Soul Healing: A Simple Guide For Joining Heart And Soul

ByJeanne Nangle Updated on
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how to heal the soul,

You don’t need to dive into your past to heal your life. Instead, you can work with what’s here now, what your soul is showing you now.

Let your feelings be your compass.

If you keep replaying old heartache, repeating patterns you swore you’d break, or feeling disconnected from a bigger idea of your life, then your soul is inviting you to heal this.

“Your heart is the gateway to a higher evolved state of being.” Begin with the heart. But, what does that look like, what does this mean?

As a soul coach with over 25 years of experience helping people heal their hearts and souls, I’ve learned that soul healing is about bringing your heart and soul together so you can become who you’re meant to be and help heal this planet.

Through my own healing journey and my work with thousands of others, I’ve seen how powerful it is when someone finally gives their soul the attention it’s been asking for.

If you’re ready to understand what soul healing really means and how to start this journey, this guide will show you what soul healing is, why it matters, and how to move forward with practices that actually work.

What is Soul Healing?

Soul healing is the process of bringing the heart and soul together. It involves recognizing and growing self-love, being heart centered, learning soul lessons, releasing old emotional energy, and restoring a deeper connection with your True Self, your soul.

One of my all time favorite books about caring for the soul, and it’s a different angle on giving the soul what it needs, is Thomas Moore’s Care of The Soul. This book reflects on the soul unlike any other I’ve read.

Please use my most popular article for soul healing with over 50 emotional release therapies and methods to help you move out, calm, and lighten the heavy emotions that cause us so much pain and discomfort.

When we make emotional release a regular part of our self-care, it makes life so much easier. We are meant to be emotionally free.

I use MOST of the methods for my own regular emotional wellbeing and healing.

Spiritual Guidance

Spiritual guidance and soul healing are connected. Much of what your soul is communicating to you is an invitation to heal. Your feelings are your compass. Or said another way, emotions are messengers. Either way, your emotions tell you what is going on with you. 

As you give your soul and your heart (meaning your emotions) the regular attention they both need, soul healing becomes a natural part of your life and helps your soul evolve.

embracing paradox, emotional healing for the soul, soul healing,

The Soul is Here to Learn and Grow

Emotional hurts live within us, often invisible to the outside world. They’re born from past traumas, difficult relationships, and life experiences that left their mark on our hearts.

You might notice these hurts showing up as anxiety that seems to appear out of nowhere. Or depression that settles in like an unwelcome guest. Sometimes it’s just a persistent sense of unease, a feeling that something isn’t quite right even when everything looks fine on the surface.

Your soul knows what you need.

If you’re reading this, your soul is already guiding you toward wholeness. Recognizing these places for growth is actually a sign of your strength, not weakness. It takes courage.

The Impact of Unresolved Emotions

Your feelings are your compass. How you feel tells you where you’re at and where you need to go.

When emotional pain goes unaddressed, it stays with us.

Your relationships might feel strained. Work that once energized you becomes exhausting. You might notice yourself repeating the same patterns, wondering why things keep playing out the same way.

This isn’t evidence that you’re doing life wrong. It’s simply that we have soul lessons: we keep repeating the same mistakes until we learn from them.

You’re not weak for needing healing—you’re awake. You’re choosing to not run the same loop one more time.

This recognition is how the soul moves forward. It’s how you become lighter and happier as well.

Learn more about your soul’s learning path:

The Path to Soul Healing

On a soul level, it’s part of your purpose to heal. You can look at soul healing as another thing you do to evolve the soul. Soul healing is a Tool for Transformation that Spirit gives us to help us evolve the soul.

Healing takes time, patience, self-compassion, and a willingness to face our inner truths and be uncomfortable.

As someone who has done a lot of soul healing to move my soul along, I know it’s not easy.

And you can do it.

Every human being is designed to heal.

Let Yourself Feel Everything

One of the most powerful aspects of soul healing is learning to drop into the hole when you need to. This means giving yourself permission to seek refuge from the world for grief, for heartache, for sadness.

When something hurts, you need space to feel it. Not to perform your way through it or pretend it doesn’t exist. You need to be quiet, to be with yourself and how you feel.

This is Principle 7 in The Butterfly Silhouette: Drop Into a Hole.

When you allow yourself to feel what’s actually happening inside you, healing can begin.

Many people are afraid to feel their emotions fully. They worry that if they start crying, they’ll never stop. Or that anger will take over. But emotions are like waves. They rise, they peak, they pass.

The more you practice feeling your emotions without judgment, the more natural it becomes. And the more we do this work, the lighter we become.

Personally, I’ve been on a healing journey for a long time. For many reasons, I knew in my early 40’s that I didn’t want to carry more emotional baggage than absolutely necessary! But, there is an evolution to feeling and healing too. We need time. We have to be ready to let go. We need to grow our consciousness along with the emotional work so that ultimately, we no longer need to carry that black bag.

Resources for authentic emotional expression:

Being Heart Centered

Being heart centered is feeling your way through life, challenges, relationships, and more. Being in your heart, not your head. This is where true transformation happens.

When you’re heart centered, you’re feeling your emotions rather than thinking about them. You’re allowing yourself to be moved by what matters instead of analyzing it to death.

When you pay attention to what consumes your heart rather than just what fills your schedule, you’re already beginning to heal.

Explore heart-centered practices:

loving kindness, loving kindness meditation, prayers for inner peace and calm, heart centered,

Notice What’s Beautiful

What you focus on shapes your reality. When you deliberately notice what’s beautiful, what moves you, what brings light into your life, you’re training your soul to see possibility even in difficult times.

This is Principle 3 in The Butterfly Silhouette: Notice What’s Beautiful.

Your thoughts create your experience. When you shift your thinking habits to focus on what lifts you up rather than what weighs you down, healing happens naturally.

This isn’t about forcing positivity or denying pain. It’s about choosing where you direct your attention and energy.

Resources for shifting your mindset:

Cultivating Positive Emotions

While feeling difficult emotions is crucial, cultivating positive emotions is equally important for soul healing.

Joy, gratitude, hope, peace—these aren’t just nice feelings. They’re healing frequencies that help restore your soul’s natural state.

My poem on toxic positivity addresses the balance we need. Healing isn’t about forcing positivity. It’s about allowing both the difficult and the beautiful to exist.

When you’re ready, you can also practice sending healing vibes to yourself and others. This practice of sending positive thoughts helps you stay in a healing mindset and contributes to your own emotional well-being.

Explore positive emotional and thinking practices:

positive emotional and thinking habits

Let Sadness Run Through You

Sadness often lies beneath our other emotions. Anger, resentment, frustration—sometimes they’re just sadness wearing a different face.

This powerful emotion must be felt so that we can move forward in life.

This is Principle 8 in The Butterfly Silhouette: Let Your Sadness Run Through You.

When you let sadness run through you instead of pushing it away, something shifts. You’re not drowning in it. You’re allowing it to move, to flow, to teach you what it came to teach.

Sadness is one of the soul’s deepest languages. It tells you what matters. It shows you what you’ve loved and lost, what you’re grieving, what needs your attention.

Give yourself permission to be sad without needing to fix it immediately. Sit with it. Let it speak.

This is part of healing the heart so your soul can be free.

Learn more about feeling to heal:

Give Yourself Compassion

Self-compassion creates the conditions for healing to happen. Without it, you’re working against yourself.

Many of us have a harsh inner voice that shows up right when we’re already hurting. No one needs that. It tells us we should be stronger, that we’re taking too long, that other people have it worse. This voice doesn’t help us heal. It keeps us stuck.

This is Principle 5 in The Butterfly Silhouette: Give Yourself Compassion for All That You Are.

When you notice your pain without piling criticism on top of it, you’re doing something radical. You’re loving yourself.

Self-compassion means catching that harsh voice and choosing something different.

This is hard. I’m doing my best. I’m learning.

Self-compassion allows your soul to evolve. When you give yourself permission to learn at your own pace, healing unfolds naturally.

Resources for building self-compassion:

Pry Yourself Free

Soul healing gives you personal freedom. Freedom so that your emotions don’t dictate all of your actions. Freedom to be closer to your soul essence, to who you’re capable of being.

This is Principle 9 in The Butterfly Silhouette: Pry Yourself Free.

When you do this work, you’re not just managing symptoms. You’re releasing old patterns, old stories, old ways of being that kept you small.

You’re prying yourself free from what held you back.

This means facing uncomfortable truths. It means recognizing where you’ve been stuck and choosing something different. It means having the courage to be yourself even when it feels risky.

The more you heal, the more you step into who you really are. Not who you think you should be. Who your soul came here to be.

Feeling and allowing all emotion is how we transform our lives and break free from the past.

Resources for breaking free:

Daily Practices for Soul Healing

Soul healing works best when it becomes part of your daily life, not just something you think about during a crisis.

Small, consistent practices build the foundation for lasting change.

Consider starting your morning by checking in with your heart. How do you feel today? What does your soul need? This simple practice of tuning in creates space for healing throughout your day.

Meditation, even just five minutes, helps you stay connected to your deeper self. You don’t need to do it perfectly. You just need to show up.

Movement matters too. Walking, dancing, stretching—anything that gets you out of your head and into your body supports the healing process.

End your day with gratitude. Name three things that touched your heart today, no matter how small. This practice trains your soul to notice beauty even during difficult times.

These practices aren’t about adding more to your to-do list. They’re about creating space for your soul to breathe, to feel, to heal.

Resources for daily soul connection:

positive energy through movement, walking, mood boost, platonic soulmates,

Creating a Supportive Environment

Your surroundings can either support or slow your healing journey.

Look closely at your environment, both physical and emotional. Are there changes you can make to create a more nurturing space?

This might involve decluttering your home, setting boundaries in relationships, or curating media that uplifts and inspires you.

Your environment includes the people you spend time with, the content you consume, and the physical spaces you inhabit. All of it matters.

Getting Professional Support

Sometimes, we need outside help. The burdens we’re carrying are too heavy.

Support from trained professionals is one option. And now, with online therapy options, we have more choices to fit your finances.

There’s no shame in seeking help. In fact, it’s one of the bravest things you can do.

A good therapist, coach, or healer can witness your pain, guide you through difficult terrain, and help you see patterns you might miss on your own.

Celebrating Your Progress

Healing is often marked by small, incremental changes rather than dramatic transformations.

Learn to recognize and celebrate these subtle shifts.

Did you respond to a trigger with more patience today? Did you choose self-care over self-criticism?

These moments are worthy of acknowledgment and pride.

Soul healing isn’t a race. It’s a lifelong journey of becoming more yourself, more whole, more free.

Essential Soul Healing Methods

Beyond the principles and daily practices, there are specific healing methods and modalities that can profoundly support your soul’s journey.

Emotional Release Methods

Emotional release techniques offer powerful ways to heal the mind, body, and soul.

These methods help us process and let go of stored emotional energy that may be causing physical or psychological distress.

Emotional release therapy includes practices like Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or Tapping, which involve stimulating specific points on the body while focusing on emotional issues.

Breathwork can induce altered states of consciousness, facilitating emotional release. My favorite breath sequence recommended by Dr. Dan Amen is:

Inhale for 4 counts. Pause. Exhale for 8 counts.

Somatic experiencing encourages us to tune into bodily sensations associated with trauma, promoting healing through physical awareness.

Even simple practices like screaming into a pillow or engaging in intense physical exercise release stored energy.

By incorporating these techniques into your healing journey, you create opportunities for profound emotional clearing and renewed vitality.

My secret in a sentence: Feel your feelings. Choose your thoughts.

Explore emotional release and grounding practices:

Sound and Color Healing

Sound healing is extremely effective for emotional healing. I use it regularly by listening to crystal bowls and Solfeggio frequencies. I cannot imagine my life without these healing sounds! I’m amazing at how much my mind and body responds to crystal bowls and binaural beats … possibly a sign that I’m changing all of the time.

Sound works on a vibrational level, helping to release stuck energy and restore balance to your emotional and energetic body.

Color therapy is another powerful tool. Different colors carry different frequencies that can support healing, shift your mood, and help you reconnect with your soul’s needs.

These practices might seem simple, but their impact is real. When you’re open to different forms of healing, you give your soul more pathways to wholeness.

Explore vibrational healing:

sound healing, crystal bowls

Forgiveness as a Healing Tool

Forgiveness is often misunderstood. It’s not about condoning harmful actions but about freeing yourself from the burden of resentment.

Resentment is like poison. It hurts you more than anyone else.

With that being said, forgiveness is deeply personal, and no one can tell you to forgive.

Self-forgiveness is often the hardest kind. We hold ourselves to impossible standards and punish ourselves for being human.

Carolyn Myss, famous medical intuitive who can actually see people’s diseases, states that forgiveness is necessary for deep healing.

As a soul coach, I’ve found that forgiveness is extremely powerful in healing the soul.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean what happened was okay. It means you’re choosing freedom over bitterness.

Learn more about self-forgiveness:

Shadow Work and Inner Healing

Part of soul healing involves looking at the parts of yourself you’ve hidden away. This is called shadow work, and it’s one of the most transformative practices you can do.

Shadow work means acknowledging the parts of yourself you’ve judged, rejected, or pushed down. The anger you weren’t allowed to express. The neediness you were told was too much. The ambition you learned to hide.

When you bring these parts into the light with compassion, they lose their power over you.

I highly recommend spiritual medium Rebecca Rosen’s podcast episode on Healing Generational Trauma and Inner Child Healing. She offers so much value and wonderful tools for working through this very important subject.

Explore shadow work and deeper healing:

Navigating Spiritual Emergencies

Sometimes the healing process brings up more than you expected. You might experience what’s called a spiritual emergency—a period of intense spiritual or psychological upheaval that feels overwhelming.

This can include intense emotions, existential questions, or a sense that your old identity is falling apart.

If this happens, know that it’s part of the process. You’re not losing your mind. You’re shedding an old way of being so something new can emerge.

Getting support during these times is essential. Don’t go through it alone.

Learn more about spiritual emergencies:

RESOURCES FOR DEEPENING YOUR SOUL HEALING JOURNEY

If soul healing has awakened curiosity about your soul’s journey and transformation, I invite you to explore my resources designed to help you heal and connect more deeply:

The Butterfly Silhouette: 12 Principles for Following Your Soul Where It Must Go – Winner of the San Francisco Book Festival awards in both Spirituality and Poetry. This book offers the complete framework of the 12 Principles of Metamorphosis that I teach, providing guidance for understanding your soul’s transformation, especially during times of change, loss, and spiritual awakening.

Soul Alignment Audio Program – This is my audio program for managing energy and attuning to your soul. This is the routine I use personally to stay connected and grounded.

My spiritual blog – Over 300 articles of content to uplift and expand your understanding of the soul, spiritual growth, and transformation.

Through my books, blog, and programs, I offer compassionate guidance for those learning to trust their soul and follow where it must go.

Final thoughts

Remember, soul healing isn’t a linear process.

There will be ups and downs, moments of breakthrough and times of struggle. This is normal and expected.

Embrace the journey with all its complexities, knowing that each step, no matter how small, is moving you towards greater wholeness.

One of our soul purposes is to heal ourselves, which ultimately heals the planet. Can you imagine a world where each person healed their own soul?

One soul at a time.

The problem is that we don’t always make healing the soul a priority. We may not even think about it.

But you’re here now. You’re reading this. Your soul is calling you forward.

Listen to it. Trust it. Give it the attention it deserves.

You are designed to heal.

Award winning inspirational self-help author

Jeanne Nangle is an award-winning author and soul coach who writes about the soul. Her book The Butterfly Silhouette won awards at the San Francisco Book Festival in both Spirituality and Poetry (2012), and teaches transformation through 12 Principles of Metamorphosis.

With over 25 years of experience as a soul coach, Jeanne helps spiritually hungry souls be true to themselves. Her work is spiritual and non-religious. Through her books, blog, and programs, she provides compassionate guidance for those who wish to live with purpose, self-love, and a deep sense of one's destiny.

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