In the oldest stories, the gods speak not through ease, but through disruption. The soul cries out when something essential has been denied. The voice is often buried under layers of duty, adaptation, and survival. But it does not disappear. It waits.
The call of the soul does not always arrive in the form of inspiration. More often, it comes disguised as discomfort. The person who has lived by pleasing others begins to feel anger rise. The one who has followed every rule begins to feel trapped. A life that looked complete starts to feel hollow.
The surface may still look smooth. But underneath, something starts to break. That breaking is not a mistake. It is part of the pattern of transformation.
In a world that demands performance, the soul keeps pulling us inward. Into the place where the old mask begins to fall away. Into the wound that has waited years to be felt. Into the grief that carries the seed of new life.
James Hollis reminds us that the unconscious will not let us rest in what is false. When we live from a role that no longer serves the soul, symptoms rise. Dreams repeat. A pressure builds that cannot be ignored.
This tension is the invitation. Not the enemy. It is the sign that something deeper wants to come forward.
Each life has its own pattern, its own myth trying to unfold. The ego may have plans, but the soul moves in ancient rhythms. It follows threads laid down long before we were aware. When we ignore the thread, we suffer. When we follow it, we suffer too—but differently. More deeply. More truly.
The pattern that repeats is not random. The same kind of relationship, the same frustration, the same hidden fear—these are messages. They are not punishments. They are the soul trying to wake us.
The old myths speak of descent. Of losing the old form so that something more essential may appear. This is not a symbolic idea. It is lived in the body. In the moment we cannot go back to the old pattern, but have no idea what comes next.
That is the threshold. The moment when the soul draws close. And the question shifts from “How do I fix this?” to “What is trying to live in me now?”
The soul is shaped like a spiral. It does not move in straight lines. It returns to what was left behind. It circles back through the forgotten place. And it often sends pain as a guide.
The suffering we feel in those moments is sacred. Not because it feels good. But because it strips us of the false and calls us toward the real.
The soul wants us to live from depth. To honor the grief we carry. To feel the desires we’ve disowned. To speak the truth that doesn’t fit the script.
In that process, the wound becomes a doorway. The symptom becomes a messenger. And the role we once performed so well begins to crumble in service of something more authentic.
The sacred wound is not healed by turning away. It deepens when we face it. When we say yes to the unraveling. When we let the tears fall, and the mask slip, and the deeper voice speak.
This is not the story of success. It is the myth of awakening. The kind that begins in the underworld. Where we lose our bearings, meet what we feared, and find the thread that leads us home.
That thread is soul. It is quiet, but persistent. It calls us away from the role and back into the body. It takes us beyond adaptation and into meaning.
And if we follow it long enough, the pattern breaks open. The life we thought we had lost begins to reassemble in a deeper form. One that includes the wound, the fear, and the longing we tried so long to ignore.
Madeline – Soulful Nuggets Team
This blog is a reflection on the course ‘Introduction to Jungian Psychology‘ taught by James Hollis .
