Are You an Old Soul?

Let me start by saying that reincarnation is part of the illusion that is this physical world. If you don’t believe in it. I think it's just as easy to bypass the acceptance of reincarnation by thinking in terms of genetics and generational trauma. Just as a tendency toward certain illnesses is passed to us through genetics, so too can various tendencies toward our character or way of being.

However, reincarnation is the easist way for me to grasp the concept of how some of us come to this life having much more awareness, empathy, and unconditional love for humanity while others are clueless, judgmental and afraid of anyone or anything that is different.

The only way I can reconcile these facts is through the concept of reincarnation. Meaning, the more lives we live the more awareness we have of the connection between souls and the greater empathy we develop for humanity. As I understand it, this is because the more horror we suffer at the hands of our frightened counterparts — either directly through blatant abuse or indirectly through judgment and indifference — the more compassion we feel for our fellow humans.

I’ve studied past lives for 30 years. When I started, I quickly moved beyond the novelty of cocktail party musings of having been Cleopatra's jealous sister in a past life and learned the value of how our experiences of our past lives shapes who we are and how we relate to the world.

A frustrating fact of reincarnation is that we don’t typically remember the lives we lived before. The reason for that is because the weight of that knowledge could be crippling to our progress in this life.

However, what many psychologists, psychiatrists, psychics and other spiritual professionals have discovered through past-life regressions and investigations of profound memories of past lives that do break through the veil of consciousness, is that reincarnation is not only undeniable, it is for the purpose of helping each of us wake up to the reality of our existence that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience.

We are spiritual beings having a physical experience.

There is a vastly disproportionate number of young souls versus old souls on this planet at the moment. In Ainslie MacLeod’s Book The Instruction, he lays out the ten levels of a soul’s journey through physical incarnations. We may live as few as five lives in one level, or more than twenty, but once we get to the end of level ten, we will have lived over one hundred lives in the physical realm.

Some teachers tell us it can be even more than that, and that some of our lives are lived on other planets, but again, that doesn't really matter for the scope of this article.

We come into each of our lives with a very specific intention to overcome the negative experiences generated in the previous lives we’ve lived. We will have karmic debts to pay, just as we are given opportunities to generate positive karma.

In the simplest terms, karmic debts are acquired whenever we do something to take a fellow human off their soul plan in any given incarnation. Ways in which we can take someone off their soul’s plan can be anything from murder — the ultimate obliteration of another’s life plan — or emotional abuse where we beat someone down to such an extent that they have no belief in themselves to be able to do what their soul intended to accomplish in this life. We could also generate karmic debt by passing judgments of another in a way that undermines their ability to find the courage and strength to step out of their comfort zone and follow their passion.

 This is precisely why every journey guided by a legitimate, heart-centered, spiritual guru emphasizes the need to let go of judgment. Judgment — which is different from discernment, as it comes from fear rather than curious observation — aligns the mind with that which will pull us away from the path of unconditional love where we find enlightenment.

How do we know if we are an old soul?

•  The greatest marker of an old soul is their ability to empathize.

As I mentioned, the older a soul, the more challenges they have experienced in physical form and the more horrors they have either experienced, witnessed, or perpetrated, (as we have all done it all.) The more lives we’ve lived, the more negative karma we have had to pay back and the more we have learned to let go of fear and embrace love.

The older the soul, the less they buy into the illusion of fear. Older souls are less afraid of others who are different and have more compassion for those suffering. Because of this heightened sense of empathy, an older soul may also have a greater ability to see both sides of an argument and find that taking sides and going to war to be futile.

The challenge of the old soul is to balance the empathy they feel for others by utilizing self-love practices and setting boundaries to protect them and their purpose for being here.

• Older souls struggle to find like-minded people and often feel like an outsider.

Because old souls are in the minority, it is likely that they were born into a family of mostly younger souls who don’t understand them. Also, because of the young soul’s fears, older souls are often ridiculed and ostracized as the younger souls feel the need to keep them down.

It can be a significant challenge for older souls to overcome codependent patterns of managing their young soul family and friend’s conditional love. They are often taken advantage of in narcissistic relationships because their sense of empathy is so highly developed that they tolerate way too much from others needing to control them.

The older the soul, the more they just want everyone to love one another and get along. Also, the younger soul’s fear that drives their need to overpower and manipulate others will often cripple the older soul’s life purpose. This will, of course, cause the younger soul to have to payback that negative karma, but unfortunately that seldom happens in the same life.

• The older souls tend to be very sensitive.

Because of the many horrors they have witnessed over the millennia, older souls are very aware. They pick up on other’s negative attitudes and intentions, yet some may expose themselves to abuse as their soul is striving for connection with the humans around them. This drives them to trust too much and to forgive too quickly if they are unable to balance their empathy and desire for love with caution for other’s selfish intentions. This can eventually lead them to isolate from society due to a broken heart, stay small, and live their life without fulfilling their soul’s purpose for this incarnation, requiring them to start all over with this life’s goals in the next life.

• Old souls can be self-absorbed with personal development.

By the time we become an old soul, we’ve figured out the game. We know that in order to be done with this physical world and all it’s pointless* suffering that we must overcome in order to get off the merry-go-round of reincarnation, we get quite focused on the task of enlightenment.

Enlightenment occurs when we get to the 10th level and have learned to consistently walk the ten paths of cooperation, respect, knowledge, equality, understanding, justice, truth, peace, freedom, all of which lead to the last path of love, as is laid out in Ainslie MacLeod’s book, mentioned above.

• *What is the point of it all?

The answer to this question is as simple as it is maddening. There is no point other than to let go of fear, lift the veil of the illusion that is the physical world and step into the light of unconditional love of our creator.

That’s some pretty heady, trippy shit, I know, but my studies of a philosophy called A Course In Miracles have helped me figure this out. That and my old soul drive to understand and overcome this world.

This is the beauty of being an old soul. The work we do on ourselves through the deep spiritual practice of self-love can help not only ourselves, but those around us in our sphere of influence. Our empathic development is by design. The more we love ourselves to do the work and walk the ten paths mentioned above, the more we naturally help others on their path.

This is why all the world’s spiritual leaders talk of how love will heal the world. Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said “Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.”

Which leads me to the last point I want to make about old souls.

• An older soul's purpose may be more altruistic.

We may not all be Mother Teresa, but if you’re feeling aligned with this idea of an old soul, you likely feel some drive to make a difference in the world. This is because as our soul prepares for retirement, we strive to become immortal.

That is not to say that we want to try to preserve our bodies in some sci-fi freezer pod — that’s young soul thinking — rather, we want to make a lasting impact on the world around us that will help others through altruistic acts or work that will help others and up-level humanity through the unconditional love that we give and inspire in others.

Being an old soul has its challenges, but it’s precisely those challenges that give you the potential to help others, so long as you are able to balance your soul’s advantages and risks and find the courage to follow your purpose for being here. The key to doing this is the consistent practice of self-love in order to align who you are with why you are here.