5 Journal Prompts To Help You Determine Your Soul Lessons.

Awakening souls have a deep desire to live a more meaningful life. Reflecting on the challenges you’ve faced in life will help you determine your soul lessons and is a powerful way to cultivate a sense of meaning and purpose.

Our soul expands when we bring wisdom and perspective to life’s challenges. The heart is believed to be the organ of love, and the soul is the organ of meaning. When we pause occasionally and reflect on what our lives are showing us, we tend to our souls.

In the post, 10 Soul Lessons For Living A Meaningful Life, I highlight my most recent soul lessons.

Reflecting to create meaning and integrating our soul lessons takes time and space. It’s all part of our soul contract. When we learn our soul lessons, we evolve, and when we don’t, the Universe gives us more opportunities to practice.

How do you determine your soul lessons?

It’s believed that the purpose of the challenges and suffering in our lives is to create opportunities for us to learn, grow, and evolve. Examining your life affirms what ancient wisdom has illuminated for thousands of years: that suffering is the catalyst for personal and spiritual growth.

According to Robert Schwartz, the author of Your Soul’s Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born, we’re meant to learn 2-3 soul lessons (a maximum of 4-5) during our lifetime. If you’re curious about your soul’s plan, you can listen to the podcast interview with Robert Schwartz on Buddha at the Gas Pump.

Your soul lessons always relate to expanding in what are believed to be life-affirming, expansive spiritual qualities that are flavours of love. 

Spiritual qualities like:

• Self-love
• Compassion
• Forgiveness
• Humility
• Surrender
• Patience
• Courage
• Kindness
• Inner Peace
• Equanimity

While not listed, the quality of PRESENCE is the master spiritual quality. It is the quality from which all other qualities arise. When present in our lives, we are open to receiving our soul lessons and have the foundation to work towards our spiritual qualities.

For example, my soul lessons relate to developing the qualities of compassion, forgiveness, and spirituality, all arising from presence. These soul qualities are also not easy! It’s not easy to forgive myself or others. It’s not easy to be compassionate in the face of my own or other’s suffering. It’s not easy to embrace spiritual qualities when I’m in the middle of living a messy human life.

So, the idea is that the significant challenges in our lives are intended to grow our consciousness in terms of the 2-3 primary spiritual qualities that our souls need us to develop. It’s why being spiritual is hard work! We’re not meant to bypass or avoid the challenges with our parents, kids, health issues, intimate relationships, soul-sapping jobs, etc. We’re meant to use them as fertilizer to learn our soul lessons and expand our spiritual qualities. In the article, The Mystical Experience That Planted The Seed Of Compassion In Me, I share my personal journey of suffering as a result of a lack of compassion, which in turn awakened it in me.

I invite you to grab a cup of tea, put on some soulful music and light a candle to reflect on the following:

Reflection questions to create space for your soul lessons:

1. What recurring patterns or challenges have you faced throughout your life, and what lessons might they hold for you?
2. What are the most significant events or turning points in your life, and what lessons did you learn from them?
3. What are your deepest fears, and how have they influenced your choices and actions?
4. What personal qualities or behaviours do you feel are holding you back from living a more fulfilling and purposeful life?
5. What challenges or obstacles are you drawn to overcome, and how might they be connected to your soul’s evolution?

Write down your reflections and highlight 2-3 spiritual qualities you’re meant to work on. Once you’ve identified your spiritual qualities, introduce a habit that supports your growth. For example, if you need to begin with the master spiritual quality of presence, perhaps consider my go-to for this quality: a simple meditation practice that helps you become more present.

When you look back a year from now, you’ll gain valuable insights, expand your soul, and have a new plan for the coming year. Connecting the dots in this way fuels our spiritual curiosity and keeps us open to what life asks of us.

Our life fuels our soul’s growth, and our evolution brings us closer to our true selves.

Our community would love to hear your soul lessons! Please leave a comment below.