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Musing: What is Soul? Immortality?

 Beliefs, Personal Development, Spiritual  No Responses »
Sep 132012
 
Image Chicken Soup for Soul

Flikr.com Enokson, CC Attr License

 

 

I’ve been musing about body and soul lately, not my body and soul so much as the concept of soul. I believe souls are immortal; that concept simply feels right to me. Perhaps it’s just my personal comfort with the idea of my own soul’s immortality.

Most religions teach the concept of the soul’s immortality. Philosophers debate the very existence of soul, let alone whether soul is immortal. Whether soul exists, and if it does, whether it’s immortal cannot be proven, but I generally go by what feels right to me. And this feels right.

What is Soul?

I’ve been thinking that soul is the energy source for the body, the connection to universal source energy which brings life to a physical shell. Kind of like a battery.

Did you ever have your cell phone battery die, totally go dead? Before that, your phone is colorful, active, sending out signals and receiving signals; it’s alive in a sense.

When the battery dies, the phone becomes just a metal or plastic shell with no interaction with its surroundings—no life.

Body and Soul

Have you ever seen someone die? The person, despite being very ill, frail, and sickly, still has the ability to function: breathing, heart pumping, organs working, depth of eye, perhaps talking or making conscious motions. Then, just as if a plug were pulled, the person dies and becomes a shell, with pale, waxy skin and shallow, lifeless eyes.

It’s as if the person’s connection to its energy source has been removed. The soul has departed. Is soul the connecting cord or “battery” of life-energy which brings life to a physical body? Makes some sense to me.

I raised this question of soul on my Facebook page, which spurred some interesting discussion, such as:

  • …soul as the essential energy of who we are, our connection with the entire universe
  • …things beyond the human ability to understand, feel, measure, see
  • … soul as the energy that keeps the cells of our physical bodies together
  • The question is – what kind of energy are we and where do we go?
  • …and more, so

What do you think? Do you have an immortal soul?

More Resources for Personal Growth

What is Life all About? How do I Find my Purpose? is the latest in the Personal Growth Resources series of personal growth books. Other books in the series include The Happiness Workbook, Sample Personal Development Plan and Workbook, and 5 Keys to Balancing Work and Life.

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Jerry Lopper – Personal Growth Resources

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Overcome Negative Emotion with Emotional Freedom

 Beliefs, Changing Habits, Fear, Love, Positive Attitude, Spiritual  6 Responses »
Feb 272011
 

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If you’re awash in a sea of negativity, Dr. Judith Orloff’s Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform your Life (Three Rivers Press), may be the life raft you need to lift yourself out of negativity and into the more healthful life of positive emotions. Emotional Freedom, just released in trade paperback, describes the processes Orloff uses to help her clients free themselves from the harmful and debilitating effects of negative emotions, such as fear, jealousy, anxiety, and depression.

A non-traditional psychologist, Orloff combines the sciences of biology and psychology with spirituality and intuitive energy to help people rid themselves of the unhealthy burdens of being buried in negative emotion.

Emotional freedom does not mean the freedom from emotion—emotion is a natural human response to circumstances and surroundings. Orloff’s definition of emotional freedom is to “Increase ability to love by cultivating positive emotions and being able to compassionately witness and transform negative emotions, whether they’re yours or anothers.”

Positive Attitudes are Healthier

Scientists know that people who tend to be positive, hopeful, and optimistic are healthier and happier than those who are negative, pessimistic, and cynical. Positivity is simply a healthier, more pleasant state of living. The idea is not to avoid all negative emotions, but to transform them into something more positive and healthful.

Emotional Freedom contains a brief, twenty question self-test to help you identify the extent to which negative emotions affect your life.

How to Deal with Negative Emotions

The process begins by recognizing a negative emotion and observing how it is affecting you. Orloff describes common negative emotions, such as fear and anxiety, and relates how they affect your biology, energy, spirituality, and psychology. Becoming aware of the four-fold impact of fear makes it easier to recognize that it has set upon you, enabling you to then choose to take action to move away from fear.

For each of nine common negative emotions shared by all of us at one time or another, Orloff describes a process of recognition, followed by suggested actions to transform the negative emotion into something more positive. For example, she demonstrates how to transform the negative emotion of fear into courage, the negative emotion of frustration into patience, and anger to compassion.

Overcome Fear—A Pervasive Negative Emotion

Emotional Freedom is worth the price just for its treatment of transforming fear to courage. Orloff calls fear the mother of all negative emotion. Fear is so widespread in our daily exposures to the media, religion, politics, government, management, and medical practices that most of us move from one state of fear to another without recognizing its harmful effects.

In the instant-culture of today, frustration is another rampant negative emotion. Witness how you feel in a long-line, awaiting your appearance before a sullen clerk gabbing and complaining to her buddy at the next checkout. Orloff shows you how to transform that frustrating experience into the calmness of patience. It’s amazing how much better you’ll feel.

The transformations recommended for nine common negative emotions: fear, anxiety, loneliness, anxiety, worry, depression, jealousy, envy, and anger make Emotional Freedom one of the terrific values in self-help books.

Orloff throws in lots of personal experiences of her own and those of her clients to illustrate her points. A section on dream interpretation seems unrelated to the main topic, but is interesting and useful.

If you recognize that your life is spent in negative emotion more than you’d like, Emotional Freedom will provide a good start toward the benefits of greater positive emotion.

Judith Orloff’s Emotional Freedom

Judith Orloff MD, a UCLA psychiatrist, presents her unique approach for viewing emotions as a path to spiritual and intuitive awakening. You’ll learn how to stop absorbing other people’s negativity and how to stay calm instead of reacting when your buttons get . Synthesizing neuroscience and intuitive/energy medicine, this book liberates you from fear—and the emotional vampires who suck you dry.

Purchase the book plus get your “Embrace Joy” gift collection at http://www.drjudithorloff.com/emotional-freedom-paperback/

Are You Growing Personally and Professionally?
Effective & Affordable Personal Growth Resources

Jerry Lopper, Personal Growth Coach
Member International Positive Psychology Association

The Ultimate Grief–Death of a Child

 Love, Personal Development, Relationships, Spiritual  4 Responses »
Jan 052011
 

The ultimate grief for a parent—the one thing every parent fears the most—is the death of a child. It seems almost unnatural for a child—especially a young person—to die before the parent. But it happens and the effects can be devastating.

This is a very difficult topic, but an important one for those suffering the loss of a child. If you know people who have lost a child, please forward this on to them.

It’s been my good fortune to avoid this dreaded experience, but having friends who have lived through this—and come out whole—I jumped at the chance to review a new book devoted to the topic of losing an only child: Losing Your Only, A Guide to Recovery from Sorrow by Dr. Debi Yohn.

Rather than attempt a review myself, I asked for input from those who have experienced living with the death of a child and are qualified to write about their journey.

Judy Lennon, hospice social worker and bereavement counselor lost her son, Mark, to cancer at age 28. Brenda Layman, published author and popular outdoor writer, lost her daughter, Carol, at age 14.

For both women, writing about the experience has been therapeutic. Lennon’s book of her son’s poetry and musings, Shaping the Whole, is in pre-publication. Lennon reviewed an early draft of Losing Your Only and commented, “it’s an excellent draft and will be very helpful to many people.  I especially liked the artful way Dr. Yohn weaves the story into her into her teaching on death, grief and spirituality.“

Song of JoyLayman’s book, Song of Joy: A Guide to Recovery from Sorrow, chronicles her journey from deep sorrow to a hope-filled life. For more about Layman or to purchase Song of Joy, click the book image.

Layman provides the following review of Losing Your Only, The Parental Journey through Grief, by Dr. Debi Yohn.

“The healing that comes with the sharing of grief is universal.” Dr. Debi Yohn

The pain parents feel upon the death of a child is excruciating. When that child is the only one, the loss is even more devastating. In Losing Your Only, The Parental Journey through Grief, by Dr. Debi Yohn, the author explores her personal experience, her son’s death, with the clarity of a professional therapist and the emotional immediacy of a bereaved mother. The result is a book that is objective without being cold, and compelling without being weepy. Yohn’s writing strikes chords of empathy, not just with parents who have experienced the deaths of children, but with any reader who has walked the path of grieving for a loved one who is with them no longer.

Yohn explores her changed life circumstances, wondering if, with no living child, she is still a mother. The answer, she finds, is yes. Parents are always parents. The bond between child and parent is not broken at death, only changed. This changed relationship is the crux of Yohn’s experience, the understanding of which she seeks to share with readers.

The sudden death of Yohn’s son, Levi, plunged her into grief and confusion. Her journey of healing led her down new paths as she explored a wider understanding of spirituality. Her loss became a source of personal growth, and from her pain and sorrow grew a deeper connection with life. These are the lessons she seeks to share. Hers is a voice that carries the conviction and quiet humility of experience.

Experiencing grief so suddenly and deeply shakes the foundation of a life. Overnight, Yohn went from a professional counselor whose knowledge of such overwhelming struggles was academic, to a person whose own life was changed forever by tragedy. As she was forced to realign her understanding of herself as a mother, her identity as a therapist also underwent a change. It is apparent to the reader that Yohn has become a mother in an even more profound sense, with her ability to nurture grieving souls becoming greater as the depth of her understanding of sorrow grows. As she writes:

“As the cloud of grief clears I find I am smiling and I do feel joy. I want others in their initial stage of grief to know that they too will smile and will find joy.”

Losing Your Only, The Parental Journey through Grief, is a deeply comforting book. Yohn’s words are like a warm shower of compassion, running over the reader, seeping into the places that are raw and painful, healing those wounds with understanding and hope.

Brenda Layman,  Select Author

Editor’s Note:

Thank you for your interest in Losing Your Only, by Dr Debi Yohn. This is a very
personal story which helped Dr Yohn discover her purpose—to motivate and support
parents and others to live life to their highest potential. To learn more about Dr. Yohn or to purchase the digital version of Losing Your Only (currently available), please click the book image, where you can also register to be notified when the print and audio versions are available.

The Shack: A Belated Review

 Beliefs, Love, Spiritual  No Responses »
Feb 132009
 

The Shack(Windblown Media, CA. 2007), a book by Wm. Paul Young is a must read for anyone who has ever wrestled with the question of why an all-powerful God doesn’t prevent evil-doers from

harming the innocent. Though The Shack was published in 2007, I just became aware of it and was touched sufficiently that I was moved to write about it.Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God series described God entering into a series of friendly, give and take conversations with Neale, a common, non-religious man struggling with life questions. Young goes a step further, describing Mackenzie Philips’s weekend in the mountains as God’s guest.

Mackenzie (Mack) has suffered a situation the thought of which terrifies every parent. His daughter, Missy, goes missing and appears to have been abducted and murdered by a serial killer.

While Mack is immersed in what he calls The Great Sadness, he receives a simple note in the mail inviting him to meet at the shack. The note is signed Papa, the name Mack’s wife Nan gives to God. The shack is clearly the remote cabin where Missy was murdered, though only her bloody clothing had been recovered.

Thinking the note is either a hoax or a cruel trick by the murderer, Mack feels drawn to go. To his surprise, he is welcomed by the Holy Trinity, God appearing physically as a large, African-American woman, Jesus as a small, plain man, and Sarayu, the Holy Spirit, seen as a vaporous, shimmering energy.

That weekend Mack learns of God’s true and unconditional love for all beings and the reason for life – to experience relationships. Conditioned in youth to a wrathful, demanding, and vengeful God, Mack slowly adjusts and understands that God’s true power is love, at all times and for all beings.

This is an inspiring work of fiction, one that will have you crying and smiling, saddened and joyous, and will leave you with a different view of God and the role of religion.

Additional reading for those interested in a lengthier review of The Shack.

Feeling overwhelmed and out of balance?
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Jerry Lopper, Life Purpose Coach
Member International Coach Federation
Member International Positive Psychology Association
 Posted by at 8:30 am

The Biology of Belief Simplified

 Beliefs, Spiritual  No Responses »
Nov 042008
 

Scientists base their models of the physical world on observable facts. Spiritualists base their view of the world on beliefs

which are known to them. These two approaches to explaining how our universe operates yielded wildly differing results in the past.

Scientists tended to ridicule intuition, precognition, and near-death experiences offering patronizing explanations alluding to the lack of understanding of the real world of those claiming non-observable, non-provable experiences.

Spiritualists, on the other hand, accused scientists of being short-sighted and blinded to the invisible forces of spirit, expressing confidence that someday science would catch up.

Someday may be close at hand. Dr. Bruce Lipton’s The Biology of Belief attempts to close the gap between science and spirit, offering a scientific basis for non-observable phenomenon. Lip ton, a former tenured professor at the respected University of Wisconsin at Madison College of Medicine, describes his epiphany when recognizing the biology-belief link. Though The Biology of Belief is fascinating reading, it’s not an easy read for the non-scientific lay-person.

However, Emiliya Zhivotovkaya’s “The Biology of Happiness” article on the Positive Psychology News website provides a very readable and understandable description of the science behind belief.  The article includes a link to an animated description of how cells interact with their surroundings, bringing Lipton’s message to life more clearly.

 Posted by at 4:16 pm

The Sage Age: A Review

 Spiritual  No Responses »
Oct 222008
 

MaAnna Stephenson’s The Sage Age, Blending Science with Intuitive Wisdom is an ideal reference book for the person interested and knowledgeable in the fields of science and

spirituality. The Sage Age is not light reading, but is ideal for anyone eager to see these two fields of human endeavor gradually come together in a dance of intuition and rational thinking.Born in the small town of Humboldt, Tennessee, MaAnna began her journey as the youngest of three children with a huge age gap between her siblings and herself. Constant inclusion in the world of adults led to an early maturity and perhaps a different view of the world than most children experience – especially with the special gifts of the adults in her family.

From an early age she was exposed to a myriad of influences including her father’s engineering and artistic endeavors, her maternal line of intuitives, and an intrinsic fascination with sound and music. None of it was lost on young MaAnna. “My mother was also an intuitive, as were all the women in my immediate family. Having psychic senses was quite normal and the information derived from these methods was respected and adhered to. I became accustomed quite early to the fact that there were things – forces and powers – which could not be measured with a ruler but were just as real as anything I could see or touch.”

The Human Body Antenna

MaAnna skillfully explains difficult scientific topics such as the dual nature of light, quantum physics, and antennas and uses these descriptions to offer explanations for psychic phenomena. To her credit, MaAnna doesn’t attempt to prove that which cannot be proven, but offers examples, analogies, and research studies that may provide a basis for future scientific understanding of what is now the purview of spiritualists and intuitives.

For example, after describing how antennas broadcast and receive invisible energy she suggests the human body, with its array of bones, cell structure, and nerve paths, is also an antenna capable of broadcasting and receiving invisible energy. Thinking of the body as an antenna provides a basis for how humans can perceive the moods and emotions of others without verbal communication.

The Divergence of East and West

Eastern culture, which has accepted and utilized intuition and energy healing for centuries, and Western culture, only in recent years accepting holistic healing practices, have not always been separated. MaAnna provides an intriguing discussion of how East and West diverged.

The Sage Age is a 2008 publication of Nightengale Press. It is likely to become a foundational reference book for those willing to concede that the scientific method and intuitive acceptance are both appropriate approaches to human understanding of life, thought, and consciousness.

 Posted by at 9:27 am
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