Spiritual evolution is part of every soul’s destiny on earth, and each soul grows and evolves at a different rate. You are right where you need to be.
~~James Van Praagh
People always want to know what’s going to happen next. Sitting on the edge of life’s seat, we look to the future with either hopeful or worrisome eyes.
I’ve often quoted a study that indicated we spend 30% of our time thinking about the past, 10% about the present and 60% about the future. A more recent study says we think about the future 78% of the time. When they say “think”, a great deal of it is actually worry about what will or won’t happen and given the state of the world, finances, health, politics and life itself, there’s a lot to consider. However, in the grand scheme of things, our lives are already fairly laid out according to our soul’s chosen path.
Life is much like a tapestry. It is woven according to what we are here to experience from beginning to end. It holds the strings, colors and patterns that tell the story of our life, including the snags that indicate difficult times along the way. Each of us has a different set of lessons to learn, challenges that seem to be woven throughout our life. As a result, everyone’s tapestry of life looks different. As humans, our job is to identify what disrupts the pattern of threads, cords or bands to identify what must be removed to maintain the design that best matches who we really are. How well a person cares for their human self determines how well they care for their soul.
Considering our soul’s path, our tapestry begins at the time our soul was created, not just at the time it was born or reincarnated into this lifetime.
It begins where the last one left off and holds the patterns or lessons we must explore and overcome in the current life. As we learn, heal and grow, our tapestry does as well—it evolves as we do. We must explore what isn’t working in life and remove any misaligned “threads” as we learn to master our life lessons. As we do this, we reweave our fabric to represent a new and better way of life. As we do our work to overcome challenges, learn our lessons and heal both our human and soul condition, our textile will look much different as we travel through life.
If left unattended, our tapestry can become tattered, worn and faded with very little change in the pattern. In these cases, we continue to experience the same challenges over and over again until we learn to evolve beyond them—to learn to do life differently until those snags in our tapestry have been removed. The soul will become dull if not healed or tended to, which causes our metaphorical tapestry of life to loose color as well.
I’ve used this metaphor for years to help clients understand the story of their life, empowering them to realize they have choice in how life goes. Lessons and struggles are meant to inform a person about what they are supposed to evolve beyond and how they can change their fabric of life. Although weaving is a meticulous and time-consuming process, this metaphor provides an understanding that healing and evolution are both a process, things that requires time, patience, and effort.
Our soul’s evolution is up to us. When we expect others to take care of our needs, plan our lives or give us advice, we fail our human test. Each lifetime is meant to help us get to know our souls more, while healing anything that gets in the way of our highest good or what I call our “radiant light”. We must become our own master weavers in order to become the architect of our own destiny.
A Greek philosopher by the name of Herodotus said, “The destiny of man is in his own soul.” While he didn’t talk about the tapestry of life, he did allude to the fact that each individual’s soul path is already programmed into them, but they have to claim agency over making things happen. Not everyone is supposed to do big or great things in life, but each soul is here to evolve in one way or another. Lately, I’ve found myself saying that the human condition is relentless—every time we overcome one challenge the next is on the way. However, if you believe in the tapestry of life, you will also accept that life’s lessons will arrive at just the right time and place for us to grow.
Interestingly, I woke last night thinking that I feel my life is more planned out and certain than ever, but that I have less clarity in some areas as well. My life didn’t turn out at all like what I had expected when I was in my twenties and early thirties. Do I feel like I’m on the right track? Yes. Do I feel less sure about certain areas of my life? Another yes. Do I spend time worrying about where life will go? Not a lot.
Do I spend time worrying about where life will go? Not a lot.
A few years ago I watched the various threads and strings of my life pass before my eyes to show me why and how my tapestry of life had become woven the way it was. It was both excruciating and enlightening to watch my soul path unfold. When I look back over the last five years, I can appreciate how much has happened and how much I’ve changed. The next two years are already filled with much activity and “cosmic assignments”—things I know I’m supposed to do and put out to the world. Do I know how each stop of the way will go? No. Is that okay? It has to be.
Your own soul path is laid out before you. However, you have free will in how it goes. Much like an algorithm or decision tree embedded in computers, your soul operates according to what it knows at the time to lead you on your path. When practicing conscious evolution, you take charge of how you will grow and what kind of destiny you will create.
What will you do to design your soul’s path?
Katherine T. Kelly Ph.D., M.S.P.H.
With 35+ years of direct clinical experience, Dr. Kelly doesn’t just believe in helping others to heal; instead, her mission is to help them to evolve. Using her own integrative and trademarked framework—the Soul Health Model—Dr. Kelly approaches her work with clients from a “whole person” or “whole organization” perspective. She provides a uniquely progressive, yet down-to-earth approach and is well-known in therapeutic, medical and corporate communities. She thrives as she helps clients and organizations to reach what she calls “conscious evolution” through a variety of self-designed strategies. Her dedication to healing has been widely recognized as she was the recipient of the Provider of the Year Award by the regional Mental Health Association and was nominated as an Incredible Woman for a local community television network, which spotlights role models to inspire young women to pursue their own passions.