A lot of my readers have urged me to watch the Pixar movie, Soul, and to comment on it as it relates to life in the ether. I have recently watched this wonderful movie and want to point out a few things I think the movie really got right.
Spoilers ahead so if you haven’t seen the movie yet you may want to skip this article, though I recommend highly that you see the movie. It’s awesome.
In the movie, the main character, Joe is a middle school band teacher who has always had aspirations of being a jazz pianist. He finally catches a lucky break and is invited to play the “gig of a lifetime” with a jazz singer who needs a piano player. Before he can make it to the gig, he has an accident and dies.
His soul separates from his body and he is on a conveyer belt to the Great Beyond, but is not content to let his life or his dream go, so he spends the entire movie trying to get back in his body so he can accomplish what he feels is his life purpose.
Along the way he meets a baby soul who has yet to ever incarnate on Earth. This being, who is referred to as 22, because she is apparently the 22nd soul to ever be created, does not want to ever incarnate on Earth because she thinks living is horrible. She gets a taste of what life is like when she accidentally lands in Joe’s body and has to get him from the hospital to his gig in time.
By the end of the movie Joe realizes something extremely important about the purpose of life, and 22 goes on to finally be ready to incarnate.
There are some really key aspects to this movie that bear discussion, and fall into alignment with what I write about in my blog.
What is the purpose of life?
Joe believes the purpose of his life is to be a professional Jazz piano player. It is his dream, his aspiration, and he longs for it every single day. Since he has “settled” for being a band teacher, his life depresses him and he feels like a failure since he cannot achieve his life purpose.
By the end of the movie, however, Joe realizes that the most important thing about life is to enjoy every single moment. It wasn’t the drive to accomplish goals and dreams, though there is nothing wrong with that, but to realize the beauty of incarnation is to enjoy the journey not just the destination.
If you live your life believing you have to accomplish one specific thing and you don’t accomplish it, you run the risk of eroding all the joy of the journey.
Fear of Incarnation
The baby soul, 22, decided she never wanted to incarnate. She thought life was a chore, a bother, nothing good could come from it. She was given many mentors on the other side who were trying to help her see the joyous possibilities of incarnating, but she stubbornly refused to ever incarnate.
The movie accurately conveys that incarnation is a choice, not a requirement. People write to me weekly that they can’t ever imagine wanting to reincarnate as life is so horrible. And the truth is that no one will force you to come back to Earth if you don’t want to.
But it’s also true that souls line up to get to Earth because physicality carries with it the possibility of immense joy. Life will never be perfect, and things won’t always go your way, but if you can savor the moments and find joy in the little things, your journey will be a marvel.
Slipping into a Negative Vibration
There is a place in the movie where souls mope around a barren wasteland, trudging around with no hope, stuck in a low vibration. And there are other souls out there trying to help them out of their funk.
This too happens. Our spirit guides and angelic energies continuously try to help us raise our vibration and find joy and love in life. Even when you feel alone and disconnected from Source, you are not really alone. Learn to see and feel the support coming your way, and try to remember that you are a spiritual being in the playground of physical living. Enjoy the sandbox!
Being in the Zone
There are also scenes in the movie where characters are in the zone, totally connected to Source, their talents, their joys, their muses. In these states people are uplifted, able to accomplish inspired goals.
In life, if you can tap into your remarkability you too will experience the power of being in your zone. Usually your zone-work is also good for others or the planet. So allow yourself to be remarkable, find your strengths, exercise your inspiration and see what happens to the people and the world around you.
Societal Pressure and Judgement
Our main character, Joe, has a mother who appears somewhat critical of his goals and dreams. She does not think he should continue to pursue his dream of being a professional jazz pianist. She wants him to accept the stable, secure path of being a teacher.
Joe doesn’t even want to tell his mother about his opportunity to play with the jazz band because he knows his mother will squash his dreams.
In life we may encounter well-meaning people who try to tell us what we are and are not capable of doing. This can have a serious and significant impact on our trajectory. Do not allow others to tell you how to live your life. You are solely responsible for your life path, for good or ill. If you don’t like where you’re headed, change direction.
I felt the movie did a pretty good job showing what life is like in the ether. We choose to come here, with some pre-set ideas about what we want to experience, but our enjoyment of life is in life’s moments, not the goals and dreams. Those who figure that out as early as possible are blessed indeed.
