Who Are You Now? How Defining The Soul Helped Me Move Through Loss

When I lost my partner in 2011, I was left to not only grieve his absence, but I was immediately plagued by a slew of existential questions. Was he still ‘him’ on the other side? Had he become something totally different and now unrelatable to me? Did he even know who I was anymore?

It terrified me the possibility that he could be something abstract and unrelatable. Furthermore, I would soon be giving birth to our daughter which brought up even more anxiety for me. Laying in the hospital bed five months later, I gazed upon our sleeping newborn overwhelmed with love. The lights of the town glowed outside as the rain fell into the dark summer night casting a mist. It was a beautiful moment, where time stood still. But again, questions that never would have otherwise entered my mind, stole my peace. If we had a Soul, was she even part of him at all? Was she only part of him biologically? Was her Soul completely independent of both of us? The questions rolled in like waves.

I wanted to believe he still lived on through her in some way; that he had in essence, created her somehow. But I wasn’t sure. The thought of us surviving death made life bearable again. But the thought of him not being part of her frightened me. What is the Soul? If consciousness does survive after death, then what are we really? Am I still ‘me’ I know myself to be? And are my loved ones still ‘them’? Or do we become something entirely different?

To say metaphysics became something I was passionate about would be an understatement. It became a full-blown obsession. This obsession spanned the course of the next ten years of my life. And as difficult as it had been at times, it was worth every moment of the journey. Because I did, eventually, get my answer.

So, what did I find in my quest? What is the Soul? Let me begin with the parable ‘The Little Soul and the Sun’ written by Neale Donald Walsch in his book Conversations with God. 

‘There was once a Soul who knew itself to be the light. This was a new Soul, and so, anxious for experience.

“I am the light,” it said. “I am the light.”

Yet all the knowing of it and all the saying of it could not substitute for the experience of it. And in the realm from which this Soul emerged, there was nothing but the light. Every Soul was grand, every Soul was magnificent, and every Soul shone with the brilliance of My awesome light. And so the little Soul in question was as a candle in the sun. In the midst of the grandest light-of which it was a part-it could not see itself, nor experience itself as Who and What It Really Is.

Now it came to pass that this Soul yearned and yearned to know itself. And so great was its yearning that I one day said, “Do you know, Little One, what you must do to satisfy this yearning of yours?”

“Oh what, God? What? I’ll do anything!” The little Soul said.

“You must separate yourself from the rest of us,” I answered, “and then you must call upon yourself the darkness.”

“What is the darkness, o Holy One?” the little Soul asked.

“That which you are not,” I replied, and the Soul understood.

And so this the little Soul did, removing itself from All, yea, going even unto another realm. And in this realm the Soul had the power to call into experience all sorts of darkness. And this it did. Yet in the midst of all the darkness did it cry out, “Father, Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Even as have you in your blackest times. Yet I have never forsaken you, but stand by you always, ready to remind you of Who You Really Are; ready, always ready, to call you home.

Therefore, be a light unto the darkness, and curse it not. And forget not Who You Are in the moment of your encirclement by that which you are not. But do you praise the creation, even as you seek to change it. And know that what you do in the time of your greatest trial can be your greatest triumph. For the experience you create is a statement of Who You Are-and Who You Want To Be.’

That parable had an immediate effect on me the first time I read it. Creative and elegant and sculpted in way that rang true. But Walsh was not the only source I found deeply provoking. Michael Newton, world renown hypnotherapist who has regressed thousands of people back into the space between incarnations, defined the Soul this way in his book Destiny Of Souls:

“The Soul has such majesty that it is beyond description. I tend to think of Souls as intelligent light forms of energy.”

What I took from that statement was that essentially, we are energy. Conscious energy. Unable to be destroyed, and something existing beyond time and space.

He continues:

“The energy of the Soul is able to divide into identical parts, similar to a hologram. It may live parallel lives in other bodies although this is much less common than we read about. However, because of the dual capabilities of all Souls, part of our light energy always remains behind in the spirit world.”

What this means, is that part of our consciousness is always in the Spirit World. Yet because of our ability to project and focus consciousness much like a hologram, we exist simultaneously in many dimensions. This is exactly what is happening when we live life, aka, an incarnation. Right now, I am both residing in the Spirit World, while also simultaneously living a physical existence. Many lives for that matter (I’ll save that for another post) yet my awareness of this is limited. I liken it to a room and a house. I may only be aware of there being a room, yet the room is part of a house. But just because I can’t perceive the house doesn’t mean the house doesn’t exist. I’m simply unaware of it due to the limits of my perception.

Seth, the non-physical being who was channeled by the beautiful and talented Jane Roberts; and might I add that their books have made up one of the most highly acclaimed spiritual archives in the world in terms of breadth and depth and is even housed in the Yale library, defines the Soul in this way in their book Seth Speaks:

“The Soul can be considered as an electromagnetic energy field, of which you are part. It is a field of concentrated action when you consider it in this light-a powerhouse of probabilities or probable actions, seeking to be expressed; a grouping of nonphysical consciousnesses that nevertheless knows itself as an identity.”

Seth’s definition supports Dr. Newtons while going a step further by telling us that our Soul is essentially the sum of all our personalities. Yet it is we who create those personalities. Just like every artist leaves a piece of themselves in their art, so too do we in each personality we create as they are extensions of us.

In a nutshell, the way I define the Soul is that the Soul is intelligent light energy. It is an integral part of All That Is (or God depending on what term you prefer,) and though we are not the sum total of All That Is, we are given Godhood simply by our being. We are unique, eternal, and behold all the same qualities of that which we call God, and our purpose is one of constant expansion which is obtained through experience.

With this newfound knowledge the existential weight on my shoulders slowly began to lift. I had come to realize that my deceased partner hadn’t become something strange; he was still the person I knew him to be. But he was also so much more than that now. This life I knew him in was but one of many and had shaped him into who he was. As for our daughter, she was her own being, embarking upon a sacred incarnation with us and had chosen us to be her parents. This tragedy would shape the rest of my life, that much I knew. But it would also always be the catalyst that taught me just how powerful and infinite I truly am.