Do you believe you have a soul? Or is the idea of “the soul” too religious for you? Then you might be attracted to the work of philosopher Alain de Botton, founder of the School of Life, who wrote in his blog yesterday about how we fill the gap left by the demise of the priesthood.
For centuries, he says, priests took care of your soul from birth until death, attempting to make sure it was in a good state to meet its maker.
In our secular society, we now think of the soul as perhaps our deeper identity or the seat of our emotions. I prefer to call it the seat of our inner wisdom – The Pearl Within.
Even though organised religion doesn’t play as big a part in our lives, we still have soul-related needs. De Botton wonders what we are doing with all the stuff we used to go to the priest for. Who is looking after it now?
The answer is that, these days, most individuals deal with their inner needs privately. But wouldn’t it be so much better if there was a more co-operative, community-based way of dealing with the serious issues of life? A sort of modern-day group of village elders?
De Botton suggests that the most sophisticated solution we’ve yet come up with to the problems of the soul is psychotherapy. We take to our therapists the sort of problems and issues we might previously have directed at a priest, including emotional confusion and loss of meaning.
However, in my experience, therapy does not offer such a solution; it is a rare therapist indeed who works in the realm of the soul.
I’m not saying that coaches are the new priests either, but there is a sense with the coaching conversation that you are creating a safe, sacred space in which the client is able to attend to the needs of their soul without being judged as neurotic or diagnosed with a pathology.
It would be great, though, if the need for a regular, stigma-free dialogue with a sympathetic third party was as honoured and recognised as the need for a haircut or a visit to the gym.
I’d love to see life coaching – especially human potential coaching – become part of what fills the soul gap and helps people to answer some of life’s bigger questions.
Leave a Reply