the fundamental core of you! As for spirit guides, from my knowledge they never ‘abandon us’ — they are here to love and guide us, so perhaps one will fade to the background while another will come forward. I do, however, want to recommend looking into the “spiritual emergency” if you haven’t already (given what you mention about going to psyche wards). I feel like you might find this to be a helpful read so please check it out: https://lonerwolf.com/spiritual-emergency/ Thank you for sharing your experience, much love and please treat yourself gently <3

      Reply
      • Nancy says

        October 03, 2023 at 6:58 am

        Thank you Aletheia for replying, I have just seen this now 💜

        Reply
  9. Killian says

    February 27, 2022 at 8:14 pm

    Thank you for explaining the difference between a soul and the Spirit. I understand it better now. What I also like to say is that I suffer from schizophrenia and sadly, the “natural” ways of dealing with it weren’t enough. I only found peace while taking antipsychotics. And I think people should know that in addition to the natural ways, medicine also helps. I don’t think it’s “evil” and the pharma industry only wants to make money. What also happened to me, is that I have mistaken the schizophrenia symptoms for spirituality. Which of course wasn’t ideal because I postponed therapy because of it. What, I think, is that psychiatry and spirituality should sort of merge. Because the meds really do help.

    Reply
    • Ray says

      February 28, 2022 at 4:03 am

      You’re right!

      Reply
    • Aletheia Luna says

      March 02, 2022 at 7:56 am

      Absolutely Killian. I think there’s a lot of black and white or dualistic thinking when it comes to medicine. At the end of the day, we need to tune out all external voices and do what authentically works for us, our biochemistry, and our unique make up. As you say, there is a real danger in those undergoing a legitimate mental health crisis to mistake it for a spiritual awakening (and also vice verse). I’d caution anyone who says that mental illness is “always” spiritual awakening in disguise or spiritual awakening is “always” just mental illness to tread carefully. Such absolutist statements don’t factor into account that life isn’t that simple and something that appears to be mental illness may in fact be just that. I wrote an article (mentioned in the above comment about the spiritual emergency) that might help to create that distinction. Thank you for sharing this Killian, and for doing what is best for you <3

      Reply
  10. Maria Arranz says

    February 27, 2022 at 7:34 pm

    Enormous gratitude for your work, Luna & Sol.
    Again, another article of such great clarity and helpfulness, Alethea.

    Reply
    • Aletheia Luna says

      March 02, 2022 at 7:57 am

      Thank you very much Maria! <3

      Reply
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Welcome! Our names are Aletheia Luna & Mateo Sol and we’re spiritual educators currently living in Perth, Western Australia. What's this website about? For spiritual rebels and outsiders, our mission is to help you dissolve the shadows that obscure your inner Light and find peace, love, and happiness. Unlike other spiritual spaces, lonerwolf focuses on approaching the spiritual awakening journey in a discerning and down-to-earth-way. Start here »

 

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