Category: Personal Growth

When you’re staring at hundreds of candles, you have a chance to see inside your soul. As the individual lights flicker, they eventually blend together into one thought-feeling kaleidoscope piece. That’s what one night at a candlelight concert showed me. And it was a reflection into my lady soul. The sad parts at times. Maybe the Dark Knight part that gets brought up?

The soul is our mind’s will and emotions. It invites in the subconscious whether we like it or not. And the soul reference I hear about is often confused, described, or used interchangeably with the spirit.

…But from my life experiences, the spirit is totally a different place. The heart or gut is closer to the feelings associated. So maybe that helps clear it up better for you too, by body part distinction and feelings.

Spirit is love and peace.

But not always the soul in my experience.

The soul is where the sad thoughts can stir up. It’s sometimes a deep window into who you are when the camera is off or you’re off of work, that’s not always your best self.

…A Former You showing up in the shadows. Or what you’re trying to grow away from, but maybe aren’t ready to grow up yet into.

And when confronted, like I was when watching a candlelit string quartet event, it can be a sobering downer to see life metaphorically flash in front of your eyes, the window into your soul.

There after a few minutes, looking out, everything inside me wasn’t moving like the air in the closed room. The thoughts were trapped and frozen. The opposite feeling of helpful meditation that’s relaxing and inspiring (breathing in new air).

While the mesmerizing light dancing show was happening, it was playing with my soul.

And as minutes went by, I was losing touch of myself like gradual slipping sand, and letting the forces take over… I was feeling smaller. Away from love.

Maybe I was even pouting in the back of the dark room? I don’t know.

I was reminded of distant relationships that didn’t work out as evidenced by my thoughts blending into the candles that represented life. My life.

Time felt warped like the Dali clock.

…But was definitely not standing still.

It was only minutes that went by, and I didn’t know the exact time, or if it mattered at all… as I was swirling further away from my conscious thinking Everyday self.

I felt a sense of longing for the season to end in some ways, and a new one to begin. With subtle hints of progression in areas that were flourishing. But it wasn’t a lost feeling.

Candlelight Experience – A Meditative Trance

In my candlelit concert space staring at a sea of lights, I was deeper in my soul, letting ego thoughts sink in, get fuzzier, and more confused.

My mind was drifting into a mini-meditative trance with eyes open.

Did I blink? I couldn’t tell you.

What if that’s what it’s like for people who lose their memory? Or those who no longer dream about the future? Or people in a form of addiction?

That’s kinda how I imagined it felt.

For an hour, it’s doable and at times enjoyable being transported to this external sensory experience.

But for a longer period of time, like daily life, it would be a present reminder that life is passing by… and it’s possible to tune out of the essence of life… away from feeling alive and fresh oxygen like I was used to.

Admittingly, I’ve never been good with nightclub environments that this venue was in. They were just as popular as today’s beat of the drum when I was adult growing up, where the do-drum repetitive techno beats reverberated.

The minds goes in a mini-coma, apart from self-awareness.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been comfortable or safe in those places, and in that place.

Even though I used to talk myself into liking the idea of it as my friends were going.

And similarly at other experiences like staring into an outside warming bonfire… where the night darkness in the background is casting shadows to the light in the foreground that’s running the show.

Even back in those experiences years earlier, I felt the shadows as cold and negative space. The void could be fear or blindspots I didn’t know about or hadn’t addressed yet. Post-trauma that hadn’t surfaced and healed.

Those light flames showed up as symbols of burning questions left in life that I hadn’t met or crossed yet in life’s discovering journey.

And in those moments, I similarly left my conscious self and glared into the subconscious-thinking blurring abyss…

Where I forgot about my current season and my entire past.

My thoughts were similarly stopped like this at this recent concert I attended.

…Where I felt no identity.

No thought to the work done earlier that day.

And I certainly wasn’t a writer.

Or in a writer’s frame of mind.

The Soul As a Writer

…Which btw, often writers have a tough time calling themselves writers from the get-go. They often hem-and-haw against proclaiming their natural gifted identity role because a clear line hasn’t been established…

A writing certificate or certification hasn’t been earned.

Or no one in the field has personally called them a writer. That’s how it was for me.

I also believe, you’re a writer if you just write. Just like you’re a reader when you read. And an avid reader if you read a lot or the same type of books.

But saying “I’m a writer” for some writers is a professed title that creates anxiety. And staying humble about it until something significant happens is common.

The hesitation I think is in the soul of a writer.

One that I’m now aware about. Lemme explain…

Like many new writers, one day in 2019 I just started writing and that continued into the next few days, until it became consistent.

In my case, it was decades after one college creative writing class I was in, where I wrote my heart out in a paper describing my wild Red Hot Chili Peppers concert experience in my 20s. Where the one reader audience, my professor, expressed in writing that he enjoyed reading my paper.

And before that, I received big red “NO” Sharpie pen marks on my turned-in papers from my senior high school English teacher, where I then concluded math was my strong suit. And that was confirmed by my SAT scores.

I was diverted into using my stronger skillsets in other careers.

But today, decades later I call myself a writer. Why? Because I write. Daily. Weekly. And I have a relationship with the words on the page I write on.

It started one day from my brewing hot tea and burning my finger on a teapot. That led me to writing an article. Which led to another article the next day, and then a writing challenge to myself. And since then I haven’t stopped writing.

And calling myself a writer (even if it was started as an experiment) got me there.

And if you write, you can call yourself a writer when you decide you wannabe… and that’s the best thing you can do for yourself…

It’s an ego booster – in a healthy way!

Even if you’re a blogger: that counts as writing. So does journaling. It’s cathartic and putting words into context gives meaning to your world.

It’s a way to express your thoughts and feelings, and have a voice in what matters to you in this world.

And the sooner a new writer adopts the new role identity, the sooner he/she (you?) writes daily and ends up with more written words at the end of the year.

…Or else will figure out pretty quickly, it may not be right for him/her/you, and that’s totally okay.

It’ll be forgotten soon. With nothing lost. It was just and experience and something to try. Like tasting a new pastry or joining a new group.

But what stops some writers from declaring themselves writers, brings me back to my point in this article (about the soul)…

Which is: writers are often more in tune with their ego thoughts than most out there. That’s a plus in writing and life in general… To be thoughtful.

And to be aware of fear, sad, and dark sides, so you don’t go there unaware.

Writers don’t often want to go there and confront the soul or baring one’s soul experience. It would be equivalent to standing almost naked in front of an audience, and risking lookin’ like a fool.

And pre-mature, the soulful information presenting itself is often muddy and unclear in meaning.

For me, that’s where the meditative concert candles burning showed up.

…Where thoughts were entering fuzzy as one unison (candle art?) piece.

I couldn’t have written then even if I tried. And if I did, that would jinx any clarity on paper. But thankfully I was at a concert, so I was set free to enjoy.

…Which I kinda did, feeling happy and sad at times.

But it’s with those candlelight concert sentiments that I confronted my ego darkness and decided that awareness and spirit is where I belong.

…Where I could clearly see potential regrets of my past that my ego used to protect me from when I didn’t have ego-awareness…

Where maybe I missed some life opportunities that called me in life even though I thought I tried. There were disconnects. “Alignment” wasn’t a word I could form in my mind or send out to the roof of my mouth.

Ego made sure to keep that clear and present danger away from me in its gaslighting ways.

Ego confronted me with failures, that weren’t my fault, but maybe I could’ve said or did something different in those situations.

They’re the raw and vulnerable self thoughts that writers don’t naturally feel comfortable with in writing, but run in the back of the mind. (And maybe why there are so many fiction writers to write about characters outside of themselves?).

And if anyone can get out that pre-first draft junk out, it’s therapeutic.

Vomiting a jumbled mess of thoughts journaled on paper is the start of personal healing.

But keeping thoughts trapped is ego’s trap to regurgitate the same old negative story lines to protect Numero Uno (ego self).

Or leave the writer person outside stuck in writer’s block, staring at a blinking cursor.

That pauses writing altogether. It’s like a perfectionist confronting imperfection head on. Where the result is inaction.

And for a writer, it would be way too sad and possibly real to sign up for that willingly. And hence, hard sometimes to say, “I’m a writer.”

No one would set themselves up for that kind of failure. (Even though that does happen in the process of first draft discoveries. And simply writing out messy thoughts gets you over the hump of overthinking analysis-paralysis.)

But when you get away from the soul (or staring into candles in my case) and let your spirit (heart or gut) guide and take over at least for a little while, you move into loving thoughts and loving-writing possibilities.

You look at the bright side and the you-won’t-know-unless-you-try possibilities, as corny old as that may sound.

…Or whatever the possibilities are of your specific work or purpose is if you’re not a writer.

In spirit love to yourself (that’s an inward solo experience), you assume you have nothing to lose. And everything to gain.

You can crumple up the paper or just hit the trash can button and feel accomplished for typing, as you know it’s getting you closer to bullseye. And you keep going and growing, one page at a time until (not if, but when) it clicks.

Today, I realize being in the present daylight moments, heals what’s lost. It’s being in touch with emotions and thoughts.

Looking back to the concert event as now the past, I see it as a way to bring in more light this season. More love and awareness.

I attended because I had a curiosity. And our need to escape and dull our inward senses is human.

I suppose that’s why people like watching entertainment since the spotlight is not on them.

And when I got on my spotlight yoga mat this week to do deep breathing, I was brought back to appreciating more of what I have (and not focus on what I don’t have without a productive loose plan for change).

I was aware of the in-touch breath, and that the blissful light in each of us has our answers. It also has our love and truth (and our back). It’s always present no matter how we feel that day or when we’re not present (when ego shows up).

It’s wise and insightful for you to get to know all of you (roses, thorns, and roots).

I hope this inspires you in your path this season.