This week we are applying man’s soul. We are taking a deep dive in examining what it means to feed the man’s soul. Why is feeding a man so important?
In the past, we have looked at the man’s mind. How do you actually apply that pillar? We have also looked at the man’s body and how we apply that pillar. All these pillars that we have been looking at are interconnected man’s mind helps the man’s body. The man’s body helps the man’s soul. Man’s soul helps the man’s mind. All of these pillars work better when the other pillars are strong. This goes for the last pillar that we will talk about next. The pillar of a man’s community, they all support each other.
What is the Man’s Soul?
The Man’s Soul is what drives you to get up each morning. You want to face the day head-on and do so with the gusto and passion of a man on a mission. It is a man living his life with intentionality.
We base our life and the quality of our lives on the standards we set on ourselves. Men with a strong Soul Pillar don’t concern themselves with the thoughts and actions of other people. A strong soul pillar knows what needs to be done and it is his focus. He works with the purpose of a single-tracked locomotive.
Men who are feeding their souls know that they have to stick to the right priority list. They know how to say no and will say it often. They defend their soul pillar ferociously because they know that their soul is more than important, it is crucial.
The Man’s soul is a man with integrity. He has his standards that he lives his life by. Some may believe that it is selfish yet he is the most giving man of all when he takes care of his soul pillar. This man has standards that he weighs against his actions.
Why is the Soul Pillar so Important?
Have you ever seen a man who hasn’t taken care of his soul? These are the men who are burned out. Those men who are dreading going to work. They have a great time on the weekend. In fact, they live strictly for the weekend. A man who has a soul starving is a man who feels worthless. He is restless and feels stuck. He isn’t taking action and the action he takes is just to feel busy.
A man with a starving soul is unhappy, unfulfilled, easily crushed by his failures. These men often turn to drink, drugs, porn, and other forms of buffering to get through their days. Sounds pretty sad right?
Feeling more alive
When you are feeding your soul you have an abundant mindset. That abundant mindset allows for you to give your efforts more readily, but you can’t at your expense. You have to give and you approach problems in your life from a completely different angle than what others would expect. You tackle the barriers and obstacles with the thought that you are going to learn something and build a better skill set. You see the obstacle as the way and you know that it is there for your improvement.
A man with a strong well-fed soul also feels more alive. They know that they are doing what they are called to do. They see every day as a new opportunity. They are more relaxed and sure of themselves. This can often come across as confident even when they are in a completely foreign task. This is, again, because they see it as a learning experience. They can laugh at their mistakes
Less Burnout
Feeding your soul is much like the grease for your work. You don’t have near as much resistance to doing what is needing to be done. You can work for hours and it will only feel like you are just starting. You can get much more done in less time because you enter your flow state.
Yeah, you may get tired and frustrated at times but you know how to rest and more importantly, you know when to rest. You get the importance of mixing it up to avoid overdoing it. A well-fed soul is tied into the mind and you see when your creativity is waning. So you step out and do refreshers like going out camping or enjoying a hobby.
Yet, you won’t let those times to relax be an excuse to avoid the work at hand. A strong soul pillared man relishes his work and sees his why in everything he does. Because of this, he doesn’t burn out. He is conscious of what needs to be done and gets it done. Knowing when he hits that needed milestone he will catch a breather, refresh and start for the next goal.
More positive attitude
Because a strong soul pillar man doesn’t sacrifice himself for the sake of others, his attitude is positive. Yeah, he may get frustrated or even angry at the different circumstances around him, but as a whole, he is a very positive man.
A fed soul is bright and giving. He takes only what he needs and doesn’t hoard the rest. Men who are driven and have a purpose are called all sorts of names. They are seen as Egotistical, or selfish. They are called antisocial, or an individualist. That last one is true but it doesn’t mean what the collectivists want it to mean. Being an individual is the most powerful man on earth. They lift others as they succeed. Their skills help and inspire others to rise to their best. All because they have this positive attitude from a well-fed soul.
You don’t care about work-life balance
When you have a well-fed soul, you don’t concern yourself with terms like work-life balance. This is a man whose soul is underfed trying to find a way to do what he doesn’t love and what he does love at the same time. He takes work that is robbing his soul of the needed inspiration and energy and then curing the fact that his life has no balance in it.
The whole work-life balance struggle is a myth. There are times that your personal life will take your full attention. Then you will find your work takes you away from your personal life. When your soul pillar is strengthened you accept that you will have these seasons in your life. You may wish to spend more time on one over the other but it is a conscious choice. When you live with a content soul you make decisions with intention.
The soul pillar provides meaning to your life
What is the meaning of life? The age-old question people have been asking for years. The answer is not as in-depth as these ancient philosophers want to think. The answer is fully dependent on you. What is YOUR purpose in life? Now, this isn’t to be confused with having a passion. Because you can have many different passions. Your purpose is what gets you out of bed. What are you not able to stop talking about?
A well-fed soul doesn’t need television to fill the void. They have plenty on their plate just with their family and friends. That doesn’t mean they put their heads in the sand. No, they are well informed and up to date they just don’t have the time to spend fretting about trivial actions of people who want to feel important.
A strong Soul Pillared man is very defensive with what and who he gives his time to. If it doesn’t fit with his purpose then he won’t do it. He sets boundaries and upholds those boundaries for that very reason. A well-fed soul inherently has integrity. People respect him because of his boundaries.
A man with integrity is respected. Therefore a man who has a strong Soul pillar is respected by those who know him. shunned by those who don’t know him. and many people take offense at his ability to get stuff done.
It is the base for all your stands
When this pillar is strong you have a base for making stands. You have your own set of morals and principles that you live by. You’re not as easily knocked over, or pushed around because you know where you stand concerning the rest of the world. Again, some people will take offense to this. Some people will even feel threatened by the fact that you have a strong sense of values.
So yes there are people who will be against you who won’t like you oh, but you’re actually okay with that. You are not out to make everybody happy. You are out to make yourself happy. Yes, some people will think that this is selfish. And they are right it is but what they get wrong is that this selfishness is a good quality to have. You aren’t easily distracted from your purpose. You aren’t distracted away from your family. Twitter fights mean nothing to you. Facebook disagreements are pointless to you because you have those morals and values and principles to lean upon.
How do you Strengthen Your Soul Pillar?
So you realize that your soul is starving. You realize that hunger inside is your soul screaming for the nourishment and attention that it craves. So how do you feed it? There’s no mouth on a soul, there’s no way to put physical nutrition into it. Though you do have to take care of yourself which again leads back to the man’s body’s pillar.
If you search online you will see a lot of sites talking about how to feed your soul. Most of these are good. They’re good ideas, they’re good thoughts. Those suggestions are good attempts but they are ways to rest your soul. They don’t provide all that your soul needs to be nourished.
I found a list that suggests activities like
- Organize your sock drawer
- Take deep breaths
- Spend time outdoors
- Exercise and eat real food
- Spend time with people that make you happy
- Meditate
- Write down your thoughts, or journal
- Volunteer
All these are good activities to let your soul rest but rest isn’t all that your soul needs. If you’re cramming your face full of junk food, you don’t need just exercise to get healthy again. You have to also eat healthily, and change your habits. There’s a lot more to it than just going for a walk or a run. The same goes for your soul.
Find Your purpose
This is one of the most Gratifying and Tapas searches you will do for yourself. going on the quest of finding Who You Are. people have gone on those types of quests forever. Native Americans went out for a vision quest that would sometimes result in their name, but It ultimately showed the warrior what their purpose for the tribe was. These days we don’t have rites of passage for our boys. We often don’t encourage the inner talents that are blooming within them. Because of this many of our young men don’t know who they are, what they stand for, we now get the midlife crisis in exchange.
So now we have people going out to find themselves. Sometimes that results in marriages falling apart. I often hear men say that that’s why their wife left. She has to go find herself. The same goes for men. Men leave everything behind because they have to go find themselves. These existential crises could be averted if we helped out kids understand and take care of their souls at a younger age.
So now we have a bunch of people either having a soul that is withered because it wasn’t attended to, or They are angry because they let so much time go by before even trying to find out who they are. So if you are somebody who doesn’t know what their purpose is or who they are then here are some tips on finding what feeds your soul.
Finding your natural gifts and talents
Okay, list time. It’s time to start writing out what interests you. What gets you excited. What can you not stop talking about? These are tips in directing what your natural Talent is: what do you turn to when you’re bored? Sometimes we turn to bad stuff, yes. Others when their hands are idle start just typing, others start writing and others still start drawing. Do you always have to have a set of colored pencils close by? Could be a hint. I have to have notebooks with me because there are times I’ll have to write something down. Did you always have to be drawing or could never get you out of the paints? Maybe you were making your clay out of the mud. The arts often feed us and are the easiest for us to express ourselves. So look at your habits.
What are you thinking of doing but never “got around to it”? This can also be a tip.
Ask your family what you liked to do when you were younger? This is where you can often find many interesting nuggets and clues to your calling.
Ask your friends what your superpower is. They may tell you something that you don’t see because you find it easy and can’t understand how they find it interesting that you are an organizing freak but you are always putting things in order. Or you can find lost stuff with ease. The clues to what your friends see are invaluable to you finding your talents and calling.
Try something new
Now, this can be an expensive endeavor, but it also allows you to find out more about yourself than in many other ways. This is just starting somewhere, look at what you are curious about and start looking into that. If your interest in it dies off, then you know that’s not that has nothing to do with your calling. Yet you may find something in that line that is another point of curiosity. So you follow that line. I will warn that you will have GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) you’re going to amass a lot of gear and tools as you explore your interests.
You may decide to try blacksmithing. so you buy or build a little Forge and start collecting beer cans and Coke cans so you can start messing around with aluminum. You get the tools needed for casting and it will cost money. Yet, don’t let the fact that you are spending money marry you to that one idea. If you find out that you are not interested in blacksmithing anymore then sell that stuff and move on you are allowed to change your mind when you want to.
As you learn about yourself you will start to get finer and finer and finer details. For a while, it’s going to feel like you are kind of lost in the woods, and then one day, you will come across the click. That’s what I call it. it’s just a click that happens in your head. All of a sudden your soul will open up and almost sing because you are on the right track.
So experiment, don’t be afraid to fail early and fail often because you will. You are going to get messy and things aren’t going to go the way you want them to. Yet as you press on and you learn more about yourself and the skills you developed as you were exploring you will find that calling, thanks to the effort you put into examining what you like and don’t like.
Go on the ultimate quest
Finding out what your soul needs is very much a quest. You can also go on your quest of testing what you are able and not able to do. How many times have you ever camped by yourself? Many times we bring a friend along and we lose the ability to spend time with ourselves. Getting out and being by ourselves seeking solitude can also help you find your purpose and calling.
Getting out in nature is a wonderful and healthy way to get out by yourself and listen to that still small voice inside of you express what it needs. Getting away from the dings and beeps of our connected devices and relying on your skills provides the confidence that you are on the right track.
Meditate
Whether you pray or you just sit and be still for a bit this is another way to discover what your inner gifts are. This allows you to again hear your soul speak to you directly. If you haven’t cared for your soul in a while that voice may be faint. Yet the act of paying attention to it is feeding your soul. As you continue to work on finding your calling you will start to hear that small voice get louder and eventually start speaking with conviction.
What Brings You Joy?
Look at what makes you smile not only outside but inside as well. Yeah, this sounds airy-fairy but when your soul smiles everybody sees it. A man with a well-fed soul is noticeable. They are looked up to. Man with a strong Soul Pillar is true to who they are and others see and feel that.
Look at what makes you smile and brings you joy. Seek that out and come to understand why it makes you happy and joyful.
Does it help others
Many times what we love to do ends up helping others. It helps them on their way to finding their passion and purpose. Our callings are often tied to helping others. The businessman starts a business because he sees his store will provide a service for the community. A doctor normally cares for those who are sick in one form or another. An Artist created his art for the emotional impact of those who are willing to look.
If your passion can be monetized, great! If it is something you want to be just a hobby, great! That choice is yours because only you know what will feed your soul the best.
What do you want to be now that you have grown up? What did you want to be when you grew up? Those questions are relative at any time of your life. You can always make changes so that they fit into current circumstances. Then expand as you expand. Feed your soul by being true to what you are called to do. We are all creators in one form or another. When you seek to build your soul pillar you will see that life is brighter and more exciting each and every day. You won’t worry about having not enough energy. You will find the time to spend with work and family.
