The practice of soul retrieval to mend the fragmentation of self.
Soul retrieval is often referred to as a healing received by a spiritual practitioner who energetically calls home lost parts of your soul. Parts that have been lost through disassociation during trauma, and parts of our consciousness that have left our body when it was unsafe, or painful, but were never to return.
Soul retrieval is a journey of letting unfinished loops of pain complete, bringing all parts of ourselves to the present moment, unbridling us from the past. It’s a practice of awakening to, and coming into relationship with these fragmented parts of our consciousness, and weaving ourselves whole. Yes, it can be facilitated by a practitioner, and yes we can do this ourselves.
People on the infinite journey of self-growth and bettering themselves, are ultimately doing this over, and over again. The better we understand the process, the more powerful shifts we can make.
When I refer to a "lost part” this can show up as depression, anxiety, a repetitive emotional pattern or outburst, or a deeply engrained story or belief that loops in your life causing suffering. Often these repetitive painful emotions are a manifestation of an unprocessed experience that is stuck in a loop finding crevasses of your life to appear again and again.
A part may arise as a sense of yourself at a certain age lingering in the back of your mind for attention. It can be an experience or memory that is bubbling and you intuitively know it’s asking for attention. This awareness is deeply guided by our intuition with an inner knowing that something is arising, looping, or needing your attention.
We don’t have to understand the story as much as we need to track the energetic imprint or detrimental pattern or belief that is causing us suffering. The goal is to track it to its birth and tend it so we can close the loop and stop it from affecting us today.
We can either begin by choosing a pain point we can’t seem to shake, a state of self we desire we can’t seem to embody, or a dream that we can't seem to manifest into fruition, and we ask the part of ourselves that is withholding us to arise - and remember this “part” is often a feeling, not a tangible answer.
From there we track everything about the part examining how it feels inside and out - emotionally, mentally, and physically, and how it manifests in our life. Track the feeling of that part back in time until you reach its moment or timeframe of becoming. It’s meeting the felt sense of this part face to face, and fully surrendering to it for it to move through your being, to speak to you if it needs, and to close the loop.
When we go through the process of tracking our psyche and spirit, sometimes a distinct moment in time will show up, and other times a concrete answer won’t arise. Maybe crystal clarity isn't what needs to come. If it doesn't, know it's because it doesn't matter, or that you don't need that information right now, or maybe ever. The awareness of the pattern is what matters.
Recognizing the repetitive sensation, emotion, habit, or pattern that follows you is the key because you will now see it when it arises, and when you see it again, and again, you will realize that this pattern is a frozen loop of the past. Its charge will dissipate. It's a part of your soul that was wounded and dissociated and that emotional or energetic state, is now stuck in a loop until you recognize it which allows it to complete.
The illusion of soul retrieval is that these parts of ourselves have never actually left.
There was just some aspect of severing that occurred whether we didn’t have the emotional or mental capacity, or awareness to process at the time, and it needs you to process it now. You have to let yourself know that you are right here, right now, in this present moment, and that you are unreachable by the circumstances of the past. And you have to do so with perseverance, unconditional love, and compassion.
This doesn’t mean the feeling will never return, it’s that the charge shifts.
You may be wanting a solution more extravagant than this, you may be wanting a special power, or God/Goddess to heal you. But the thing about soul retrieval is, that all these parts of ourselves simply need to be seen. Once you see it, the pattern begins to disintegrate.
It’s like sitting in a women’s circle. Each woman gets to share, not to receive answers, validation, or sympathy from the other women, she shares to be seen and witnessed as she speaks because that is all it takes for the charge to shift. This is the key to soul retrieval. These aching parts need to be seen. Our struggles need to be seen. Our wounds need to be seen. Not validated by anybody else - we need to see ourselves and witness ourselves (and sometimes having others around as mirrors is helpful).
So much of soul retrieval is being able to sit with your heartache and feel it. To sit with your feelings and let the energy move. It’s not turning it into a story with your logical mind, and it’s not bypassing the truth of what is.
As soon as we try to override what we feel, we begin to split off. We being to shut down. We begin to tuck away parts of ourselves. And as soon as we get hooked to the story we freeze the past in time taking our pain forever forward. These responses are in hopes to escape the detriment that comes with the wounds (whether consciously or subconsciously), but it only amplifies them.
As soon as we ignore our longings and our dissatisfaction they invoke our pain more vigorously. The more we shut down parts of ourselves, the more they thrash for air. The more we resist that voice of truth within, the more aggressive it will get until we listen.
When you are afraid to look, or your afraid to accept the truth of what has arisen, remember you have a choice. There is a difference between turning your back and telling a part of yourself to hush out of desperation not wanting to hear your truth, versus looking at it and saying I see you, I hear you, I honor you and respect you, and I need to come back to you later because this is too much right now. This communication is powerful because our psyche understands when it is genuine, and it also knows when we are procrastinating the inevitable out of fear, and when this is the case, it won't back down.
Our lost parts are never really lost, they are just holding their breath waiting for us to breathe into them again.
The beauty of calling upon archetypes, traversing different energy centers and chakras in our beings, and dropping into different parts of our bodies is that they all hold parts of us. They are symbolism that helps us process our subconscious, and they do hold different frequencies. They all hold different memories and stories. They all hold different pearls of wisdom. Traversing them, role-playing with them, and making relationships with them is a powerful tool of transformation.
All these parts of ourselves are waiting for us to realize we’ve been whole all along, and they’ve been waiting for our attention to show us how to embrace our multifaceted complex nature. How to embrace our past, and how to alchemize our pain for our greatest good. They're waiting for us to embrace our fear so they can show us courage, and the transformation possible when we choose to trust.
Our fragmented, severed parts are waiting for us to realize our power, so we use it for greatness.
When it comes to soul retrieval, you can plant the seed, you can name the pain point your calling upon, but what arises may look completely different. The path is never what we think to our desired destination.
There may be a whole string of events that have severed the part of yourself you are calling home, the part of yourself that is aching, and you have to start at the center to truly reclaim it. If we continually hold in our heart the vision of our healed and empowered state, and the vision of us receiving what we desire, with a genuine willingness to listen, what needs to arise and be released, will. Where we need to be tested and pushed, we will be.
Our perseverance will always be tested by the universe regarding what we tell ourselves we want. Are you truly willing to follow the course to get what you think you want if that means surrendering your control of the ride?
This is where trust in the divine comes in. This is where trust in the medicine of the marigold is needed. The cycle of death and rebirth, dark and light, pain and joy. Soul retrieval is rooted in letting go and choosing to trust in surrender. It’s about surrendering to the lack of control we’ve never actually had.
Soul retrieval is finishing out the loop of death we disassociated from, so we can rebirth.
We often fragment in a moment of death, in a moment of loss, trauma, or deep grief, and part of the soul gets stuck in limbo. It's like in the movies when a ghost doesn't realize they're dead and they're stuck between worlds discombobulated. Once they realize they're dead, they can then move on. Once we accept what's been lost, look it in the eyes, and genuinely grieve, we can move on.
The same thing happens when we have an opportunity for great change and abundance, and we are unknowingly stuck in a story of smallness, disempowerment, victimhood, fear, lack of faith, scarcity, and insecurity. We hold ourselves hostage in limbo because we are stuck in contraction unable to receive. We haven't let the pain of our stories and fears move through us to release, and we, therefore, inhibit ourselves from allowing all that could be to become, and we inhibit ourselves from making it happen.
Walking a spiritual path is a commitment to communing with your body and spirit, energy, and physicality constantly. It's the embrace that you are a spiritual being in a physical body with the power to take charge of your life. It’s a love affair with yourself, and a love affair with the universe.
Vow today to not turn your back on the hard stuff and choose to face ALL of you, and ALL of life with loyalty, love, respect, compassion, and faith. Vow to have faith in the divine unfolding that life brings you. See yourself as whole, as perfection, as divine, and as living in your highest state of expression just as you are, on an infinite path of growth.
Vow today to see abundance, sweetness, love, infinite possibilities, and beauty. Because once you let go of the pain of the past and open your eyes to today, everything you've ever dreamed of is right at your fingertips.
With love,
Abby
