Nurturing the soul

By Helen Brown

Nurturing the Soul takes the reader on an incredible personal journey exploring on the way, symbols, dreams, stories and the process of healing. Insights are given and tasks identified to encourage the nurturing of soul in your life. Here the interweaving of ego, soul and life creates a tapestry of self awareness and discovery of inner wisdom that lies hidden, deep within every person.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Helen Brown
• Release date: Jan 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781908649010

Helen Brown

Helen Brown is a spiritual seeker whose journey has taken her down many inspirational paths. In her early life she immigrated with her family to New Zealand. Subsequently she returned to England to travel and see the world. Life opened up her interest in psychology, spirituality and healing. Helen is both a Jungian psychotherapist and Swedenborgian free-lance minister. She is married with grownup children. She has written short courses Nurturing the Soul and Beyond the Rainbow. She is a Usui Reiki healer.

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This book is so amazing. It is clear and yet so deep and for me sings out in the language I want to hear. The introduction was so authentic it made me want to read more. - Helen Newton - Co-author of Soul Symbols

"The author takes you with her on an incredible path to enlightenment with her calm, yet powerful, step by step guide to finding your own connection with the Divine. In reading Helen's book, I experienced the strength of a new and profound writer and her wonderful debut work."

- Wendy Spenceley- Author of Tarradiddle

Nurturing the Soul

~ the inner journey to return home ~

Helen Brown

Published by Helen Brown at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Helen Brown

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Blog: nurturingsoul.wordpress.com

Cover Art: Fill Presence Open copyright Melanie Weidner - ListenForJoy.com.

Used with permission.

I wanted to have Melanie’s artwork on the cover, as for me, these three symbols encapsulate the inner journey to discover and nurture the soul within each of us.

The broken cup which is filled and encompassed by the loving compassion of the Divine symbolises self-awareness and humility that leads to being filled. The difficulties and challenges in life can bring this about and lead to an experience of the constant presence of the Divine with us in each moment. The moon symbolises this presence; a light that shines in the darkness.

This learning by experience leads to a flowering in our inner life which transforms our outer life. Then what is truly creative blossoms and flowers at all levels of our existence, as depicted in the third symbol of the opening flower. This cycle of growth continues throughout our life if we so choose.

Acknowledgments: The Snowflake photograph is the property of Bert Reimer

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Contents

Introduction:

Chapter One: Soul Awakening

Chapter Two: Holism; Soul, Mind and Body

Chapter Three: Energy ~ what makes the world go round?

Chapter Four: Crucible

Chapter Five: Purpose

Chapter Six: Soul Language

Chapter Seven: Empowerment

Chapter Eight: Relationship

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Introduction

I didn’t initially set out to write a book but somehow it came about in its own way. In many ways it is the accumulation of all that has gone before in my life; all the life changing experiences both rewarding and challenging. What I didn’t realise at the time was that writing a book would come out of my inner searching and need to learn new things.

My spiritual search began from a foundation in the wisdom of the 18th century Swedish mystic and scientist called Emanuel Swedenborg. But for a long period I left that behind as I turned to Jungian psychology and therapy. This training also included the dimension of spiritual healing as an integral part of the whole course. Over the many years of psychotherapy and training I found that it often involved keeping a journal as part and parcel of increasing self-awareness. In looking back I realise that these three threads of psychology, spirituality and healing have been weaving the pattern of my life journey. Recently I have returned to healing again as a trainee Reiki healer, and finding this to be making a profound inner change in me. I wonder if it is only now that I can really engage with healing as a part of my life.

My path has brought me back, in some ways, to where I started, an interest in spirituality and the depths of wisdom to be found in Swedenborg. However there is a vast difference in this return as I have been changed by the journey. Now I understand so much more than before and appreciate how much more I need to understand.

My experiences have taught me that there are many gateways to find and experience spirituality. To be human is to have three aspects; mind, body, and spirit. These three (mind, body and spirit) mirror the three threads that have made up my tapestry of life; psychology, healing and spirituality. Each of these can be an opportunity to experience the Divine in our lives. In using my body to walk a labyrinth, I have experienced journeying towards the centre physically, yet also spiritually. In keeping a journal, I have faced up to the accumulated ‘rubbish’ that blocks my connection with the Divine and imprisons me in isolated ego. In meditation I have found at times, a peace that wells up from the centre of my being.

All these pathways will eventually, if we so chose, lead us to what is innermost, the soul, where we experience life at it’s fullest with joy and peace.

It is often inexpressible, but no less real because of that. Here beyond the limitation of words we discover a love that has no bounds or limits – it just IS.

My hope is that this book will encourage your own journey towards the soul; that it will inspire and support your spiritual quest. To aid this, at the end of each chapter there is a task you are invited to undertake. My hope is that this will open different avenues which you may have not explored before and which might be beneficial to you.

All of life is a journey of some kind; even the writing of this book has been part of my journey. Perhaps it would be more true to say it has opened up before me and all that has been required of me is to walk and allow it to evolve.

We shall not cease from exploration

And at the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot

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Chapter 1

Soul Awakening

That which oppresses me, is it my soul trying to come out into the open,

or the soul of the world knocking at my heart for its entrance.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

I guess if you have ever considered the innermost part of you, your soul, you have wondered what it is like and where it is to be found. Even so, you may have dismissed it and got on with life. Life however often bites back, with situations that shake our comfortable existence. Perhaps at these times in our lives we question