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Soul Retrieval
By Laura Beann, MSW
Shamanic Work
We all experience illness, imbalance, trauma, or other difficulties at some point in our lives. Working with a professional shamanic practitioner allows us to explore new paths for understanding and addressing these challenges. Shamanic healing offers us an opportunity to look at healing and illness from a new perspective, one that may be quite different from our conventional, culturally conditioned model.
Shamanic practitioners work with Helping Spirits to facilitate healing for their clients. The shamanic model of health and healing asserts that illness originates on the spiritual planes before it manifests as physical symptoms. Shamanic healing
is an ancient way of working with that originating energy to facilitate the healing and wellbeing of individuals, as well as the sustainability of the community at large. Shamans are able to tend to these originating symptoms by working with the unseen world in non-ordinary reality. When the shaman tends to the spiritual wound in non-ordinary reality, she is initiating healing, not only in the non-ordinary realm, but on the gross physical dimensions of reality as well.
Soul Retrieval
Soul Retrieval is a classic shamanic technique for facilitating healing and restoration of energy. According to Soul Retrieval Theory, when we experience trauma, parts of the soul
splinter from the body and find safe haven somewhere away from the trauma. Soul retrieval is the practice of finding the disenfranchised parts of ourselves, bringing them home, to the present moment where they belong and can thrive.
Shutting down emotionally is a common experience; one that can be helpful to survive difficult, traumatic or stressful experiences. However, if we continue to remain shut down, numb, or are stuck in trauma, essential aspects of ourselves may be sacrificed.
Often, imbalances occur when we cannot integrate a painful experience and return to wholeness. Shamans define this fragmentation as “soul loss” or “power loss.” If left untreated, we may remain in a state of arrested development, limiting our growth and ultimately compromising our well-being.
Symptoms of soul loss may include: • Addictions
• Chronic depression
• Chronicimmunedeficiencies
• Coma
• Feeling dissociated from the present moment, fragmented,
scattered or ungrounded
• Feelinglikeonehasn’tfeltthesamesinceaspecificevent • Fibromyalgia pain
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• Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Persistent grief or grief that won’t heal
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Suicidal tendencies
• Temporomandibular Joint Disorders
The treatment for soul loss is Soul Retrieval. With the assistance of Helping Spirits, the practitioner undertakes a shamanic journey to retrieve the fractured and missing soul part that is residing in non-ordinary reality. The practitioner then returns to ordinary reality with the soul part for the client and gently initiates the process integrating the soul part and welcoming it home.
The impact of having a soul part returned can be profound. Along with the soul part may come memories. It is not uncommon for a client to pick up a new hobby after having a soul part returned, or be healed from a chronic condition.
After receiving a soul retrieval, it is usually recommended that clients spend some time in nature. Nature has the wonderful ability to spontaneously attune those who come in contact with her. Yoga, massage and journaling are also very supportive modalities for soul Retrieval.
Today in the West, Shamanism and Soul Retrieval are experiencing a renaissance. Soul Retrieval is helping thousands of people recover from trauma and disempowering experiences. There are several resources available to you if you are looking for a shamanic practitioner who facilitates souls retrievals. Sandra Ingerman, who has been called the Grandmother of modern Soul Retrieval training, lists practitioners who have trained with her on her website (shamanicteachers.com). The Society for Shamanic Practitioners (shamansociety.org) and The Foundation for Shamanic Studies (shamanism.org) are the largest membership organizations of shamanic practitioners and both provide directories for finding a shamanic practitioner.
Laura Beann, MSW, is a shamanic practitioner in private practice in Napa, CA.
For more information on Soul Retrieval and Shamanic Healing visit laurabeann.com
www.TheWaveHolisticJournal.com