You live in a physical body, and that is a fact. People will see you in a particular way, based on your gender, race, height and weight, age, and many other aspects that seem to describe your physical self. It’s easy enough to make proclamations about how people should respect each other, and how they should seek to understand each other. Yet, people often seem to see each other according to stereotypes.

Could there be a way to shift this perceptual process? If there were, you would have to explore the question of what is really happening when people perceive you. And that brings you to an exploration of energy…

What about your aura? It has a broader spectrum of energy than the body, and it radiates thoughts and feelings. So there must be something in your aura that would affect how people perceive you. What if your aura presence was another way to describe your soul radiance?

Your soul has existed for an eternity, and your soul radiates your divine, cosmic essence. These soul energies have a much broader frequency range than your body and personality. Consider your soul presence as an important aspect of how you are perceived. Realize that the vibrations people experience when they are in your presence are a reflection of how your body and soul are interacting together.

Are you ready to access your soul resonance? What would happen if you did? Is it possible that this might affect how people perceive you?

Practice: Feeling Your Soul Presence

Let’s pause here and experience what we’re discussing. Try this simple exercise right now:

1. Close your eyes and take three slow, deep breaths.
2. Place your attention in the center of your chest, as if you’re looking inward from that place.
3. Ask yourself silently: “What does my soul feel like right now?” Don’t think about the answer—just notice any sensation, warmth, spaciousness, or quality of energy.
4. You might sense something subtle—a gentle expansion, a quiet presence, or perhaps a quality of peaceful awareness. This is your soul saying hello.

Whatever you experienced—whether dramatic or barely noticeable—is perfect. You’ve just made conscious contact with your soul essence. This simple practice can be done anytime, anywhere, helping you strengthen your soul identification.

Suppose that you chose to identify more deeply with your soul essence energy? What would happen to your identity as the physical earthly self that you have cultivated for so many years? And how might your becoming soul-identified affect your identity as a tribal member, so to speak, of a family, a group, a race, a religion, a nationality, or a believer of this or that doctrine?

When you discover that you have a deeper soul identity than what you seem to be on the physical plane, you might be inclined to wonder whether you are, in fact, the strictly physical identity that you are familiar with — or whether you are something else entirely. To set your mind at ease, know that there are no contradictions here. You are, indeed, the being that you have known throughout your life.

However, your physical self, with its particular traits, is only a small aspect of the broader spectrum of self that you truly are.

Some people, upon studying about their soul, seek to express idealized lofty beliefs about what spirituality is supposed to be. Sometimes this expresses itself in interesting behavior shifts, such as feeling that it is necessary to change one’s name to something expressing a distinctly spiritual quality. Though there is nothing wrong with changing your name, your given name is perfectly suitable for you as you evolve, and your given body is a perfectly suitable vehicle for you in this lifetime, as well.

So here you are, in the earthly body you have been given, and you are exploring higher consciousness. And as you explore, you are discovering, through your deeper perception, that everything is basically energy. You are accessing your inner levels of self, and communicating with the energies there. You notice that some of these inner energies, as you delve deeper within yourself, seem to be different in many ways from your outer familiar identity.

Your task, as you evolve spiritually, is to integrate your physical earthly self with your infinite soul self. One is not superior to the other, for both express the multifaceted aspects of the true you.

Practice: The Integration Breath

Here’s a technique to help you experience the integration of your physical and soul selves:

1. Sit comfortably and feel the weight of your body in the chair—notice your feet on the floor, your back against the seat. This is your physical, earthly presence.
2. As you breathe in, imagine you’re drawing breath not just into your lungs, but into your entire body—filling it with light and awareness.
3. As you breathe out, sense that you’re expanding beyond your physical boundaries—your awareness reaching out like ripples on a pond. This is your soul essence.
4. Continue breathing this way: breathing in brings soul awareness into your body; breathing out extends your physical presence into soul space.
5. After several breaths, notice that you’re not choosing between body or soul—you’re experiencing both simultaneously as one integrated spectrum of you.

Practice this for just 2-3 minutes. You’re teaching your body and soul to recognize each other as partners, not as separate entities.

What happens, though, when people perceive you? Why is it that some people seem to be continually perceived in stereotypical ways, and other people are recognized more readily as the individuals that they are?

It seems that some people, within any given group, have learned, or have the skill naturally, to identify with their own soul.

By contrast, there are other people in that same group who do not define themselves by their soul. This means that their self-definition comes from their body, their genetics, and their community group mind. What effect does this have?

It creates a feedback loop between these limiting self perceptions, and the beliefs that the world has about their group. Those people who are not yet ready, or able to become soul-identified, will always find themselves stuck in these feedback loops, where the unconscious patterns of their group, and the unconscious patterns of other people, circulate like a merry-go-round of unconscious patterns and perceptions.

Of course, people are not generally aware of your soul. Why is it, then, that your being aware of your own soul affects their perception of you?

It must be that people are sensing your fuller spectrum of self, whether they are conscious of it or not. You can assume that people are not generally scanning you at the soul level, at least with their conscious mind. This means that they are sensing you as both a physical being and as a soul, but they are only conscious of their perceptions of your physical self.

But, and this explains a lot, though they are not conscious of seeing your soul and your aura, they are affected by their perceptions of these subtle realms. Though they haven’t generally developed the language to explain it, they are putting their perceptions of your soul into the words and concepts that they know — they describe you as the earthly being that they see you as, with their physical eyes. But that doesn’t yet explain why some people are perceived as unique individuals more than other people are.

The difference is this… It is a matter of the degree to which you have learned to identify with your deeper soul energy, and merge your body energy with it. But why would your merging your physical body with your soul affect how people see you? Remember that people are seeing your soul, but they lack the conceptual means to understand what they are sensing.

When you merge your identity with your soul, and do so consciously and as a regular practice, it becomes harder for people to see you as merely a member of a particular earthly description — such as only seeing you as a particular age, race, religion, or other distinction. But does this mean that people would not see those distinctions at all?

Actually, there will always be a recognition that you are a particular member of this or that group. But, the perception will become less highlighted as they perceive you. It is as if your soul identity becomes stronger in their awareness, and so there is less of your spectrum filled with the old identities of race, religion, nationality, and so on. So it is a matter of proportion — instead of seeing you as 100 percent “this race,” or “this nationality,” they see you as, for example, “50 percent this race, and 50 percent cosmic soul.”

And what is the good of that? Well, it’s rather significant if you shift the proportions, even a bit, so that people perceive you more fully as a soul. To the extent that they do so, they are actually engaging more fully with the essential you. And, they are less likely to place you in the category of whatever stereotype they would otherwise be inclined to place you in.

Practice: Shifting Your Energy Proportion

This exercise helps you consciously shift the proportion of soul energy you’re radiating:

1. Before entering a situation where you might be stereotyped (a meeting, social gathering, or public space), take a moment to center yourself.
2. Place your hand on your heart and silently acknowledge: “I am more than my physical appearance. I am a soul having a physical experience.”
3. Imagine turning up a dimmer switch on your soul light—visualize your inner radiance becoming brighter, filling your chest, then your whole body, then extending a few inches beyond your skin.
4. As you enter the situation, maintain this awareness of your soul presence. You’re not hiding your physical self—you’re simply adding the fuller spectrum of who you are.

Notice over time how people respond to you differently when you enter interactions with this expanded awareness. You haven’t changed what you look like, but you’ve changed what you’re radiating.

This opens up the possibility that you can be perceived as the uniquely created being that you actually are. And most wonderfully, it allows you to perceive yourself more accurately, as well. That is, when you, yourself, are able to increase the percentage of your soul identity, you become relatively free of the stereotypes that you may have been influenced by.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean that you would no longer have any racial, national, or religious identities of any kind. However, you would be more free to consciously choose the traits of those groups that you choose to identify with. And that freedom means that you are less under the control of the group mind.

Understanding the Group Mind

The group mind, at the most general level, is the combined identity of everyone on the planet. Their collective consciousness, for better or worse, is the group mind. Though the highest levels of the planetary group mind reflect love and light, there are many levels that express limitation, fear, and narrow understandings of practically everything.

Every group on the planet, whether of a family, a city, a nation, a race, a religion, a business, or any particular group of any kind, has its own group mind. And like the planetary group mind, there is a range of energies that these group minds express. It is your goal, as an evolving soul, to resonate with the energies that you choose to resonate with. And it is your right, as a conscious being, to disentangle your energies from those vibrations, associated with any group, that are not equal to the vibrations of your divine soul.

Remember that there is a range of energies within all groups. So it is not a matter of becoming entirely dissociated from a group of people. However, if you have perceived any group in a stereotypical way, you might suppose that it is an all or nothing situation — actually, it is a matter of degrees of resonance. When you see everything as a spectrum of vibrations, from which you can choose what you shall resonate with, you can perceive people and groups in a more empowered way.

Practice: Choosing Your Resonance

This practice helps you discern which group energies align with your soul and which don’t:

1. Think of a group you’re part of (family, religion, workplace, social circle, ethnic community).
2. Place your hand on your heart and think of one specific belief or practice from that group. Notice how your body feels—does your chest expand or contract? Do you feel lighter or heavier?
3. If you feel expansion, warmth, or a sense of “yes” in your heart, this aspect resonates with your soul. If you feel contraction, heaviness, or a subtle “no,” this aspect doesn’t match your soul frequency.
4. Mentally sort the group’s qualities: “These resonate with my soul” and “These don’t resonate, but that’s okay—I can honor the group without adopting everything.”
5. Practice this with different groups you’re connected to. You’re training yourself to be selective rather than wholesale in your group identifications.

This exercise removes the all-or-nothing pressure. You can appreciate your family, culture, or community while recognizing that you don’t resonate with every aspect—and that’s perfectly healthy for an evolving soul.

As you resonate ever more with your soul, you will be perceived less as a stereotype, and more as the unique being that you are. And you will begin to see, more clearly, how those people who seem locked into stereotypes that define their reality are under a spell, so to speak, from the group mind of those groups with which they are associated.

It is not your job to free people from this spell, at least until they are ready to consider the possibility. In fact, many people are at a stage in their soul development where they get much value from fully identifying with the groups that they are associated with. It is not until they become older souls that they yearn to free themselves from these narrow boundaries. So the boundaries have their purpose, for a time in your soul development, and the boundaries become hindrances as you evolve.

A Real-Life Example

Imagine you’re at a family gathering. Your relatives expect you to agree with their political views because “that’s what our family believes.” The younger soul simply goes along to avoid conflict. The rebellious soul argues loudly, creating polarization. But the soul-identified person might say, “I appreciate our family connection, and I see this issue differently” — honoring both their authentic truth and their family bond without creating opposition.

This example shows how soul alignment isn’t about rebellion or conformity — it’s about finding your own truth while maintaining compassionate connection.

The Journey of Soul Evolution

The decision to become more identified as the unique soul that you are is not lightly made, and you have been moving in that direction for lifetimes. You would not seek such a step in your evolution were you not ready, and the notion of this shift would be odd or unpleasant to a younger soul. Although becoming more soul-identified is freeing in many ways, and grounding and empowering to the older soul, it is not without difficulties.

As you become more soul identified, you are less under the spell of the various groups with which you had been influenced. Though freeing, it brings up an interesting challenge. If you are not getting your thoughts, attitudes, and lifestyle injected into you by the group mind, then who are you? What are you? What is true for you?

These questions take some time to answer, and in fact the answers are continually evolving. This is because as you become more soul identified, you realize that you actually resonate with the teachings of many groups. You may find yourself in alignment with at least some of the principles of many religions, many nations, and many teachings. This is not random, however.

You are finding the resonances that harmonize with your soul. Though your soul is a unique expression of the divine, it is not so different that it is outside of all the teachings on the planet. More likely, you are actually in harmony with many groups, and with many of their teachings.

There is a tendency that many people have, when they observe your participation in a group or teaching, to assume that you are entirely in harmony with all aspects of that group. And this leads to an interesting situation, because as you individuate to follow your own higher truth, you find yourself resonating with only certain aspects of any particular teaching that you are studying.

People often passively fall into the harmony of a particular group that they resonate with, and they naturally assume that you are also completely in step with them, and with their practices. So it is the task of the older soul to often have to differentiate between what you resonate with, and what you don’t resonate with. And with practice, you learn to do this without making yourself wrong, and without making others wrong.

As your soul evolves, you learn that no matter what you learn, you have to run it through the filter of your own inner truth. There is no other way. The younger soul way of falling in step with the group no longer works, because your soul has become attuned to what resonates as correct for you, and what doesn’t. This means that the older soul has to scrutinize things more often, but it also means that when you find something that has the right vibration, you can really appreciate it.

Practice: The Inner Truth Filter

Develop your ability to discern truth through your own inner guidance:

1. When you encounter a new teaching, belief, or practice, pause before automatically accepting or rejecting it.
2. Bring the concept into your heart space. Imagine holding it gently in the center of your chest.
3. Ask your soul: “Does this align with my deepest truth?” Then be quiet and feel. Don’t think about the answer—sense it.
4. Notice if you feel resonance (warmth, expansion, a gentle “yes” feeling) or dissonance (coolness, contraction, a quiet “no” feeling). Sometimes you’ll feel neutral—that’s information too.
5. Trust what you sense, even if it differs from what authority figures or groups believe. Your inner truth compass is developing.

The more you use this practice, the stronger your inner truth filter becomes. You’ll find yourself naturally knowing what’s right for you without having to consult external authorities for every decision.

Where the younger soul feels comfortable with something because outer authority deems it acceptable, the older soul feels comfortable with something because it resonates with deeper divine truth. The feel of that deeper alignment is more satisfactory, because it resonates through your body, heart, mind, and soul. You can even feel it resonating with the universe, itself.

Truth Alignment vs. Rebellion

By the way, rebellious attitudes are in a particular category. The rebelliously motivated soul is like a teenager who is exploring being different for its own sake, but is not aligning with deeper soul truth. However, the older soul practicing truth resonance is not being rebellious. Alignment with truth is actually the opposite of rebellion, because rebellion is motivated by opposition to something. Truth alignment is not in polarity to anything — it is its own path, resonating with deeper harmony.

When you recognize that as your soul evolves, you are coming into deeper alignment with a universal reality, it can really help you in those moments where your personality despairs that you are too different, or that people are too different from you. Your deeper essence is the healing resource for your personality.

Gently feel your inner alignment each day, as you invite your personality to breathe in the divine ocean of your inner infinite soul. This helps your personality become more the expression of your soul, rather than an expression of the unconscious patterns learned from the various levels of the group mind.

However, many people, not yet recognizing that they were created with the divine intention of expressing their divinely distinct soul signature, are clinging to group identity. But don’t get stuck in feeling polarized to them — find your true inner resonance, and let yourself notice the subtle positive soul resonances that you have with people at the level of their higher self, whether they recognize it consciously or not.

This is not to say that being on the path of self discovery always feels like harmony. Often, it feels like the opposite, especially when you’re discovering all the unconscious patterns that live in your body and soul memory. So the more you can look at your patterns as they surface without judgment, the easier it will be to feel the friendly resonance between your body and your soul.

Whether people you meet have the conscious understanding of your inner soul alignment, or not, they will somehow sense that you have a light, or a power, or a special radiant something that marks you as you. And as they perceive that quality, they are sensing your individual self, and communicating with you in a deeper way, because they are able to recognize you more as an expression of your true self. They are less likely to see you as just a member of a group, a family, a tribe, or a stereotype…

And that is how you can transcend being labeled, even though you are living in a physical body.

Practices for Merging Body and Soul

If the idea of merging your body and soul is a new concept, and if you feel that there is something in the idea that seems appropriate for you, you are likely curious about the ways that bring that unity to manifestation. The easiest way to start is to know that your body and soul are located in the same place. When you understand that your body and soul are part of the continuum of You, then you can sense that your body and soul are really best understood as a range of frequencies, or a spectrum of energy.

Body represents the slower vibrations, expressing the earth qualities, and soul represents the quicker or lighter vibrations, expressing universal timeless principles. They are both aspects of you, and neither is better than the other. In fact, in many ways, these two aspects of your self serve each other — one providing stability and grounding, and the other providing expansive infinite perspectives.

Play with sensing into the textures of your body and soul, so that you can become more familiar with their differences and similarities. And let the body and soul interact, as the two aspects of your own self that they truly are. Whether you think of them as the yin and the yang, or the earth and the stars, or the earthly and the divine, they are you, and they are One.

Here’s a simple practice to begin experiencing this integration directly:

Practice: Sensing Your Energy Range

1. Sit quietly in a comfortable position and place one hand on your heart.
2. Notice the solid feeling of your body — its weight, its temperature, the rhythm of your breath. This is your physical presence, your earthly anchor.
3. Now sense deeper, like listening for a quiet sound beneath louder noise. Relax your attention inward past the surface sensations.
4. Notice any warmth, tingling, spaciousness, or gentle expansion in your chest area. It may feel like a subtle glow or an opening sensation.
5. This subtle feeling is your soul essence meeting your conscious awareness. It’s always been there, but now you’re choosing to notice it.

Practice this for just a few minutes each day. Over time, you’ll become more familiar with the distinct feeling of your soul energy, and the integration between your body and soul will become more natural.

Practice: Conscious Integration Through the Day

Throughout your day, pause occasionally and ask yourself: “Am I feeling this moment only through my body’s reactions, or am I also sensing my soul’s perspective?” This simple question helps you remember that you have access to both levels of awareness. When you notice you’re caught in physical stress or mental worry, gently remind yourself that your soul holds a broader view. Breathe into your heart area and invite that soul perspective to blend with your present moment experience.

As you practice this, you’re training yourself to live from the integrated spectrum of who you are, rather than identifying solely with the personality’s limited viewpoint. When you meet people from this integrated state, your aura naturally radiates both your earthly presence and your soul essence, and people sense this wholeness even if they can’t consciously name it.

Living as Your Unique Self

May you know, in each moment, that you were never a stereotype, because you were only using the patterns of group mind to discover the deeper truth that lives within you. And may your ever-evolving and integrated self brighten the world, expressing the truth, as you know it, through the presence of your distinctive presence. May your presence awaken people to their own distinctive truth, so that the earth plane can experience the divine condition called heaven on earth.

Joel Bruce Wallach