Soul Parts: The Ancient Ones Who Live Within Us

I've been on quite an adventure this past year. It's been wild and wonderful and, truly, amazing.

Part of what I've met along the way are parts of me that live even deeper than the parts we work with in Internal Family Systems. I've started calling them soul parts.

The parts that carry us through the day

IFS parts help us cope with daily life. They get us out the door in the morning. They guard our tender places. They remember how to find joy, playfulness, and pleasure, even when life is heavy.

They're so central to our well-being. And it's a real delight to help people, day after day, find harmony and wholeness among their parts.

The parts that go deeper

Soul parts take us further down. Into the recesses of mystery, majesty, magic, wisdom, sovereignty, love, and oneness.

They feel more mythic. More archetypal. Ancient. Where an IFS part might feel like a younger version of me, a soul part feels like someone who has been around far longer than I have, and is still somehow me.

They're similar to guides, but they aren't the same. A guide is "not me," a presence that walks alongside. Soul parts are part of me. Maybe they're part of my larger soul, not bound to this one incarnation. Maybe they're tied to this lifetime. I'm not sure yet.

I've come to think of them as inner companions, joining me on this journey called life.

The inner world is vast. Some say it's even more real than the material world we move through in our waking lives. Soul parts live there. They also live in our unconscious, until the day they step forward and become known to our conscious self too. Until then, they wait in the wings, ready to introduce themselves.

And I'm having a blast exploring and learning.

What Jung might call them

Carl Jung wrote about archetypes: ancient patterns that live in what he called the collective unconscious, shared by humans across cultures and centuries. The Wise Woman. The Great Mother. The Healer. The Trickster. The Divine Child. They show up in myths, fairy tales, and dreams, and none of us invents them on our own. They're older than any one life.

That's very close to how soul parts feel to me. They're archetypal energies that have made a home in me. Personal and more than personal at the same time.

Jung knew this ambiguity firsthand. During his years of inner exploration, the work that became The Red Book, he kept meeting an old, winged wise man he called Philemon. Philemon told Jung things Jung hadn't consciously thought. Jung came to believe that some things in the psyche aren't made by us. They have a life of their own.

So was Philemon a guide, or part of Jung? Jung seemed to hold both possibilities. That's right where I find myself, too.

A few of mine

Here are some of the soul parts I've met so far, to give you an idea of what you might find when you open yourself to meeting soul parts.

The King of Wands

If you know tarot, you know the King of Wands: fire, vision, the leader who carries his passion with steadiness. When this part first appeared, he was smaller than he is now. Over time he expanded into his regal role, until he filled it completely.

He doesn't come alone. A guide walks with him. That's how I've come to understand the difference between the two. The King is part of me. The guide is not. They work together, and I get to watch.

Dawn

Not every soul part has been waiting a long time. Dawn was born in me one day. She arrived wrapped in the colors of dawn, that soft coral and peach-pink that spreads across the sky at first light. She was quiet, new and undeniable. Some soul parts are ancient. Some, it seems, are just beginning.

The Crimson Dragon

I met her in a cave deep inside me. She's crimson, outlined in obsidian, and she's been waiting there a long time. She doesn't explain herself. She doesn't need to. Being near her feels like being near the heat at the center of the earth. Here’s a poem I wrote about meeting her:

meeting the dragon

the call

to the cave—

traversing the dusty path

through cavernous twists and turns

until a spacious sanctuary

stops me suddenly.

i reverently listen

to the silent one

sitting sukasana,

fingers joined

and eyelids shut.

i stay for days

and weeks

and months,

taking up a similar position,

allowing the silence to permeate my being.

sometimes i allow my eyes to flutter open,

taking in the rich reds of the rugs

coating the cave floor

and the candles glimmering

throughout the capacious enclosure.

today, something

is different.

i sense a weighty presence

in the shadowy recesses of the cavern.

the still air is interrupted

by a burst of air slamming into my body.

i catch myself, and gape

as garnet wings unfurl

revealing an immense dragon

outlined in obsidian.

she roars, but refrains

from roasting us,

making a presentation of her power

without destroying her admirers.

awe-struck, i approach

reverently. i am drawn to her.

she slides her neck under my hand

in silent recognition.

a fire lights within me,

energy coursing through my veins.

we are together at last.

How I've met my soul parts

My soul parts haven't come through one doorway. They've come through several:

• Dreams. Figures who feel larger than life. A queen. An old woman tending a fire. An animal who looks at you as though she already knows you.

• Meditation. Sinking below my ordinary thoughts, where something steadier and older is waiting.

• Writing. Letting the pen go where it wants and noticing whose voice comes through.

• Active imagination. This is Jung's practice of letting an inner image come alive while you're awake, then talking with it instead of directing it. You ask a question and wait. Often the answer surprises you.

If you'd like a place to start, notice who visits your dreams this week. If someone appears who carries more weight than an ordinary dream character, stay with her for a moment when you wake. Ask her who she is and what she’d like you to know. You might be surprised by what you hear back.

Meet your own soul parts

If you'd like to meet your soul parts, you can schedule a spiritual coaching session here. We'll go into it together, gently and with curiosity, and see who's been waiting for you. If now isn't the right time, that's welcome too. They're patient. They've been here a long time.

May you know the fullness of who you are,

Catherine