Going for the Quick Hit or the Long Haul

Where the Soul Dwells

The quick hit and the long haul—two paths, two distinct currents in the river of life. One dazzles and fades away; the other transforms us from within. Beneath every decision lies the soul. And the soul, when we listen closely, is nothing more and nothing less than whatever we give our devotion to. Essentially, soul is in the choices we make.

Throughout history, mystics have debated where the soul dwells. Some argued it resides in the heart; others believed it lives in the liver, in the breath, or at the crown of the head, where consciousness touches the sky. The Upanishads suggest that the soul lives where our attention rests. Taoist sages express a similar idea but in a more subtle way: the soul lives where we continually return. In other words, whatever we dedicate our attention to—whether a practice, a person, or a moment of presence—that is where the soul takes root.

But it’s not that the soul cares about geography. It doesn’t! It cares about devotion, commitment, and choice.

The Quick Hit: Splash of Water, Flash of Light

A quick hit is a spiritual lightning strike, a sudden splash of cold water that jolts the soul awake. In an instant, the ordinary cracks open and something larger rushes through. It can arrive in a startling dream, during deep meditation, in a teacher’s unexpected insight, or through a mystical moment that rearranges the inner world without warning. For a few suspended seconds—or minutes, or sometimes hours—life becomes translucent. The air feels lighter. Possibility hums. We sense expansion, clarity, a thinning of the veil that usually keeps the unseen out of reach.

And then, like lightning, it’s gone.
Like water on the skin, it evaporates.

Michael Eigen, a respected colleague and writer of psychoanalytic mysticism, once wrote that intense spiritual experiences often come “too much, too fast, too bright”—a rush of revelation that leaves us trembling but without a container to hold what was given. Wilfred Bion, a depth psychotherapist, referred to what he called the mystic verse —the realm of ineffable realities —and advised that when something powerful enters consciousness, our task is not to cling to the feeling but to digest the experience, to metabolize it slowly. The flash is the invitation; the digestion is the work.

Quick hits are valuable. Necessary, even. They open the door. But they don’t carry us through it.

The Long Haul: The Art of Staying

The long haul starts when the intensity fades. There’s nothing glamorous about showing up every day. No magical fireworks. No visions or cosmic shivers or bliss. Just the ordinary act of staying present when our instinct is to look away.

The long haul asks us to do what the quick hit does not: remain faithful to the transformation we glimpsed.

Bion called this tolerating not knowing—the willingness to sit inside confusion and uncertainty without rushing to conclusions or running from discomfort. Eigen expands on this by suggesting that depth is not born from intensity alone, but from the capacity to stay open after the intensity passes. Lightning is dramatic. Soil is patient. Yet the seed grows only in soil.

Transformation is the slow ripening of a once-revealed, on-the-spot, lightning-bolt, splash-of-cold-water revelation.

The Deep Water of Love

Nowhere is this truer than in love. Love is not a quick hit. Love is the ocean—and the ocean, by nature, does not stay still.

A patient once shared a dream of sitting along the pristine coastline of a beach. People had been in the water all day—laughing, floating, diving under the waves—and now, as the sunlight faded into dusk, the sea turned into a sheet of molten gold. The dreamer remained on the shore, watching. They could feel the scent of salt, hear the rhythm of waves, and sense the freedom of those swimming, but they did not enter. They were close to life, yet somehow untouched by it.

For many, that is all that feels possible—touch without immersion, nearness without vulnerability. In love, this can manifest as tasting intimacy without letting it deepen, or experiencing connection while avoiding surrender. Quick touches rather than sustained contact. Sparks instead of warmth.

And still, that proximity is not meaningless. It means something is stirring. The shoreline is not exile; it is an offer, an initiation into the realm of possibilities. But the sea will always call us toward depth.

The Question Beneath All Questions

For over forty years, as a depth psychologist, my research explorations, writings, and practice influenced by quantum field theory and the psychology of consciousness—the shimmering place where science and mysticism peer into the same mystery—keep leading me to a single realization: reality is far stranger and more alive than we imagine. Physicists speak of fields that respond to observation. Mystics speak of the Divine responding to attention. Both describe a world that listens.

But after the awe, another question rises quietly from the depths: If a worldview doesn’t make us kinder, softer, more capable of love, then what purpose does it serve?

The Buddha said, Practice is the path. William James insisted that truth is what proves itself through life. Jung reminded us that we do not become enlightened by imagining light, but by making darkness conscious.

Different cultures, different languages—one truth: it’s our choices, focus on depth rather than surface, and the enduring commitment to the long journey of life and love that transforms us.

Choosing Your Soul’s Home

The quick hit is the spark. The long haul is the fire.

Quick hits are valuable because they wake us. They help us remember what we long for. But the soul grows not through flashes of insight—it grows through the continuity of attention. Through staying with what and who we choose to love. Through learning to swim rather than simply watching the waves.

Every moment of life quietly returns us to this choice: Flash or fire. Shore or sea. Quick hit or long haul.

Where you place your devotion is where your soul will learn to live.

Soul Reflection

Close your eyes for a moment. Take a slow breath in and feel the air enter your body. Let it remind you that every beginning is silent. Every transformation begins with noticing.

Now bring to mind something in your life where you’ve been settling for flashes instead of fire. It may be love, work, creativity, soul practice, or the courage to feel.

Ask—without judgment, without pushing: Where have I remained on the shore? Where does my life ask me to enter the water?

You do not have to plunge in all at once. You only need to take one step deeper than yesterday.

When you breathe in, welcome the spark. When you breathe out, commit to the long swim.

Open your eyes. The water is waiting.