This ‘Good Souls’ thing is new and it’s evolving fast. From the start we said we want it to be open and ‘accessible’.

Danny was having some concerns about the name ‘Good Souls’ and the tagline ‘To help Good Souls connect and feel connected’.

This article is written by Danny:

Danny

The way to enter Good Souls is to be invited by another Good Soul.

In action this is extremely effective. When we gather we have one thing in common - we are Good Souls.

But something about it didn’t sit quite right with me. It felt ‘exclusive’.

I had been reading articles and watching documentaries about male suicides. A common theme was evident throughout- men who were at risk of committing suicide had a really low sense of self-worth, they felt that everybody would be better off if they weren’t around anymore. They didn’t feel like ‘Good Souls’. Maybe those who need this thing the most would think that it wasn’t for them?

It bothered me for a while but I didn’t verbalise my worry because I knew it would be okay, I trusted the process, then something happened.

I met with ‘Terry’ a Good Soul who attended our most recent gathering. He has been suffering from mental health challenges for three years and finding life really difficult at times. As we walked over the moors with the sun on our backs, I asked him, “how are you feeling about Good Souls and your experience?” he replied, “it has been wonderful for me, firstly I felt honoured and privileged when you invited me as a Good Soul, it meant a lot to me”.

WOW- imagine feeling worthless and somebody reaching out to you and re-assuring you that you are a Good Soul- very powerful.

I then came across this passage in a book that I was reading:

“Taking care of the soul is to know yourself. Who am I? What is the meaning of life? Why am I here on planet Earth? What is my relationship with the world, with my family, with my colleagues? All these questions are soul questions……..We need time to be ourselves. Time to be in relationships with others. The soul craves right relationships. The body is a vehicle for soul relationships. We embrace somebody with our body, but in truth it is the soul which embraces. If there is no soul, then there is no love, no friendship. Then our embrace is empty.

We need to feed our soul, as we feed our body with rice, vegetables, bread and soup, we need to feed our soul with friendship, with love and compassion, with beauty and art and singing and painting, with imagination and meditation, with silence and solitude. These are foods for the soul. If we don’t feed our souls then we will suffer. Why is there so much depression, so many mental problems, frequent conflicts in relationships between husband and wife, between children and parents? All of these breakdowns in relationships and mental problems are a consequence of not taking care of the soul. We take care of our bodies. We have big houses, big salaries, big cars, televisions and computers for our bodies- but we have no time for soul, no time for love, no time to meditate, no time for children. We spend so much of our attention and energy on having things that there is no time for being ourselves.

We feed the body three times a day, we worry about clothing the body. We work hard for hours and hours each day in order to house the body, but we spend very little time feeding and tending to the soul”.