Answer the Ache

“We each have within us an aching that is craving to be met. It’s not a physical ache and it isn’t a mental one. It’s much deeper than either of those.

We came into this life with it and, if it’s not tended to, it will be right there when we die. It drives our deepest desires… It’s lying beside us when we wake up in the night and while we make a cup of tea. It’s there through the highs and all of the lows. The ache is your soul calling, and no matter what you do to ignore it, numb it out, or die it down, it will never go away.”

     As she states above, the ache author Rebecca Campbell is referring to originates from our soul, the dimension of us that is our sacred essence. Soul has many names, among them are ‘genius,’ ‘daemon,’ ‘sound of the genuine,’ and ‘true self.’ It is our soul that summons us to authenticity, to genuineness, to be true to what we sense is our best self. It would seem that responding to our soul’s voiceless voice would be a priority, but as Campbell infers, we often “ignore it, numb it out, or die it down.” The ache can be a matter of finding and following our life’s calling, but it is first of all about recognizing and yielding to its presence. 

     As I try to discern why I turn a blind eye to my soul’s presence and a deaf ear to its summons, I have come to realize that my resistance stems from my fear of losing touch with the self I have come to identify as “me.” My “me” is often at odds with my soul-self, it is frequently reluctant to be kind, patient, generous, and responsive to the needs of others. My “me” chooses to attend to me over you when caring for you is inconvenient.

     Because the ache to be our best self never goes away, there can be an inner-struggle between it and our tendency to be less-than-our-best. Psychoanalyst Carl Jung claims that the goal of life is to relocate the center of gravity of the personality from the ego to the Self. The purpose of our time on this earth, he opines, is to realize that the sacredness at the center of our selves is our True Self, and to allow it to dictate the manner in which we live. If we answer the ache, if we allow our soul to guide us, it ceases to be an annoyance and becomes, instead, a wealth of wisdom, a source of strength, our dancing partner, a reliable companion on the journey home.