Soul searching: seven ways to uncover your true path

You feel lost in life. You’re sick of your job, your relationships are mediocre at best, your friendships are boring and empty, you feel dead inside, and you’ve lost the zest for life …

Can you relate to any of these feelings or experiences?

If you can, you might be going through an increasingly common experience known as the existential crisis. In other words, you’re at a crossroads in life: you’re feeling stuck, and you’re starting to crave a more meaningful existence.

So, what’s the solution to this gnawing angst?

Soul searching.

You might have heard this term before but not given it much attention or importance. Am I right?

Well, I’m here today to point out that (1) you’ve arrived at this page for a reason, and (2) soul searching is a vital part of every life journey in this world.

In this article, my intention is to show you why and how.

What Does Soul Searching Mean? (Definition)

Simply put, soul searching is the quest to answer life’s problems and questions.

When most people refer to ‘soul searching,’ they are often talking about uncovering truth and happiness by questioning our thoughts, habits, and motivations. But soul searching also has a deeper meaning.

At its core, soul searching is a desire to return to the center of your being. Quite literally, it is a journey to find your Soul and reconnect with your True Nature. In other words, it is a spiritual path. And usually, it marks the beginning of the spiritual awakening journey.

Why Soul Loss is the Root Cause of Soul Searching

Why do some of us have such an intense, visceral desire to soul search? To find what is meaningful, true, authentic, and deep?

The answer is soul loss.

When we are disconnected from our souls, we feel anxious, depressed, lonely, isolated, and chronically dissatisfied with life. 

To overcome this pain, we need to reconnect with the deepest, rawest, most alive, and fundamental part of ourselves. 

Indigenous and shamanic cultures for thousands of years have known about the phenomenon of soul loss, and it’s an increasing epidemic in our society.

In our age of technology, in a society run on materialistic ideals and egotism, we are becoming increasingly disconnected from the wild, raw, and primal Center of our being.

As teacher and author Gary Zukav writes:

We have not turned our attention to the needs of the soul. We have not considered what is required by the soul in order to be healthy. We have not studied the soul, or sought to help it attain what is necessary to its evolution and its health. Because we have been fivesensory, we have focused upon the body and the personality. We have developed an extensive knowledge of the physical apparatus that the soul assumes when it incarnates. We know of amino acids, neurotransmitters, chromosomes, and enzymes, but we do not know of the soul.

So, what exactly is soul loss?

As we explain in our soul loss article:

When we experience Soul Loss, a part of our Soul – or living essence – ‘hides’ or shuts away, hindering us from expressing and experiencing our true potential and wholeness as human beings. Often times entire aspects of our psyches are completely blocked out or repressed. 

There are many causes of soul loss. Some of the common reasons are listed below:

• Childhood trauma (physical, emotional, mental, or sexual abuse; divorce; immigration; death in the family; abandonment, bullying, etc.)
• Adult trauma (job loss, poverty, rape, violence, divorce, mental health issues, isolation, accidents, death of loved ones, discrimination, etc.)
• Social conditioning
• Religious brainwashing
• Overuse of technology/entertainment (i.e., a form of numbing and escapism)
• Inherited ancestral trauma
• Materialism
• Scientific/reductionist values and structure of society

… and the list goes on.

Essentially, anything that threatens our physical, mental, or emotional survival – and any addictive, one-sided, suppressive ideology or habit – causes soul loss.

As a result, most of us feel a nagging, looming feeling that something is wrong …

Something is missing. We’re not happy with ourselves or our lives, no matter how popular, successful, or attractive we are.

Something is always missing. 

And what’s missing is the connection we have with our Soul, which is the doorway to our True Nature.

19 Signs You’re a Lost Soul

The truth is that most people in society are lost souls.

They don’t know about their deeper Self, aren’t interested in it, and have never dipped into the vast waters of their True Nature. Instead, they operate solely from the ego, the false self, that was constructed since childhood to defend against the overwhelming magnitude of Life.

Even when such people do begin to hear the longing of the soul to break free and be seen, they suppress it. They go back to the beliefs, habits, and structures in society that reinforce mindlessness and soullessness – because it’s easier, it’s less intimidating and less confronting.

But eventually, the longing becomes so intense that they have no choice but to listen. This is the beginning of the spiritual awakening process: the dismantling of the ego and the blossoming of our Soul, which longs to reunite with our True Nature as Spirit or Consciousness.

However, there’s an in-between place: a limbo. This is the space where lost souls dwell.

In this limbo, a dance between the old dissolving and the new not-yet-coming-into-being is deeply felt.

It’s at this point that we tend to feel stuck, lost, empty, alone, and scared. There is the temptation to go back to old ways of being, but at the same time, there’s a profound sense of dissatisfaction with everything.

If you’re stuck in this limbo, you might experience the following symptoms:

1. You feel constantly lethargic and fatigued
2. You have no motivation and feel restless
3. You feel alone
4. You feel unhappy with your life
5. You crave something ‘more’
6. You’ve become the outsider or the black sheep of the family
7. You’re frequently irritable and moody
8. You’re undergoing a mid-life or quarter-life crisis
9. You’re more prone to addictions
10. You struggle with self-loathing
11. You keep trying to numb the pain, but nothing works
12. You feel fundamentally ‘broken’
13. You struggle with existential depression and anxiety
14. You feel like something is missing inside of you
15. You’re bored and dissatisfied with others and life
16. You feel stuck and stranded
17. You struggle with feeling empty inside
18. You don’t know who you are anymore
19. You want to know what the point of everything is

Can you relate?

If so, you’re certainly not alone.

Welcome to the Lost Souls Club. Motto: I can’t get no satisfaction.

How to Practice Soul Searching (7 Paths)

It’s because we feel separate from oneness that we begin to search, the search for completion, the search to come home. – Jeff Foster

It’s easy to soul search in the modern secularized sense of the term. All we need to do is introspect a little and ask ourselves some pointed questions. Traveling is often touted as a great way to soul search for young, bright-eyed seekers.

But soul searching, in the spiritual sense of the term, goes much deeper than just hopping on a plane to Bali. Nevertheless, to my knowledge, it is the most worthy and important pursuit in existence.

What could be more vital than connecting with your innate, fundamental, spiritual Essence?

If you’re seeking to answer questions about mundane issues (like what job will I suit, should I get married, etc.) then perhaps the below recommendations won’t satisfy you.

On the other hand, if you’re looking to dive deep, learn how to find yourself, how to be true to yourself, and open a door to your True Nature, keep reading:

1. Make friends with solitude

Solitude will be your greatest ally when it comes to soul searching.

You need to be a lone wolf. How else can you listen to the whispers of your soul in a chaotic, noisy world? It’s extremely difficult to go within unless you have undergone years of rigorous meditation training (which, mind you, most people haven’t).

So make regular time and space to spend time in solitude by yourself away from others – no technology interruptions either (digital people are still people)!

Think about dedicating ten minutes to half an hour (or more) each day to a solitary activity of your choice. You might choose something passive, such as meditation, or active, such as taking a stroll through the woods. Honor your level of energy and go with it.

2. Explore the nature of your ego

If your soul is your true individuated essence, your ego is your false self: it’s the mask you present to the world. 

Your ego is much like a cloud. It appears to have form, but it changes and morphs constantly.

Question: have you ever noticed that you put on different roles with different people? Yep. That’s your ego in action – it’s not solid, and essentially, it’s a misrepresentation of who you really are.

Unfortunately, our ego genuinely believes it is who we really are. Because it’s so convinced that it’s real, it will reject any attempt to dismantle it because it perceives that as a death threat. And so, growth of any kind is extremely difficult because the ego is always trying to protect itself.

As we can see, exploring the nature of your ego (and learning to see through it gently) is a crucial step in your soul searching journey. In fact, it’s the single biggest block to embodying who you really are.

To explore the nature of the ego, we need a combination of inner work and soul work. Inner work deals with the dissolving of blockages in our psyches, while soul work is the practice of surrendering to the Divine.

Some ways to explore your ego that combine inner work and soul work include:

• Journaling – writing down your thoughts, self-beliefs, habits, likes, dislikes, and so on
• Self-inquiry – looking within and asking “Who am I?” and seeing what changes, fades, or dies (these are your ego elements); paradoxically, we discover who we are by seeing who we are not.
• Various forms of spiritual meditation – there are so many ways to learn how to witness your thoughts and the stories constructed by the mind – one of the most common types is vipassana meditation

These three simple practices can have a tremendous impact on your ability to see clearly and experience the truth of who you really are.

3. Reconnect with your child self

As author and psychotherapist Dr. Neal Marshall Goldsmith writes:

The soul … is this part of us that is the earliest, deepest, and the most authentic part of us.

Your inner child carries the original qualities of your soul that you were born with. And thankfully, it’s not that difficult to reconnect with your inner child.

I’ve written a lot about inner child work on this website in the past, but to summarize, here are a few ways to tap into your childhood self:

• Write a letter to your inner child
• Do an inner child visualization or meditation (here are some free inner child healing affirmations we’ve created and shared on YouTube)
• Look at pictures of your inner child
• Do something your inner child loved to do when you were little
• Start each morning with an inner child journaling practice (see our highly rated Inner Child Journal for in-depth guidance!)

Approach these activities gently. Make observations about your younger self and what they want or need from you. Also, reflect on the you now and the you then. What qualities from your inner child can you integrate more into your life?