What is a Good Life? #66
What is a Good Life? #66
A Life Led With Soul with Thomas Moore
On the 66th episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I am delighted to introduce our guest, Thomas Moore. Thomas is the author of the #1 New York Times Best Seller, Care of the Soul. Since then, he has written thirty books on matters of soul and spirit. His most recent book is The Eloquence of Silence. He lectures in many parts of the world and is also a psychotherapist influenced mainly by C. G. Jung and James Hillman, his close friend for four decades. He has won many awards, including an honorary doctorate from Lesley University and the 2003 Humanitarian Award from Einstein Medical School.
In this episode, Thomas shares his journey from spending 13 years studying to be a priest, to being a lecturer and professor before becoming a psychotherapist and a prolific and bestselling author. At each moment he made a significant life change, he felt fully led by his daemon (an inner, guiding spirit or urge) to help him make considerable decisions with unwavering conviction. Throughout this conversation, Thomas shares many important insights and anecdotes for living a more connected and aligned life with our inner wisdom and soul.
There is so much to glean from this episode regarding how we live our lives, how we make significant decisions, embrace pivotal moments, and perhaps it suggests a life philosophy that could steer you away from trying to figure out every conceivable scenario before committing to your next major change.
The weekly clip from the podcast (5 mins), my weekly reflection (5 mins), the full podcast (64 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip from the Podcast
2. My weekly reflection
Throughout this interview, Thomas shares moments where he made decisions that, on the surface, might not have seemed the most logical and even led to more uncertainty in his life. However, they were made with absolute conviction.
This resonates with several moments in my life over the last 8 years or so, which I attribute to a sense of alignment between my soul and my actions. When they are in alignment, we can make decisions that don’t require us to know all the logical next steps. This energy can give us the impetus to go out and find what is next or to have the patience and trust that it will emerge.
About 6 years ago, while still working in financial roles, I was about to start a new job for which a company had offered me a 40% pay increase. I had been married for about 6 months at that time, and although I had recently left another role, telling my wife it was time for me to move on from that sector, when this offer came in, it made me pause and reconsider.
While I struggled with myself over taking the role and remaining in an industry I was sure was no longer for me, I accepted the position, thinking that just a few years of it would provide me with more security.
At the time, we were living in Vancouver, and I had just returned from Christmas in Ireland and Germany, where we visited our families. My wife was staying behind for an additional week in Hamburg, and I found myself alone in our apartment the weekend before I was due to start.
During that time, I often practiced body scans as I lay still, observing my energies and feelings in the body. That Saturday afternoon, I experienced a bolt of energy coursing through my body. It wasn’t anxiety or a panic attack; it just seemed to surge through me. For some reason, I was left with a very simple message: "You cannot do this job.” There were no words to accompany it, but like Thomas in the video clip above, I was left with no doubt as to what I had to do.
At that point, I had already taken a sabbatical in India, attended Vipassanas, developed daily processes, read and written consistently in new fields of interest, and delved into various lines of self-inquiry to the extent that I knew my path lay elsewhere, although I didn’t know where exactly, simply just not where I was.
While I couldn’t pinpoint exactly where the sentiment came from, I attribute it to some sense of inner guidance. I felt so convinced and moved by it that I called my wife shortly after and said something to the effect of, “There’s no way I can start this job.” “Okay, what do you want to do instead?” “I don’t know, but Marius says the Sacred Valley in Peru is good.” “Okay, let’s do that then.”
Now, if you're like me, handing in your notice can be a bit of an anxious experience. However, in this circumstance, even though I was leaving on the first day, I didn’t hesitate for a moment when telling one of the co-founders. While I obviously felt bad for letting someone down and apologised, I had previously been forthright about my internal struggles in taking the job and staying in the industry, and he understood to some extent.
What surprised me most was how good it felt to make the decision even though it was also going to open me up to so much uncertainty in my life. That one decision led to me moving countries a couple more times in my mid-30s and starting a whole new career, which was not the most easy or straightforward path at times.
However, I am convinced that decision saved me from extinguishing something inside of me. It helped me stay in contact with a part of me or an energy that allows me to feel and experience life differently. I am also certain that it is in following and connecting with that energy that leaves me feeling so full of life.
It's something that I suspect we don’t pay enough attention to in our lives. We judge many of our choices and decisions by the outcomes they derive (typically financially first), rather than how they resonate with us when we are making them.
I am not saying we all have to change our careers, etc. This energy may appear very clearly in terms of a trip you are called to make, deciding to go to an event, saying yes or no to an invite, in a striking or significant dream, a book that grabs your attention, a relationship that needs to end, or a relationship that you’d like to start, a project, or a course you would like to do.
As Thomas points out in this interview, we can practice engaging with this force on the day to day, whether it is simply leaving your home without a plan and following your urges or impulses. We can engage with this part of us in smaller ways first to recognise it or trust it more fully in bigger moments.
Whatever area of life it is suggesting something needs to shift or alter in, it is worth cultivating the space to understand what it is pointing to or paying heed to the signals it is giving you. When tapped into, it can provide us with the invaluable energy or conviction we need to make the difficult choices before the obvious next step has emerged.
3. Full Episode - A Life Led With Soul with Thomas Moore - What is a Good Life? #66
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4. This week’s Questions
Have you experienced a moment in your life when you felt your soul speaking to you? What did you do?
If your life were to be more of a soul led existence, what are the first things that come to mind that would need to change?
About Me
I am a Coach based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I left behind a 15-year career in Capital Markets after I became extremely curious around answering some of the bigger questions in life. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed around 200 people, to provide people with the space to reflect on their own lives and to create content that would spark people’s own inquiry into this question. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience, beyond the facades we typically project.
If you would like to work with me, or you simply want to get in touch, here’s my email and LinkedIn.