What does a spiritual calling look like? I’m sure if you googled this question you’d get many intelligent systematic breakdowns of the details and steps of a spiritual calling. (Breakdown being the optimum word!). But I didn’t google it. I want to share my experience and perhaps a snippet of the many stories I have been privileged to hear over the years. So if this topic interests you, read on and dig deeper!
Most of the time in western culture, we grow up in a world that denies the soul, and the expressive qualities of soulful people. I think all children are in touch with the imaginative soul, but some might be particularity inclined to moodiness, sensitivities, animals, music, art, and nature to name a few soulful indicators.
Sensitive children usually have to develop strong defences in order to survive through family and school life. These defences might look like substance addictions, perfectionism and obsessions, trying to do everything right, people pleasing, or being overly nice. These and other survival skills will get them where society expects them to go for a little while. It’s only when they are older that cracks begin to show and these walls start to break down. This can show up any time, but a big surge will be around the age of 28 during the first Saturn Return. The pressure of keeping the soul locked down is too much and the soul always wins, as it is infinitely stronger than the ego because it is not time bound. Those who fight the soul will experience more and more physical and emotional stress problems throughout their lives; the soul may be stronger but the ego is stubborn because it is fighting for its little short life. Saturn wants us to live though our soul, (all the planets do) and it will shake up our lives terribly if we are straying too far from our true calling. If the ego wins this round, people may develop anxiety illnesses and could resort to prescription medications to stay in line.
My Saturn return was such a shake up and my symptoms were so intense, I wasn’t sure if I was fit for this world. It was during that time that I reached out to a force higher than myself and said those timeless words “show me what you want me to do.” It was very soon after that my first healer showed up, I went to my first yoga class, and met my first shamanic teacher. Things had gotten pretty bad as I had been in serious survival denial during my 10 years of university in my 20s. My soul was having none of it, and since I didn’t have kids or a regular job, I didn’t have to hold some ego structure together for anyone else (but I did fight anyway). But the fight is exhausting and so I began to slowly surrender to my soul.
Since then I have seen many similar experiences with others: intense emotional pain, life not working out, schizophrenic like behaviours, major physical accidents, illnesses like cancer, substance abuse, and an overwhelming creative longing to live differently. In a shamanic calling these episodes can also be accompanied by shocking experiences of the other world such as visitations by the dead or frightening clairvoyant moments (this was my experience and many others). Such experiences can take a person out, and that is exactly what they are trying to do. But then what?
Well, if you need to stabilize, you may choose to go on medications to normalize your system, but remember that this won’t take the calling away, it just numbs it out for a while. The soul is smart and it will come back for you. Thank goodness we are made this way. Because like it or not, we are meant to live from the soul not the ego. The ego is the helper of the soul -the passenger, supporter, and nurturer. The ego helps the soul take flight in the normal world.
Living a soulful life doesn’t mean that you have to give up your family and day job, unless your job is soul killing! But it may ask you to change a lot about who you thought you were. This is a good thing. I love this topic so I’m going to write more on it in the future.
In short, a spiritual calling is usually quite bumpy and difficult. If you resist, it will get more difficult. Something is being asked of you. Something you can’t know about until you take the first step towards it. Its asking you to surrender and be OK with not knowing.
Perhaps your first step is taking a yoga class or going to a homeopath to get your health figured out like mine was. It may also look like taking a shamanic class to venture deep into soul territory. I am opening up my year long practitioner training until June 20th. If this sounds like it might connect you to your calling, please read more on my events page and get in touch. I’d love to talk with you! Everyone should have the chance to answer their soul and right now my practitioner training is at a very good price!
