Shamanic Journey Work: the Soul Retrieval

When undertaking a shamanic journey for another person, there are a lot of different types of healing that can be required/suggested by your helping spirits.  All of them are important and valuable, especially to the people who receive them!  But one kind of shamanic journey work is integral to shamanism and healing in general. This is soul retrieval.  Many well-known shamans, such as Sandra Ingerman, consider soul retrieval so important that they have multi-day workshops dedicated only to learning and perfecting retrieving soul parts in shamanic journeys.

In short, a soul retrieval is the act of finding one or more pieces of another person's etheric self, and returning those pieces to them.  These pieces are often lost during a traumatic event. Someone could experience something very frightening and hurtful, and as a way to survive the experience, a part of them flees during the event. Other ways soul parts can be lost is in relationships. People can give parts of themselves to someone they love, or take a part of another person close to them. This is usually done unintentionally. In the shorter term, a person who has experienced soul loss may feel empty.  They can be depressed. They may feel like a part of themselves belongs to someone else, or left when they lost someone they loved.  These feelings may even become long term, and felt over many years. If there has been a taking or giving of soul pieces, the individuals affected may develop an unhealthy dependency on whoever has that piece. There may be some sort of imbalance in the relationship that was not present before the soul loss took place. Finding and returning the soul pieces restores balance, and allows the client to become more self-aware, more in touch with who they are. It can restore confidence. Sometimes the results are subtle, sometimes very dramatic.  

To give personal examples of the results of soul retrieval: The most subtle change I experienced was when I received parts of myself from my preteens.  I began to remember books I'd read and songs I used to listen to. I hadn't thought of these things in years. Suddenly I couldn't get them out of my head! The most dramatic change occurred when I received a part of myself that had been lost before I incarnated on earth for the first time. For the majority of my life I didn't want children. I preferred my solitude and the company of my animals. Then I meet someone about two weeks after receiving this soul part who made it very clear he was a traditional sort of person. He wanted a wife, he wanted children. I normally would run for the hills from men who suggest marriage or children, especially younger men. But with him, I agreed, and it was genuine on my part. Fast forward to the present: I am 7 months pregnant with my first child (a boy!) and very happy about that. I don't think I would have given this person the time of day, let alone decided to have a child, if I was still missing this piece of myself. It changed not only the course of my life, but also my perspective of myself and the beliefs I had about the way I was living my life. I came to realize that though my life was good, the solitude and ferocious independence were born of fear. It was not my nature. Lifestyles created from fear often have a way of becoming stale or even harmful over time. My solitude had been becoming isolation. It was time to create a different way of life that came from love.  Receiving this long lost part of my soul enabled this to happen.