HOW IT WORKS
The Practicalities of Soul Work
THE SOUL WORK PROCESS:
Soul work is a dynamic, focussed series of conversations which aim to support you to explore important issues, achieve meaningful goals, and take deeper responsibility for your life at a soul level.
I use a range of skills and techniques including soul presence, curiosity and deep questioning, heartful listening, stillness, soul awareness, reframing and re-storying, dream and life interpretation, disidentification and parts work, honest feedback, and much more besides, to create insight, learning and change in service of your soul.
Soul work enhances your self-awareness and your understanding of your inner dynamics, whilst strengthening your centre and your will. It addresses blocks and challenges, explores meaning and purpose, and clarifies goals, supporting you to achieve desired outcomes.
The soul work process offers a structured framework to engage with important practical, existential and spiritual life issues over a period of time. All of this occurs within a developing understanding of your place, role and potentials in the wider community of relationships in which you live.
WHAT IT IS NOT:
Soul work is not psychotherapy. My approach to soul work does not provide the level of therapeutic holding and containment that is necessary when you are in deep and ongoing emotional or psychological crisis. If you have not done much inner work it may not be what you need at this time. Psychospiritual therapeutic support is part of the process of soul work but it is not the main focus.
Soul work is also not traditional ‘goal-oriented’ coaching. If this is what you are looking for there are many good coaches available who will be able to offer you this. Soul work includes a coaching element, and the structure of the sessions is inspired by the more flexible coaching format and adult-adult relationship, but it is also a very different way of working to traditional coaching.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE SESSIONS:
The coaching sessions will normally be held online or on the phone and last for an hour, though they may be an hour and a half or longer depending on the number and frequency of sessions. Sessions may be weekly, fortnightly or in any other time-frame depending on your preference and availability.
We would normally agree on an initial series of sessions, perhaps 4-6, and then review our work together before agreeing to another series of sessions. I have found that fortnightly sessions over a six month period allows deeper, more effective soul work to be done. Obviously you are free to stop the sessions at any time if you feel they are not working for you.
AN INITIAL FOCUS FOR THE WORK:
Soul work is most effective when there is something ‘live’ to work on, a question or issue that is important to you in the moment. Whatever is most real, most challenging, most heart-felt, or perhaps it is the lack of anything, an emptiness, a lack of life force, that may be the most pressing issue.
Through this ‘presenting’ issue we can begin to listen together to the knock, knock, knocking of your soul on the door that is your life, your heart, your being. With this as the starting point, you begin the process of discovering more of your soul life, and what your soul wants of you now.
INTRODUCTORY CONVERSATION:
If you haven’t spoken with me or worked with me before, we will have an initial 30 minute phone conversation to get to know each other a little. The purpose of the call is to see if we are a good fit to work together. In the call I would explain the process of soul work, how I work, and what you might expect from the sessions.
We will also get some clarity on what question or issue you would like to focus on, and I will answer any queries you have about the process. We would discuss the number of sessions you might want, their length and frequency, the cost of the sessions, and we would book a date and time for the first session.
THE COST TO YOU:
My fees are on a sliding scale between £40 and £90 per hour - depending on your income and your circumstances. We would discuss this as part of the initial phone call and come to an agreement on what you will pay. This decision cam be revisited if your situation changes.
CONTACTING ME:
To contact me to book an initial introductory phone conversation, or for more information, email me with some information about you and what you are looking for as well as your phone number at
rich@soul-nature.life
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
(TS Eliot from ‘Little Gidding’)
MY JOURNEY - A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
(and outline of my qualifications and how I came to be a soul work practitioner)