Integrate Your Soul Parts with Soul Retrieval
What is soul retrieval?
Anyone who's had a trauma, from a shamanic point of view, may have had some loss of their soul. By soul we mean the spiritual essence essential throughout one's life as we describe life in our culture, which is from conception or birth to the time of death. The techniques for healing soul loss are soul-retrieval techniques, and one of the classic shamanic methods is to go searching for that lost portion of the soul and restore it.
Until recently, most people in the Western world felt that soul retrieval was a superstitious practice that had no validity, but things have turned. I must say that a major reason is the work of my colleague, Sandra Ingerman, the author of Soul Retrieval and Coming Home. During her shamanic practice in Santa Fe, NM, years ago, women who had had significant childhood abuse would mention in the course of the sessions that they had removed themselves psychically from the situation at the time of abuse. Sandra immediately recognized, as a practicing shaman, that the person's soul to some degree had left the body (if it had left completely, the person would have been dead), and therefore the logical thing was to retrieve the lost portion of the soul and bring it back. So she then started doing soul retrieval for these people who had had significant childhood traumas, and the results were astounding. Today, this work is an important part of shamanic healing practice in the West.
-Michael Harner, PhD, The Foundation for Shamanic Studies
Life After Soul Retrieval
Take time to rest afterwards. Put on some nice music and lie down for about 20 minutes while breathing deeply. Put your hands on your belly and breathe deeply as you experience yourself absorbing the light of your soul/essence. You may imagine yourself as a darkened room that has had the curtains opened, suddenly flooded with light. Or find your own metaphor that helps you to understand what it means to fully absorb the light of your soul. Soak in the light, let it fill every corner of your being with its radiance.
It is best to abstain from alcohol and marijuana for 24 hours.
Within 24 hours, give a gift to the earth as thanks for your life. Perhaps plant something, or offer cornmeal or seeds to the earth.
Trust that the soul/essence is back. The purpose of a soul retrieval is to heal the wounds and losses of the past and to move forward in a positive manner. After a soul retrieval, the focus is on integrating the returned essence.
Integration Questions:
After 24 hours, use journeying, meditation, or right/left hand writing to get additional information from the returned soul/essence. Ask the soul/essence:
What gifts, talents, and strengths are you bringing back?
What changes do I need to make in my life so that you feel welcomed back home and supported?
How do I use this new creative energy and vitality restored to me to manifest a positive present and future for myself?
How do I bring passion and meaning back into my life so that I can thrive?
Methods:
Many methods may be used to get answers to the integration questions.
Shamanic journeying can help you find answers. Ask your Inner Wisdom or teacher to set up a meeting in Non-Ordinary Reality with the returned soul/essence.
During Meditation ask your inner wisdom "What changes do I need to make to support my growing wholeness?"
Guided visualization is another useful tool. I have available Sandra Ingerman's Shamanic Visualizations CD. She will guide you to the lower world where you can ask questions.
Psychotherapy can also help integrate returning soul essences.
Right/left hand writing is another way to access parts of yourself and your inner child. Write a question with your dominant hand. Then write the answer with your non-dominant hand.
Emotional Support:
You may experience a variety of feelings as you integrate your returning soul. Sharing your experience with a friend or counselor may help the integration process. Reading Sandra Ingerman's book, Welcome Home: Following Your Soul's Journey Home, may be very helpful, too.
"The shamanic faith is that humanity is not without allies. There are forces friendly to our struggle to birth ourselves as an intelligent species. But they are quiet and shy; they are to be sought, not in the arrival of alien star fleets in the skies of earth, but nearby, in wilderness solitude, in the ambience of waterfalls, and yes, in the grasslands and pastures now too rarely beneath our feet."
— Terence McKenna, "Food of the Gods"
