“It’s like the reservoir of my soul is rapidly losing water,” I said to a dear friend of mine a few weeks ago. I was soul-weary. My usual energy, peace and joy were being siphoned and I felt powerless to stop it. As time went on, my soul felt soupy, clogged with debris.
My friend encouraged me to draw a picture to see if I could visualize my inner soul-reservoir. I’m not much of a drawer, but her idea resonated with me. As I drew, the picture came alive in my mind. I saw fish, long grasses and reeds, inlets, and trees alongside the water. A beautiful waterfall flowed into the far end of the reservoir and on the right side, I sensed the bog that was muddying my clear waters.
My creative endeavor in drawing revealed a truth: my soul is like an ecosystem. Slight changes in one area can have large-scale impacts in other areas.
Ecosystems in nature are complex structures, full of plants, decaying matter, bugs, animals, water and microorganisms. They can be altered by a variety of factors from excess algae to temperature changes. Minor shifts bring system-wide changes.
The Ecosystem of the Soul
Our interior worlds are much like ecosystems. Our thoughts, emotions, needs, fears, memories and dozens of other nuanced factors live in relative close proximity to each other. If we don’t sleep well for a week, our cognition suffers. If we consume too much media or neglect our emotional life for too long, imbalance creeps in. In my case, I had shifted the way I engage with clients which left me vulnerable to secondary trauma. Neglecting my emotional needs had a rippling effect on the rest of my life.
If some of this is hitting home for you, the natural question becomes, how do you know if the climate of your soul has been disturbed? And how can we restore inner harmony?
An imbalance in your soul can look a hundred different ways. Most often it looks like not quite feeling like yourself, lacking inner resources to engage with life, irritation, heightened defensiveness, stress and distraction (busyness, social media, excess work, withdrawal, etc.).
Restoring balance to our souls is vital for our wellbeing. It brings back inner stability and promotes peace of mind and freedom.
Notice
If you are feeling soul-tired, the first thing to do is take inventory. Sitting in a posture of reflection towards our own soul can yield surprising results. Some areas of our life are begging to be looked at and if we’re willing to take a peek, we will usually find the culprit for our imbalance.
In Genesis 16, God asks Hagar two very important questions: “where have you come from and where are you going?” Doing an inventory of our life is about locating ourselves.
Where am I? How did I get here? Where do I want to go next?
Reflecting on our life requires time, space, a journal, Bible and a willingness to notice our interior and exterior worlds. It can be helpful to begin by reviewing your last 24 hours, then look at your last week, month, etc. As you create space to reflect with Jesus, ask him to reveal the source(s) of imbalance in your soul. Some things will be obvious. Some will be disguised. The Holy Spirit can help you discern which areas need tending to.
Here are a few questions to get you started. As you consider these, think both broadly and specifically within each realm of life. Try, as best as you can, to be non-judgemental towards yourself. This is not about evaluating where we are failing, it’s about finding areas in our life where God can bring restoration and renewal.
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Questions to Consider
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Realms of Life
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Consider
“Consider your ways” (Haggai 1:5). Such wise words.
After reflecting, take a look at what stood out to you. Chances are, at least one thing rose the surface, begging to be noticed. Take some time to consider which areas of your soul are crying out for attention.
In nature, “ecosystem engineers” can alter entire ecosystems. Beavers, for instance, can clearcut forests and change the flow of a river. We have these same ecosystem engineers in our lives too. Forces like a global pandemic, demanding bosses and anxiety can really disrupt us and are worth paying attention to. Now that you’ve discovered a few things that are causing your soul to feel uneasy, it’s time to consider what you want to do about it.
- Which realms of your life are taking up too much real estate?
- Where are you overconnected and expending too much energy?
- What is costing you your peace and wellbeing?
Release
In my drawing, I envisioned a stream that could carry away the stagnant bog in my heart. It was helpful to have an outlet for unhealth. Maybe you’ve got some stuff that you need to release too – family drama, working too much, festering resentment, tension in your shoulders. If you’ve discovered the source(s) of why your soul feels shaky, it’s time to release them.
Now, some things, like your job, might be hard to let go of, I get that. But I wonder, is there something in your perspective or way of relating to your job that you can release? Remember, a subtle shift can have large-scale impacts.
As you consider letting go of some of the less helpful rhythms or relationships in your life, here are a few questions to sit with:
- Where do you need boundaries?
- What is asking to be released?
- What would it be like to let go of a dynamic?
- What does your body need in order to release stress or tension?
- What can you delegate to someone else so that it’s not weighing you down?
- Where is God inviting you to surrender?
Infill
However you choose to do it, take a long drink of Living Water. We can keep an eye on the health of our soul, but Jesus alone keeps our soul.
This process is about making room in our hearts to allow the infilling of God’s love. Soul Care is about God’s care for our souls – our only responsibility is placing ourselves in postures where we can receive that care.
To be sure, God is not an item on our to-do list. This final step of soul rebalancing is not about longer quiet times (but by all means, go for it if that is what your soul is asking for!). In fact, you may realize you need to do less Bible study and more swinging in the hammock with God while watching the clouds pass by (that’s where you’ll find me on Saturday afternoons).
What spiritual practice do you feel most drawn to right now? How is your heart longing to connect with God? How can you engage that desire?
A few practices to consider:
- Bible study
- Contemplative prayer + meditation
- Silence + solitude
- Worship
- Church
- Prayer walks
- Lectio Divina
- Spiritual conversation
- Engaging Scripture in a new way
- Writing your own Psalm
- Spiritual direction
- Retreat
Friends, at the end of the day, the tides of our soul will roll in and out, in …. and ….. out. We can’t manhandle our souls and expect to strike a perfect balance all the time (preachin’ to myself here), but we can embrace the power of reflection, examination and spiritual infilling to help our reservoirs stay full.
If you find yourself struggling with something that feels heavier or darker check out this post which explores things like the Dark Night of the Soul, desolation and deppression.
