The particular life challenges and destined events that are the hallmark of being an old soul...

If you're an old soul you will undoubtedly be giving, caring loving and compassionate - all wonderful attributes that we are taught are the signs of a developed person who cares for others, and the actions that we take that may affect others.

· Giving and caring often putting others first

· Had a difficult romantic life often with much pain and disappointment

· More than likely had a soulmate relationship

· Things just seem to happen to you and around you, often becoming very dramatic through the seemingly extreme reactions of others

· Events repeat themselves

· Have trouble connecting with your family

· Somehow know you're different

· Have some psychic intuition and 'just knowing' things

· Find that you have deeper emotions and passions than most people

· People have extreme reactions to you - some just adore you and some seem to really dislike you yet you behave the same to everyone

· Have an inner creative passion

· Suffer lots of jealousy

· Often perceived wrongly

· Feel your don't have much free will, like your life is being controlled by some outside force

· Often feel 'stuck' like events just keep on happening to you time after time

All of us can relate to some of these characteristics and events at some time in our lives however the 'old souls' amongst us will shout "Yes that's me !"
and immediately understand and relate.

In contrast, we have all met the 'young souls' the ones who profess to be giving and caring and often seem to seek us out, but who never really give, just take, and who then commit the most insensitive and often cruel acts but seem to have no understanding of what they've done or any sign of remorse whatsoever. In fact they can often go to such extremes to get very aggressive when we point out their actions and the effect that they've had on us..

Soul Age

The terms 'old soul' and 'young soul' aren't just descriptions of personality types but do give us a meaningful clue to why we find ourselves in this life cycle…

The journey of the soul through many lives is one of growth and learning from the earliest manifestation of that soul in human form - where it's focused on material things, power, ego and the "now", eventually through to the higher levels of compassion, truth, destiny, caring and fairness in later lives as old souls.

The soul is required to visit human form many times in order to learn these lessons. It is through interaction with others on the three dimensional plane that the soul accrues karma, the results of its actions on others and paying the price of those actions ( first rule of karma "what goes around comes around" - or what I often refer to as the 'karmic boomerang') that develops, hones, and tunes the spirit into the higher levels, eventually becoming attuned to the highest level of as 'old soul' in later lives.

Part of that developing process is to become infinitely more empathic, attuned to the universe and destiny, and for our intuition to develop more towards psychic powers. At this stage we sense that destiny plays a greater part in our lives that we could previously have imagined as we 'peek behind the scenes' of the universal mechanisms through our developing intuition.

This itself is also a challenge as we watch those less enlightened who are still contained in the "I know best" mode, mess up their lives going wandering down the wrong path. Typical of this is the soulmate where we are tasked to watch them wander off knowing somehow that the tests they will face will ultimately bring them back around, older, wiser and more spiritually aware.

It's important to understand that each time our soul revisits the earthly plane, that we play 'catch-up', developing through our earthly actions and learning experiences quickly to regain that level of spiritual awareness we attained when leaving the previous life. In other words, in entering this life we are initially unconscious of the fact that we are required to have a very testing life to 'fast track' us to the spiritual level we are meant to be at in this one.

So the older the soul, the harder and more testing the early events in order to make us reach inside and spiritually open to regain previously achieved levels of spirituality and to further develop..

'Soul age' with Soulmates

I've already mentioned that we have all had to deal with the 'young souls', the ones who seem sent to test us and can often leave us feeling dazed and confused and hurt.

At this point I have to highlight something that's particularly important and relevant to soulmates. Your soulmate is unlikely to be a young soul even though their actions to-date may fit what we've described as a young soul.

We get terribly confused when we sense they are loving and caring and deep and spiritually enlightened yet they frequently behave in the totally opposite way

The important difference between a soulmate and a young soul is that the universe does not connect young souls with old souls in soulmate connections. What your soulmate is most likely going through is the life tests on that "fast track" , i.e learning fast and developing to their real soul age through meeting all the tough tests and making all the mistakes, acting in that earthly controlled, ego based, "I know best" way.

Hence the duality of their existence and the confusion they cause within our lives. What you are sensing is that destiny. It's the butterfly sensing another butterfly but seeing a caterpillar….

This is the main reason soulmates have to part, in order that the less developed one catches up with their earthly experiences in order to fully awaken spiritually and be ready to reconnect with their real soul age from the past life and to reconnect with you to continue the journey at the same spiritual level…

Energy Vampires and Attack

Old souls will also be no strangers to people who try to cling to, or take or attack our energy. Often the more we give to people the more abuse we take. It's an extreme example of the "no good deed goes unpunished" rule.

Energy vampires are those who somehow spiritually sense our power and energy to come into our lives to using us as a crutch, often draining us through their need to explain their problems and us be the solution.

Frequently they will use our caring, giving nature to assist them with their lives, often becoming too close and draining and we don't seem to be able to find a way to tell them that this is something we aren't comfortable with and so we allow it to continue to an abusive level.

Most times the person clinging to us won't be aware of why they are doing this they just sense, feel that we have something they need that causes them to be drawn closer and closer.

This is because their spirit, their energy senses a more powerful energy. It's not on an ego awareness plane, we're not talking 'mind' stuff here we're talking spiritual energy which all of us sense even if we aren't realizing it. It's on the "there's something about him/her" level.

Some will migrate to that energy for healing and comfort, the 'karmic vampire', others will fall for the energy in a romantic way and become instantly attached, with others seeking us out as a focus for blame and negative attention ( karmic dumping ). When confronted with their actions, even in the most caring and compassionate of ways, aggression and blame are often the responses they visit upon us as they lash out...

Jealous bosses or co-workers, unwanted sexual attention, being 'picked out', blamed, the focus of attention when we don't want to be - all of these are classic symptoms.. Yes anyone will experience some of this in their daily lives but what we are talking here is something that happens to the old soul again and again at a frequency and intensity far above anything that can statistically be considered average..

Now you may think the word attack is rather strong and negativity and conflict are a common phenomenon of everyday human interaction, however any old soul will point out the frequency and veracity of their experiences- often amazing others when they hear the stories.

At this point I remember lots of incidents in my own life but the most profound moment was when I was confronted by someone who spat anger and bile at me proclaiming I'd done this and that and the other with dark motives.

The total shock was something I won't forget. Actually I hadn't done any of these things in fact I wasn't even in the country when they happened. However that didn't mean anything to this man - he set himself up as judge, jury and executioner and that utterly stunned me. It was only one of lots of incidences but is typical of an 'attack'.

On an energy level, this guy, to my definite first hand knowledge, cheated on his wife, was unfair in business, had a huge ego and had controlled and manipulated several people to his own ends. Nevertheless I had never taken it as my task to judge any of this, I just treated him like I treated anyone else. That was what caused the utter disbelief the astonishment that his 'reality' was 180 degrees from actual events.

Attacks from young souls who misinterpret our actions based upon their own narrow understandings are commonplace. In the example above, this guy had judged me based not upon his perception of me, my morals and motives - but from his own. He projected people's actions as having the same intent as his own and not realizing what he had done, had given me an insight into his own dark world by the veracity and ferociousness of his attack.

He could not perceive any of my actions as being honest, decent and caring and putting others first because he wasn't capable of acting from that place within himself. In addition, whatever anger, frustration and emotions this caused necessitated him exaggerating these false claims to a level so ludicrous that it lost all connection with reality.

In the end a quick chat with his lawyer resolved the problem because the lawyer simply told me the case was so ludicrous he couldn't take it seriously. However it was still very painful for me and really illustrates that in addition to giving love and light and understanding, we need to be prepared to defend ourselves against attach from a darker or afflicted soul - 'karmic dumping' as I call it.

This again is one of the spiritual karmic tests that every old soul has to face.
I always say that an old soul can walk into a room full of people and without even saying a word, three others will adore them and three hate them instantaneously.

All of the above cannot be avoided and are not as a result of our actions but of who we are on a spiritual level.

The importance of power.

As we grow and learn, parents' teachers, mentors, the media, religious teachings and other influences in our lives all teach us that being giving and kind and caring and turning the other cheek are vital to being a good human being. True of course..

So why do we more caring, more giving, more compassionate old souls often feel walked over by life ??

As in all things there is a duality. Look at nature - there's no cold without hot, no up without down, no dark without light. The yin and the yang, the interplay of opposing forces seeking balance.

Although conventional teaching is to keep pouring love and light and openness and giving into situations there is a point where we become depleted. There is a point where our love and compassion can cause us to give more than is healthy, to accept more than is our lot, and when we run out of cheeks to turn.

Herein lies one of the most important karmic lessons in that, we must seek balance. We must maintain our own personal power and not allow love, compassion and "thinking the best of people" to become voluntary abuse when that person or persons repays us with negativity.

Allowing this to happen encourages lowering self-esteem, feelings of abandonment, and a sense that destiny has left us behind when people are responding to us in a very negative way. For many of us this is a lesson that takes many years to learn.

Most of use will have experienced abuse of our energy in different situations from work, family and relatives, within friendships and especially in personal relationships.

We often give too much because we are giving people, and through that action diminish our personal power. Give love and light YES, pray for people YES, BUT I believe that it is essential for all of us to sometimes have to fight to protect the incredible value of our energy to realize it is a rare thing and to value it even when others don't.

In achieving balance we understand that giving love and light and having compassion and caring and understanding of people, especially those that are afflicted and confused by negativity is essential but is only one half of that balance. Love and light won't get your elephant off the tracks so sometimes we need to use our power in an assertive way.

The old soul experience comes with many such tests. This is not about giving less or giving to receive, it is to balance our giving and loving and caring with a total respect for the gold that is our own energy…In all things balance…

"To thine own self be true", William Shakespeare

Steve Gunn - 6/17/2006
http://stevegunn.net