"Is your soul appalled?" by Elizabeth Gilbert
Elizabeth Gilbert
April 7 at 10:06am ·
Question of the day: IS YOUR SOUL APPALLED?
Dear Ones:
I often receive questions from people who are trying to find their path in life, but don't know which way to turn. ("I'm stuck," is the most familiar expression of this dismaying condition.)
Getting unstuck can be a long process - even a lifelong process - but here is a line of thought I try to offer people, when I see them struggling...it goes something like this:
For reasons that you may never understand, you have been given stewardship over a human soul - which is, of course, your own. This soul was born into YOU - born into your very specific life. Your soul, born into this life, is what my friend Rob Bell calls "a unique event in the history of the universe." There has never been one of you before. Nobody has ever tried the experiment of YOU yet. Nobody has ever tried being this particular soul, lodged in this particular body, born into this particular family, arriving at this particular moment in time, raised in this particular culture, faced with these particular challenges. (And, as Rob also reminds us, that realization alone can be a comforting thought, when you are feeling lost and overwhelmed: NOBODY HAS EVER TRIED THE EXPERIMENT OF YOU YET. Why did you think you were supposed to get it right on the first try? You are a unique event. There is no precedent. There is no operational manual. So show yourself some mercy, if this business of being you seems impossibly tricky at times. You have to figure you out as you go. Sometimes "figuring yourself out as you go" can feel like you're tinkering with the engine of a car, while you are also driving that car down the highway at 70 mile an hour, and while you are also the passenger. Perfect. I think it's supposed to feel like that. It's a strange situation. Have patience with yourself.)
Meanwhile, I believe that your soul shows up for your life with some task (or set of tasks) that it is supposed to do while it's here. I believe that your soul wants to experience something - something that it believed could only be encountered in this particular lifetime, in this particular body, born into this particular family, at this particular moment in time, raised in this particular culture, faced with these particular challenges.
Maybe your soul wants to learn how to love. Maybe your soul wants to learn how to forgive. Maybe your soul wants to experience divinity. Maybe your soul wants to heal those who suffer in this world. Maybe your soul wants to explore the mysteries of solitude. Maybe your soul wants to finally connect with others. Maybe your soul wants to learn how to be a peacemaker, or a warrior, or a creator. Maybe your soul wants to learn how to transcend misery and martyrdom. Maybe your soul wants you to become a scholar, or a gardener, or a carpenter, or a shaman, or a sailor, or a leader. Maybe your soul just wants to rest. I DON'T KNOW. (It's your soul, my friend. You gotta figure it out.) But definitely your soul wants something. And the fact that we know instinctively that our souls want something is what guides us along our journeys. The more closely we can listen to our soul's desire, and follow its call, the more clear our paths in life become. When we feel stuck, it's because we have lost touch with what our soul wants. We can't hear our soul anymore. When we feel stuck, it's because our life is moving forward, but our soul has stalled.
Now. Listen up.
I believe that there are two ways your soul will try to communicate its purpose to you.
The first way is easy.
The first way is through joy. If you are lucky, your soul will talk to you this way. Your soul will tell you what it LOVES. Your soul will send you signals of excitement, curiosity, and recognition whenever you stumble upon something (or someone) that your soul delights in. Your soul will taste this joy-inducing experience, and it will start shouting: "YES YES YES YES YES I LOVE THIS YES YES YES YES!!!" This is how your soul tells you that you're going in the right direction - that you are drawing near to your true purpose. If you are responsive (and if you allow yourself to trust joy) you will always obey your soul's delight, and you will faithfully point your life in that direction. Even if it doesn't make any sense. Even if your family disapproves. Even if is not profitable. Even if it looks weird. Even if it means walking away from everything you have created in life up until this point. Even if it means disappointing people. You will listen to that voice of "YES YES YES YES I LOVE THIS YES YES YES YES!!!", you will trust that YES, and you will navigate your life accordingly. You will follow that YES, no matter the outcome. This is how I became a writer. This is how I moved to New York City. This is how I started studying Italian. This is how I fell in love with my Rayya. My soul gave me the big loud giant joy-signal, and I obeyed the YES. That's the easy way.
Then there is the hard way.
You soul may also communicate with you through feelings of being APPALLED. This word ("appalled") is the only word I feel is strong enough to convey the way your soul will sometimes express to you its absolute horror at the direction your life has taken. APPALLED. An appalled soul screams at you: "NO NO NO NO I HATE THIS NO NO NO!!!!" This is a very, very, very hard thing to experience. To be the bearer of an appalled soul is the worst feeling in the world. This feeling can register in your life as depression, rage, apathy, self-pity, blame, disgust, shame, This feeling can be so horrible that you will do anything to get away from it - you'll drug it away, drink it away, bury it, kill it, ignore it, deny it, try to run from it, fight back against it with all your might, lash out at everyone in sight because of it. We all hate this feeling. It is dreadful. It is the suck. It is a living hell. And yet this, too, is your soul speaking to you. It is not as sweet and delightful as when your soul says YES! (NO is never as light and lovely as YES.) But it is every bit as true. And you MUST listen to it, or you will never get unstuck.
An appalled soul will say to you, in any way possible: "I cannot bear another day of this." I cannot bear the degradation and humiliation of this relationship; it is an offense to me. I cannot bear this job. I cannot sit here for ONE MORE MEETING, listening to Barbara from Human Resources talking about the company's parking policy, or I will break my own neck with my own two hands. I cannot pretend for another day to care about the values that this culture keeps telling me are important. I cannot listen to another moment of these religious teachings, which I grew up with, but which do not reflect my inner truth - which injure my soul, rather than uplifting it. I cannot live in this community any longer, where nobody around me is a member of my tribe. I cannot live in this addiction for another instant, where every day I sink to another level of self-abandonment. I cannot keep throwing myself upon the funeral pyre of my family's insanity, year after year after year; this has to stop, or every spark of joy within me will be smothered. I cannot just sit back and watch innocent people be harmed in the name of greed or ignorance, and not speak up. I cannot keep pretending that I am weak and fragile and destroyed, when I KNOW that there is greatness within me. I cannot keep pretending that my broken heart is beyond repair. I cannot keep pretending that he/she was the only one for me, and now my life is over because that person is gone. I cannot keep pretending that my current self (and my future self) must suffer forever because of choices that my younger self made, before she knew better. I cannot keep pretending that my grief will never end. I cannot keep pretending that I am not resilient. I cannot keep manipulating and controlling and punishing the people around me because of my anger, my sorrow, or my old wounds; sure, that is power - but that is bullshit power, and it is profoundly unsatisfying to my soul. I cannot keep pretending that I believe that my life was supposed to be easy, and now I'm angry that it hasn't been. I cannot keep marinating in this ancient grudge for another day; it is killing me. I DID NOT COME HERE FOR THIS.
In the end, that is always the battle cry of an appalled soul: I DID NOT COME HERE FOR THIS!!!! And as long as you keep heading in the wrong direction, your soul will not be quiet.
If you are suffering right now from an appalled soul, my heart goes out to you, because I know that you are in hell. But I also know that this is GOOD - because your soul is speaking to you, or trying to. Maybe you keep looking for a sign that your life needs to change, and you hope that the sign will be joyous - but maybe your despair IS the sign.
I also believe that maybe your soul has tried to speak to you over the years through joy, but maybe you didn't listen to joy? Maybe you didn't trust joy? Maybe you didn't believe that you were entitled to joy? Maybe you didn't believe that the things that brought your joy were real, or sustainable, or reasonable? (My friend Martha Beck taught me that our souls will ALWAYS try to communicate to us through joy first - but if we don't listen, they will resort to misery. Basically, your soul will do whatever it takes to turn your head.) So maybe you didn't listen to the joy signals. Maybe you made "rational" choices instead. Maybe you did exactly what you were supposed to do, instead of what your soul wanted you to do - and now you find yourself in hell. Maybe you listened to every lesson your family and culture taught you, instead of listening to joy - and now you find yourself in hell. Maybe you believed in trauma instead of believing in delight - and now you find yourself in hell. Maybe you believed in martyrdom instead of believing in liberation - and now you find yourself in hell.
Getting out of hell is the hardest thing you will ever have to face in your lifetime, but it can be done. You will need a plan. You will need patience. You will need a tidal wave of mercy toward yourself, and an equal tidal wave of mercy to everyone else. You will need helpers. You will need to study. You will need to draw from ancient wells of wisdom. You will need to make sacrifices (but hey - you should be used to that; you've been sacrificing your soul for years, right?)
Whatever you do, make a fierce commitment not to stay in hell for another day. (In other words: If you fall into a rut, don't furnish it.) It is not easy to follow the commands of an appalled soul. If your soul has been appalled for a long while, you are probably feeling depressed, anxious, helpless - and it's not easy to make decisions from that place. It's not fun. It doesn't look like a joyful quest. It usually means walking away from things in life, instead of toward them. NO is never as fun as YES. (As I say, this is the hard way.) But NO can be incredibly powerful.
The first step is to call it by its name. Say it: "MY SOUL IS APPALLED."
The second step is to say: "NO MORE OF THIS."
The third stop is to commit (or to re-commit) to a ferocious sense of stewardship over your soul. Write a letter to your soul, promising that you can be trusted with it. Swear that you will never abandon it again. And then prove your stewardship, through brave action and radical changes. Come to your own rescue. You may have to do this again and again. Nobody else can do this for you.
Years ago, I met an amazing woman - a single mother, born and raised in the ghetto, who made a living as a dancer, and who had somehow managed to guide her son (whom she'd birthed when she was a teenager) into Harvard University. I asked her how she had done it - how she had kept her son safe from the streets, how she had gotten him so beautifully educated, how she had shaped this extraordinary young man into being. She said, "When he was born, I made a fierce commitment to his stewardship. And I didn't do it alone. A lot of people helped me. But from the beginning, I understood this: Other people can help me to take care of my son, but only I can raise him."
What that woman said about raising her son also applies to the stewardship of your own soul. Remember this: Other people can help you to take care of your soul, but only you can raise it. You will need other people's help as you go through life - teachers, lovers, friends, family. But in the end, only you can raise your own soul. BECAUSE ONLY YOU CAN HEAR IT.
You can listen to your soul the easy way (trust joy!), or you can listen to your soul the hard way (reject misery!) - but be assured: your soul has never stopped speaking to you. Not for a moment. Basically, your soul never shuts up. Trust me on this.
You are a unique event in the history of the universe. Nobody has ever tried YOU before. This whole thing is a wild experiment. I do not believe it was meant to be easy. (All signs point to: NOPE.) But I do not believe that we come to this planet in order to experience a life of frivolous ease; I believe that we come to this planet to learn courage. It is hard. But you are not alone. You have a celestial voice within you, trying to guide you. Your soul may sometimes shout out to you in joy, or it may cry out to you in appalled misery - but it will never stop speaking to you. Do not numb it out - especially not when it is appalled. Do not ever stop listening. Your soul knows what it came here for, and what it didn't come here for.
Fierce stewardship is the only way this experiment will ever work.
ONWARD,
LG
April 7 at 10:06am ·
Question of the day: IS YOUR SOUL APPALLED?
Dear Ones:
I often receive questions from people who are trying to find their path in life, but don't know which way to turn. ("I'm stuck," is the most familiar expression of this dismaying condition.)
Getting unstuck can be a long process - even a lifelong process - but here is a line of thought I try to offer people, when I see them struggling...it goes something like this:
For reasons that you may never understand, you have been given stewardship over a human soul - which is, of course, your own. This soul was born into YOU - born into your very specific life. Your soul, born into this life, is what my friend Rob Bell calls "a unique event in the history of the universe." There has never been one of you before. Nobody has ever tried the experiment of YOU yet. Nobody has ever tried being this particular soul, lodged in this particular body, born into this particular family, arriving at this particular moment in time, raised in this particular culture, faced with these particular challenges. (And, as Rob also reminds us, that realization alone can be a comforting thought, when you are feeling lost and overwhelmed: NOBODY HAS EVER TRIED THE EXPERIMENT OF YOU YET. Why did you think you were supposed to get it right on the first try? You are a unique event. There is no precedent. There is no operational manual. So show yourself some mercy, if this business of being you seems impossibly tricky at times. You have to figure you out as you go. Sometimes "figuring yourself out as you go" can feel like you're tinkering with the engine of a car, while you are also driving that car down the highway at 70 mile an hour, and while you are also the passenger. Perfect. I think it's supposed to feel like that. It's a strange situation. Have patience with yourself.)
Meanwhile, I believe that your soul shows up for your life with some task (or set of tasks) that it is supposed to do while it's here. I believe that your soul wants to experience something - something that it believed could only be encountered in this particular lifetime, in this particular body, born into this particular family, at this particular moment in time, raised in this particular culture, faced with these particular challenges.
Maybe your soul wants to learn how to love. Maybe your soul wants to learn how to forgive. Maybe your soul wants to experience divinity. Maybe your soul wants to heal those who suffer in this world. Maybe your soul wants to explore the mysteries of solitude. Maybe your soul wants to finally connect with others. Maybe your soul wants to learn how to be a peacemaker, or a warrior, or a creator. Maybe your soul wants to learn how to transcend misery and martyrdom. Maybe your soul wants you to become a scholar, or a gardener, or a carpenter, or a shaman, or a sailor, or a leader. Maybe your soul just wants to rest. I DON'T KNOW. (It's your soul, my friend. You gotta figure it out.) But definitely your soul wants something. And the fact that we know instinctively that our souls want something is what guides us along our journeys. The more closely we can listen to our soul's desire, and follow its call, the more clear our paths in life become. When we feel stuck, it's because we have lost touch with what our soul wants. We can't hear our soul anymore. When we feel stuck, it's because our life is moving forward, but our soul has stalled.
Now. Listen up.
I believe that there are two ways your soul will try to communicate its purpose to you.
The first way is easy.
The first way is through joy. If you are lucky, your soul will talk to you this way. Your soul will tell you what it LOVES. Your soul will send you signals of excitement, curiosity, and recognition whenever you stumble upon something (or someone) that your soul delights in. Your soul will taste this joy-inducing experience, and it will start shouting: "YES YES YES YES YES I LOVE THIS YES YES YES YES!!!" This is how your soul tells you that you're going in the right direction - that you are drawing near to your true purpose. If you are responsive (and if you allow yourself to trust joy) you will always obey your soul's delight, and you will faithfully point your life in that direction. Even if it doesn't make any sense. Even if your family disapproves. Even if is not profitable. Even if it looks weird. Even if it means walking away from everything you have created in life up until this point. Even if it means disappointing people. You will listen to that voice of "YES YES YES YES I LOVE THIS YES YES YES YES!!!", you will trust that YES, and you will navigate your life accordingly. You will follow that YES, no matter the outcome. This is how I became a writer. This is how I moved to New York City. This is how I started studying Italian. This is how I fell in love with my Rayya. My soul gave me the big loud giant joy-signal, and I obeyed the YES. That's the easy way.
Then there is the hard way.
You soul may also communicate with you through feelings of being APPALLED. This word ("appalled") is the only word I feel is strong enough to convey the way your soul will sometimes express to you its absolute horror at the direction your life has taken. APPALLED. An appalled soul screams at you: "NO NO NO NO I HATE THIS NO NO NO!!!!" This is a very, very, very hard thing to experience. To be the bearer of an appalled soul is the worst feeling in the world. This feeling can register in your life as depression, rage, apathy, self-pity, blame, disgust, shame, This feeling can be so horrible that you will do anything to get away from it - you'll drug it away, drink it away, bury it, kill it, ignore it, deny it, try to run from it, fight back against it with all your might, lash out at everyone in sight because of it. We all hate this feeling. It is dreadful. It is the suck. It is a living hell. And yet this, too, is your soul speaking to you. It is not as sweet and delightful as when your soul says YES! (NO is never as light and lovely as YES.) But it is every bit as true. And you MUST listen to it, or you will never get unstuck.
An appalled soul will say to you, in any way possible: "I cannot bear another day of this." I cannot bear the degradation and humiliation of this relationship; it is an offense to me. I cannot bear this job. I cannot sit here for ONE MORE MEETING, listening to Barbara from Human Resources talking about the company's parking policy, or I will break my own neck with my own two hands. I cannot pretend for another day to care about the values that this culture keeps telling me are important. I cannot listen to another moment of these religious teachings, which I grew up with, but which do not reflect my inner truth - which injure my soul, rather than uplifting it. I cannot live in this community any longer, where nobody around me is a member of my tribe. I cannot live in this addiction for another instant, where every day I sink to another level of self-abandonment. I cannot keep throwing myself upon the funeral pyre of my family's insanity, year after year after year; this has to stop, or every spark of joy within me will be smothered. I cannot just sit back and watch innocent people be harmed in the name of greed or ignorance, and not speak up. I cannot keep pretending that I am weak and fragile and destroyed, when I KNOW that there is greatness within me. I cannot keep pretending that my broken heart is beyond repair. I cannot keep pretending that he/she was the only one for me, and now my life is over because that person is gone. I cannot keep pretending that my current self (and my future self) must suffer forever because of choices that my younger self made, before she knew better. I cannot keep pretending that my grief will never end. I cannot keep pretending that I am not resilient. I cannot keep manipulating and controlling and punishing the people around me because of my anger, my sorrow, or my old wounds; sure, that is power - but that is bullshit power, and it is profoundly unsatisfying to my soul. I cannot keep pretending that I believe that my life was supposed to be easy, and now I'm angry that it hasn't been. I cannot keep marinating in this ancient grudge for another day; it is killing me. I DID NOT COME HERE FOR THIS.
In the end, that is always the battle cry of an appalled soul: I DID NOT COME HERE FOR THIS!!!! And as long as you keep heading in the wrong direction, your soul will not be quiet.
If you are suffering right now from an appalled soul, my heart goes out to you, because I know that you are in hell. But I also know that this is GOOD - because your soul is speaking to you, or trying to. Maybe you keep looking for a sign that your life needs to change, and you hope that the sign will be joyous - but maybe your despair IS the sign.
I also believe that maybe your soul has tried to speak to you over the years through joy, but maybe you didn't listen to joy? Maybe you didn't trust joy? Maybe you didn't believe that you were entitled to joy? Maybe you didn't believe that the things that brought your joy were real, or sustainable, or reasonable? (My friend Martha Beck taught me that our souls will ALWAYS try to communicate to us through joy first - but if we don't listen, they will resort to misery. Basically, your soul will do whatever it takes to turn your head.) So maybe you didn't listen to the joy signals. Maybe you made "rational" choices instead. Maybe you did exactly what you were supposed to do, instead of what your soul wanted you to do - and now you find yourself in hell. Maybe you listened to every lesson your family and culture taught you, instead of listening to joy - and now you find yourself in hell. Maybe you believed in trauma instead of believing in delight - and now you find yourself in hell. Maybe you believed in martyrdom instead of believing in liberation - and now you find yourself in hell.
Getting out of hell is the hardest thing you will ever have to face in your lifetime, but it can be done. You will need a plan. You will need patience. You will need a tidal wave of mercy toward yourself, and an equal tidal wave of mercy to everyone else. You will need helpers. You will need to study. You will need to draw from ancient wells of wisdom. You will need to make sacrifices (but hey - you should be used to that; you've been sacrificing your soul for years, right?)
Whatever you do, make a fierce commitment not to stay in hell for another day. (In other words: If you fall into a rut, don't furnish it.) It is not easy to follow the commands of an appalled soul. If your soul has been appalled for a long while, you are probably feeling depressed, anxious, helpless - and it's not easy to make decisions from that place. It's not fun. It doesn't look like a joyful quest. It usually means walking away from things in life, instead of toward them. NO is never as fun as YES. (As I say, this is the hard way.) But NO can be incredibly powerful.
The first step is to call it by its name. Say it: "MY SOUL IS APPALLED."
The second step is to say: "NO MORE OF THIS."
The third stop is to commit (or to re-commit) to a ferocious sense of stewardship over your soul. Write a letter to your soul, promising that you can be trusted with it. Swear that you will never abandon it again. And then prove your stewardship, through brave action and radical changes. Come to your own rescue. You may have to do this again and again. Nobody else can do this for you.
Years ago, I met an amazing woman - a single mother, born and raised in the ghetto, who made a living as a dancer, and who had somehow managed to guide her son (whom she'd birthed when she was a teenager) into Harvard University. I asked her how she had done it - how she had kept her son safe from the streets, how she had gotten him so beautifully educated, how she had shaped this extraordinary young man into being. She said, "When he was born, I made a fierce commitment to his stewardship. And I didn't do it alone. A lot of people helped me. But from the beginning, I understood this: Other people can help me to take care of my son, but only I can raise him."
What that woman said about raising her son also applies to the stewardship of your own soul. Remember this: Other people can help you to take care of your soul, but only you can raise it. You will need other people's help as you go through life - teachers, lovers, friends, family. But in the end, only you can raise your own soul. BECAUSE ONLY YOU CAN HEAR IT.
You can listen to your soul the easy way (trust joy!), or you can listen to your soul the hard way (reject misery!) - but be assured: your soul has never stopped speaking to you. Not for a moment. Basically, your soul never shuts up. Trust me on this.
You are a unique event in the history of the universe. Nobody has ever tried YOU before. This whole thing is a wild experiment. I do not believe it was meant to be easy. (All signs point to: NOPE.) But I do not believe that we come to this planet in order to experience a life of frivolous ease; I believe that we come to this planet to learn courage. It is hard. But you are not alone. You have a celestial voice within you, trying to guide you. Your soul may sometimes shout out to you in joy, or it may cry out to you in appalled misery - but it will never stop speaking to you. Do not numb it out - especially not when it is appalled. Do not ever stop listening. Your soul knows what it came here for, and what it didn't come here for.
Fierce stewardship is the only way this experiment will ever work.
ONWARD,
LG