Healing our inner spark.

Dharma and I both try to keep politics and religion out of whatever we write, say, or post. We respect everyone's right to think and worship as they choose...or choose not to. That said, both Dharma and I know that most of the world's wisdom traditions believe in some kind of soul or inner spark that guides us, teaching us to know the difference between right from wrong. With the world in a rather chaotic mess at the moment, I felt I wanted to write about something healing and uplifting. Keeping all this in mind, I emailed Dharma and asked him if we could focus my lesson today on healing that spark within. He was more than happy to oblige. 
When he arrived this morning, I had our morning meal ready and the tea steeping. I wanted to be able to get right to work. After taking a few bites of food and sips of tea, Dharma began by saying this, "Tadpole, a frog's soul know to do to heal itself. His challenge is to silence his mind, which has other intentions." "Sir," I asked, "how can we tell if our soul needs healing and how can we heal it?" I had a ton of questions but figured these two would get the ball rolling.
"Those are both excellent questions, Irwin, so let's start with your first one. There are a few tell-tale signs that your soul may be suffering. If you experience any of these, your soul is asking for help.

• ​You find it difficult to live in the present because you're constantly focused on past or future events.
• You feel stuck in an aspect of your life and you don’t know how to get yourself unstuck.
• You don’t know how to enjoy life without keeping busy.
• Your body and/or mind are starting to show signs of distress.
• You are tired and are running out of ways to stay positive.
• You act like you have most of it together, but on the inside, you feel like you’re falling apart.
•  Deep down you know something isn’t right, but either you can’t pinpoint it or you are afraid to acknowledge it.

My boy, many humans wait to too long to begin the healing process and when that happens, physical signs of dis-ease begin to manifest themselves."
"Wow, Dharma! Thank you for detailing these. I have experienced several of those symptoms already in my young life. And I bet my human readers have, too. Will you please tell us a few of your best methods for healing these wounds?"
And with my request, Dharma list a few ideas that said might be helpful. He was quick to remind me, however, that finding ways to quiet the mind was the most import way of letting the soul begin it's healing. So he listed that one first.

• Meditate. This can be traditional meditation, or reading passages from your favorite spiritual book, taking a solitary walk, in nature, or simply sitting quietly and looking deep within. there is no perfect or right way to meditate. It's highly personal. And it is trial and error to find the one that works best for you. But when you learn to meditate properly, you are providing your soul with positive healing energy that works quickly to restore and strengthen it. 
• Let go of the things you cannot control. This one will be hard for me. I am kind of a control freak. You'd be shocked at the things I try to control. I am always unsuccessful, of course, which leads to a sense of frustration and failure. When we try to control people or situations even with the best intentions, we are creating resistance, which tears our soul apart.  Once you accept that the only thing you have control over is you, everything starts to heal, especially your soul. When your Ego starts to give you reasons as to why you should control a situation, surrender the situation and trust that the Divine (your personal Divine, whoever or whatever that is) will handle it in a way that is best for everyone involved."
• Break out of your daily routine and live your life with purpose. "Of all of the things that you can do to nourish your soul, this is the one that most people neglect because they see it as too overwhelming. While living your life on purpose may translate to quitting your job and pursuing a new career, it can also lead to keeping the same job while adding new purpose to other areas of your life. The main idea here is to determine whether or not your life is in alignment with your life purpose, and if it isn’t, explore ways in which you can live more purposefully. How to make your life more purposeful is personal and varies from person to person, but if someone is not on purpose anywhere in life, it will wreak havoc on his or her soul. Having purpose is good for you, and it’s even better for your soul."
• Put your personal needs on top of the list. if you don't take care of yourself, how can you take care of anyone or anything else? Although many of us may have grown up believing that taking care of our needs first is selfish, it is one of the best ways we can help those we love. If you neglect your own needs, not only will you be useless in being able to help others, but you will also be setting yourself up for dis-ease on the fast track. And finally...
• Learn from others who have well-nourished souls (i.e. those who are truly content with their lives), look inward and apply it. "It makes sense to model the spiritual teachers with whom we resonate the most and apply their teachings to our lives. But, before we can make what we learn tangible in our lives, we must first look inward, where all of our answers are. True change happens on the inside, not on the outside. Acceptance of spiritual truths is evidence that your soul is in the lead while rejection is evidence that your Ego is in charge."

Dharma ended by saying something that I found pretty profound; "Irwin, healing of the soul begins the moment you decide to." The healing may be small, to begin with but build and grow as the soul regains its "voice." Listen to it. Hear what it has to say. Your ego can be pretty vocal. Your ego is attached to the brain. When the brain runs amuck, which it does until it gets trained, much like an unruly two-year-old, it will tell us things that can be counterproductive. So take the messages your ego and brain tell you with a grain of salt. The things your soul tells you, you can take to the bank!
Dharma's lesson was a long and important one today. If you've managed to make it alway to this point, I congratulate you. Once in a while, Dharma has something to say that I can't edit very much. This is one of those times.
I do hope that you gleaned something useful from Dharma's lesson today. Please "hop" back by tomorrow for a fun (and much shorter) look at the history of carousels in celebration of National Merry-Go-Round Day.
                                                                      PEACE.

https://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/7-signs-soul-may-suffering-heal/