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Soul-Led
A devotional space for raw reflection, soulful inquiry, and the sacred unfolding of self. Here, we explore the mystery of being human through the lenses of spirituality, intimacy, creativity and the courage to be seen. This podcast is not about having all the answers, it's about honouring the questions, the pauses, the breakthroughs and the becoming.
Expect unscripted conversations, intuitive musing, and transmissions from the heart all grounded in truth, reverence, and the beauty of the present moment.
Come as you are, leave a little more you!
Soul-Led
1. Ego Vs Soul: Breaking Free from Fear and Embracing Your Authentic Self
What happens when we finally stop editing ourselves for the comfort of others? When we release the spiritual perfectionism that labels certain parts of ourselves as "ego" and therefore unworthy? The Soul Led podcast emerges from exactly this question.
Welcome to the raw, unfiltered journey of someone who's spent years fearing she was "too much" - too passionate, too expressive, too sexual, too confident. This debut episode chronicles my personal rebellion against self-imposed limitations and the false dichotomy between what's "soul-led" versus "ego-led." Through candid storytelling, I reveal how this spiritual division actually acts as a cosmic joke keeping us small rather than a path to authenticity.
As I worked through Julia Cameron's transformative book "The Artist's Way," I encountered what Bob Proctor calls the "terror barrier" - that intense wall of fear we hit when approaching meaningful change. My 85-year-old self appeared with a message I desperately needed: "Baby girl, you are here for big things. Stop caring what people think because it's slowing you down from sharing your message." This conversation sparked a four-week commitment to move beyond my limitations, regardless of how messy or unhinged it might appear.
The truth is, everything we love - our favorite songs, art, and stories - comes from a place of genuine human experience, not sanitized perfection. When we withhold our authenticity out of fear, we rob others of the healing our truth might offer them. You are one in 400 billion with a unique frequency that nobody else possesses. What would you create if nothing were "bad" or "good," if you weren't afraid of judgment?
Ready to break through your own terror barrier? Subscribe to Soul Led and join me in embracing the messy, beautiful truth of who we really are.
Thank you for being on this journey with me 🤍
Links!!
Hello and welcome to the Soul Ed podcast with your host, me, emma Jones, and I am so excited to be finally doing my first episode of this podcast. I have been considering doing this for quite some time but I've not quite felt ready and I have come up against so many limiting beliefs that have many limiting beliefs that have slowed me down. But actually I'm grateful in a way because when the name came to me soul led it came to me in meditation and it truly felt right. It felt very open, it felt like a name and a space that could hold all of me and all of the topics and subjects that make me who I am and and and my interests. But as I started to sort of dig into that word like what does soul-led mean, it took me on a journey to understand what ego-led would mean and for a period of time I was thinking that this podcast needed to be holy or very spiritual and very purified and no ego attached, nothing to prove. When, actually, as I've really journaled and gone deep within what it means to be ego-led and what it means to be soul-led, I've come to the realization that actually there isn't a difference between the two and it is a trick of separation, to say that one is more holier or one is better than the other, and so this place is going to be solely for truth, my truth. It is going to be a place for my soul to deliver what it wants to, what it wants to share what wants to, to share what wants to be heard. It might be messy, it might have like a magical in between, but it will be deeply personal and almost for me like a reckoning, very much like a realisation and a rebirth. And if you're someone like me who has ever feared of being too much or found yourself editing your truth for comfort of others, then you are not alone. And this is where this podcast has been birthed from. And so it's not going to be from a place of spiritual ego or performance, but from a deep, moment to moment, honest place and just understanding that nothing is bad. You know, nothing is bad and nothing is good. It just is.
Speaker 1:I used to think that anything that felt like it was from the ego, that it felt like it was coming from like an angry place or it was coming from a place of proving, was bad. You know, and it's in every moment I'm realizing that actually it's just the truth. That's where authenticity comes. That's what I'm looking for. This is what I want to share no fear of getting it wrong. There is no right or wrong. There just is.
Speaker 1:And true art and true self-expression is not born from perfection. It's not born from creating something and then changing a certain word so many times that the sentence now no longer makes sense, or drawing a portrait and then like rubbing out the chin 16,000 times that you then tear a hole in the page. It's more from presence, from what wants to come through, and like trusting what wants to come through, trusting yourself, like what wants to be birthed through me, and that is what this podcast really is going to be. It's going to be a level of trust and having spent my life like so much of my life actually worrying that I'm too much or too expressive or too passionate or too sexual or too full of myself, or if I do that, I'll be too much full of the ego, or god forbid. I show up and like myself, or show up that I have self-love, or show up that you know with confidence, like god forbid, because I need to shrink myself. I need to make myself a little bit smaller so I'm a bit more palatable and I won't make other women feel insecure or I won't be seen as not over my old relationship if I'm like displaying my new relationship.
Speaker 1:There's so many fears that come under the bracket of being too much and what the ego, I think, tries to trap us in is I wrote this actually the other day to trap us in? Is I wrote this actually the other day is the ego is scared to be seen with an ego. Can we just see what a cosmic, huge, bloody, cosmic joke that is? You know the ego tricks us into thinking, especially when you go down the spiritual route. I think it's seen as bad, you know it's seen as something that we should purify and get rid of.
Speaker 1:And the thing that I've learned is no, no, no, we just need to integrate it and say come on, hop in the car, get in. You may not have full reign of the driver's seat. You might sometimes, because, let me tell you, sometimes the ego has something it needs to say. Sometimes that fire comes through, especially for women. Sometimes you want to be fucking heard. You know, sometimes we need to get it out and speak our authentic truth without fearing that we're going to upset someone or we're going to disturb the peace, or there's going to be a backlash and we're not a good girl and it's like sometimes we just want to rage and punch something you know, but we're so scared to be seen as too much or too in the ego or too something.
Speaker 1:There's always this narrative and I used to think like what would happen or I I'd be more thinking about it recently, actually, as I've journaled, as I've got closer to recording this first episode is what would happen if I was unapologetically me, if I showed up on this podcast, how wanted to saying exactly what I want to, sharing the wisdom I have, or even coming on to have a rant, if I did that unapologetically, without editing, without shrinking, without fearing that there's going to be a backlash, what would happen? And really and truly, when I write it down and I journal about it, not a lot, in all honesty, the things that it fears are certain people won't like me or I. I'm actually not prepared to minimize myself, to be likable to those people that are clearly not in alignment with who I am and who I'm becoming. So it's losing its grip almost on me in some ways, and it's been a really interesting process getting to this place and I had a conversation with my 85 year old self the other day. It was part of.
Speaker 1:I'm reading the Artist's Way at the moment and I'm on week eight and let me tell you that book is like a spell book. It is like the Luigi board. I shit you not. I was warned when I started this book, like don't touch this book if you're not prepared for your life to just do a fucking 180. And I, you know, when someone says don't, clearly you know I'm a Sagittarius, I do. So. I started the book and I did feel really cool to do it, but my god, it's been the wildest journey emotionally for me and it is truly being deep as hell. It is dug up the depths of the tarry, icky self-loathing and self-hatred that's just lingered underneath for so many years and that has come with doubt and all of the limitations that I consistently put on myself and in the book.
Speaker 1:On one of the journal prompts it gives you at the end of every chapter. Each chapter is a week, so it's a 12-week process. So I'm on week eight and it said to send a letter from your 85 year old self and I could not believe how sassy that woman was she the messages she was giving me? She said baby girl, you are here for big things. You are here to have an impact in women's lives especially. You need to stop caring about what people think because it's slowing you down from sharing your message. It is holding you back. You will get to my age and know that nothing ever mattered, nothing does matter, nothing even exists, nothing is even real other than your beliefs that are creating the projection into your reality anyway. So the quicker you can get beyond this, the quicker that people can benefit from the message that you're here to share through the experiences that you are having and have had and have healed from.
Speaker 1:So the ego often will try and protect us, like it will always do the job of keeping us safe and keeping us in the familiar, because it knows things that way, it has order that way. You know and we're very much accepted and things make sense in that way. But the limitations you know. When they come they feel so real, right. When they come they're almost like whispers. I notice that they're so, so subtle a lot of the time that they're quite consistent like noise in the background. I like to call them sometimes my shitty committee, because it just helps me detach from them and know that they're not me, that they are the shitty committee, and they do get loud sometimes, especially when I'm moving in the direction of something new.
Speaker 1:But ultimately it's just a trick, it's just a ploy to keep you safe and keep you in your familiar Little does it know, like my 85 year old self, that actually the life that I'm here for, like the life that I want, the, the thing that will light me up and fill me up the most, is beyond their chitter, chatter, it's beyond their reasonings for staying private or keeping all of this wisdom locked in. So but it's quite. It's quite an interesting. It's quite an interesting journey to go through this spiritual awakening and starting to realise all of the layers of illusions that we live in, that we've created ourself, through either conditionings or environments that we're in, or school teachers or parents, like everything has formed what we believe that we can do. So I would say like, for me, this podcast is really an unmasking. You know, starting this podcast has truly cracked something open within me and I've been watching myself judge, as I said, like anything that doesn't feel soul-led, and I think that is wrong.
Speaker 1:At the time when I first came up with the, the name of this podcast, I thought that maybe I had to do like a ritual before every single episode and I had to light a joss stick and sage my house and sage myself and make sure that I don't say anything that's gonna be controversial or cause damage in some way. You know the ego truly feels like by me stepping out and going to be bad or cause damage in some way. You know the ego truly feels like by me stepping out and going to be bad, I'm a bad person. It really has this like narrative of me, rather than thinking that actually what I'm sharing could really inspire someone else to move beyond what they're feeling. Maybe someone else listening to this right now is feeling the exact same things, and by me actually being honest and vulnerable and sharing, they're like fuck, you know, if Emma can do it, if Emma can just do a podcast, I'm sat here now in my kitchen on my dining table.
Speaker 1:I don't have, you know, a podcast room or an office or a studio. I'm here, you know, because the words and what wants to come through is more important than having, like, the perfect setup. So, yeah, this is really for me an unmasking and something is being birthed and I just need to let go of the fear of being punished, the fear of being judged, because the people that judge that's just their projections from their limitations and their fears anyway, the people that, for something, when you start making decisions and you and you really honor them and you stand fucking firm with that stake in the ground, you are going to repel people. People are going to find you really irritating. People are going to think that you're full of yourself or you're too much, or you're too this or too that, because you're actually changing and they can't make sense of you or put you back in the box you used to be in. It's not any mistake of theirs, it's just as humans.
Speaker 1:We like to understand things. We truly like to understand so that we feel safe. And when we start to see someone morphing and changing and we can't quite predict their next move, we don't like it. We don't like it because it feels unstable and it feels unsteady. So I am ready to move beyond this fear block, which is why I'm on episode one and I'm sharing it with everybody and anybody that wants to listen to this, which feels very vulnerable in the sense, because, with the book club that I run. It's private, it's on the patreon, so I know what members join and I can see them clearly and it feels very private. But actually it's been a perfect training ground. We've done 106 episodes on the book club now and it's been a perfect ground for me to feel safe enough.
Speaker 1:My nervous system has caught on to enough of the belief that we can speak on a microphone for however long, and what we do say resonates back to us, so surely it will resonate with somebody else. And so this push and pull energy that I've been experiencing over the last, say like 8 to 12 weeks, of kind of want to do it and then I'm terrified to do it and I kind of want to do it and I get a little bit of confidence and then I step back, I'm ready to let that go, because something bigger than me wants to come out and something wants to be shared. Whether that means that you know if you're experiencing the same, you're misunderstood or you lose people, that's a part of the shedding, that's a part of the process. So we're done with playing this loop and we are going to move differently. And it's a good time if there are people in your reality, in your world at the moment that you do feel like you can share this with, that would support. You don't expect everybody to because, again, like I said, people might not understand so grateful at the moment to have the most incredible relationship, my partner.
Speaker 1:Just our communication is one of my favorite things of our relationship. He is just such a wonderful human being and we are reaching levels of vulnerability within that relationship that I have never experienced ever. I've never felt so safe to be able to really truly share the truth consistently. I'm quite an open person anyway, and communication is huge for me. I love deep convos. I'm a projector, so I have to have depth in my conversations, otherwise it feels very surface and I switch off quite quickly. But it can be challenging when you're in relationships because you some, you know, you, you have a version of the truth and you speak it.
Speaker 1:But when it comes to things like the inner workings of your psyche and truly what you're terrified of, oh, that's another level of awkwardness and uncomfortability that I've been moving through, and so for the first time, I decided to share with my partner and was like look, this book is bringing up something within me. There is a fire, there is a huge fire, but I'm fearing that I'm going to get out of control, my ego is going to be out of control and it's not holy and it's not soul-led. And there's like this Kali goddess that wants to just rage and burn the fucking house to the ground. And I've been here many times before. I've recognized this as a pattern. I understand this as a feeling, but normally I don't go beyond the barrier because I'm scared of my power, I'm scared of what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1:And so I said to him I think that I want to give this on the last four weeks of this book. I'm on the edge of something and I've not moved beyond this edge before. Because I'm scared. I want to give the four weeks and see what happens, give myself free reign, do whatever I want to do, say whatever I need to say and just trust myself, finally, that I won't get out of control this, this, just naturally. The pipe needs clearing and that I won't fall and I won't fail and something won't go out of control. This, this, just naturally. The pipe needs clearing and that I won't fall and I won't fail and something won't go horribly wrong, but that I, I have to do it to prove those things to myself. You know, I have to give it the opportunity to to rage, to scream to, to process, to express, to get out it. It feels like it just wants to get out and I'm so grateful because his response was just so supportive and he said do it.
Speaker 1:You know I'm here for you and I said it might be messy, it might not make sense, it might look unhinged as fuck, it might be that I just go off the wall and off the rails for a while. I don't know, like I truly don't know. But you know I'm scared and I need to share this with you. He was just amazing he. I felt scared, yes, I felt fear, but I felt so held by him and he isn't trying to fix me. He's just listening, he's just hearing me out and he's like I'm right behind you. I'm right behind you every step of the way. He's like I am here for the ride and I'm like, oh, this man is just divine. He, he truly is divine. And every time we have a deeper conversation, every time I share my truth and the ego's like I wouldn't share that if I were you, because it doesn't seem like you're put together and I go and share it. It brings us closer every single time and I'm always met with such support from him.
Speaker 1:So I've made a true promise to myself that this podcast I will lead with truth, I will lead from authenticity. I will be brave enough to feel all of this ickiness and hear all of the limitations and still move forward towards freedom. So if you are listening and there is inside of you you've got a good girl that is desperate to be loved and liked still, or there's a part of you that just wants to rebel but also doesn't you know it's, it wants to, but it's scared and you need to choose. You have to choose because it will always be your ceiling and it has been for me. It has been like I feel like I need to break and punch through the ceiling and actually see what the hell is beyond this tremendous fear that I'm just going to be burned at the fucking stake if I show up in my fullness.
Speaker 1:So give yourself the container. You know I've obviously given myself the next four weeks because I'm with the book and if you want to join the book club, it's the inner journey to becoming wealthy and I'm going to show up and say what I want to say and I'd like to invite you to do the same. If you're listening, do what you actually want to do. You know, and it even goes down to like stop saying yes when your body actually screams no. Stop doing those things that you don't really want to do. Carve back some of your own time again. Bring your energy back into you. Care less about what they say. You know who I mean. Like there's always for me, there's always like four to like eight people in my mind that pop up when I think about doing something new. I always scan them certain people for threats. I don't know why, because none of them are doing anything similar to what I want to do, and it always includes your ex. Why is that? Why do we give a fuck? Because I I don't, but I truly do. Um, it makes no sense, because the ex is the extra reason.
Speaker 1:You know, the universe is very, very clever. It's very smart. It will. It will break you, apart from things that are truly not aligned with where you're at. But still, you know he'll pop up and I'll think. You know, I wonder what he'll think about this. It's just wasted energy. It's just wasted energy. It is just wasted energy. So be you. There is no other person on this planet like you, other than you, that can do what you can do or share it the way you can share it. You are one in 400 billion chance of being alive. You have your unique frequency. You have that's tuned into the universe. That gets its own ideas, its own thoughts, like nobody else has your frequency, and that was one thing.
Speaker 1:When I shared originally my book club which was about a year ago now, and I first wanted to start my book club and I shared it with two of my really close friends and their response was not what I expected. It was actually quite a shock and sent me into a bit of a negative spiral for a couple of days because it was quite disempowering and not really what I was expecting. And then, luckily, I had a change in perspective and I thought to myself Emma, how can you possibly expect anybody to truly understand what it is you're here to do or why you want to do something, when it isn't their dharma, it isn't their purposeharma, it isn't their purpose? Yes, okay, certain people around you who may be on a similar frequency can see what you're doing and why you might be doing it, but the ones that don't understand, don't understand because it's not a part of their reality. They're not supposed to get it right.
Speaker 1:So stop shrinking out of fear, stop doing that, stop thinking you're going to be too unhinged or too much. You have to go beyond it, like your limitations, know exactly how to win. They know how to, like, pinpoint the little fear inside you. And then, if you move beyond that fear, they're like wait a minute, you know we need to throw it all out there. And that's how I feel at the moment. I truly feel like I'm reaching my terror barrier.
Speaker 1:My paradigm is changing and if anyone's ever followed Bob Proctor's work, he is amazing. He's sadly amazing. He's, he's sadly he's passed away now, but he spoke about the terror barrier and what it is is that, you know, we can have an idea, we can think, oh, I'm going to create a podcast, cute, and then it's fine, nothing changes in your body, nothing changes in your mind or in your reality. You feel totally fine, your nervous system is totally at rest until you decide to actually act upon that shit. When you try and do that, let me tell you now everything, all of your limitations and all your conditionings the closer you get to actually getting to do the thing will get louder and louder, and louder and louder.
Speaker 1:But all that means it doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong. It just means that you're moving into something new and it's throwing out all its bells and whistles and it's screaming at you like danger, danger, when we know now our survival systems, our primitive part of our brains, are still quite outdated. There is no tiger, there is no shark. It's just the fear of judgment, it's just the fear of what people would think and if we fail, not an actual, direct threat, but still. It's still there and it's still a process that you will always go through. No matter what you do in life, there will always be this new level, new devil. You will always reach your limitations and if you decide not to go beyond, you will always be blocked by that limitation.
Speaker 1:So you need to decide for yourself. Are you happy to be here? Are you happy to be kept within your limitations, or do you want more for yourself? Do you want to be beyond? Like, where do you see yourself beyond these limitations? If nothing were bad, nothing were good, nothing was seen as ego, nothing was seen as soul. It was just truly truthful in the moment of what wants to come up. What do you think you'd be doing and sharing and saying and and and videoing and capturing if you weren't scared of what people think? So? So it isn't about controlling, you know. It isn't about like kind of contorting and controlling and holding back.
Speaker 1:I've done that for so long where I've tried to like drip feed this part of me that wants to come out instead of allow the floodgates to open. But for the next four weeks the floodgates are open, baby, because I want to know. I want to know what's beyond there. I am here, I'm going to share everything and all of it, including the messy middle, because that is truth and that is realness. And really, does this world need more perfectionism and more things to look perfect and neat and tidy and filtered, or does it need more people that are present in the moment and bring forth that truth that then someone else hears or sees?
Speaker 1:If it weren't for the truth, if it weren't for the ego, if it weren't for grief and love, we would not be listening to our favorite songs or witnessing our favorite art or seeing our favorite photography. Everything we love, all of the songs that I listen to normally, have been truly created from a place of grief or from a place of love or from truth. You know, in that moment and beyonce, for example, had she not done the lemonade album, it wouldn't have resonated with like the hundreds, millions of people that all go through the same experiences, but a lot of the time we're too fearful to share them out of fear of looking a type of way or looking unhealed, or looking like we're trying to prove something or looking like we're trying to like full of ourselves but we're robbing others of their healing through our authenticity. So I hope that this resonates with you if you've landed. If it doesn't, that's also okay.
Speaker 1:But I am very excited to start this journey and this is episode one of the Soul Ed podcast and from now on we are gonna be showing up in the moment. All of you is welcome and this is a Soul Ed podcast for all of us. Thank you for listening and I hope you have the most incredible day. I am so filled now with energy. I feel very pumped up because it is my truth and that is what it will do to you when you let yourself be free, you let yourself be seen. It's not always going to feel easy, but it will feel freeing and refreshing to your soul.