During my life, I've often been more of a bench warmer than a figure on the field. One of the reasons is that I've always wanted to relate to a sport. If I was going to put time into getting good—or even okay—at an athletic endeavor, I wanted it to help me express my "real self."

I assume that the most successful athletes often feel this way, even if they don't talk about it. Why shouldn't you be spiritually into your sport? I mean, there is only a single Simone Biles or Tom Brady, but you can still do "you."

I'd love to see you engage in activities that will aid you in embodying your true self.

Personally, I'm firmly committed to my sports, which aren't glamorous: walking and hiking. (Let me be real. The walking occurs with the dogs. The hiking? It's often in foreign countries, which is cool, but I usually make sure there are taxis available in case I desire to skip climbing the mountain.) Because my soul is fully into my sporty endeavors, exercising doesn't feel like exercise.

Ready to see how this works?

First off, I'm going to define a few terms. Then I'll share lists of subtle elements, or basic components of reality, that can each describe the personality of a soul. You'll select the descriptors that best suit you. Finally, I'll overview several categories of sports in relation to their use of the same elements, so you can find a good match.

Let's start with some terms.

Your soul is a part of your spirit, or essence. Your spirit is your full self, which knows it is completely part of whatever you call Source. Your soul is like a slowed down version of your spirit.

Basically, your soul is that part of you that has been traveling across time to learn about love. Sure, it can incur wounds and injuries, but it is also growing and developing. Your soul has probably been incarnating for who knows how long to better understand its own unique beingness but also to enjoy this world and the relationships in it.

In relation to your soul, your body is the vessel for a soul's experience. It contains information and conclusions from your soul's experiences across time and is also encoded with data related to your ancestry, childhood, culture, the earth, and more.

A sport is an activity that involves physical exertion and skill. This focus on physicality is a vital component of movement. After all, you can't exactly call writing a sport, although it can be hard. And yet, a sport involves so much more than bodily expression—as I'll explain, it also ideally involves your soul.

This is because a sport is not only about the body; it is really about energy, which I define as energy that moves. When exercising, we're all about spending, making, and increasing our energy. BUT—there are two types of energy. And physical energy composes less than 1 percent of all of reality. The rest of all energy, 99.9999-plus percent, is subtle. Subtle energy could also be called psychic, spiritual, and quantum energy.¹

Many parts of you are made of subtle energy, to include your soul. When your unique soul is melded through your body during an activity, its subtle energy increases the health of the body—and your soul gets to exercise its own vital way of being. By selecting a sport that matches your soul's special personality, you exponentially improve all areas of your life every time you exercise.

Selecting a soul-based sport starts with figuring out the basic ideals or traits of your soul. To do so, read through the list of descriptors that relate to the different elements, or subtle building blocks, that create concrete and immaterial reality. Your soul relates to one or two elements more than others. And so, simply select the one or two lines shared next to choose the signifier that best describe you.

Soul Traits by Elements
Select one or two lines that best describes your inner self:
Fire Traits: Dedicated to passion, purification, and physical power
Water Traits: Moves with intuitive flow and according to emotional desires
Air Traits: Devoted to mental ideas, organizing systems, and workplace success
Earth Traits: Loves to build, fortify, support others, add strength, be protective
Metal Traits: Fights negativity and evil, angel of truth and justice
Stone Traits: Holder of history, provider of stability and solidity
Wood Traits: Known for cheeriness, optimism, and adaptability
Ether Traits: Transmitter of higher truths, font of insights and conscious
Star Traits: Made of fire and ether, or passion and higher ideals; doesn't fit in with normal earthlings
Light Traits: Always and only about love and healing
Sound Traits: Always and mainly about power and productivity

Next, you are going to read through the following descriptions of various sports and the elements used within each. Through this process, pay attention to how you react to the categories that include one or two of the subtle elements related to your soul. Your conclusions will help you gauge what sporty expressions might qualify as a soul-sport.

Sports Categories—By Elements
Following are descriptors of the major sports categories and the types of elements usually employed in each.

Baseball, softball: Earth, fire, and air. Souls who love these types of sports are dedicated to building and fortifying. You play "the long game" and are prone to quick bursts of energy. These types of games will help you bond with others, add to your energy reserves, and release pent up feelings and physical blocks. The mentality of this category speaks too to your natural and innate intelligence.

Basketball: Fire and metal. You like moving like quicksilver and are dedicated to keep the "other" (not your own) team from scoring, like metal types do. Engaging with this and similar team games highlights your ability to block out negativity while creating awesome gains.

Bicycling: Air. Everything you do in cycling is about air—moving air, posing in air, and moving speedily through the air. Any type of bicycling will clear dysfunctional beliefs and keep your thinking smooth and fit, tasks your soul excels at.

Canoeing: Water, and either metal or wood. Canoes propel through water, and you excel at encouraging intuitive and emotional flow. In a wood canoe, or while carrying the canoe through forest portages, you indulge your ability to plan and execute goals with optimism. If you employ a metal canoe, you are strengthening your innate ability to defy negativity and expand higher thoughts.

Dance: Sound and air; sometimes star. Dancers defy the ground, as if flying. So do you, following an internal or external source of music to empower you and higher ideas. If your dance style is highly unique, you probably own star traits, faculties that are extraordinary to you.

Football (American): Also covers rugby and Lacrosse. Earth. Earth is about protection, fortifying, and moving slowly. This and similar games will increase your ability to hold the line while meeting goals. This category of sports will also bolster any warrior attitudes and resilience.

Golf: Air and wood; possibly also light. Whoosh! The ball flies over the green. Of course, the elements involved are air and wood. What occurs in the mind of the golfer but how to maneuver through woodsy areas with a sense of optimism? Visualization, a capability of light, is also vital to most golfers. During golf, your soul can accelerate loving thoughts with positivity and optimism.

Hiking/Walking: Earth or stone; possibly light, water, or wood as well. The elements of hiking and walking are dependent on where they are executed. For instance, when on solid earth, you are activating your grounding strengths. In the mountains or on sand, you cultivate your stability as a stone or protective being.

Other elements depend on your location. As shared, my personal sporty love is hiking. When I traverse lakes, I am exploring my intuition and soothing my emotions. In the desert, I am also absorbing light or love. Via the desert, I fill my soul in with the smiles from the wood element.

Horseback riding: Light and sound. Horses are incredible beings, says anyone who knows how to blend with one like a centaur by connecting through light, or love, heart-to-heart. No matter the gait, you let your soul activate your sound element. And the best riders know how to "horse whisper," or use psychic sound to earn a horse's trust.

Martial Arts: Ether and air. All martial arts, ranging from Tai Chi to karate, ideally activate your own and a partner's higher consciousness, which is related to ether. These practices depend on employing higher truths while you entrain body and soul.

Running or jogging: Always accesses air and sound, and possibly also earth, light, stone, or wood. Running is always an air activity, aiding you in cleaning your mind of negativity by encouraging mindfulness and mindlessness. Performed in syncopations, running also activates your abilities to employ the sound element, creating a percussion of rhythm for soul expressions.

The other elements stimulated depend on the location of your running. Are you running in relationship to the ground? You are building strength. On a gravel path or mountain road? You are getting in touch with your stone-based powers. Jogging in the sun? Your soul can focus on what you dearly love. In a forest? You are increasing your woodsy or merry nature.

Skiing or Skating: Water and air, possibly other elements. Think of it. Water skiing involves standing (or trying to) in the water. While performing this heroic and ballet-like sport, you are restoring balance to your emotions and mind, cementing them together—an innate skill if you have a water soul! Snow skiing and skating incorporate the same soul strengths, except the water is frozen. If you are winter skiing in a lot of light, you are also in an ideal position to reflect on what you love. If you are cross-country skiing, the movements are rhythmic, empowerment sound strengths.

Soccer: Earth, sound, and air. Soccer is performed in a grounded manner, which activates your instinctive power and strength. It is also highly rhythmic and sequenced, which brings out your ability to self-empower through sounding. Of course, soccer is also a running sport. As an air activity, it helps your soul cleansing your mind and move you into a natural timeless, mindful state.

Swimming: Sound and water. Swimming is rhythm and fluid. Sound is empowering, and with every stroke, you are getting in touch with—and balancing—your intuition and emotions.

Tennis: Air and earth. This is typically a singular sport, and a mental game for the player. Your soul strength, however, comes from the earth—the ground from which you spring. Tennis will aid your soul in releasing fears so you can draw power from the earth and your soul.

Do you get the gist of what we're doing? Whenever you want, go ahead, and analyze other sports according to your soul aptitudes.