Have you souled out?
There’s a ton of literature out there on burnout.*
I’m interested in exploring another phenomenon with you, that of being “souled out.”**
On paper, your job is a pretty sweet deal, but it’s become very hard to function.
You like your manager, you like your team. The work itself isn’t too onerous, the pay and benefits are more than adequate. You even have a fair amount of autonomy and flexibility, and yet everything feels flat. Colorless.
It used to be exciting, and it wasn’t just novelty: the work felt meaningful. Now? Meh.
Rationally, you can’t pin it down. There are a few scapegoats you could target, but on reflection, you know that’s not the real issue.
What if you are souled out?
What if your life force is inextricably connected with the expression of your soul?
Seemingly infinite definitions of “soul” exist, as it is, by nature, a mysterious force, and therefore resists total capture by language.
Let’s play for a moment with Bill Plotkin’s notion that soul means an “unique ecological niche.” In addition to being unique, this ecological niche is discovered, not invented. It’s in us already, like the oak tree in the acorn. The acorn doesn’t have an existential crisis, and decide what kind of tree it will be; it has a true nature, and the life force within will push to embody that.***
So let’s imagine that our soul already knows what kind of shape it wants to express in the universe. If this is true, then all of our ambitions, and all of the ambitions implanted in us from external forces, don’t alter, even a little bit, the unique niche of our soul.
All the experiences we have along the bumpy road of life, then, can be seen as our curriculum.****
For a while, perhaps for years, this job (or this relationship, this geographical place) was a crucial part of your curriculum, so it still felt juicy. Now, you’ve learned what you needed to learn, so it feels like you’re trying to squeeze blood from a stone.
When this happens, can we learn to trust, and sit with, the discomfort of this experience…to create space for what is waiting to be born?
Even with devoted practice, chances are 100% we won’t be able to do that alone. We are all, myself included, asleep to so much. We need allies. We need someone, at least one trusted someone, who can confidently help us trust and follow our own inner knowing.
My whole process as a coach, and my greatest joy, is to walk alongside you in just this way, so that your soul can speak, be recognized by itself, and expressed in the world.
* Dr. Christina Maslach, pioneer of burnout research, describes burnout as a phenomenon marked by three domains: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization / cynicism, and ineffectiveness.
** Born squarely in Gen X, this phrase delights me on numerous levels, aside from the obvious pun. Selling out, or not selling out, was a prevalent theme in our formative years.
*** Please lecture me about how humans have free will, not the consciousness of an acorn.
**** Attribution for “curriculum” being used in this context: Ram Dass.