“now i know that the best thing i can offer to this world is not my
force or energy, but a well-tended spirit, a wise and brave soul.”
[shauna niequist, present over perfect]
my soul cries out in the night
when i have silenced
everyone but her
and there i allow her
to gently remind me
of my complexities.
i am more than mind (psyche).
more than body (soma).
i am a mosaic of
memories, thoughts, desires.
i am embodied
full of experiences
flesh, breath, action.
i am on a journey
of sozo, healing.
i am on a journey
to discovering true
wholeheartedness.
i am integrated, whole
not parts, not divided,
not isolated symptoms.
i am embracing this year
as my year of nephesh.
a year of soul care
of learning to live embodied.
as Chuck De Groat writes “we are nephesh—an ancient Hebrew word
meaning the whole, breathing, embodied self. in this [soul-centred] approach,
we honour both psyche (your inner life, story, longings, and wounds) and
soma (your body’s wisdom, sensations, patterns, and protective strategies).“
nephesh does not refer to the immortal soul,
but the embodied, life-oriented, breath-taking soul.
נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh) is life, wholeness
(the soul is not seperate, disembodied).
נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh) has many forms and expressions in scripture
ranging from life, person, desire, emotion, will, breath, to death.
נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh) [Hebrew] at it’s core, is about life: “i am alive”
while psychē (ψυχή) [Greek], is about introspection: “who am i?”
beneath the soul-layers
is a desire to go deeper
on my journey of healing.
to go deeper into the uncovering of stories, repressed needs, deep desires,
in order to seek the roots, the hidden network of beliefs, thoughts, memories,
that underpin the structural entity that is me, so i can live embodied and free.
a sister at church asked after my word for this year,
probing deeper after why this word, what does
this word mean for me, on my journey, in my life?
i loved the question. it made me realise, when i
explain this word to others, i speak to how nephesh
is for all of us. and it is. but i didn’t make it clear
why it was a word i needed. what had brought
about the need for soul-care in the first place.
so it told this sister why. why this word,
and specifically, why this word for me.
i spoke of the fragmentation of my self, how
my body and mind have not always been in sync,
how i often speak of my body in third person
(you can find the soma series on my body here).
i told her how last year, it was as though my body
had betrayed me. my mind did not reveal
to me that i was stressed. i had been operating
in a state of fight or flight, sympathetic dominance,
for so long, that i had not known i was walking
on thin ice that was about to break beneath me.
my body said no, and the neurosensitivities were a
wake up call. a reminder to pay attention to
the hyper-stimulation i had become too familiar with.
our cultural conditions are not safe, not to be
treated as familiar, unquestioned patterns in our days.
the neurosensitivities reminded me of the danger
of screens, the horror of shopping centres
(particularly the harsh lights, but also the excessive
noise, colour, maze-like aisles in supermarkets).
i was forced to be de-trained. to step away from
the screens. to remove myself from consumerist
culture and behaviours. i was forced to slow
down, and listen to my body. which for some
reason, had not been in sync with my mind.
my mind was being forced to pay attention to my body.
and this, this is the reason nephesh resonated.
i don’t want to live disembodied, fragmented.
i want to live whole, connected, integrated.
most of all, i want to live in tune with the Spirit,
who dwells in me. i want to take care of this
temple my loving King has chosen to abide in.
i realised: if i can’t even tune into my own
body, how can i expect to tune into God?
if i can’t pay attention to my own body,
how can i be paying attention to God?
my year of stillness, silence, solitude
invited me to slow down and listen.
and this is why the next step on this
humbling journey of healing is to return
to the life, the breath, the being that
God has given me, and to live embodied.
i told the sister from church that i’m not sure if complete
healing will be possible until the new creation, but that
the nephesh soul-centred approach considers
mind, body, heart, soul together in the healing journey.
i told her that historically i have approached healing
in isolation, mind = therapy, body = doctor, but that
there was a disconnect within me last year, and
that this year i want God to heal and align me.
alignment of
mind, body, heart, soul
why?
so i can truly rest in him.
not just mentally, or spiritually, but physically too.
there are techniques, like breath prayers,
that train this alignment, the mind, body, heart, soul,
to receive and breath scripture (inhale, exhale).
this is something i started doing last year
as a form of scripture memorisation,
but also physical training, so that my
body – my flesh, my bones, my breath –
not just my head, my heart, knew the truth
and the promises and the rhythms of grace.
i have Jennifer Tucker’s book Breath as Prayer next to my
bed and open to learn how to nephesh “breathe” scripture.
i need to train my body and mind to
slow down and rest in God together.
i need to train myself to come into
alignment, in my brokenness,
under God’s divine rhythms
for live, grace, and breath.
spiritual training is not for the faint at heart,
it requires discipline and desire to enmesh
in the fabric and fibre of our being,
overriding our flesh and obeying the Spirit.
Joe Rigney in Things of Earth speaks to nephesh training:
“our souls have taste buds, just like our tongues, and
we can train the soul buds by exercising the tongue buds”
what Rigney is saying, is our souls have appetites.
we can listen to our appetites, our desires,
but we must also be disciplined, and train
our appetites and desires to self-control.
for me, nephesh is re-training my discipline
to not just doing, but being.
rhythms of rest also require discipline.
there is much to say on nephesh,
and soul-centred living.
i am not the only one with a curiousity
towards the soul. many before me
have questioned this mystery of being.
as Paul Coelho writes in The Alchemist:
“i wanted to write about my soul.”
as Brené Brown writes in Rising Strong:
“integration is the soul of rising strong. we have to be whole to be wholehearted.
to embrace and love who we are, we have to reclaim and reconnect with the parts
of ourselves we’ve orphaned over the years. we have to call back home all of those
parts of ourselves that we have abandoned. carl Jung called this individuation.
… while revering the mystery of others, our individuation summons each
of us to stand in the presence of our own mystery, and become
more fully responsible for who we are in this journey we call our life.”
i’m excited to embark on a journey of redemption,
stepping into the nephesh life God has given me.
…
to finish, here is an analogy i
was reflecting on while writing:
we are like trees, and the foundation
we stand on is critical, but so too
is the root system we send out
to establish ourselves on that foundation.
i want to be found with a healthy root system.
when Jesus returns, i want to be a tree
that is planted by living water
with roots that thirst only for him,
and survive and thrive only through him.
[tree imagery inspired by scriptural references in
proverbs 11: 28,30, 12:3, jeremiah 17:7-8, psalm 1:3]
this journey of wholeheartedness,
and healing what’s within, requires
a brutal honestly with yourself.
it goes beyond the coping strategies,
the narratives we believe, the wounds
we have received and inflicted.
it goes to the deepest question of
our hearts. and asks us where
we have been hiding. what we
have believed about our lives.
since the fall, we have hidden. not
just from God, but from ourselves.
there is an inherent distrust in self. a
learned behaviour from Eve, who
was not able to trust her judgement,
to discern right, in the face of deception.
we harbour, to this day, the same fear.
that we will fall. that we will fail.
we experience Shame,
and distrust ourselves.
we end up hiding from ourselves, which
in turn, means we unknowingly hide from God.
nephesh is a journey
to redeem and return
the whole being to God.
God breathed, and there was life.
God is nephesh. God created nephesh.
and so this year of nephesh is a year
of allowing His life, His breath, to fill.
it is not about my soul, but His Spirit.
it is not about my heart, but His.
wholeheartedness is not possible
without Him who fills all things
with Himself. He is the only one
who knows this journey of
healing to wholeness.
i fear i may over quote Chuck De Groat because
he is well-acquainted with this journey, and walks
with others on their journey of healing. in this
post, “to the courageous explorer of her soul”
De Groat speaks to this work of healing:
“amidst a world of outrage and indifference,
the healing work more often happens in
quiet places along the margins, where the
traumatised and troubled have always been.
this is the work of healing every weary,
wounded, and divided self so that we,
together, can become ambassadors of shalom,
healing a wounded, weary and divided world.”
you can find my past works:
p.s. if you want to look back on my previous
word or phrase of the year, i did a summary
a few years ago of eight years (2014-2022).
2023 and 2024, for those wondering, was a
year of healing “sozo” and year of abundance.
2025 was my year of stillness (solitude and silence).
2 thoughts on “Embodied Self: Nephesh”