Winter 2020 Solstice Insights - Knowing What Your Soul Work Is

A few of the faces of a mini-plunge, captured by @emily_rainbowlight

This year has created massive opportunities for me in the actualization of my soul work. For many of us, Covid and quarantine have generated an invitation for inquiry about our soul work—what are we really supposed to be doing with our lives? So many of us are in the process of clarifying, refining, and actualizing our soul work. 

Your soul work is not merely checking a box, adding letters after your name, or enhancing your resume. No, soul work transcends the ego and encompasses your deeper purpose in this lifetime on this planet. It is what your whole self—body, heart, mind, and spirit—dream of being and doing. 

Do you know what your soul work is?

Do you know what you are here to create? 

The how, when, why, and where of it?  

There’s a reason that doing the things you really care about feels hard—because it’s big work! So, if you are encountering some major fears in knowing/claiming your soul work, you can trust that you are on the right path. Whatever you truly dream of being/doing (or even if you’re still trying to figure out what your soul work even is), it’s going to require a lot of growth from you. Which always means confronting fears. And reaching new levels of consciousness. 

It is my honor to assist my clients in deepening their relationships to their own soul work. This was the Universe’s plan all along in giving me the assignment to write The Bloom Book, and I answer the call with great joy and wonder! I am learning with you, but perhaps am just a little further along on the path, so I will share with you what I see up ahead. 

My inquiry around soul work has shown up for me in the form of sharing my voice. There has always existed a tension around sharing my voice and taking up space, a self-imposed edge many of us, especially women, live behind. It is easy for me to be a hermit, to make myself invisible is a super power that I learned in order to survive. However, I also desire to be heard and validated, recognized for my work, and just seen. I want to understand how to be in balance with the desire for invisibility and the desire to be seen. I want to understand this because I feel balance states unlock our greatest potentials. 

There are ways in which your soul work can be easy and fun—when we are in flow with co-creation, we swim with the tides, knowing we are unconditionally loved and protected. There are other times when our soul work can feel terrifying and treacherous. We are swimming against the current. It’s all included. Can we trust whatever shows up? Can it be fun and easy? Can we trust that part of the process may be hard and unpleasant? These are invitations, too. 

My Work as a Vessel of Divine Receptivity

At this point in my career, I am very clear in my purpose: the why of my work. My mission statement and code of ethics are manifest. My private practice is the most gratifying work of my life, and I feel a deep sense of alignment there. 

My work as a writer—which I conceptualize as something more like being a vessel of divine receptivity[1]—is more abstract, undefined, and in-process. This year, I published a book, a feat I am very proud of. I’m still surprised about it! It feels pretty surreal. Allow me to explain a little about how the birth of my cosmic baby came to be. 

Having chosen to be a therapist and herbalist, I wasn’t expecting to be an author. The offer to write a book came unexpectedly, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t ask for the opportunity. For years I had been asking for help in coming into greater power and service with my work. One day, an editor reached out. The Universe was informing me that I had an assignment: to write a book on cosmic balance and flower essences. As it turns out, the process of writing a book became the help that I had asked for, on levels far beyond what I believed was even possible at the time. The gifts of this opportunity will continue to reveal themselves for a long time to come.   

The book has been part of my soul work. It’s helped me to understand a lot about myself and the depth and scope of my work as a human and a helper here. I’m still in the process of clearly understanding my role as a vessel for writing. 

Here are the 11 new rules I learned about soul work:

1)    If you ask for help with your soul work, you will receive it. 

2)    Be open to receiving the help in ways beyond what you think you know, and what you expect.  

3)    Create a ritual and a prayer, which will serve as a spiritual container for your work to bloom. This will help you connect with the spirit of whatever work you are creating. 

4)    No one is going to give you permission or agency to speak your truth and claim your soul work. You will have to access the internal resources to validate yourself. 

5)    Trust the ebbs and flows of creative energy. Creativity is not linear, it works in cycles, fits and spurts, spontaneous downloads of illumination.  

6)    Especially trust the stillness and the voids, the new moons, the spaciousness is a gift, not a prompt to be productive. 

7)    When the faucet of divine creativity/receptivity feels closed—that’s ok! Trust the divine timing. The energy will flow again. 

8)    Know who and what is in your creative support circle. People, teachers, guides, inspirations, also plant allies, animals, stones? 

9)    Allow yourself to dream. If you can dream it, you can do it and be it. 

10)  Whenever you encounter a self-limiting or negative thought or belief, e.g., “I’m never going to make it as an artist”, reframe it to the affirmative, “I choose to come into alignment with my work as an artist.” Or “I claim my abundance as an artist and welcome all opportunities for the next steps in my career.” 

11)  Consider soul work logistics: Where and when do you feel inspired to create space for this? E.g., Do you need to be in a coffeeshop to work? Or do you need to be in nature? Do you need childcare? 

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My practice of ritual and prayer for my book played a huge role in its creation as well as the ongoing work of supporting it in the world. Here is a prayer you can use for your own soul work. See if you can add your own language so that your feeling states match the words that feel real for you. ~

Dear Mother Father God, Spirit and the Universe;

I call on the powers of my highest self, light, shadow, love, nature, and healing.

I ask permission to call in all of my angels, guides, and ancestors, and all those assisting me in this lifetime. 

I am surrounded in divine love and protection. 

I ask for assistance in knowing how I am to come into my greatest alignment and power with my soul work. I trust have everything I need in order to be of the highest service to myself, to all sentient beings, and to the Earth. 

I ask for permission to access the highest amount of wisdom from wherever it may come. I am open and discerning in all resources I need. I work efficiently, with discipline, fearlessly, in integrity, in my heart, in my intuition, and in perfect presence.

All channels to opportunity, connectivity, abundance, receptivity, love, truth, healing, clarity, and wisdom, are open. 

All cords connected to fear, blockage, stuckness, confusion, and negative energy of any kind are cleared immediately. 

Please continue to reveal what I am to perceive, know, be, and receive to allow myself to come into my greatest power with my work. I trust I will be open to receiving whatever signs and information I need to keep moving forward with my work within the divine plan. I send all of this out to the Universe with love and blessings. 

Thank you so much for this opportunity to learn about boundaries, self-worth, self-love, discipline, and power.

With deepest gratitude. 

So be it.

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It’s time for us to light the fires within our hearts and unite these flames with each other to co-create our new Earth. Whatever your heart desires to create, this is the unique flame you get to bring into the world. Invite that spark, cultivate it, visualize it coming into form. May we all actualize our soul work and elevate together, in whatever ways we are called to bring our light into the world.

[1] Ok, ok, I know this sounds like such a new age and grandiose way to describe being a writer! But I really don’t feel the terms “author” and “writer” accurately capture my relationship to writing. It’s more like channeling. I don’t know how else to articulate it.