Soul writing is not merely autobiographical work; however, our lives and their meaning are implicitly at the centre of every introspective writing process. Speaking about one’s own life therefore becomes inevitable, since each of us is a unique combination of universal themes and represents a small, singular contribution to the great river of life.

Yet recounting the past may not be the best way to generate meaning. This naturally depends on personal inclination. Some people love remembering and linger over seemingly insignificant details in order to bring the past vividly back to life; others prefer sparse descriptions of facts and are not seduced by the poetry of memory.

It is true that those who remember in great detail often appear somewhat in love with their own lives, and this can sometimes blur perception. Loving one’s life is indeed one of the aims of soul writing; indulging in the pleasure of storytelling is less so. Soul writing is narrative only within certain limits, which obviously vary from person to person.

Suppose you feel the need to write about an event that marked your life. One possibility is simply to recount what happened. You might adopt a neutral, fact-based style, or a more engaging, even ironic one. (As if irony guaranteed distance and serene awareness… Sometimes it does; at other times it is merely a highly appreciated avoidance mechanism.) By narrating, you will re-enter the memory, relive it, and discover aspects that escaped you while you were living through them.

You may feel tempted to engage in a form of self-fiction — telling things not exactly as they occurred but modifying them slightly or substantially, believing you preserve the essence while altering the event. You might introduce dialogues that never took place but could have, or create composite characters drawn from several real individuals. It may sound strange, but I find these procedures creative perhaps, yet ultimately distorting. Often they serve purely narrative criteria, as though our lives required adjustment to become more interesting.

Of course, you may recount a past event in a fantastical or purely metaphorical key. In that case everything may be invented yet essentially true, because symbols and imaginative elements function as vessels of energy. But that is not the kind of text we are discussing here; we are speaking about narrating actual past events. My advice is simple: change nothing. Describe them briefly as you remember them unfolding.

We know there is an entire science explaining that we reconstruct the past and that memories are not faithful reproductions, and so on. This is a fascinating subject, but if you wish to tell your past, tell it as you remember it. Do not introduce what you do not remember. You may ask questions and formulate hypotheses, but you cannot deliberately adulterate memory. Let it emerge as it does. Preserve its fragmentary nature; it will not hinder the unveiling of meaning. Adding extraneous elements may instead transform your memory into an ordinary story. Our lives are not made of ordinary stories; they are yet another variation on universal themes — unique variations whose particularity and universality we must both recognize.

I suggest being concise in narrating events and choosing only meaningful details. You cannot do whatever you wish with a memory: it does not belong entirely to you. It belongs to the field in which all memories are preserved, likely in the form in which they were experienced by everyone involved.

Here a brief aside is necessary: can this field be modified? I believe so — but only if the energy of events is resolved, not the events themselves. The issue remains open to debate; we will return to it another time. For now, my position is that we cannot change the past unless we first respect the form in which it appears to us. Could soul writing be used to change the past? I believe so. (To be continued…)

Now let us return to our small experiment in writing memory.

After outlining the event in its essential features, space must be given to what you felt at the time. Here it is not enough merely to describe emotional states; they must be explored with benevolent attention. Love is a form of knowledge: the more we love what we feel, the more deeply we understand it. By expressing feelings in writing, we notice aspects that once escaped us. Moreover, the more space we grant to feeling, the more dynamic it becomes, transforming into an agent of transformation itself. But let us not rush ahead. We return to phase two: describing feeling.

Of the four functions that govern soul writing, we have so far used two. We have given material reality its place, and then devoted ourselves to emotion, feelings, and sensations. The third level is reflection, and the fourth is the intuition of meaning.

By meaning I do not refer to something fixed or definitive, a judgment or something excessively mental. Rationality always selects and therefore cannot embrace all the nuances of lived experience. I speak of a meaning in which love and wisdom coexist without erasing the daytime self — the self that lived the event firsthand and usually understood little of the soul’s reasons.

When I approach a global vision that sees through appearances, my ego is no longer the talkative protagonist. The body, emotions, sensations, soul, and spirit also speak. In my working hypothesis, the soul is the custodian of meaning. The ego gains access to meaning when it learns to look and to understand what it sees. It understands if it listens, and it can look and listen only when it senses that something greater than itself exists within.

Thus we reflect, but not alone. We ask for inspiration; we ask our inner wisdom for guidance. Here, directly or indirectly, the dialogue with the soul takes place. It may not be dialogue in the literal sense — but why not ask? Why not meditate on the memory and ask what there is to discover, reveal, or understand?

There is a beautiful sentence by Rabindranath Tagore that I found many years ago and kept. It says: The pain was great, Lord, when we tuned the instruments. Now begin your music and let me hear what you intended in those sorrowful days. (The quotation may not be exact; phrases that wander through memory inevitably change slightly. The meaning, however, remains clear.)

If the experiment succeeds, we will have made peace with our lives and perhaps altered the energy of the memory.

I begin from the assumption that the memory carries some degree of sadness or pain, but naturally we may also write about memories without such connotations. Every memory — even a happy one — contains a hidden pearl.

At this point another warning is necessary. If the memory is traumatic, one must proceed with particular caution, and it is certainly not advisable to begin a series of memory writings with a traumatic recollection. Writing amplifies feeling; therefore flashbacks are almost inevitable. Ideally they serve the exploration of feeling, but trauma, by definition, resists consciousness because its energetic charge overwhelms the mechanisms of processing. One must therefore proceed very carefully and not assume one can confront something before having the appropriate tools.

That said, soul writing about painful memories can have a beneficial effect if we remain in contact with both the memory and the emotions — past and present — reflect upon them, and remain open to receiving insight.

It should also be noted that memory and thought are active processes — things we do, such as recalling and engaging in mental operations. Feeling, by contrast, manifests on its own; at most we awaken or amplify it. Intuition is something we receive. We can only adopt an attitude of listening and waiting. We do not produce intuition; it is always a gift. What we can do is open the inner space that prepares us to receive it.

Those who wish to try soul writing can enroll in my course Gates of Light, or contact me ([...]). I also offer individual accompaniment for those who wish to practice this kind of writing on their own.