A Shamanic Perspective

From a shamanic perspective, when a person suffers an emotional or physical trauma, a piece of their soul essence or vitality may separate from their body and travel into another reality or emotional safe haven in their unconscious to survive the experience.  In our society, a person may go many years with a piece of their soul essence missing. In stark contrast, when members of a shamanic culture suffer a trauma, the community bands together within a few days to support the local shaman who performs a soul retrieval to return the lost soul essence part.  Some people who have lived for years with lost soul essence parts are currently working with psychotherapists to delve into their unconscious to recover and deal with dissociated memories. Using a variety of techniques, such as dream work, free association, animal imagery or even hypnosis, therapists can help their clients gain access to the lost parts of their self.  Experienced shamanic practitioners also retrieve lost soul parts and return them to clients as a means of restoring harmony and well-being.  How can psychotherapists and shamans effectively work together to help a patient recover lost experiences and develop a healthy course of action for recovery?  First let me provide a general overview of soul loss and the role of the shaman in recovering and returning lost soul parts.

Soul loss or dissociation can stem from a variety of traumatic incidents, such as incest, abuse, and loss of a loved one, surgery, accidents, illness, extreme stress or addiction.  Actually, anything that is experienced by someone as extremely frightful or perceived as a threat to life or body integrity is liable to result in soul loss.  A loss of soul or diminishment of spiritual energy is a powerful survival mechanism, and occurs because a person’s psyche could not survive the pain or humiliation of a traumatic experience while remaining fully present in their bodies.  In other words, a part of someone experiencing a trauma escapes to another realm to seek immediate emotional and spiritual relief from a terrible ordeal.

There are signs that indicate the presence of soul loss in a person.  Addictive behavior or the presence of chronic illness can be indicators.  Other signs can be a gap in memory, chronic depression, always looking backward or projecting loss into the future, time loss, a lack of continuity, a general feeling of not being whole or that there is something missing in ones life.  They may also have a general feeling of not being present in their bodies.  Another classic sign is if someone constantly observes life from a distance rather than engaging or experiencing it fully in the moment.

Shamans refer to the place where soul parts go to escape traumatic events as nonordinary reality.  Sometimes the missing soul parts come back on their own during self-healing or work with a therapist.  However, the missing soul parts may be trapped in a fearful place in nonordinary reality, they may be lost and not know how to come back, or they may be in a very safe and enjoyable place and not want to come back.  A soul part may also be missing and not come back on its own because it has been stolen by another person.  This is not as ominous as it sounds because this usually happens on an unconscious level.

Into Nonordinary Reality

To recover a missing soul part for a client, a shaman enters into a pure state of being, often with the aid of a percussion instrument such as a drum, and travels outside of space and time into nonordinary reality to gather the lost soul pieces.  She or he then returns them to the person in ordinary reality by blowing them back into their heart and crown chakras. The most important part of the rather complicated process is carefully integrating the returned soul essences into the client’s everyday life.  When a shaman brings back lost soul parts, the client is always gifted with a ritual that is personally and profoundly designed to add to the power of the integration process.  While soul retrievals might immediately correct the disharmony in a person's life, this work can be even more effective if supplemented by spiritual counseling.  For clients that have been working with a traditional psychotherapist it may be highly beneficial to have their therapist available during the return of the lost soul parts.  Additionally, for the person suffering from soul loss, the presence of someone that truly cares about their well being, such as family member, a partner, or a friend, often makes a deep and lasting difference regarding the breadth of the integration process following soul retrieval.

Breakthrough

Many psychotherapists report that shamanic work offers a welcome and highly useful supplement to their work with clients.  This may be particularly valid if therapists come to a point in working with a client where the therapy is stuck because the person is having a difficult time getting in touch with their feelings.  At that point, it may be very fruitful for the therapist to consult with a shaman and consider soul retrieval for the patient.  In the case of memory loss associated with traumas such as incest or abuse I have found that soul retrieval in the presence of the therapist can result in a major breakthrough in the patient’s therapy.  When people are unable to tap into their feelings as a result of soul loss, therapists have reported that after a soul retrieval their clients are able to more fully experience and express their feelings.  This occurs because the return of the missing soul parts provides the therapist with a more whole and complete patient with access to more resources and capable of a broader perspective.  In some therapist/client relationships there are immediate and dynamic breakthroughs, while in other cases the integration process occurs over a period of time.  I strongly believe that in cases of soul loss or dissociation, shamans and psychotherapists can effectively work together to help a patient recover lost experiences and make major breakthroughs in their recovery process.

When we are coming from a place of innocence we are not focused on a particular point of view.  There is no ideology to defend or a list of limiting beliefs and no expectations.  From this place of innocence, there is only wonderment. Life is not filtered at all.  Through the process of soul retrieval we rediscover our true nature and now there is a deep wisdom and openness to life.  From this place of combined innocence and wisdom, we are fully able to engage in life without losing ourselves in an identity.

Payments

The cash fee for a Soul Retrieval session is $140.  Paypal ($144.50)  payments are accepted, and are due in advance of the in office visit.   I do not accept checks as payment for soul retrieval sessions.  Please click here to make a paypal payment.

If you need additional information about soul retrieval work, or to schedule and appointment, please don’t hesitate to email me by clicking here or call me at 860-633-3487.