How To Listen To Your Soul

In this Talk, I’m teaching you how to tune into the voice of your soul (the part of you that is seated squarely in the Adult Chair), why this is so important, and how to clear the blocks that stand between us and our souls.

The five simple practices I share in today’s podcast will help you hear your soul’s whispers and nudges, know and feel the next steps on your path, and take aligned action — not from the Adolescent Chair but from the Adult Chair.

Listen to discover: The power of “soul alignment”. The importance of “deep listening”. How the ego gets in the way of listening. 5 steps to Listen to your soul. How to unlock greater passion, purpose, and peace.

Transcript

Hi,

I'm Michelle Chalfant,

Psychotherapist,

Holistic life coach,

And human just like you,

Learning to navigate life's challenges.

With over 25 years experience,

I teach people how to get healthy using the adult chair model.

The adult chair model is where simple psychology meets grounded spirituality,

And it teaches us how to become healthy adults.

From anxiety and depression to codependency and relationship issues,

You can use the adult chair for just about anything.

Each week,

I share practical tips,

Tools,

And advice from myself and a wide range of experts on how to get unstuck,

How to live authentically,

And how to truly love yourself,

All while sitting in your adult chair.

Welcome to the adult chair podcast.

Hello,

Everybody.

This is Michelle Chalfant,

Happy to be here with you.

Finally podcasting this week from the beach again.

Yes,

I am away writing this book.

I think I shared with you guys a few weeks ago.

I'm excited to announce,

Which it's not,

Of course,

Coming out for a while,

But I have a publisher and there's going to be a big adult chair book coming out for you guys early 2025.

We're thinking probably January,

February.

Yes,

Believe it or not,

It takes that long to get a book out.

But I'm back at the beach like I was last month,

Writing and writing and writing and writing and writing.

I love every minute of it though.

It's so exciting.

There's so much new information for you guys coming down through me about the adult chair.

I'm not even going to say anything more about it because I'm excited,

What can I say?

This is the last show of the month of January and I'm excited to share with you guys something that I've been practicing for quite a while now.

And I wanted to share it with you because,

And I don't say this lightly,

It's life changing.

It's truly,

Truly changed my life in such huge ways.

It's called soul alignment,

Soul alignment.

On today's show,

I'm going to be talking with you about soul alignment and how we do that is through something called deep listening.

And I'm going to share with you some practices,

I'm going to share with you how you do this soul alignment and what happens when you align with your soul.

So here we go.

It all started way back in the summer.

Don't laugh.

I'm laughing.

When I started telling people,

And I remember sharing with people on my team and my husband and my family,

I'm like,

I feel like I'm going to give birth.

I feel like I'm pregnant.

I don't know what's going on,

But I feel like something is inside of me and it's growing and I'm going to be giving birth is what I started saying.

And people are,

Of course,

As always,

People look at me like,

Really?

Something like that coming from you?

Okay,

Michelle.

You know,

What's that mean?

And I'm like,

I don't know.

It's just an energy.

It's a feeling that I have inside and something is growing.

Something big is coming and I don't know what it is.

So anyway,

So that started over the summer and no,

By the way,

I am not really pregnant.

You've seen me on social.

I am not pregnant.

I am just feeling this building up of something coming deep inside of me.

So I've been waiting and waiting.

You know,

I do my daily practice.

I have a meditation practice that I do every morning and I journal and I do,

You know,

All the things.

And I'm like,

Okay,

And as I'm journaling,

I'm like,

Okay,

Where is it?

What am I supposed to be journaling through?

You know,

Give me the information and I'm not hearing anything and I'm not getting anything.

And you know,

I stand up for my meditation practice and then in my journaling and then I go and I start my day and I've got,

Of course,

Family obligations,

But I've got a lot going on with my business and I go,

Go,

Go,

Go,

Go all day.

And I realized,

I just realized this about a month ago.

I'm like,

Huh,

This happened again,

These benchmarks for me right around the winter solstice,

Which is the,

I believe it was the 21st,

I think of December.

So I started feeling then,

Wow,

I really need to go deeper.

I need to meditate more.

I need to journal even more because I'm not creating enough space.

It was this deep intuition,

Like I need even more space in order to allow this to come through.

And I could feel myself,

I do a lot of walking.

I think you guys know I live on a lake.

So I have this lovely path that is through the woods.

I go hiking through the woods and it goes along the lake.

It's just really pretty.

But I found myself,

Even like as I walk through the last month or so,

Wanting to walk for like three hours and just sit on the side of the lake or keep hiking and nonstop.

I'm like,

What is going on?

It's this really deep calling inside of me and to spend more time,

More time.

I'm like,

What is going on?

So I honor it.

You know,

I always say like,

Go with what's showing up,

What's showing up for you in the moment.

So I started spending time sitting on the side of the lake and being with and really honoring like what was coming through intuitively,

Which is just to spend a little bit more time.

I was not spending three hours a day,

But definitely spending a little bit more time like sitting on the side of the water or sitting in meditation or journaling.

And the word that kept coming to me,

And it came to me a lot last year,

But it really came through over the last few months was soul alignment,

You know,

Really to align with my soul.

And that means when you align with your soul and have soul alignment,

You get very,

Very clear about your mission,

Your soul's mission,

Like why you're here,

What are you here to do?

Who are you here to be?

Who are you here to become?

Who are you here to have relationships with?

Who are you here to be friends with?

I mean,

Every aspect of your life will change when you align with your soul,

Every single aspect of your life.

And it really is what I would call,

Again,

Like living in the adult chair in a very big way and witnessing the ego part of us,

Because the ego,

Of course,

Thinks it knows what we want,

Thinks it knows what we should do.

That's all,

That's that adolescent chair part.

We use the word should,

It's ego.

So it's like,

No,

What am I here to do?

What am I being called to do?

And what I've realized is,

And when we are busy,

And of course,

Over the holidays,

Most humans get pretty darn busy.

And I was busy as well.

I had a lot going on personally and professionally.

But in the busyness,

And if we continue with that throughout the year,

You can't hear your soul.

Because let me tell you something,

Your soul whispers to you and your soul is patient.

And if you don't create that space to listen,

You can't hear,

And then we live exclusively from the ego place.

So what I've been just,

Again,

I keep feeling this call,

I was talking to my son Blake,

And he goes,

Mom,

Time to deep listen or deeply listen or something.

I said,

That's so funny you said that,

That's exactly what I'm doing,

Deeply listening and connecting to that part of me.

So why do we want to do that?

Why is this important?

When we align with our soul,

We are guided.

And if any of you have ever taken a course from me or a live event,

I talk about the illuminated path.

Our illuminated path is the path that is laid out in front of us.

And what happens is,

We know what step to take next on that path when we feel moved.

And who's moving us forward?

It's the body,

It's the soul,

It's the heart.

To me,

It's all the same.

But so many of us,

Including myself,

We drift into the ego because we get busy.

We go,

Go,

Go,

We do,

Do,

Do,

And we're not listening.

And I'm feeling this deeper call to move more into listening and less into this busy sort of space.

Our souls are waiting for us to connect and align with us.

And the question is,

Are you willing to listen?

So I have developed this new practice that I do.

I've added on to my morning routine.

And I want to share what I'm doing with you guys.

Because honestly,

It is and has been changing my life.

I have never sat so squarely in my adult chair.

And let me tell you something,

Living in our adult chair is hard.

Because every single moment,

And I want you to think about your own life,

Every single moment that you drop into future or past,

Or when you drop into fear,

Anxiety,

Worry,

All of those things,

Every single time when you drop into these states,

You pinch off the adult and you slide back into the adolescent.

When you lack trust with what's coming in your life,

And you get out of the present moment,

Again,

You're out of the adult chair.

So my point is,

It's difficult to stay in the adult chair.

And my goal is to stay there as long as possible.

And this practice that I'm offering for you guys today is holy moly,

Game changer.

And as always,

As I always say,

It doesn't take hours upon hours upon hours.

There are simple practices to help you to align with your soul.

So you can hear the whispers and the nudges and feel where to move forward on your path.

So you will know what is your next step on your path,

Right?

You're going to know what to do.

You're going to know what calls to you.

You're going to feel it deep inside.

And then you take action versus taking action and think later.

This is about feeling it,

Like every part of you says,

Yes,

Do this,

Even though there might be a little bit of fear,

Because the ego is going to kick in,

That's okay.

But deeply in your heart and your being,

You're going to know this is for me.

And then you're going to move forward.

And it's going to be the greatest thing you've done.

So here we go.

Let me go through this step that I have a five step process for you to help you to align with your soul,

Which will then help you to realize and step more into your passion,

Your purpose,

The reason you're here on this planet.

And again,

Our soul comes in for a laundry list of experiences.

It's not just one thing.

We don't come in to get the one job or get the one partner or live a life in wherever.

The soul comes in for so many different experiences.

Our soul wants to have experiences from love to fear,

From heartbreak,

To forgiveness,

To taking responsibility,

To falling in love,

To ending relationship.

It's all the things.

It's all the things.

The ego is the only part of us that judges good or bad,

But the soul comes in for all of those things.

And when you're aligned with your soul,

Even the things that feel to the ego,

Bad,

What we find is that these things are the most beautiful gifts that we could have ever received,

Because it helped us to grow.

It helped us to enlighten.

It helped us to become more of who we are and to remember who we are and why we're here to begin with.

So here are five practices that you can do every day,

Anytime during the week,

Whenever you want to do them.

These will help you to align with your soul and wake up to this beautiful part of you that's waiting for you.

I can't even believe the amount of times that I've meditated and journaled most of my life,

And I have a great connection with my soul.

It's like the volume has been turned up.

I hear her all the time now.

I feel more aligned with her.

And now,

And you guys have heard me talk about this,

I talk about this a lot of the live events,

To stay connected to yourself,

No matter what.

I know I've talked about this on the podcast.

I want nothing to disconnect me from myself.

I don't want anything to pinch me off,

To pinch off that connection to the divine,

Which is my soul,

God,

Source,

Universe,

Whatever you want to call it.

So these practices help to open that up for you and to help you to stay connected to you,

Because that's where the magic happens.

So number one,

What you want to do to align with your soul and deeply listen is to number one,

Set a daily intention.

So I say something like,

I align with my soul's plan,

Like I say that every day.

Or I align with my soul's mission.

Or you can say,

Show me the way,

Like what is your intention every single morning?

It takes seconds a day to speak out loud your intention.

What your soul has in store for you is unlike anyone else on the entire planet.

And what I see people do all the time,

And I've fallen into this for sure over my lifetime,

Is we compare ourselves to others.

Why doesn't my life look like so-and-so's life?

We need to really get out of that habit,

Because what I have come to realize is,

Man,

Nobody has a life like mine,

Like yours,

And like everyone else's on the planet.

We all have a unique soul path that we're on.

Everyone does.

So stop comparing to anybody and start stepping into and aligning with your soul.

And I promise you this,

You'll be happier than you've ever been in your entire life.

So we start out by simply setting the intention and saying out loud,

I align with my soul's plan.

I intend to align with my soul's plan.

Whatever you want to say,

Something like that,

Though.

That's the verbiage.

Because you want,

It's not just the words,

Remember,

It's the energy behind it.

But find a statement that really resonates with you,

And every morning you speak that.

Number two,

Meditation.

Now I've talked about meditation so many times,

But let me expand on this a little bit.

Meditation can be doing anything that you want,

Anything that resonates with you.

Whatever you're doing,

You want to not be distracted.

So meditation is simply a daily practice,

Or just a practice if you don't do it every day,

Or simply a practice,

Let's say,

That brings you into the present moment.

So yes,

You can sit down,

And you can play music,

And you can close your eyes,

Or you can sit in silence and witness your thoughts.

That's traditionally what we think of when we think of a meditation practice.

We want to sit and witness our thoughts.

You can chant,

Mantra,

All the things.

Or by the way,

There are many other things you can do.

You can go on a walk,

Or a hike,

Or a run,

Or whatever you like to do,

And don't bring your phone.

Don't listen to anything,

But instead be really present with you.

Allow your thoughts to be there,

And drift up,

And by,

And out.

What we want to do is get in the practice of not buying into every single thought,

Because my God,

We have what,

Up to 90,

000 thoughts a day,

And they crank through our brains every single day,

All day.

What we want to get in the practice of is not buying into and grabbing on to every single thought.

And it's in the moments where we're not thinking,

When we're actually walking,

Like when I'm walking through the woods,

I am listening to the birds,

I'm listening to the crackle of the leaves under my feet,

And when I'm in that space,

I start hearing my soul.

I start hearing the voices that comes,

Or excuse me,

The voice that comes through.

I am on my kayak sometimes,

And I am kayaking,

And I am quiet,

And guess what?

I'm paddling along,

And I start hearing that whisper,

And the whisper gets a little bit louder.

It doesn't scream.

It just is soft,

Clear,

And holy moly,

You will know it,

Because it's such truth.

It's a beautiful truth that comes through.

So I remember sitting outside,

I'm giving you examples for meditation,

I called it,

I think I shared it on the podcast,

It was years ago.

I called it a bird feeder meditation,

Because I would sit outside,

And I love birds.

I have so many bird feeders,

It's kind of silly,

From hummingbird feeders to regular bird feeders,

And all the bird feeders,

But there's nothing that brings me joy,

Like sitting and watching the birds come to the bird feeder,

And I would sit in stillness,

And quiet,

And just watch the birds.

That's a form of meditation.

So whatever you can knit,

Someone that likes to knit,

I think about my fish,

I'd have my big goldfish tank in my office,

And I'd sit and watch the fish in silence for a few minutes,

And I could feel myself drift off,

And I then would start to hear the whispers of my soul.

So do the thing that you like,

Whatever resonates with you,

What do you feel called to do?

Because what you feel called to do might not be the thing that I'm called to do,

And that's perfectly okay.

There's no perfect thing for you,

But I promise you this.

If you're willing to listen,

Deeply listen,

While you're in that state of doing whatever you want to do,

You're going to start hearing your soul,

And feeling,

And I want you to pay attention to this in your body,

You're going to feel nudges,

You're going to feel pulled or moved to do things.

That's your soul,

Pay attention.

And again,

Your brain or the ego might be going,

What are you doing?

That does not make any sense.

But your heart and your body is going to say,

But wait,

This is what feels right,

I really want to do this.

Do it.

That's your soul.

So stay on course.

Okay.

Number three.

This is something I did many years ago,

I think one of my clients actually brought me her book,

Julia Cameron's book on morning writing.

I love morning writing.

So what you do is you wake up in the morning,

And she has a book on this,

You can go on Amazon and get it,

But you wake up in the morning,

Before you grab your phone,

Before you do anything,

Before you grab your coffee,

And you allow yourself to journal whatever is coming through,

Because you are just exiting out of the sleep state.

And when you're exiting out of the sleep state,

Holy moly,

You're so connected to the other side.

And yes,

To your soul,

Let your hand write and do a conscious dump right on the page.

It's like,

It's a conscious stream that's going to come right down through you right down through paper.

Again,

Don't get on the phone when you're in bed and check social media and check emails and all the things.

Give yourself I mean,

Even if you just have 10 minutes to let your hand write whatever wants to come through.

If it doesn't make sense,

It doesn't matter,

Let it come through you.

Another beautiful way to connect your soul and another form of writing is called automatic writing.

So you can place your pen to paper,

You close your eyes,

And you invite your soul to write through you and you wait.

Now,

Just again,

Whatever comes through and you invite your soul,

It's like using that intention like I'm ready,

What do you want me to know?

You can write that at the top of your paper,

Soul,

What would you like me to know?

Let me know.

And then let your hand go.

Any question though that you have,

Like if you're thinking about moving to Chicago,

Put at the top of the paper,

Should I move to or is it my highest good to move to Chicago?

Right at the top of the paper.

And then wait,

Close your eyes,

Tune in,

Drop into your heart.

This is key.

Your soul is not going to talk to you from your head.

Your soul is going to talk to you through your heart.

You got to drop into your heart space and wait and then wait for your pen or paper to or pencil to write and let it go.

It may not make sense,

Doesn't matter.

Just wait and listen and write.

Okay,

Number five,

This breath that I have been doing,

Game changer.

It's called the deep peace soul breath.

So what you want to do is you want to bring your attention to your heart.

This let me tell you what,

I have had so much anxiety some days and this takes it away in a heartbeat and I'm not exaggerating when I say that.

It truly is that fast.

So what you do is you bring your attention to your heart and you take a long,

Slow,

Deep breath.

This can be your physical heart or your fourth chakra,

Your heart center.

Right in the middle of your chest.

So you can,

Again,

Place your hand there or not,

Whatever feels right for you.

You can't get it wrong,

But either way,

You're going to want to close your eyes or open if you feel you want your eyes open.

Sometimes when you close your eyes though,

You go deeper,

Does not matter.

What resonates with you is perfect.

Bring your attention to your heart and you take three very slow,

Deep,

Deep,

Deep breaths and your focus in your heart space is peace.

That's the word peace.

So you're bringing all of your attention to your heart and breathe peace,

Peace,

And peace and holy moly.

What happens when you do this,

When you drop into the heart space,

You're reconnecting with your soul.

You're stepping out of past and future.

You're stepping out of past and future,

Which again is the adolescent share.

That's the ego state.

When we are in our heart space,

It brings us back into the moment,

Into the adult chair,

Back into present moment awareness,

Connect to the soul.

And then what you do,

Once you feel this peace come into your heart space,

It takes three slow,

Deep breaths.

You then take that energy that is now in your heart,

Because what most people report is that you feel this lightness.

You feel an openness.

You may or may not get a color,

But there's an energy there for sure.

And you take that energy and you intend for it to go through every single cell in your body and you breathe it in.

And then every cell in your body is lit up with peace.

And it's brought you into the moment and the thing you were anxious about or afraid of or worried about,

It's gone.

And what you're going to recognize is it's your mind that will then take you back into past and future,

Which again,

That's the ego,

You guys.

Ego lives in past and future only,

Soul lives in present moment only.

So if you're in past or future worrying and all the things,

That's ego awareness state,

Which is the adolescent chair.

We want to get into the adult chair by living in the heart.

This is where the soul alignment happens when you're in the heart.

So what I do with this breath is it takes two minutes.

I think everyone on the planet has at least two minutes.

So take the two minutes whenever you feel overwhelmed.

And there have been days where I'm like,

I do the breath and I stand up and I walk into the kitchen.

I go,

Whoops,

Got to do it again.

And I do it again.

And what I'm doing is I'm rewiring my brain,

I'm resetting my nervous system,

But I've got to make the conscious decision to go from stress,

Overwhelm,

Fear,

Anxiety.

My consciousness has to come in and I've got to be in my adult and go,

Uh-uh,

I'm doing this deep,

Peaceful soul breath right now.

And every time I make that decision,

That energy comes out of my amygdala and I'm back in the prefrontal cortex,

Which is the adult chair.

Again,

That's when we're in our adult and in present moment.

And I'm intending and I'm choosing me,

My soul over that other state.

And I got to tell you guys something.

The more I do this,

The more peaceful,

Happy,

Calm,

And relaxed I am on a daily basis.

I've never been so relaxed in my entire life.

And it has been a consistent state that I've been able to hold for the last few months.

Even when things feel scary,

Even when things feel overwhelmed,

I'm like,

Eh,

It'll be fine.

Because my soul's guiding the show now.

The soul's guiding the show.

And I know and I trust that everything's going to work out.

And it honestly does.

The right people show up.

I mean,

Things are happening out of the blue that I could not make up if I tried.

So it is absolutely amazing when you align with your soul in this way.

And this breath,

You guys,

Is easy.

But if you have to do it 10 times a day,

Do it.

Because what you're going to find is you're going to start liking this state to live in,

This peaceful state,

More than any other state.

It's for me become like a craving and I do not leave this state.

I just don't leave it.

So I wish this and invite you guys to join me in this breath.

If you do nothing else,

Do this peaceful breath every single day.

It will change your life.

It has absolutely changed mine.

All right.

So something that I've become aware of,

I keep hearing the same thing over and over again,

During my deep listening moments,

Is to create more space for what's to come.

Again,

I feel like this mother,

This nesting,

I mean,

I went through this with my two kids,

This cleaning out closets and all the things and I'm like,

What is going on?

I feel this time in my life right now is to do this,

Create more space,

Because I'm getting ready to give birth is what it feels like.

So what I have decided to do is to take a break,

A time away from the podcast during the winter months and spend the time instead doing more deep listening for what's to come.

And I feel like this birthing is going to start coming through over the next few months.

So these are the ideas that my soul is birthing through me.

So what I'm doing is for the rest of the winter is to take time away from the podcast and come back with all of the new teachings,

Learnings,

Understandings,

And experiences.

And I am so excited to share because even what I just shared with you,

This breath,

There's going to be a lot more of that,

A lot more tools.

It feels like an elevated adult chair that we're going to be getting over,

That I'll be getting over the next few months.

The podcast is going nowhere.

I will be back.

And I'm thinking it's going to be in the spring is what resonates with me.

That's what I feel like my soul is telling me,

Like,

You'll be back in the spring,

Not to worry.

Okay.

In fact,

I was talking to my relationship reset,

I have a relationship reset course that I did,

And we did an extension.

So I did my last week with everyone last week,

And they were asking me,

We don't want this to end.

I'm like me neither.

I'm like,

What's coming?

And I said,

I'm already getting glimpses of what's coming.

And there's so much good information coming down through.

I can't even tell you,

I'm feeling lots of live events,

Events that you all have asked been asking me for for a long time,

Like intensives away,

As well as one day events,

I'm feeling online courses,

I'm feeling a new community,

I'm feeling more podcasts,

I'm feeling of course,

I will continue on with the coaching certification,

But so many new things are coming down through,

I just need to create that space and pause in order to create the space for it to come down through.

Not to mention,

I've got to finish the book,

Got to get that thing turned into the publisher.

I have to say,

I feel so excited about it.

I feel like a little kid,

Like I used to feel on Christmas morning,

Like when Santa's come,

I'm at the top of the stairs,

Waiting to run downstairs and my parents are going,

Hold on,

Wait a minute.

That's how I feel.

The energy of what is coming is so darn exciting.

So for now,

My friends,

I'm just going to say I will see you soon.

And I will be back with all new shows this spring.

Again,

I don't have a return date yet,

But I know it's going to be this spring.

And I want to say this,

I really do invite you to join me during these winter months to deeply listen to your own soul and align with what's coming for you,

Because I promise you this,

It's going to change your life in ways that you never thought possible because it's already changing mine.

These practices,

You guys are changing my life and I want that for you as well.

So I love you all so,

So,

So much.

I cannot wait to connect with you again.

I'll see you in a few months and have a beautiful rest of your winter.

Reviews

Really useful tools for deeply listening and connecting to my soul and purpose. Thank you 👃💖🌻

This was so beautiful & serendipitous! As I was contemplating if revamping relaunching my soul•whispers•love the podcast was the step my soul wanted me to take it was clearer than ever that this was the golden path & I am so grateful for this & for you!!! By the way my favorite thing that my kids and I love doing especially my 15 year old in spring & summer is to put bird food out all around the porch and front lawn and we watch the birds 🥰they are some interesting creatures, some have even landed on my head😅this is what usually breaks me out of winter hibernation the spring excitement of nature/bird/animal watching in comfy weather!! Remembering this brought warm feel! Happy wintering to you 💖🌿👐🏿✨🌈🌸