My story | In search of soul

A little of my own soul journey

Knowing the bare facts of my life, the qualifications I have or the many roles I have played over the years will tell you little about who I truly am. It will not tell you what I am passionate about, what inspires me, what touches my soul and makes my heart sing. It will not tell you what I fear, what I wrestle with, what holds and sustains me when the dark nights fall and life is almost more than I can bear. It will not tell you what I love, what I long for, what gives me peace, what brings me joy. And it will tell you little of my own journey of becoming, of the person I find myself to be when I am able to take off the masks I wear and strip away all that keeps me distanced from what really matters. It will not tell you of my own search for soul.

My soul journey began in my early twenties when I was I training as a clinical psychologist in London. For it was then that I first encountered the writings of the humanistic psychologist, Carl Rogers. It felt like coming home. A particular lightbulb moment came when I started to read his book, ‘On Becoming a Person’. Some fifty years later, I can still remember the impact it had on me. The words ’becoming a person’ seemed somehow to speak to a deeper part of me. They generated so many questions. What does it mean to become a person? How would I be different if I were to be fully engaged in that process of becoming? How would my life change if I were to find my way to the person I truly am?

Rogers spoke not of the soul, but of the true self. He came to believe that our deepest responsibility as human beings is to make the choice ‘to be that self which one truly is’ to use the philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard's words. What I have learnt along the way is that when we speak of this journey of becoming, we are speaking of the soul journey. Essentially, they are both ways of describing the same lived experience. To become is to come home to soul.

My journey through life has not always been an easy one and amongst the many good times, there have been hard times too. In the second half of my life, however, I have found a new lease of life, a new sense of freedom and aliveness, a new sense of purpose and meaning and a new joy in living which has taken me by surprise. Much of that has come through the journey I embarked on in my twenties, the search for soul that I am still on over fifty years later.

I have made discoveries about myself and about living life to the full that I might otherwise never have made. I have learnt how freeing it is to let go of that which deadens us and to embrace that which brings us alive. I have finally come to understand what the philosopher, Lao Tzu meant when he said: 'When I let go of who I am, I become what I might be.' I am still learning, still growing, still becoming and I am so deeply thankful for that.

Once the soul awakens the search begins and you can never go back. From then on, you are inflamed with a special longing that will
never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency
and partial fulfillment. David Elkins

Kaitlyn Steele: key qualifications:
MA Hons Psychology (1974)
M Phil. Clinical Psychology (1976)
Diploma in Spiritual Accompaniment (2012)