The Soul Retrieval Journey

Often we find ourselves going through life without a hitch until one day a certain “button” is pushed, and another version of ourselves jumps out to handle the situation. This can be confusing to us, and to others. Many times a Soul Retrieval can be the ticket to uncovering the reason for this, and the process of integration afterwards is the healing that can de-activate that “hot button”.

When a person suffers trauma in his or her life, parts of their “soul” can withdraw and hide to protect the person from further damage and trauma. What a shaman does to assist with repairing this situation is “Journey” to the subconscious Lower World to bring back that lost soul part, to find out why it left, plus to retrieve important information, & resources,. To do this, we look for 4 different pieces of information.

1st we find and witness the original wound that caused this soul part to hide.

2nd we find and witness the “soul contract” that the client has made subconsciously to try to prevent the wound situation from happening again.

3rd we find the lost soul part and find out what it needs from the
client in order to feel safe about returning.

4th we locate a valuable resource or gift for the client which the shaman will bring back so it can be used.

Finally, just as we leave the Underworld sometimes we encounter a Helper, Totem or Power Animal, which is an ally for the client to enable him or her to reconnect with an energy in nature they have lost or forgotten.
Many times this animal helper is already well known to the client, and a deeper relationship can be established through learning about the nature of the animal and what role it plays in various traditional mythologies.

These soul parts and resources are all then blown into the client's luminous energy body. How they develop and how quickly will depend on how the client works with them after they have been returned .

What we locate and witness in the Lower World is often not literal and may not appear to us as an actual event. This information may appear as symbolic of issues that the Client is facing. What is stored there is often how an event is actually perceived by the injured party, which may or may not be as it actually happened. This is because we all react differently to events, especially based on our age at the time and our past experiences.

I often describe this process to clients as going into the Collective Unconscious, pulling your file, and bringing back the contents. Working together to interpret and integrate the information there is the next step of the process, which is a little like interpreting the symbols and information in our dreams. We all have different ways of naming and relating to this process, based on our backgrounds. Whatever we call it, it is a creative, satisfying and healing process. It is always an honor to engage in this work with, and on behalf of, a client.