Three Step Formula for Soul-Led Living

Friends,

It's Thursday! 

That means it is time for my first installment of Tips and Tools for Soul-Led Living! 

My intention is to keep these to the point and practical.

Today I am going to teach you my three-step process for living life in alignment with your Soul.

After years of trial and error, and learning the best way to hear my own Soul and live in alignment with it, I noticed I was always going through the same steps. After distinguishing the steps, I began to intentionally apply them, and found I could move forward with more ease.

I use this formula every time I want to make a difficult decision or take a significant step forward in my life in alignment with my Soul. It has never let me down.

Here are the three steps:

#1. Awareness

The first step to living in alignment with your Soul is to become aware of your Soul’s truth.

Sounds obvious, right? That it is. But learning to hear, and distinguish your Soul’s voice from all of the other thoughts, ideas and voices (your own and others) that are vying for your time and attention, is not always an easy task.

Often times we block out our Soul’s truth completely because we have internalized a belief that is incompatible with our Soul’s truth, or because we are afraid of the changes it would invite us to make.

For example, take Rudy (*made up name), the accountant, who has internalized our culture’s belief that artists are poor, and so he has completely blocked out his Soul’s deepest desire to be a painter. He makes himself so busy with his accounting work that he has no time to think about it, and then he comes home and zones out on Netflix with a beer.

We often don’t let ourselves consider the possibilities and desires that reside in our Soul. We use all kinds of avoidance and numbing out tactics to prevent ourselves from becoming aware of our own truth.

The first step that must occur for you to even have a chance at living life in alignment with your own Soul, is to become aware of what your Soul is trying to tell you.

Without awareness, you cannot live out your own truth. Period.

#2. Allowance

The second vital step in living in alignment with your Soul, is that you must allow your Soul’s truth to be your truth.

This step follows naturally from the first step. Once you have become aware of your Soul’s truth, you will often try to talk yourself out of it because you are afraid, you think it’s impossible, or because it uncomfortably conflicts with the identity you have created for yourself.

Continuing with Rudy the accountant as an example, say one day he admitted to himself that he really wants to be a painter. (Maybe he was visiting his niece who really likes painting, and she asked him to help her, and all of a sudden he remembered. “Wow, I really love this.”)

He has become aware. But it is going to take more than awareness for Rudy to live out his Soul’s truth. Now he has to make his Soul’s truth his truth. He has to allow it to be alive in his heart and in his life. He has to allow himself to be someone who wants to be a painter (instead of a really busy accountant who binges on T.V. and beer).

The allowance stage requires that we rewrite the beliefs about ourselves and the world that keep us living lives that are not in alignment with our Soul’s desires. This takes time, courage and a lot of self-love.

Allowing yourself your truth is worth it in the long run. It is what makes step #3 possible.

#3. Action

Of course, nothing will change in your life if you do not take action.

Step three is where you create a vision and a plan in alignment with your Soul’s truth, and then begin taking small steps towards creating your life in alignment with it. (Rudy creates a vision of having his own gallery show in 5 years, and sets a goal to paint 3 paintings in the next 12 months. He signs up for a painting class, and goes to the first one.)

You take Soul-Aligned action.

Taking action is the place where most people like to start. This is where most goal-setting and visioning workshops focus. However, if you do not first become aware of your Soul’s truth, and you have not done the work to become willing to allow your Soul’s truth to be your truth, the vision you create and the goals you set will not really be yours. They will be the product of the beliefs you have internalized from our culture.

We see this all the time. People set goals to make a million dollars, to build a massive company, to own a fancy car, or to have the perfect nuclear family. They get those things, and are no happier and no more fulfilled than before.

When you create a vision and a plan in alignment with the truth you have uncovered from deep within your Soul, your dreams may not be so flashy or “culturally approved”, but they will fulfill you. They will make you happy because they are yours.

The above formula can be applied using many different modalities and tools. The tool I most often use is writing, though I often support it with other verbal and movement based practices, such as group sharing, witnessing, and dance. This formula underpins all of my offerings. Any time you work with me, I will guide you through these three stages in some way shape or form to help you move forward in alignment with your Soul.

Let me know if you have any questions and I will try to answer them in upcoming Thursday Tips and Tools for Soul-Led Living!

Xo,

Danielle