Soul Retrieval
Shamanic practitioners don't see the soul as a solid chunk of stuff, but as a malleable energetic entity.
The soul is an individuated divine essence that is also always in flowing motion with everything else, in the same way that light is both a particle and a wave.
Our health, in shamanic terms, is the result of our empowerment, or lack of it. It is the result of our ability or inability to tap into the flowing light of creation.
We can take on more power, becoming more than we were.
We may do this through establishing a connection with a totem animal, a spirit that acts as a kind of "step down transformer" for the Creator's power, making it into something accessible to us.
We may also grow spiritually through pilgrimage, through connections to a holy place or through union with another spiritual or physical being.
Conversely, we may develop power problems. Shamanism sees illness not primarily as a set of psychological or physical problems, but rather, as one or more energetic problems. Because the soul is malleable, a person may lose power as well as gain it. For example, part of a person's soul may "splinter off" in a moment of trauma or they may have spiritual intrusions, draining them of power.
The three processes of Shamanic healing
Shamanic healing can be broken down into three essential processes.
First, bringing in power that should be there but isn't; for example, when the shaman restores a soul-part lost in trauma.
Second, removing power that is there and shouldn't be; for example, when the shaman extracts a spiritual parasite, or severs a draining energetic tie with an abusive ex-lover.
Finally, the shaman may work to harmonize the power of the client with the power of the Spirits, helping them align their body, mind and spirit with the Sacred.
When to use Shamanic healing?
This simple and wonderful system, defined by a fine energy, yet extremely powerful and easy to apply – can be used in a multitude of situations that occur during our lives:
• Helping a person with a deep suffering to choose either to live any longer or not, the option being seen from a spiritual perspective – accepting that any end is a new beginning after all.
• Offering support for the souls of the deceased to return into light
• Treatment for plants and animals
• Healing treatment for oneself and for others
• Helping unborn children to come by offering a better anchoring in the physical bodies
• Settling conflicts appeared in the world, supporting the political leaders in making the decisions that can affect the entire Earth
• Receiving spiritual information during your dreams
• Visiting a faraway friend
• Distant treatments
• Treatment illness of unknown causes
• Healer purification
• Mental healing
• Physical and emotional healing of heart
• Solving medical emergencies
Soul Retrieval
When we are hurt by people, circumstances and other forces that are out of our control, we often want to forget that the trauma happened in the first place and move on as quickly as possible. This approach can leave people with a lingering feeling of loss, that some part of them is missing, even after returning to normalcy in their lives.
It may feel like lower energy or like an aching pain stuck in your body, often in the area of the heart, especially if the trauma was due to a romantic breakup. It may feel like living a zombie-like existence, in spite of all outward vital signs being normal and healthy.
In shamanism, this experience is called soul loss. Soul loss occurs when a traumatic event (be it physical or emotional) causes the energy to fragment, whereby parts of the soul flee for safety and end up trapped in the locale of the trauma or lost, and adrift in the world.
Soul retrieval is an ancient practice that shamans use in order to bring an individual who is suffering from soul loss back to wholeness. In order to understand how it works – and whether you need it – it’s necessary to first understand what triggers soul loss, what the symptoms are, and how to heal this energetic fragmentation of the Self.
During the soul retrieval process, the practitioner moves into an altered state of consciousness to travel to realities outside of normal perception (non-ordinary reality), also known as hidden spirit worlds, to retrieve the lost part of the soul.
Once the lost soul is located, the practitioner will “acknowledge the former pain and gently negotiate the soul’s return to the body.” She then brings the soul back to normal reality and (literally) blows the missing soul part back into body through the head or heart.
If you are trained in shamanic journeying you can ask your helping spirits to perform a soul retrieval in your behalf. Or your can ask for a healing dream where you set the intention to request a soul retrieval to be performed during the dream state.
If these two processes do not create change or healing then working with a trained shamanic practitioner is recommended.
The following checklist can help to determine if soul loss has occurred:
You have a difficult time staying “present” in your body
You feel numb, apathetic, or deadened
Chronic depression?
You have problems with your immune system and have trouble resisting illness
You were chronically ill as a child
Memory gaps of your life after age five where you sense that you may have blacked out significant traumas in your life
Struggle with addictions, for example, to alcohol, drugs, food, sex or gambling
Find yourself looking to external things to fill up an internal void or emptiness
Have difficulty moving on with your life after a divorce or the death of a loved one
You suffer from multiple personality syndrome
Within situations of physical and emotional abuse, negation and trauma, there are many experiences in life that can be too difficult to bear. Soul loss is an understandable response for spiritual wounds, and deep fragmentation of one’s soul essence, that would lead to an internal dissociation from natural balance.
Whenever you’re hurt either physically or emotionally, it’s a spiritual illness that affects the soul, which can later on, turn into physical disease.
This is because you lose vital life force energy when your soul fragments, and if this illness is not healed, it can manifest as a physical, emotional, or mental disease.
On a collective level, soul loss is so widespread that some believe that it is the root cause of many of the problems plaguing society today. Disease, abusive relationships, crime, workaholism, chronic illnesses, addiction, corruption, terrorism and war – these are all indications of soul loss.
In order to help a person with fragmented soul feel whole once again, soul retrieval is an essential part of the healing process. Once the other pieces of the soul are retrieved, the next step is reintegrating them back together, which will bring back the power and potential energy of the person. Soul retrieval and reintegration provide the following benefits:
You’ll feel grounded
You’ll be energized, awake, and feel more alive
You’ll notice that you seem to have greater influence in the world
You’ll become more aware of decisions, choices and behaviors
You’ll have an unexplainable surge of joy or feeling of lightness
You’ll notice better physical well being and experience lesser sickness
You’ll sleep better
You’ll be more equipped to battle addictive tendencies
You’ll feel a sense of belongingness or wholeness
You’ll notice better mental clarity
Soul loss is a spiritual illness, that causes emotional sickness and physical disease. As a result of a trauma or stress, fragments of the soul – crucial parts of ourselves that provide us with life and vitality – can leave the energy body and go wander in different realms. These realms are more often than not, inaccessible because these are guarded by heavy defenses. People may not or have difficulty accessing these on their own. This is where shamans can help.
A shaman will enter trance states together with the affected person. Together, they will journey through the spirit worlds, accompanied by spirit helpers, setting the intention to retrieve the lost parts of the soul.
These journeys may involve encounters with dark energies that may show themselves as dangerous beasts like monsters, reptiles or dragons. The beasts in question are the guardians of the soul, or known as defense mechanisms in psychotherapy. Successfully retrieving the fragmented parts of the soul means having to overcome these dark energies.
Once the shaman and the client are able to retrieve the missing parts of the soul, the shaman will reintegrate these back together with the client. Reintegration can be done several ways such as by blowing the energy back into the body, through a ceremony, or could also be done with the use of cognitive tools like inner child work.
Then you can reintegrate your soul and get to experience what it feels like to be thriving and whole once again.
Soul retrieval is not a quick fix. If you have done a lot of personal work the soul retrieval might be the end of the work. If not the soul retrieval would be the beginning of the work.
No matter where you may find yourself, at the beginning or near the end of working through an issue, the most important factor in all healing work is you.
You have to be willing to do the work that is necessary to participate in your own healing. You will have to be willing to look at yourself with new eyes, from a new perspective and as an embodiment of completion and wholeness, while knowing that willingness is the impetus for great change which always begins with the heart.
If you would like to hear more about Shamanic Healing you can do that here.
