This is from Joya Pope's book, "UPCOMING CHANGES," a book that I discovered, not coincidentally, exactly when I was trying to understand what makes people different from one another, even when many of their circumstances and backgrounds seem the same. Discovering the "soul age" concept was part of a significant shift in my life. If you are reading this, perhaps it will be for you, too.
Meanwhile, below is a lengthy excerpt from the description of the "Old Soul." Is this you?
Check it out:
"While Old Souls do not tend to grow into their full soul perceptivity until about age thirty-five or so, they will, even before then, be accused of stepping to the beat of a different drummer. They are unusual - two steps away from the norm - in this Young Soul culture. Because they are inclined to individualistically follow their inner perceptions and desires, they may be seen as eccentric, though usually harmlessly so.
"While there is great motivation for spiritual growth, motivation tends to be lacking when it comes to developing political or material punch. Seldom doing anything they don't want to and preferring their own unconventional pursuits, they often seek the path of least resistance as far as work, so that all energy can be poured into spiritual development. The Old Soul's essence may be willing to let him or her be dirt poor for the duration of many lifetimes as long as one is gaining the desired spiritual and philosophic lessons. Sometimes an essence actually interferes with a person gaining money when it's clear that riches would distract attention from the real inner work. Remember, you are your essence while you are astral; it is you who decides not to give yourself the wealthy Young Soul parents or the drive and ambition to go out and get powerfully rich.
"Because of the essence's richness gathered over many lifetimes, Old Souls tend to be extremely competent in a wide range of things - which often aren't pursued! They will try to find work that supports their personal growth: counseling, teaching, bodywork, gardening and carpentry being some favorites.
"Many are magnetized by philosophy and art. If higher education proves necessary in order to teach, less orthodox schools allowing more opportunities for inner exploration will be favored.
"A fancy house or car, or impressive clothes and jewelry aren't often too high on an Old Soul's real priority list. Neither is a nine-to-five job. Plain laziness on the physical plane sometimes creates difficulty paying the bills, but the material game just isn't what it used to be. However, Old Souls do have one advantage with the material world: as they begin to seek, understand and use the laws of the physical universe, goals can be attained with less effort. Thus, there is an outer, as well as an inner draw to understand the universal laws distilled in astrology, metaphysics, tarot and other ancient teachings.
"Old Souls may explore many religions and teachings, being most drawn to those emphasizing love and to those they've resonated with closely in past lives."
For MLK!
This is an excerpt from a post of mine from 12 years ago, posted during the presidential campaign that led to the election of Barack Obama. I am reposting it today to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on his birthday this year:
Lately, I am struck by how much hatred has begun to infuse our public discourse around the presidential campaign, and in particular, how much hatred is being directed at the least hateful candidate, Barack Obama. Spewing so much less vitriol than either Hillary Clinton or John McCain, Obama is spreading a message of unity and hope, and yet to watch the two other candidates and the far right pundits and talking heads, you'd think he was the devil incarnate.
Why do they fear him, and therefore hate him, so much? Is there something so insidious about Mr. Obama that I am somehow missing, even after thirty years of studying the nature of human beings as a psychotherapist and sociologist? Is Barack Obama really the Antichrist? Or could it be that perhaps those individuals who hate him have become so fearful of facing how separated they've become from their own best potential, so unable to inspire anything but negativity, anger and despair in others, and so removed from their genuine capacity to love, except abstractly of course, like loving the flag or the cross or the "troops," that they must seek to denigrate and destroy anyone who puts forth a message that is positive and loving?
We've been here before haven't we? Martin Luther King, the Kennedy's, Ghandi, and of course, Jesus himself, all messengers of hope and unity, all brutally murdered for delivering that message.
King himself once said this: "Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true."
I can't predict what will happen in the public square as this election year progresses. As a species, the human race seems to barely be in its adolescence developmentally, and we know how that goes so often.
Maybe these more optimistic words by MLK can offer us some solace:
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality."
Lately, I am struck by how much hatred has begun to infuse our public discourse around the presidential campaign, and in particular, how much hatred is being directed at the least hateful candidate, Barack Obama. Spewing so much less vitriol than either Hillary Clinton or John McCain, Obama is spreading a message of unity and hope, and yet to watch the two other candidates and the far right pundits and talking heads, you'd think he was the devil incarnate.
Why do they fear him, and therefore hate him, so much? Is there something so insidious about Mr. Obama that I am somehow missing, even after thirty years of studying the nature of human beings as a psychotherapist and sociologist? Is Barack Obama really the Antichrist? Or could it be that perhaps those individuals who hate him have become so fearful of facing how separated they've become from their own best potential, so unable to inspire anything but negativity, anger and despair in others, and so removed from their genuine capacity to love, except abstractly of course, like loving the flag or the cross or the "troops," that they must seek to denigrate and destroy anyone who puts forth a message that is positive and loving?
We've been here before haven't we? Martin Luther King, the Kennedy's, Ghandi, and of course, Jesus himself, all messengers of hope and unity, all brutally murdered for delivering that message.
King himself once said this: "Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true."
I can't predict what will happen in the public square as this election year progresses. As a species, the human race seems to barely be in its adolescence developmentally, and we know how that goes so often.
Maybe these more optimistic words by MLK can offer us some solace:
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality."
"SAY IT: RACISM IS A PSYCHIATRIC DISORDER! COME ON, SAY IT!"
THIS is a post from 11 years ago -
Okay, now get this: The American Psychiatric Association has never officially recognized extreme racism as a mental health problem, although the issue was raised more than 30 years ago. After several racist killings in the civil rights era, a group of black psychiatrists sought to have extreme bigotry classified as a mental disorder. The association's officials rejected the recommendation, arguing that because so many Americans are racist, even extreme racism in this country is "normative" — a "cultural problem" rather than an indication of psychopathology.
The psychiatric profession's primary index for diagnosing psychiatric symptoms, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), does not include racism, prejudice, or bigotry in its text or index. Therefore, there is currently no support for including extreme racism under any diagnostic category. This leads psychiatrists to think that it cannot and should not be treated in their patients in therapy.
How do I say this?
WHAT?!
Could anyone who scapegoats a whole group of people and seeks to eliminate them to resolve his or her internal conflicts NOT meet the criteria for a major paranoid delusional disorder?
Are you kidding me?!
Am I ever going to be able to stop asking...
"HOW STUPID ARE WE?!"
If we don't start treating extreme racism, greed, homophobia, xenophobia and religious fanaticism as psychiatric disorders, we will never be rid of them. A "cultural problem" is figuring out and debating whether or not we want to watch sex and violence on public TV or celebrate Christmas as a national holiday or if Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" is more relevant than CNN for getting the real news. But hating someone you don't know because of their skin color or sexual orientation or nationality, or stealing a person's pension so you could have a $50,000 ice sculpture at your daughter's sweet sixteen party, or believing that an all-knowing creator God could truly love only your particular sect of believers is... right -
DELUSIONAL!
Say it!