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Soul Loss and Soul Retrieval | A Shamanic Perspective
To understand soul loss, it’s best to think of the soul as being like a holographic 3D image. Holographic images result from a laser beam passing through a special type of film which contains the potential for a three-dimensional image. You may recall how in the first Star Wars movie (which turned out to be episode IV), Princess Leia created a holographic image to get a message to Obi-Wan Kenobi with the now iconic line, “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi,” then installed it in the robot, R2-D2.
If a small piece of the film that holds the image is broken, you’ll still get a 3D image, however it won’t be as clear. This is a fair analogy to soul loss in that it isn’t someone’s entire soul that is lost, but a piece of the soul, much like Leia’s damaged film holding the holographic image. The individual functions okay but may have a feeling that something is missing. The more extensive the soul loss, the more severe the symptoms can become. To varying degrees, the person may experience feelings of alienation, forgetfulness, lethargy, fragmentation, psychic numbness, or decreased physical sensation.
While these symptoms can have many causes, shamanic healing and Earth Magic focus on the spiritual root. A diagnostic assessment, typically through a shamanic journey or guided meditation, can determine whether soul loss is a factor, and from there, soul retrieval can be undertaken by a trained practitioner, or you may elect to follow the process yourself. Either way can be effective, however if it’s the first time, I’d recommend working with someone trained in the process.
Trauma and Soul Loss
Trauma and Soul Loss
When someone has been traumatized, they are particularly vulnerable to soul loss. When trauma overwhelms the nervous system, dissociation is a natural response — and from a shamanic perspective, that same rupture can cause a part of the soul to detach and remain separate, unable to find its way back on its own.
It’s highly unusual to go through life without some degree of soul loss, and even though we can function quite effectively having lost a fragment of our soul, restoring those aspects of soul that have been left behind allows us to emerge more fully into our complete and authentic self.
And it’s not just trauma that can cause soul loss; we can also give away fragments through strong attachments we make with others in which we “lose ourselves.” Typically, these are romantic attachments where someone has become overly dependent on the other.
Also worth noting: you can inadvertently steal an aspect of another’s soul. By clinging to someone out of fear or desperation, especially after a relationship has ended, there’s a risk you are holding onto a part of them that needs to be released.
Dissociation and Soul Recovery
Dissociation — the feeling of estrangement from oneself under extreme stress — is a perfectly natural response to overwhelming experiences.
Whether you are in fact dying or it just seems like you might, in addition to everything else happening psychologically, physically, and emotionally, you do leave your body. Or more accurately, a part of you does—and that part of you is a part of your soul.
You’re extremely vulnerable in many ways in the midst of a traumatic event. So much is going on that your organismic, instinctual self is overwhelmed and doing what it has to do to keep you alive under what is perceived as life-threatening circumstances. The Creator has constructed our survival mechanisms in such a way that we do what we must in order to sustain our life. From a shamanic perspective, in such situations it’s quite natural to experience soul loss.
Soul retrieval is sometimes also called soul recovery. There’s an interesting parallel between soul retrieval and other psychotherapeutic treatments for PTSD. In both, the release of stored nervous system energy —preferably in a gradual way so that the individual is not once again overwhelmed and re-traumatized—can trigger a brief period of shaking and crying. This marks a natural part of the healing response.
Shamanic healing not only helps people discover whether they have experienced soul loss, it can also identify the soul fragment that most needs to be returned- enabling the person to heal and once again experience a greater sense of wholeness.
