First of all, if you really want to learn more about old souls, go to michaelteachings.com. I have always sensed I was different from others and I hope to find other old souls who I can relate to. Here are some traits and information about old souls if you think you might be one: - Old souls have largley given up on the world. It doesnt seem worth the touble to spend a lot of energy on things that do not last. For this reason, old souls dont make great contributions to society. They are quieter than younger people and live a more relaxed lifestyle. They are more subdued in their manner of expression. Old souls are in the process of withdrawing from the physical plane. Their motivation is of spiritual purity. They lead simple lives, they do not want to overcomplicate it with intense relationships and severe challenges. They are paying off final karma, they do not want to incur anymore. -Old souls are usually very competent, but there is a tiredness about them which prevents them from making a lot of effort. Others, however, see this as laziness. They are mellow, rarely enthusiastic and the excitement of youth is mostly gone. They often become teachers to pass the knowlege and wisdom on, but only to a limited number of students. - There is little desire to release their understanding to the world in general, for this reason they are quieter. As it is with many young people and old people, the younger are out doing their thing and do not have time to listen to the old folks anyway. When they do make themselves noticed, they are often perceived as "far out" or weird" for this reason they rarely make themselves noticed. They do not even try to communicate. Old souls usually have problems with self esteem because their perceptions and values are not shared with the rest of society. Like a person in the last decades of life, old souls are "winding down" "in retirement" "preparing for death" so to speak. - Very late level old souls, who are near their last incarnations on Earth, are so world weary that they are ready to just lay down and die. It is not uncommon for these types of old souls to become bums or homeless. - Old souls are often loners. They are a rare breed, comprising about eleven percent of the population. They have very little attachment to coworkers, neighbors, encounters of casual nature, even their sense of connection with blood relatives is not very strong. They dont like heavy entanglments with other people. When they do get involved, its because of a strong spiritual bond. It is difficult for old souls to develop relationships with people they have not had numerous past lives with. Many times old souls seek companionships through astrology or psychic endeavors. When old souls "party" they usually just sit around and talk. In dating situations, they don't need to go anywhere (to a movie) or do anything (play a game) as a means of developing social intimacy. If the basis of psychological intimacy is not quickly apparent to the old soul, he will not put himself through much trouble to develop it. -Sexis not highly prized by the Old soul. He is usually competent therein, but his lack of interest for it, and the lack of passion in it, can be disconcerting to younger souls who still prize sex highly. Old souls are often hedonistic and sensual, however, and can have a bawdy sense of humor. Old souls are often androgynous (having balanced masculine and feminine characteristics), and occasionally bisexuality is a part of their lifestyle. Gender identification is often weak in this Age because of subconscious contact with the whole psyche, which includes both masculine and feminine characteristics. What the Old soul seeks in romantic relationships is a "soul mate" — someone to whom he relates on a soul level. This might be someone else with whom he has spent many lifetimes, or another soul in his own Entity. The drive for this is so strong that it could be described as a compulsion. - In order to even out your past life choices, as an Old Soul you are often in the body of the sex you least prefer. But having had both male and female bodies so many times before, you do begin to blend the different energies and may not be greatly identified with being either male or female. It becomes hard to work up a lather about someone's homosexuality or "lack of masculinity" or "femininity". - Old souls are individualistic, believing people should do whatever they want as long as it doesnt hurt anyone else. Their motto is "You do what you want, I'll do what I want." They rarely campaign for anything, they don't want to change the world, they just want to to let it be. They have a "Live and let live" attitude. Old souls are calmer, more peaceful and centered. This can also make them appear passive or weak to other soul ages. - They do not have a strong sense of attachment to the world, they want to purify themselves of materialistic attachments - Most old souls often take a job which does not overly tax or challenge them. To them, life seems heavy and boring, life's a drag, a game which they no longer want to play. They feel like they've seen it all, "what else is there to live for?" The material pursuits of young souls seems futile to them and even the mature souls excitement about newfound truths seems passe to old souls. An old soul wants to graduate from the physical plane and go onto newer, higher planes. Old souls are subject to psychological depression. All soul ages can be to some extenst, but the old souls especially. - Most old souls come around to the understanding of reincarnation at some point in their lives. - Old souls are detached and aloof, even uninvolved. Younger souls do not understand this, although they may admire the fact that an Old soul can remain so cool in situations that younger souls find upsetting. To some it may seem that Old souls do not care. It is more accurate to say that they are nonattached. They do not make much investment in what is going on around them, and do not have strong expectations for any particular outcome. Whatever will be will be, so why fight reality? What little they can not follow, they simply avoid. They do not seek to change things, unlike mature souls who want to change the world. - Old souls inherently perceive the broader perspective. They see that the world rolls on, day after day, year after year, millennium after millennium, with the same basic stories being told time after time with minor variations. Old souls know the big lesson of the whole Maturation cycle, and that is nonjudgmental acceptance of anything and everything. What little they cannot abide, Old souls simply avoid. Rarely do they seek to change things. - The depth of wisdom of an old soul is seen in their eyes. They have a direct, penetrating stare- it looks right through you, seeming to know. Profound issues are their concern, not the trivial. They want to get right to the heart of the matter and skip all the superficialities. -Old souls tend to be tolerant and inclusive, and at least try to be open to other ways of looking at things. However, they may become upset by people whose points of view are rigid and exclusive. So if they are trying to respect different points of view, they may not respect people whose points of view do not respect other points of view. Old souls are still learning tolerance. They can be a little arrogant about the fact that they would never be so openly intolerant. -Old souls "go with the flow", and they "follow the path of least resistance". Younger souls regard this as sheer laziness — lack of drive and willpower. This trait has its advantages and disadvantages. The good thing is that they are graceful and gracious when it comes to dealing with other people. The disadvantage is that they may lack the initiative to do what could be done. They often come up with great and innovative ideas because of their advanced and efficient perceptions, but they lack the energy to bring them to completion. - Old Souls are very capable of agape or unconditional love, and many consciously work on not ever judging other people. For this very reason, some Old Souls appear to be annoyingly remote. This is usually an essence who has previously handled many emotional issues and comes to the planet intent on examining intellectual, philosophical and spiritual issues, period. -As with senior citizens, just because the Old soul is "retired" does not mean he is worthless and powerless. Indeed, an Old soul can bring considerable wisdom and competence to bear in fulfilling a significant life task. - Because of their advanced perceptions, Old souls are inherently ethical in behavior, feeling, and thought. They do not have to be taught right and wrong by parents or society. There is some socializing to be done when they are children of course, but the programming for decency, honesty, and integrity is inborn. It is as if they are grown-up even when they are children. They always feel like they are older than their chronological age. - They rarely perceive actions as being truly evil. Rather, they regard things that cause suffering as foolish and primitive. - Old souls try to maintain neutrality in time of war. It is part of their nonattachment - Old souls are casual and easygoing about everything. Nothing is a big deal to them. Almost never are they outrageous or outlandish. They are rarely concerned with outward appearances — external image or formal trappings. In extreme cases they can even appear sloppy in clothes or habitat. Rarely are they overly concerned with what other people think. -Old souls pursue education with the same casual attitude as they do everything else in life. Grades are of very little value to them. The learning itself isn't all that important unless it furthers a specific life task. Old souls tend to cut out the material pursuits that occupy so much of the time and energy of younger souls, and concentrate what little energy they have on spiritual integrity. By this is meant the need to understand the truth, and the reason for things. Old souls rarely participate in organized religion. They are often drawn rather to metaphysics, mysticism, philosophy, and the occult in their quest for understanding. It is difficult for them to synthesize their physical with their spiritual selves. They often seek unorthodox and holistic medicine rather than going to the medical establishment. - A fancy house or car, or impressive clothes and jewelry aren't often too high on an Old Soul's real priority list. Neither is a nine-to-five job. Plain laziness on the physical plane sometimes creates difficulty paying the bills, but the material game just isn't what it used to be. This is especially true after the soul has had many materially succesful lifetimes. They have already completed the lessons to be gained from having riches. However, Old Souls do have one advantage with the material world: as they begin to seek, understand and use the laws of the physical universe, goals can be attained with less effort. Thus, there is an outer, as well as an inner draw to understand the universal laws distilled in astrology, metaphysics, tarot and other ancient teachings. - Old souls are late bloomers, they usually do not grow into their full soul perceptivity until about age 35 or so. - In some ways, it can be said that Old souls are in the most difficult Age. In the first place, they do not fit in with the culture so they are often thought bizarre. They are definitely out of the mainstream of society and care little for its formal institutions. In the second place, they are often too world-weary to do what needs to be done to solve their own problems, let along anyone else's. Since they tend to follow the path of least resistance, unless they feel internal and external forces pushing them, they don't go anywhere or do anything. No matter how much they might need it for building character, they will only tolerate just a certain amount of stress in any given situation. Then they will get depressed and just chuck it all and move on. - Each soul age is trying to experience as much as possible within that particular level of perceptivity. It's absolutely to the point for an Infant Soul to be fearfully concerned about basic survival and for a Baby Soul to be requesting law and order. A Young Soul is appropriate when striving for great material wealth, power and acclaim, and a Mature Soul when beginning to feel intensely emotional and ask those deeper questions. It's appropriate for an Old Soul to not meet societal norms, to look and act mildly eccentric and to be teaching others, even when his own personal or material life isn't together. - To expect your Old Soul child to make a successful climb up a corporate ladder is unrealistic. Likewise, it's in error to count upon an aggressive Young Soul attorney turning her attention towards saving the environment, or to believe a Mature Soul embroiled in a major emotional drama would be able to calm down because you showed him the "big picture". - Younger souls are not less intelligent, less appropriate or wrong. Their lessons are about survival, structure, ambition and success, while your lessons are about emotional and universal connections. Younger souls are a natural part of that whole you know is all connected, right? So, if you're indulging yourself by feeling superior, aim for mild tolerance as a way to begin clearing up that attitude, which ultimately is a painful, separatist one to carry around. - Some musicians typifying this Old Soul need to teach are Joan Baez, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Sting, Judy Collins, Jerry Garcia, Bob Marley and children's hero and folksinger, Raffi. Paul Winter, George Winston, Kitaro and a burgeoning band of Old Soul, New Age musicians are intent on moving us into gorgeous inner spaces with their music. - Mark Twain, John Muir, and Albert Einstein were all Old Souls with a mission, as was Dr. Edward Bach. John Robbins is busy changing the way America looks at food and food production. Film director John Boorman (Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory), author Alice Walker (The Color Purple), goddess researcher Jean Shinoda Bolen, Shirley MacLaine, Robert Redford and Phil Donahue are some pretty active Old Souls currently doing work on our culture. Directly on the spiritual front we find Don Juan Matus, Nostradamus, Gurdjieff, Guru Mayi, Carl Jung, Werner Erhard, Rajneesh, Ram Dass, Matthew Fox, the Dalai Lama, Sun Bear, Swamis Satchidananda and Muktananda and transpersonal psychologists, Christina and Stanislav Grof. Jesse Jackson, Jerry Brown, Abraham Lincoln, Anwar Sadat, Iceland's president, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, and Brazil's Chico Mendes are six very affecting Old Souls who put their energy into the political arena. You'll notice these individuals teach from their being or essence in a unique fashion.