How To Tell If You’re An Old Soul

Here’s some of the signs that can help you determine if you’re an old soul or not.

Old Soul Signs

Materialism is Irrelevant To You

Old souls already intuitively know that possessions are irrelevant. Possessions are 3D realm nonsense that come and go. If you’re an old soul you know that you can manifest your own possessions anyway, so there’s no need to be attached to any of them.

Attachment is another term used to describe materialism, but attachment can also apply to people. If you are too attached to a particular person you may be a young soul. An old soul recognises that whilst relationships and individual people are important to them, they are also fleeting. People, as with possessions, often come and go – and they do so at exactly the designated time.

This doesn’t mean old souls don’t feel pain when a person or possession (but mostly persons) are removed from their life. But they do have a coping mechanism for that grief. And that is the understanding that at the right time, they will be re-united with the person, or will re-manifest the possession if and when the time is right.

Similarly the accumulation of wealth or riches is irrelevant. There is no point collecting such things in life, as when it ends you will not be able to take it with you. It’s a cliché, but very true. Old souls seek only sufficient to meet their needs for life. Equipment in your home may be old but still functional – the old soul knows that since it functions well it need not be replaced.

Rather than accumulate wealth and possessions, old souls seek to accumulate more knowledge, compassion and wisdom.

Meaningful Connections Matter More

Old souls often (but not always) have smaller social circles. They realise that nurturing meaningful relationships with people who can benefit from their wisdom – and who can add to their wisdom – is far more important than having hundreds or even thousands of ‘friends’ on Facebook.

Old souls realise that in-person relationships are far more important than those conducted online and at a distance. Though in-person relationships that become online ones due to travel aren’t necessarily in this category and can be just as important. But those interactions that are only ever online are irrelevant.

Choosing your friends wisely is a hallmark of an old soul. You’ll be able to determine who in your social circle will be a positive impact on your life, and on whom you will be a positive impact. Your intuition as an old soul is likely to be stronger, particularly when it comes to judging character of your friends.

Old Souls Are Empathic

Empathy is the ability to understand where another person is coming from. It is the ability to see how situations affect others and to relate to them on a deeper level than most. Empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy is a superficial feeling of ‘Oh I am so sorry for your loss’ or similar. Empathy is feeling the loss as if it’s happened to you.

Old souls can empathise with others not just by imagining walking a mile in the other persons shoes but by actually feeling the stones under their feet while they do it.

Old souls are empathic because it’s quite possible they’ve experienced what the other person is experiencing. The emotions given off from the other person become contagious because they can trigger deep and distant memories.

But this empathy allows old souls to help the person who needs it. They can draw on their feelings and wisdom to better understand the way forward for the other person.

An Old Soul Likes Solitude

This extra intuition and empathy around and for people can lead the old soul to become tired of feeling the emotions of others. This is particularly true if those others are in, for example, a crowd of people most of whom you don’t know.

To combat this emotional overload and fatigue requires time alone. It’s during this time that you can meditate and chill. And an old soul likes to process the information and wisdom they have received. This too requires solitude and peace.

Others may perceive this as aloofness or distant, distracted or out of touch with reality. Ironic, that you’re probably more in touch with the true reality than those who think so little of you.

Old Souls Know There Is A Bigger Picture

They may have seen it (though almost certainly forgotten on a conscious level). Old souls want to make a difference to the world. Not in the meaningless way (usually) of becoming a politician but in the way of affecting positive change to the world as a whole.

Old souls realise we’re all connected and the bigger picture is that helping one person through something helps ALL people through something.

Old souls can often see the good in people who might look beyond redemption. Old souls recognise that circumstances DO control some people because they know no better. And old souls will often want to help that person learn how to control the circumstances rather than have the circumstance control the person.

What does it mean if you are an old soul?

If you’re an old soul it means you exhibit many (or all) of the qualities listed above in this post. It means you’ve been around before, multiple times. As an old soul you have seen and experienced much – and have much wisdom to offer.

But even old souls still have more to learn and experience. Experiences is all there is and possessions and relationships are a means to that end.

Old souls can help guide younger souls and in so doing, can learn more about themselves too. Which means everyone wins.

Why do old souls suffer?

Being an old soul likely means you are more sensitive to the emotions and needs of others. This can lead the old soul to suffer because they pick up on everyone else’s energies and emotions.

Old souls have been around before, and as mentioned above, tend to shun materialism and attachment. This can sometimes lead to old souls being quit lonely for a time, and often without material possessions that do make life more comfortable.

But old souls have wisdom and a deep understanding of the universe. They can manifest things in ways that ‘new’ souls often can’t. But in many cases old souls have forgotten this, or the soul itself has no desire to manifest comfort for the body.

Can An Old Soul Stop Suffering?

As an old soul, it’s important to balance the soul’s complete lack of any need except experiences, with the 3D body’s need of creature comforts. Most of us cannot live like Tibetan monks (unless we are indeed a Tibetan Monk) as the world simply doesn’t allow it. We need to work to eat and have shelter. And this conflict can create suffering and unhappiness. It can even lead to mental health problems. Be kind to yourself, and realise that balance is necessary.

Spend time yearning and searching for more wisdom and looking for the meaning for your life. This is what the old soul requires of you. But also understand that you absolutely cannot look after anyone else unless you look after yourself. Enjoy the world as it currently is – take time to simply exist in nature without seeking anything. Live in the moment. Look at the rain, look at the ground. Go on holiday and let go. Your soul won’t mind – it’s already given you permission. Feed the 3D occasionally as well as the old soul.

In other words, take the time occasionally to switch off from all that wisdom and empathy and be completely selfish occasionally. Once you’re recharged you can help others again.

Is being an old soul rare?

This is very difficult to quantify and come up with any sensible numbers. However, given the qualities of an old soul that we listed above, coupled with the very large majority (certainly in the Western World) of people who are heavily into materialism and very emotionally attached to their possessions, our guesstimate is that being an old soul in the Western World at least is relatively rare.

The Population Reference Bureau estimates that approximately 117 billion people have ever lived on earth as at 2020. Given that 7.8 billion of those are presently alive that’s around 109 billion who’ve lived before us. The earth presently contains 7% of the total number of people that have ever lived. That would seem to suggest that we could in fact all be old souls, although bear in mind this is an estimate!

But some old souls are likely to be many thousands of years old and may account for 10, 20 or even 50 of those people who have previously already been alive. When considering this, consider the average age of the population was, until recently, considerably lower than it currently is. The PRB state the average life expectancy was around 10 to 12 years for much of human history which is incredibly low.

If everyone currently on earth was an old soul of 50 previous lives, then there would need to be 390 billion people who’ve ever lived ( 7.8 x 50 ). We don’t know how many previous lives an old soul may have existed for, but it’s certainly likely that there’s plenty of new souls around as well as a few old souls.

Are old souls reincarnation?

It is our belief here at Mystical Spiritual Pathfinder that yes, old souls are reincarnated. We investigate the question of whether reincarnation is real in another article. It’s our opinion that there is in fact some pretty compelling proof that reincarnation does exist.

So an old soul could be reincarnated once or many times.

It’s also worth considering the concept that souls may split into separate bodies and recombine for a future life. The older a soul becomes the more possibility there is for this to occur. This phenomenon could explain how there are so many people who believe they’ve been reincarnated as someone famous for example. To be fair though, there’s also the significant likelihood that most who believe they were someone famous simply weren’t. Autosuggestion is also a powerful feature of the human mind…

Nevertheless, yes an old soul would, by definition, have to be reincarnation.

Are old souls introverts?

Before we answer this question it’s important to understand that being an introvert does not mean a person is shy or exhibits social anxiety. An old soul is relatively unlikely to be shy or exhibit social anxiety, but may very well shun social gatherings in favour of solitude and introspection. They look outwardly similar but the reasons are quite different.

Given that the common signs of introverts also line up extremely well with many of the personality traits of an old soul, it’s likely that most old souls are indeed introverts.

What is an old soul empath?

Previously in this post we talked about how old souls are usually very empathic. This means that an old soul can actually feel what someone else is going through. They may not feel the actual experience itself, but they will feel the emotions that the experience generates as if they themselves were having the same experience.

The difference between sympathy and empathy is difficult to describe and is mixed with language nuance, so it’s no wonder it’s so easily confused.

The Merriam Webster dictionary states that sympathy is when one shares an emotion with another person by feeling those emotions such as when a person feels sadness when someone close experiences a bereavement. It then states that empathy is to have an understanding of the feeling the other person is going through without actually feeling it. Empathy, says Merriam Webster, has an implication of a greater emotional distance.

Empathy, states Merriam Webster is where you can imagine how that person feels without having the feelings explicitly communicated. It also states that the sentiment behind empathy is to ‘put oneself in another’s shoes’. This is as we mentioned earlier in this post but we disagree with Merriam Webster in that we are of the opinion that in order to imagine how that person feels one must also feel it. And to put oneself in another shoes appropriately one must also feel the emotion.

Forbes seems to describe the difference between the two in a similar way to how we see it.

Sympathy, it seems, may have been hijacked by the greeting card industry?

This is a long winded way of saying that an old soul empath is one who experiences the emotions of another person as if they themselves were having that experience and emotion.

What happens when two old souls meet?

The context of this question is taken to be what happens when two old souls meet with the outcome being a romantic relationship. Old souls who meet fleetingly will often recognise each other but realise there is no future in a relationship. The empathic nature of old souls should speed this process.

But finding love is difficult for normal people. It’s even more difficult for old souls because old souls are often looking for someone specific. This someone specific may be another old soul too, or another soul with specific characteristics that they wish to learn from this time around.

Fortunately old souls are usually in tune enough to recognise when that old soul has come along. Sometimes though they don’t and need a few trial runs before they recognise the real one. And on occasions the old soul comes along too early in the picture when neither are actually ready – only to go their own ways and then meet up again by ‘chance encounters’ that are not coincidental at all.

Usually when two old souls meet they each have unique abilities to teach the other exactly what is needed. The idea that ‘opposites attract’ is quite true. An old soul has little to learn from another soul that is too similar to them, and so although like does sometimes attract like, it’s more common for opposites to attract. And if they’re both old souls and properly learning from each other then they will last.