Every now and then, a word comes along that doesn’t quite exist yet, but should.

Here’s one I’ve been obsessing about:

Soulifying.

It is a combination of Soul + Satisfying, and it describes those rare experiences that do more than entertain us, please us, or make us happy for a moment. A soulifying experience reaches deeper. It nourishes something inside us. It reminds us who we are, what matters, and why life, even with all its complications, can still feel beautiful, meaningful, and worth savoring.

A soulifying moment may be quiet or dramatic. It may happen in a house of worship, a concert hall, a kitchen, a hospital room, a hiking trail, a bookstore, or a backyard at sunset. It may come from love, art, nature, memory, forgiveness, laughter, or the simple awareness that we are alive and connected to something larger than ourselves.

So here is my working definition:

Soulifying: An experience, person, place, memory, or act that deeply satisfies the soul by creating a sense of meaning, connection, gratitude, beauty, peace, or emotional truth.

We all know the feeling when it happens. The world slows down. The noise fades. Something inside us says: Yes. This matters.

With that in mind, here are five of the most soulifying experiences in life.

1. Loving and Being Loved

There may be nothing more soulifying than the experience of genuine love…not just romantic love, but the full range of human love: the love of a spouse, a child, a parent, a friend, a sibling, a grandparent, or even a beloved pet.

Love satisfies the soul because it tells us we are not alone. It gives our lives shape and purpose. It allows us to be seen, known, forgiven, and accepted.

Sometimes love is grand and obvious: a wedding, the birth of a child, a reunion after years apart. But often the most soulifying forms of love are small: someone remembering how you take your coffee, a hand held during bad news, a familiar voice on the phone, a look across a crowded room that says, I’m with you.

Love is soulifying because it is the deepest evidence we have that our lives touch other lives.

2. Creating Something That Did Not Exist Before

There is something profoundly soulifying about creating.

It might be a book (of course!), a painting, a song, a garden, a meal, a business, a letter, a poem, a photograph, a home, or even a simple sentence that captures exactly what we meant to say.

Creation allows us to take something invisible, like an idea, feeling, memory, dream, or insight, and bring it into the world. It is one of the ways human beings push back against time. We leave traces. We make meaning. We say, in effect, I was here, and this is what I saw, felt, imagined, or believed.

Not everything we create has to be great art. It simply has to be honest and authentic. A handwritten note to someone we love can be as soulifying as a novel. A tomato plant in the backyard can be as soulifying as a sculpture. A story told around the dinner table can live in memory for generations.

To create is to participate in the ongoing act of making the world more personal, more expressive, and more alive.

3. Experiencing Nature with Full Attention

Nature has a way of soulifying us without asking anything in return.

A sunrise. The ocean. A mountain trail. The smell of rain. A field in late afternoon light. Birds flitting across the sky. The complete silence after a snowfall. The rustling sound and the color of autumn leaves in the fall. The feel of beach sand and saltwater between your toes.

These experiences are soulifying because they pull us out of our own mental chatter and place us back into the larger world. Nature reminds us that life is both fragile and immense. It gives us perspective without lecturing us. It restores something we did not always realize was depleted.

Sometimes the soulifying power of nature comes from beauty. Sometimes it comes from scale. The ocean and the night sky can make our worries feel smaller. They do this not by making worries disappear, but by holding them within something vast.

Nature does not solve everything. But it often helps us remember how to breathe.

4. Sharing a Meal, a Story, or a Moment of True Connection

Some of the most soulifying moments in life happen around a table.

A family dinner. A long lunch with an old friend. A holiday meal. Coffee with someone who really listens. A conversation that starts casually and suddenly becomes honest.

Food is part of it (the smell of garlic and onions cooking is pretty soulifying), but not all of it. What makes these moments soulifying is the sense of connection. We are gathered. We are present. We are telling stories. We are laughing, remembering, teasing, confessing, mourning, celebrating, or simply being together.

A soulifying conversation does not have to be profound from the start. Sometimes it becomes profound because someone finally says the thing that needed to be said. Sometimes it happens because no one is rushing. Sometimes it happens because, for a little while, people put away their distractions and give each other the gift of time and attention.

To be truly heard is soulifying. To truly listen can be even more soulifying.

5. Helping Someone in a Way That Matters

Few things satisfy the soul more deeply than being useful to another human being.

Not performatively useful. Not transactionally useful. But genuinely helpful.

It may be caring for someone who is ill, mentoring a young person, comforting a grieving friend, donating time, teaching a skill, offering encouragement, giving money quietly, showing up when it is inconvenient, or doing the right thing when no one is watching.

Helping is soulifying because it moves us beyond the boundaries of the self. It reminds us that our lives are measured less by what we accumulate, achieve, or consume, but by what we give.

Sometimes the person we help never fully knows what it cost us. Sometimes they never thank us. Sometimes we may not even see the results. But the soul knows. And that may be enough.

There is a particular kind of peace that comes from knowing we made someone’s burden a little lighter.

What Is Soulifying for You?

The beautiful thing about the word soulifying is that everyone will define it a little differently.

For one person, it may be listening to music that brings back a whole season of life. For another, it may be holding a newborn grandchild. For someone else, it may be finishing a marathon, forgiving an old wound, walking through a museum, praying, dancing, reading a great book, visiting a childhood place, or sitting quietly with someone they love.

A soulifying experience does not have to be rare, expensive, dramatic, or impressive. In fact, many of the most soulifying things in life are simple. They are the moments we almost miss if we are moving too fast.

So I will leave you with this question:

What are the most soulifying experiences in your life?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please post a comment and share one thing, one moment, one place, one person, or one experience that has been truly soulifying for you.

Lastly, if you want to do something soulifying right now, please share this post and spread the word.

~END~

This is the first in a series of reflections on soulifying experiences. More to come at Soulifying.com

Catch up on my original fast-paced thriller NOT SO DEAD and the Sam Sunborn Series
They are available on Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com
Or my children’s adventure book: Nougo and His Basketball.

And read for FREE some of Charles Levin’s short stories:

The First Appointment
The Last Candy Store in East Apple
I’m Processing
Books Unread
Nora Delivers the Package
The Permission Slip
10 Life Lessons I Learned from Playing Poker
Missing the Ghost in the Palace Theater
Moon Landing Memories
Word Drunk

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