Our Shared Spirit is Called Your Soul

We try to make sense of the world, but there’s more value to be gained by making Soul of it. Mention the word “Soul” and people’s eyes tend to glaze over.

But.

Avoiding your Soul is not sustainable. It disables our shared human spirit. This is where you experience a state of spiritual exhaustion, stagnation, or brokenness. Avoiding your Soul disconnects you to your Soul’s purpose, personal agency, motivation, and the sacredness of all life.

A life without Soul is less fulfilling. Soul-making revives your spirit and reconnects you to our shared spirit and purpose. It ensures that even when life is difficult, you can extract meaning from it, to keep going, to learn and grow. 

“Your Soul is the personification of our shared human spirit.”

Gail Goodwin

John Keats, in a letter to his brother wrote: “Call the world if you please, ‘The vale of Soul-making.’ Then you will find out the use of the world….” From this James Hillman, psychologist and founder of archetypal psychology, recognised that, “…the human adventure is a wandering through the vale of the world for the sake of making Soul.” ¹

Soul-making is a process of deepening your inner life, and your understanding of existence. Soul-making is less focused on fixing problems or achieving personal goals, and more about cultivating a rich, meaningful inner life. That said, when you begin Soul-making by living your life from the inside out, problems are more easily resolved, and goals are more readily achieved because you’re aligning your exterior world with your interior life not the other way around. 

“Our life is psychological, and the purpose of life is to make psyche of it, to find connections between life and Soul.”

James Hillman

Soul-making is about engaging with the depths of your psyche, its myths, archetypes, and images, to enrich your experience of the world. Soul is a dimension of human life that encompasses your inner wisdom, your connection to collective wisdom, your intuition, your mental and emotional consciousness (that is, your psyche), active imagination, and a sense of connection to the sacred. 

Soul-making takes you deeper than personal development or self-improvement. It’s about embracing the full spectrum of human experience. That includes its darker and more challenging sides. Soul-making is a continuous process of finding and creating your own meaning in life. And this can be done through symbolic and mythological recognition. In other words, Soul-making can happen when we collaborate with our personal archetypes. 

Soul-making will shift your focus to living life from the inside out to aligning your actions and choices with your values, ethics, and desires rather than being driven by external factors. Soul-making is a lifestyle choice. 

You know you’re engaged in Soul-making when you prioritise your internal sense of purpose, integrity, and well-being over social or cultural expectations, material possessions, appearances, perfectionism, or external validation. You know you’re in the thick of it when you commit to your Soul and the act of Soul-making. 

Making a conscious commitment to your Soul leads you to make decisions based on what feels right and authentic. It considers the many different parts of your personality, where you weigh up their needs and desires, so your decisions come from your heart and mind, from deep within your psyche, or soul, rather than being driven by external pressures alone.

Soul-making is not a pleasure cruise. There is no end to it. Like I said before, your sense of agency, your personal boundaries, your integrity and your motivations will be tested throughout your life. And therein lies the universal struggle between the need to honour others and yourself. Which one comes first? 

At some point along the way, we might realise that there is no “other”. Othering keeps us separate², but we share the same life force. We all share the same spirit. It keeps us alive. As we come to recognise that “All is One, without a second,” we realise that to honour others is to honour myself, and to honour myself is to honour others. 

Collaborating with our personal archetypes provides insights into the deepest aspects of our Soul, our motivations and behaviours, and our great, “human adventure through the vale of the world for the purpose of Soul-making.” When we recognise and collaborate with our personal archetypes, we gain clarity about our true, authentic self, and our Soul’s purpose. 

Each archetype represents different aspects of our personality, our strengths and weaknesses, values, ethics, desires, the roles we play, our challenges and life lessons, all of which connect or reconnect us to our Soul. By collaborating with our personal archetypes, we can align our actions and choices with our authentic self.

For example, if one of your dominant archetypes is the Seeker, you might discover fulfillment in exploration, learning, and seeking truth in your life. If one of your dominant archetypes is the Alchemist, you might find fulfillment in transforming challenges into wisdom for inner growth and mastering the art of personal and spiritual transformation. Maybe one of your archetypes is the Vampire.³ This archetype can guide your soul-fulfillment when you direct this intense energy into creative pursuits, establish healthy boundaries, and nurture mutually supportive relationships. Recognising and collaborating with your personal archetypes can guide you toward experiences and pursuits that resonate with your Soul’s calling.

Your conscious commitment to Soul-making enhances self-awareness, personal growth and life-long learning. It reconnects you to our shared spirit and delivers a more fulfilling and meaningful life. 

Collaborating with your personal archetypes enables you to live in harmony with your true nature. This is what directs you to a deeper sense of meaning and ensures your connection to your Soul’s purpose.

While we might be tempted to constantly make sense of the world, maybe we’re meant to make Soul of it first. To live a Soul-led life. Our contribution to the world is meant to rise from the depths of our Soul.

1. Hillman, J. 1975. Re-visioning Psychology, HarperCollins Publishers, New York. ↩︎
2. Brach, T. 2019. Radical compassion: learning to love yourself and your world with the practice of RAIN, Penguin Random House, London. ↩︎
3. There are no bad archetypes. ↩︎