Doesn’t the term Soul nourishment sound good, yummy and wonderful? But why is that? Why does it resonate so much with us?
Soul nourishment is so critical for living an empowered and fulfilling life. On some level, we know it’s important, but we don’t really know why, and we often don’t really know how to do it.
In this article, we’re going to define Soul nourishment and explore why it resonates so much for us. I’m going to offer you some tips and techniques on how to do it, including some awesome resources and some specific challenges that you can get started with today for your Soul nourishment.
What Is Soul Nourishment?
First of all, we need to take a look at what nourishment really is. It has origins that mean to promote the growth of or to bring forth. People think of food as a form of nourishment, and it is a form of nourishment.
Soul nourishment is really about Soul food, not necessarily Soul food in terms of comfort food, but what feeds our Soul, what promotes growth for our Soul, for our being, or for our evolutionary essence.
The earliest feminine root of the word nourish comes from one who nurses, the idea of the flow of milk.
Soul is often associated with the feminine, and spirit associated with masculine. The idea of nourishing the Soul is also very much about cultivating the feminine flow and opening ourselves up to be receptive to all that life has to offer.
Why Soul nourishment?
The Soul animates us. Its origin, as a word, is often something associated with having come from the sea. Early lore talks about the earliest feminine elements as being born of the sea.
Again, here we have this incredibly beautiful, feminine concept of Soul nourishment. It’s what opens us up to life’s experiences, this idea of giving to our Soul, through nourishment, what’s needed to grow, expand and open ourselves so we can be in the full flow of life, receiving all that life has to offer.
Why Does the Idea of Soul Nourishment Resonate So Much?
Why does Soul nourishment resonate so much with us?
Our Souls are designed to evolve, grow and expand. We’re also designed to know when we’re off on the Soul level.
In life, we’re very far off within our Souls.
We hear so much about anxiety and depression skyrocketing, and so much discontent, dissatisfaction, frustration, and longing for deeper meaning and purpose. We feel it.
We have a sense of when our Soul is not well, and I call it Soul sickness.
Soul-sickness is the idea that the Soul feels ill or off, and something within us just knows when we’re Soul sick.
When we hear the word Soul nourishment, something in us also knows this is what we need. We may not even know what exactly we need, or how to do it, but something in us resonates so deeply.
Perhaps you were attracted to this article because I’m talking about Soul nourishment. You see those words and you think, “Oh yes, that’s what I need.” If you feel this sigh of relief, then pay attention to the fact that something within you knows that something’s off. Something’s not aligned with where you’re meant to be. It might be very subtle.
Perhaps you’re overworking yourself and you’re exhausted, but you’re doing exactly what you’re meant to be doing. You just have to balance it with some good rest, rejuvenation, and Nature time. It might be that you’re in the wrong relationships, or in the wrong job, or in different situations that aren’t working.
Why do we resonate with this term Soul nourishment so much? What is it that something within you knows is off? Ask yourself those questions. Take some time to really think about, explore, and dive deeper into that.
Another reason we resonate with this term Soul nourishment is that the Soul is feminine, and, as I mentioned, so is the origin of the word nourish. The feminine is rising up to support us.
The feminine has been suppressed, oppressed, ignored, hidden and subdued for millennia. But it’s rising up and it can’t be stopped. We’re seeing counter forces trying to stop that in various ways, which I won’t get into in this article.
Something within us knows Soul nourishment is needed, and there’s a force rising in the world saying, “Yes, pay attention to your Soul. Pay attention to what you need. Pay attention to the feminine essence and aspect of your being.”
This doesn’t mean to ignore the masculine aspect of our being. It simply means to pay more attention to Soul after having been in this patriarchal dominance culture for so long that’s ignored and dismissed the feminine.
We’re longing for wisdom, which is rising up with the feminine.
So much going on in the world today has been largely a result of a complete lack of wisdom. When we hear the term Soul nourishment, we know there’s something there for us to pay attention to.
Tips & Techniques To Nourish Your Soul
How do we nourish our Soul? Here are some tips and techniques for you.
First of all, we want to notice what’s going on around us, what’s triggering us, what we’re taking in, what we’re bringing into our lives, and what we’re opening or closing ourselves to.
How can we be noticing what we’re taking in? Is it nourishing? Is where we’re living nourishing our Soul? Is what we’re eating nourishing our Soul? Is what we’re watching, reading and saying nourishing our Soul? Is what we’re hearing through our music or our television shows or movies nourishing our Soul? Are the activities we’re doing nourishing our Soul?
We want to look at what we’re taking in and evaluate with the question of, “Is this Soul nourishing for me?”
Often, we don’t even ask the question. We just go and do whatever is suggested.
Want to have a drink after work?
Sure no problem. Let’s go, have a drink after work.
Is that really what will nourish your Soul?
Maybe your Soul is saying, “What I need is to go walk in the forest after work,” or “I need to go sit in a salt bath after work,” or “I need to go out and have a really nourishing meal that’s going to revivify me after a long day.” We need to pay attention and ask these questions.
Another way we can do this Soul work is to honor all aspects of our being.
This is what I particularly love. In everything I do, I take a holistic approach, honoring the whole of our being.
How are we showing up?
What are we doing?
Why are we doing it?
What domains of life is it applying to, and is it bringing all of us on board, including the parts we’ve dismissed?
Another way to nourish the Soul is to do deep Soul work.
We must be willing to look at the shadow parts of ourselves we’ve tried to ignore.
It’s a willingness to do a deep dive, to go into the depths of our being and bring along all aspects of ourselves, even the parts of ourselves we thought were not worthy or were dismissing and ignoring.
Taking this holistic approach where we look at the whole of our being, is what the feminine does. What the feminine wants is to bring everything on board to honor all aspects, be inclusive, and be honoring the connectivity we have.
We can also begin to look at what we’re resisting, and what we need to set boundaries around.
There are things we resist and there might be a reason for that. There are boundaries we have to set around things so we don’t limit ourselves, but we may also set boundaries around how we do those things.
There are many things coming in that are anything but nourishing to our Soul. They’re draining us and causing us to feel disconnected. We maybe even want to run and hide a bit. We need to take a look at what we can do instead to set some boundaries and not let those draining things in, but open ourselves to other possibilities. We want to look at these things as a way to do this work and to have greater Soul nourishment.
Challenges and Practices to Nourish Your Soul Today
I want to offer you some challenges or practices that you can do to start nourishing your Soul today.
First of all, questions. I challenge you to ask questions. Just ask questions. We’re not trying to find answers here.
The Soul thrives in uncertainty, in living in the questions and in opening to possibilities.
I often encourage people to keep a questioning journal. Write down the questions, and don’t focus on questions like, “Why is this happening to me?” Instead consider, “I wonder what’s going on here,” or “I wonder how this could be possible,” or “I wonder what life would look like if this were going on,” or “What could happen if I do this?”
When we live in these questions, we start to open ourselves to new possibilities, and we open ourselves to the nourishment that the universe is longing to give us for Soul nourishment.
Live in the questions.
What do you want?
What do you not want?
What are you longing for?
What do you want to stay away from?
What’s working well for you?
What’s not working so well?
These are amazing questions to live in. Simply posing the questions begins to provide you with answers through a flow of incredible unbounded nourishment we have available to us.
Another practice for Soul work is journaling.
My Journaling as a Path to Come Home Guide is a powerful tool with lots of guidance on different tips and different ways of journaling that can connect you to your Soul. It can be downloaded for free. I challenge you to work with that. Try some of those methods and see what works for you, what resonates for you, what you like, and what nourishes your Soul.
Another way I challenge you to nourish your Soul is with Nature.
Nature is such a potent way for us to nourish our Soul because there’s so much of the feminine existing in this expressive, open flow of Nature. We can nourish our Soul by slowing down long enough to reconnect with the laws of Nature and with the way things work.
So much of our life in the material patriarchal dominance culture disconnects us from those laws of Nature. We try to dominate Nature. We try to control Nature. We try to take things away from Nature and think we’re superior to Nature when in fact, we are Nature.
All of the ways in which we harm Nature or try to control it are ways in which we are harming ourselves, and controlling a Soul that wants to be free.
Spending time and connecting with Nature is such a powerful tool. You might take a walk in the forest. You might connect with the elementals. Connect with water by sitting near a stream or connect with fire by sitting by a campfire or wood stove. Breathe in the air and appreciate it. Walk barefoot upon the earth and really feel into what’s being provided for you with these various elements. Notice all aspects of Nature and all of the support that’s there.
Consider a Nature retreat. For your future, you might be interested in the Women’s Nature Retreat I do each year. Allow yourself to be immersed in Nature so you can feel Nature’s nourishment forever available to you for your Soul.
There are lots of ways to nourish your Soul.
I’ve given you a number of tips. I challenge you to take at least one of them up and try it out.
Share in the comments what you find, what you discover, what sounds good to you, what you’re going to take up and make the commitment to. Let’s witness each other committing, and actually go for it.
Good luck, and may your Soul be nourished.
For a video version of, How to Nourish Your Soul, watch here:
