Skip to main content

We're All Souls: The Spiritual Thread of Mental Health with Carolyn Coleridge

 


By Virginia Grenier

I’ve long believed that healing is more than just symptom reduction. It’s not just about coping skills or cognitive restructuring—it’s about uncovering the deeper threads that shape who we are and how we move through the world. That belief is exactly why this latest episode of Language of the Soul resonated so deeply with me.

Our guest, Carolyn Coleridge, is a psychotherapist, intuitive, and healer who has spent over 30 years at the intersection of traditional therapy and spiritual insight. In our conversation, Carolyn shared something that’s stuck with me since we recorded: “We’re all souls. That’s my premise.” It sounds simple, but when you really sit with it, that one sentence flips the entire clinical model on its head.

What if instead of viewing our clients—or ourselves—as broken minds to be fixed, we saw each of us as whole souls navigating a very human experience?

That’s the lens Carolyn brings into her work and into this conversation. And honestly, it’s a shift I think our culture is hungry for. Too often, we compartmentalize mental health and spirituality, treating them as separate tracks. But Carolyn reminds us that true healing—real, deep, transformational healing—requires us to listen to the voice of the soul, not just the chatter of the mind.

She talks about the “golden thread” that runs through our experiences, even the painful ones, and I couldn’t help but connect that to narrative therapy—my own theoretical lens. Our stories aren’t just a reflection of what’s happened to us; they’re clues to what our soul is calling us toward. Carolyn's approach helps clients trace that thread, reframe their suffering as part of a larger purpose, and see their lives through a lens of empowerment and growth.

There’s one moment in the episode where Carolyn explains how clients often describe being “burned out,” “drained,” or “dead tired”—and she connects these phrases to elemental energies: fire, water, earth, air. That moment reminded me of how disconnected we’ve become from the language of intuition. We speak it every day without even realizing it. Carolyn gently helps her clients—and now our listeners—tune back in to that deeper awareness.

Another thread that runs through this conversation is the danger of spiritual incongruence. When we live out of alignment with our soul’s purpose, we suffer. That suffering shows up as stress, inflammation, even illness. In a world that’s constantly pushing us to perform, compare, produce—it takes intentionality to pause and ask: What is my soul actually needing right now?

Carolyn doesn’t shy away from calling out the noise we’re all bombarded with—social media, news cycles, the endless swirl of opinions—and how it keeps us from accessing our own truth. She challenges us to quiet the external chaos long enough to hear that still, small voice inside.

And here’s what I found most grounding: she doesn’t offer this insight from a place of spiritual bypassing. This isn’t about pretending darkness doesn’t exist. It’s about knowing that transformation begins inside. As Carolyn said, “The darkness isn’t real; it disappears when you shine your light.” That’s not a metaphor. That’s a call to action.

As both a clinician-in-training and someone who walks my own healing path, I find Carolyn’s work to be a vital reminder that our inner work is not selfish. It’s world-changing. When we forgive, when we operate from compassion, when we choose love over fear—we raise the vibration of not just ourselves, but everyone we interact with.

If this kind of integration—where therapy meets intuition, where science walks hand in hand with spirit—speaks to you, I encourage you to listen to this episode. It’s more than a conversation; it’s an invitation to come back to yourself.

🎧 Listen now to "Mental Health Meets Spiritual Healing with Carolyn Coleridge"

Available on all major platforms or at Language of the Soul Podcast

Popular posts from this blog

Interview Friday with multi-talented author, Cheryl Malandrinos

Cheryl Malandrinos is a freelance writer and editor from Western Massachusetts . A regular contributor to Writer2Writer, her articles focus on increasing productivity through time management and organization. A founding member of Musing Our Children , Ms. Malandrinos is also the Editor-in-Chief of the group's quarterly newsletter, Pages & Pens . Cheryl is a Tour Coordinator for Pump Up Your Book Promotion , a book reviewer, and blogger. Guardian Angel Publishing will release her first children’s book, The Little Shepherd Boy, in 2010. VS: Cheryl, I want to thank you for being my guest here on The Writing Mama today. I know being a parent and writer can be hard and I find myself asking if I am giving my three children enough attention throughout the day. I am sure you have been in my shoes from time to time. So to start here is the first question, how many children do you have and what are their ages? Cheryl: Thanks for having me at The Writing Mama, Virginia. I’m thril...

The Comeback of 2D Animation: Why We’re Craving Realness Again

There’s something happening in animation right now that’s worth paying attention to—not because it’s simply nostalgic, but because it’s deeply human. As someone who works in the mental health and creative storytelling space, I can’t help but see these conversations about art, AI, and hand-drawn storytelling as part of a bigger theme: our collective hunger for authenticity. We live in a time where AI-generated content is everywhere—convenient, efficient, and often soulless. It’s not surprising that artists and audiences alike are looking back toward something that feels more tactile, more imperfect, more human. That brings us to 2D animation, an art form that has shaped generations and now, it seems, might just be making a comeback. Here’s what Language of the Soul podcast host, Dominick Domingo, had to say on this trend: There’s been a lot of industry talk lately speculating about 2D/traditional ANIMATION making a comeback. Recent articles confirm that although Disney has not greenlit...

Five Tips for a More Marketable Children’s Picture Book Manuscript by Mayra Calvani

The world of children’s picture book publishing is extremely competitive. If you’re an aspiring children’s author, you need to make sure your manuscript is in excellent shape and has all the elements editors and agents look for before you begin the submission process. Here are five tips to make your picture book manuscript more marketable: Start right with the problem.  Many times beginner writers begin a picture book with back-story. It’s okay to have this back-story in the first draft, but be sure to get rid of it when you edit. Back-story is unnecessary 90% of the time and it only serves to slow down the beginning of a story, making it weaker. You want to grab the reader right from the start. So don’t be afraid to begin your story at the heart of the problem. It’s okay to set the stage with a sentence or two—but no more! Have a protagonist readers can relate to. Generally, children like to listen to stories about other children or animals with children’s characteristics. ...