6 minute read… Published in SYL Magazine.

If one of these points resonates with you, triggers an internal knowing, makes you self-reflect, or is part of your own aspirations, you are a spiritual explorer.

1. Are you willing to question everything?

Do you seek the truth and aspire to reconnect with your authenticity or the pacification of a desire to be special?

Soul searching is uncovering the truth; it can get messy and emotionally raw as you question why you feel the way you do, acknowledge the motives behind the things you do and expose what you have suppressed within, hidden under layers of camouflage.

Recognising the uniqueness of your soul and embracing your significance, occurs as you deal with how you have camouflaged the unresolved emotions that shield you from the truth of who you naturally are. As you recognise your resonance with truth, accept reality and respect the value of choice, you begin to appreciate life.

If it is an image of being special or spiritually elite you seek, you will miss the mark and could easily bypass doing the inner-work.

Exploring isn’t easy, but is always rewarding!

Pacifying a desire to use spirituality to hide from your internal reality; is like pitching a tent on a floating iceberg, with a campfire. You are only seeing what you want to see, filtered through a desire that is not based in reality. It might not be too difficult to get the fire started if you have brought your supply of firewood—established beliefs about spirituality, the image you want to portray and avoidance techniques—but keeping it going will be taxing and will get to the point of undeniable pretence.

Eventually, the fire is either going to be unreplenishable in that environment causing you to abandon your campsite, seeking another location to do it all over again, until you have a campsite that accommodates your beliefs and supports your denials.

Or you might abandon camping in a tent, swapping to a caravan—belief hopping.

Or it will leave you unable to exist in your tent, due to the melting ice—representing how the illusory spirituality chips away at your sense of self and can cause damage to your emotional and spiritual well-being.

When you realise you were not looking at reality, you can begin to learn how to be truthful with yourself. Instead of trying to create an alternate reality that does not feed your soul or rejuvenate a relationship with yourself, truth or others, you can begin to explore what does. You can begin to be present in whatever environment you find yourself in, exploring reality.

Your experiences create opportunities to recognise the flaws in your beliefs, images, illusions and denials. Instead of abandoning, you can begin to objectively observe and seek to understand what you feared questioning, examining and acknowledging. This is a stepping-stone to exploring what is meaningful through the exploration of what you have experienced.

Learning from all your experiences enables you to walk away from any event with greater awareness. Throughout the expedition of life, you experience learning and then expanding on what you’ve learnt; it is a continuous and exciting process.

If you are prepared to question everything, and seek to understand truth, regardless of whether you like the answer or not, you are ready to explore.

2. Are you prepared to challenge and deal with your unresolved emotions, beliefs and fears?

Do you seek to justify or to understand what is unresolved within?

Every evolutionary journey involves soul-searching and truth-seeking because you will confront your unresolved emotions, embedded beliefs and fears. We are all on the journey of life, and some feel the internal yearning for it to become an evolutionary trail and tale.

The internal yearning grows stronger the more aware you become of the void within. The void you feel is a recognition of your separation from being aware and attuned to your soul. This includes authenticity, sense of being and your core essences, such as unconditional love, self-kindness and compassion. (24 key—core essences are explored in my books and courses.)

When you turn your attention to your soul, you will also awaken to the labyrinth of unconscious energy—emotional baggage—that sustain your separation from the truth of your soul. Soul-searching is required; you have to work out what is of value to you and how to resolve why you have carried and sustained what is hidden in your baggage.

Soul-evolution is returning unconscious energy to consciousness. It is understanding, aligning and unifying with truth. As you do this, the walls of the emotional labyrinths crumble. At times it is a wall you have to climb, to understand each component. Others you’ll hit with a sledge-hammer and some have secret compartments attached, but as each wall crumbles it enables you to see further, unobstructed by self-distortions. Your perception changes, because you are aware of more and it changes the foundation you stand on.

When you seek to understand, you begin to take the filters off, which enables you to embrace what you discover, knowing it is a stepping-stone to resolution, recovery and evolution.

The evolutionary process requires contemplation about the purpose and consequences of your decisions; it is acknowledging the truth—as much as you are aware of at that time. It is also reflecting on our actions, and taking responsibility for

where you have been,
where you are now
and where you can choose to go.

When you seek to justify your unresolved emotions, you’ll forget the mission is to resolve and evolve; to be free of the emotional angst your suppressed emotions create. You will get caught defending what fortifies your emotional labyrinths. Instead of deconstructing, you’ll be the architect of your own wall construction, creating a prison out of your emotional labyrinth. This leads to denial of self-responsibility and soul-accountability.

If you are prepared to acknowledge the significance of self-responsibility and of being the caretaker of your soul, you are ready to explore.   

3. Can you be a friend to yourself and accept truth as a friend?

 Are you willing to explore your relationship with yourself and truth or are you trying to control yourself and truth better?

The most important relationship you have is the one with yourself. Treat yourself like a friend (or how you would like your friends to treat you). Try to inspire yourself by being supportive, compassionate and good company to be around. It is important that you show yourself respect and acknowledge you are not your emotions; they are part of what you are experiencing.

Accept the path you have walked so far and acknowledge that you decide the direction you follow. You cannot control what is going to happen on the road ahead but you choose how you deal with what has or is occurring. You choose how you deal with yourself.

You are important,
even when you believe the world does not see you.

Truth is your friend, it guides you and as you accept it is always supporting your soul, you realise that it is you who could improve your relationship with truth. Truth-seeking is done with truth, it is not hiding, it is waiting for you to decide it is worthy of your attention.

Truth is not something to control, it is either accepted, denied or exploited. It asks nothing in return, just to be acknowledged and valued, because it knows every truth accepted, enables you to travel further down the evolutionary road.

Controlling yourself to what you believe, is different to taking truth by the hand and exploring the good, bad and sometimes ugly beliefs, fears and emotions you have carried and protected. Exploring is being in the arena of freewill, knowing you are responsible for the relationship you have with yourself (your soul), truth and others.

If you are prepared to be a good friend to truth and yourself, or to learn why you struggle to do so, you are ready to explore.

A definition of a friend might help you realise the importance of a friendship with yourself and truth. (Sourced from Urban Dictionary – by tangles10, April 28, 2010)

‘A friend is someone you love and who loves you, someone you respect and who respects you, someone whom you trust and who trusts you. A friend is honest and makes you want to be honest, too. A friend is loyal.

A friend is someone who forgives you no matter what you do, and someone who tries to help you even when they don’t know how. A friend is someone who tells you if you’re being stupid, (unconscious, lost in denial or acting-out emotionally – just adding a bit to this), but who doesn’t make you feel stupid (worthless, not good enough or insignificant – just adding a bit more).

A friend is someone for whom you’re willing to change your opinions (explore new possibilities). A friend is someone you look forward to seeing and who looks forward to seeing you.

A friend is a partner, not a leader or a follower.

The word “friend” comes from Old English “frēond“, which is actually the present particle of “frēogan“, which means “to love” and “to honour”.’

You may be the friend you have been looking for?
When you realise truth is a friend, it makes the evolutionary journey easier.

Remember if one of these points resonates with you, triggered an internal knowing, made you self-reflect, or is part of your aspirations, you are a spiritual explorer.