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Phil thank you, and thank you to Michaela for suggesting I read Phil’s blog.
It was so interesting and I have done a little research about soul loss and I wondered in fact if this is me – maybe when Michael died I did lose part of my soul. Maybe my soul is temporarily removed whilst I am in grief. So much seems to fit, such as feeling disconnected from life and that I can’t feel anything, or connect.
Maybe I am trying to grasp something to ease my grief but so what, maybe I am in some kind of limbo – I certainly feel as if I am searching. I was reading that soul loss is about a sense that you gave away a part of you to someone – your heart, your soul and that you were not the same once they had died.
It also writes about a mother or father giving some of their soul to a child to protect them and keep them safe, which I certainly did albeit unconsciously, to Michael.
Phil thank you so much. And if you do decide to undertake some shaman training along with the therapeutic drum training I would be a willing client.
I wondered what others thoughts are on this interesting subject.
Love and hugs
Sue x
Interesting stuff – it struck a chord with me too. And Recovery is all about what works for you.
One of the more enlightening books I read about soul loss and soul recovery was a book called “Soul Retrieval – Mending The Fragmented Self” by Sandra Ingerman. This concept of soul loss was something that ‘fitted’ in with my own beliefs when my ‘use’ of hallucinogenics lead me to believe that I had not completely returned to my body. I had the most horrendous experience on psilocybin mushrooms that I believe opened my consciousness up to the shame that was trapped within me. Fear is an emotion for me that kicks in when I don’t want people getting too close to that shame. The fear was my safeguard against this happening. So the fear I felt that night was so intense that I believe a further part of my soul fragmented.
“The basic premise is that whenever we experience trauma, a part of our vital essence separates from us in order to survive the experience by escaping the full impact of the pain. Today we often find soul loss is a result of such traumas as incest, abuse, loss of a loved one, surgery, accident, illness, miscarriage, abortion, the stress of combat, and addiction. What constitutes trauma varies from one individual to another. Soul loss can be caused by whatever a person experiences as traumatic, even if another person would not experience it as such.
In modern times, psychology has provided our primary model for addressing the painful sense of incompleteness and disconnection that many of us experience. We may spend years in therapy or self help groups trying to uncover traumas and to become whole. But psychotherapy works only on the parts of us that are “home”.”
This is an excerpt from her book. She holds a Master’s degree in counseling psychology and has trained as a shaman under Micheal Harner who wrote the book “The Way of The Shaman”. Harner really brought this ancient form of spirituality back into the westernised world.
When we’re born we are psychic I believe. We just feel. We feel hungry, we feel tired, we feel sick, we feel lots of things but we don’t have thoughts like adults that attach conditions on these feelings. It’s only as we grow we are conditioned by our parents and teachers and society at large to become less intuitive. We almost de-condition ourselves in the process of what we call ‘growing up’!
So recovery for me has to happen on ALL levels of my state of being. For that to happen I need ALL parts of me at “home”. The shift from the trauma to the healing process can then take place for me. I believe I’m in that process myself with my recovery from the trauma of addiction. I feel, a lot like, I need to be more in touch with that inner child; and to help bring him “home” I am looking at the creative process in allowing that to happen. When we’re children we run, play, skip, sing, dance etc but when we grow up, again we’re told this is childish. I think it’s even harder for men because these things are not given space in our masculine identity. We’re seen as a bit ‘gay’ if we skip down the street don’t we? lol I’ve been blocked for many years because of this, feeling weak and inferior because I WAS and still am more in touch with that ‘feminine’ side of me. Too many conditions again of how a man should be in this society and I feel there’s not enough creativity to allow the spirit to be free.
Thanks for you blog and comments Sue. Love and Light xx
Hello Phil
Thank you so much for introducing me to soul loss and your wonderful reply.
I spoke to a couple of my friends yesterday who are also therapists and Anne was very interested in the concept of soul loss and like me she intends to research it further – it just seems to make sense of my feeling of loss.
Take care of yourself.
sue x
