Listening to your soul

Can you remember a moment when you felt truly heard? How did you feel? Maybe seen and accepted, connected, known or loved…maybe it led to laughter or tears…maybe there was joy, maybe there was sorrow. Maybe some or all of the above.

At its heart Spiritual Direction is about deep listening – listening deeply to another person, listening to what is said and what is left unsaid…listening out for echoes of the deeper desires and longings that lie beyond words. Crucially it is also about listening to the movement of God’s Spirit, the divine presence, in the midst of the human conversation.

I have been learning, or at least trying to learn (!), to be a better, more attentive and present listener. Interestingly, as I try to practise deep listening with others, and with God, I find myself encouraged to listen more carefully to my own internal world, my own life, my own soul. This feels like a kind of mindful, embodied listening to what is emerging within. What follows is a little of what I am learning…I share it in the hope that it might be useful to you too.

Listening to your soul – what does it mean? 

As a woman in mid‑life I find myself facing the question, “Who am I really? Really?”

I am a wife, mother, sister, friend, recovering activist, tutor, a runner. Yes, I am all these things – but who am I underneath all these roles? All these ways of being in the world? Am I the sum total of my experiences and the hats I have worn…what lies underneath all these layers of identity? Where is my essential self, the part that is most truly me, in the midst of it all?

These questions ask for gentle presence and attention. I find myself needing to move through life more slowly in this season, pausing more often in order to encounter my deeper Self and practise listening to my soul’s longings and desires. This feels like a quiet, contemplative form of deep listening to the inner self.

I find this very challenging. Life is busy and I am naturally an activist. Yet I can’t escape the invitation to pay honest attention to the questions arising in the present moment…What do you really want? What is it that you seek? These are soul questions, and the answers are a gateway to what lies beneath and may be seeking to come into being.

As I type I realise this probably sounds a bit abstract and vague. My current practice in these moments is simply to pause, take a breath and notice what is bubbling up. If I can, I grab my journal and write. This simple act of pausing feels like a small but meaningful deep listening practice.

A Gentle Practice for listening within

I wonder what this might look like for you. Are there ways you can pause in stillness and allow your soul’s tender longings and deeper desires to surface? Moments when you can sense your essential ‘aliveness’ emerging? In these moments you are journeying towards the very edge of conscious thought, so go gently and slowly. If you are anything like me, these longings and desires are shy and hiding under many layers of responsibility and external roles. Take your time.

What do you notice? What are the sensations in your body, the images in your mind? What do you sense? What feelings can you name? What wonderings occur to you? What is most important to you in this moment?

These are the gateway to what lies underneath. This is embodied listening, somatic awareness, and mindful presence in action.

When you are ready, capture these reflections in some way—write them down in a journal or somewhere you can return to later. Trust that these ponderings are part of your soul’s emerging, and that this inner journey is sacred work held within God’s love.

This kind of sacred work is often held gently in conversation with a Spiritual Director, where deep listening, discernment, and spiritual accompaniment create space for your soul to speak.