Maybe you don’t take it with you—the verdict isn’t in yet for me– but you’ve got soul. Keeping it central to daily life can be a path to a sense of wellness. Soul is a state of feeling whole, alive, and in the here and now. It’s those moments of soul that help you feel well in this often-unhealthy world.
When I was a young child, I learned via Catholicism that my soul was as important as my mind and body. I would look in my bedroom mirror, narrow my eyes, and imagine the aura I saw around my body was my soul leaking out around the edges. I actually did not know any other definitions of soul until I was a teenager. One of my friends would do a fabulous impression of Soul Brother Number One, James Brown. I had never heard soul music before, but I knew immediately that it made me feel alive and free. After that, I knew that soul was something more than I was told—it was something that brought joy, authenticity, and creativity.
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Like soul, the healing arts are not a hard science. They may never be and the mystery of why we humans continue to make art, sing, dance, act, and play may never be fully understood. I can’t tell you that making a painting, dancing your heart out, or writing 
a poem will cure your life or what ails you. But I can say they might make you feel a little better, given that wellness is not disease- or disability-dependent. Feeling well is a state of being whole, engaged, and present, no matter what cards we are dealt. Its about “having soul.” And when we have a lot of soul, we have a zest for life, palpable energy, and a deep sense of well-being.
James Hillman equates soul with imagination, your potential to dream and create. It’s self-medicine that helps you to find new ways of seeing and being in the world. If you take the time to engage in the arts, you might just escape the 
soulless techno-trance of your PDA, laptop, or large screen LCD TV for a few moments. Making that third phone call in the organic food market, elevating email to the centerpiece of daily life, and pushing those Blackberry keys like a lab rat hoping for a food pellet all steal the human experience of soul as surely as any hungry ghost in the bardo.
Don’t fret about whether or not you have a soul. Lighten up, for heaven’s sake– make a drawing on that Post-It note, let James Brown thunder from your stereo, and dance as you like and die happy. The good news is this: We’ve all got soul.
Originally published April 7, 2008
© 2008 Cathy Malchiodi
