Old Souls

Have you ever been called an Old Soul? Or heard someone refer to someone else as an old soul? I have. Mostly because I am one and I know a couple of people who are old souls too. For those who don't know what an old soul it, I found a great definition online on Urban Dictionary of all places:

" A spiritual person whom is wise beyond their years; people of strong emotional stability. Basically, someone whom has more understanding of the world around them."

I think it's a pretty good explanation. Not 100% of the spiritual part but that's basically it. It's something I've been thinking about all weekend. I've always been mature beyond my years. My "rebellious" period was short lived and even when I went away to University, I didn't get too out of control and settled down quickly. All my life people have come to me with their problems, suggesting that I'm a good listener and great at giving advice. Maybe I am. And maybe that's due to the fact that I'm an old soul. Perhaps it's also because I was fortunate enough to have some very old and very wise women in my life early on. They made a huge impact on me. Quite literally as I have tattoo in memory of one of them.

The idea behind having an old soul is the thought that our souls are re-born after we die and it lives through another life, learning more as it goes along. The more lives a soul has been through, the older it is and the wiser it is and that has an impact on the life that gets lived.

Maybe there aren't an infinite number of souls in the universe. What if when we die and move onto whatever comes next, we get an option to live another life? So our soul gets recycled and goes on again. Perhaps over time, our souls start to retain knowledge from a previous go round and age a little. Of course, God has some fresh, new souls on reserve, or else we wouldn't have "new soul" people wander around too.

I think that old souls often seek each other out since we recognise the commonality in each other. I also think that young souls seek us out as they're attracted to our wisdom. But young souls can be mean and try to take advantage of you because they simply don't know any better, kind of like energy "vampire" (people who just seem to drain the energy/life out of you) type people do.

I am definitely very self aware. I know that I'm a realist who has optimistic tendencies. I'm a Christian who believes in God but I'm also very spiritual and am open to the idea that there are other powers at work in the Universe. I know that love and happiness are the most valuable things in the world and are the only real reasons for doing anything. I adore history and firmly believe that we can't know where we're going unless we know where we've been. Perhaps my love of history is my soul remembering something it lived through... Ditto for my love of nature. That might just be some acquired knowledge, that humans need to reconnect with the natural world around us from time to time, in order to recharge ourselves and help us find our happiness. I love learning and school. Knowledge is a powerful tool and resource and it's free. You can pick up a book from the library and learn. Too bad University isn't free. I'd go back to school in a heartbeat :)

I feel a need to help people. People I know and people I don't know. If I see that someone is having problems, I have an overwhelming desire to try to help them. Some nights I can't watch the evening news because I get so sad and depressed seeing all the hurt and suffering and I don't know how to help them. My desire to help sometimes gets me in trouble. I can't say no and end up taking on too much or getting in over my head.

Being an old soul, I also worry, a lot. I worry about my family, my friends, my job. But as I've gotten older, I'm getting better at the worrying part. I still worry about my family and friends but I'm much more relaxed with my own life. I have a faith ( or is it knowledge ) that everything will work itself out and I can't really explain my reasoning behind it. I think that this is also what allows me to be so independent and be able to spend so much time on my own. Maybe that's why I'm finding it so difficult to find a mate too? My soul mate might very well be an old soul too, and they're kind of on the rare side ;)

Who knows if this is real or not, but I'm open to the idea. I kind of like the idea of getting to live many lives, learning more and more as I go along. I like being an old soul, even if it means that I'm not quite the same as others my age and that I don't quite fit in. It's all good because it's who I am. I am me and that's the only me I know how to be.

Good Night!

Sarah