Spirit: life force of individual: a vital force that characterizes a living being as being alive
will: somebody’s will, sense of self, or enthusiasm for living

Soul: nonphysical aspect of person: the complex of human attributes that manifests as consciousness, thought, feeling, and will, regarded as distinct from the physical body

So, I've been thinking lately about essence mapping. One of the things Jay did when teaching us was define four 'main' categories which an essence map has. These are 'body,' 'mind,' 'soul,' and 'spirit.'

A lot of people, myself included, have often had trouble differentiating between 'soul' and 'spirit.' When I've used this format, I've sometimes lumped the two together just because I couldn't understand how they were different.

But they are very different. *nod nod* Very different. In fact, to lump them together can really knock an entire dimension out of your essence map. So, I looked them up in Mr. Webster's dictionary:





This helps clear some things up, I think. Spirit is more of a driving force - what makes us 'alive.' Why do we live? What do we live for? What drives us to do things?

Soul, on the other hand, is our thoughts. Our feelings. (And I'm just quoting webster ) Our soul is more than what we think, but what we know to be true - things that define us as a person.

So, maybe that's helpful to someone. If not, feel free to ignore

eru