Jean Shinoda Bolen: Soul Work
“You have the need and the right to spend part of your life caring for your soul. It is not easy. You have to resist the demands of the work-oriented, often defensive, element in your psyche that measures life only in terms of output—how much you produce—not in terms of the quality of your life experiences. To be a soulful person means to go against all the pervasive, prove-yourself values of our culture and instead treasure what is unique and internal and valuable in yourself and your own personal evolution.”—Jean Shinoda Bolen.
We can learn so much about ourselves and our souls from Jean Shinoda Bolen. Her book, Goddesses in Everywoman, teaches us about the Artemis, the Athena, the Hestia, the Hera, the Demeter, the Persephone, and the Aphrodite in our own psyches, and how each relates to and cares for our soul both positively and negatively.
Bolen’s writings bring us much wisdom for this journey. She empowers us during troublesome situations to stay the heroine, knowing and believing that answers will come and that things will change. She warns against regressing into embodying the victim—a scenario in which all our energy is used defensively, because we view the situation as caused by others. When we identify ourselves as the victim, our soul cannot breathe.
I love the story of Psyche’s journey to reunite with her husband, Eros, the masculine part of her personality. One of her onerous tasks is to sort a large number of different seeds. The sorting is done by an out-of-the-box, unusual group of insects or ants that appear to solve her dilemma. These ants may represent our intuitive function, something beyond cognitive ability that represents a potential inside of us. In confusing situations, this natural intuition will come to our aid if we can stay grounded as the heroine.
Other tasks that enable women to connect to their masculine side involve allowing the feminine to gain power but remain compassionate; learning to see the big picture; developing the ability to say no. These stories of tough situations where we learn about ourselves are some of the many ways we can nurture our soul. We let it take deep breaths so we can wake up from a deep sleep. This is soul work.
Joanna. Joannaseibert.com