Sóley's Journey
My Story
How should I write about my story so far in just a few paragraphs?
Should I tell you about the life-threatening illness I faced in 2021–22, the diagnosis, the treatments, and the long, humbling journey back to life?
Or should I begin earlier, where my roots are, in the hobbit-like hills of East Iceland, a place so green and magical it could have been the Shire itself. I grew up there in the 80s and early 90s with my New Age hippie parents, who lived their spirituality sincerely yet kept their feet firmly on the ground.
I could tell you about my poetic teenage years as an introverted wallflower, or my young adult life in the capital, where I balanced managerial positions in fast food and fashion with school, youthful folly, parties, and play. I even found myself engaged before turning twenty.
Or perhaps you’d rather hear about the adventures that followed, sailing across the Mediterranean and the crystal-blue Caribbean as a cabin stewardess on a six-star cruise liner, or how my sister and I, after finishing our contract and setting off to backpack through South America, were robbed in Bolivia by a fake drug police and a taxi driver.
Then again, maybe you’d prefer something more professional, how I earned my degree in Marketing Management while living in Denmark, and completed my dissertation during an internship at an award-winning wellness retreat sanctuary in Canada. The owner and I became close friends, and a decade later we hosted a beautiful spiritual retreat together in Iceland, welcoming participants from Canada, the US, and Europe.
Wellbeing through spirituality has been at the heart of my work ever since, and even during, my studies. Over the years, I’ve collaborated with many mind–body–spirit initiatives, founded a travel agency, and was preparing to launch a global spiritual travel network when the world came to a standstill in 2020.
Maybe, though, what’s most relevant is the now.
I live with my partner, the love of my life whom I met twenty years ago. We now make our home in a quiet town in South Iceland, not far from the capital. He’s an enthusiastic entrepreneur who runs a bio-tech company. We’ve walked through thick and thin together, supporting each other through life’s turns. We love looking toward the future with bright eyes, grateful for each “today” we share, and for the chance to honor the challenges that shaped us into who we are. We feel deeply blessed.
At heart, I am a spiritual visionary, and I’m grateful to have now turned my gaze from start-ups to writing.
The Golden Thread
When I look back over the decades of my life, writing has always been my golden thread, weaving itself through every stage and phase, both holding me and somehow holding everything together, giving life its context. I have always been writing.
When my parents were teaching me to meditate as a young girl, I was also writing short stories and poems that captured the small wonders of my world.
As a teenager, I began having deep, numinous experiences that my diary came to know intimately. And even in my twenties, when I was often out dancing and celebrating until five in the morning, I would find myself writing about the soul that same afternoon.
Writing has always been my solace and my way of healing. As I grew older, traveled, and lived in other parts of the world, my words began to mirror my growing spiritual and philosophical curiosity, my explorations and lived sacred experiences. Over time, my night dreams became increasingly soul-guiding, sometimes even initiating me into deeper understanding. These experiences continue to find their way into my writing in the light of day.
When I was too weak to write during my leukemia treatments, I would close my eyes and meditate, dreaming awake, envisioning, and sometimes managing to scribble a few words in my notebook, hoping to remember my reflections and visions when strength returned. In the months that followed, when I was still too tired or aching to write, I would record my contemplations instead.
I have always been writing.
Spiritual Writings for Healing
Through my writing today, I wish to affirm the infinite potential of the human being. I explore healing, spirituality, soul-realization, and the inner life. My contemplations reflect the sacred in both its tenderness and its trials, from poetic meditations to clear-eyed critiques of disempowering dogma. I am devoted to spiritual freedom.
My writings are born of lived experience, moments of insight, struggle, and renewal that have shaped my path. Each piece begins in something lived, a question, a feeling, a shift in perception, and unfolds into reflection, offered in the hope that it may open a shared space for recognition and meaning.
Yours sincerely,
Sóley
