Soul Loss – How Shamanic Healing Can Restore your Life Force
Many of us have heard about Soul Retrieval, which is the return of lost soul fragments (or lost parts) of ourselves. Soul Retrieval is a classical shamanic practice, and in some communities it was the primary method of maintaining health or power. The word soul equates to our life-force, and in shamanic terms we are a composite of ‘souls’, or life-force, and this explains why we can become fragmented. The Shipibo – Conibio Indians of the Upper Amazon Rainforest, for example regard every part of our body as having a soul; arms, hands, organs, glands, bones and so on, and part of their healing practise is to journey to retrieve the soul or life force of a particular part of the body, as a pre-requisite for the healing on the physical level to take place.
In the shamanic worldview, power and maintaining health go hand in hand, if the body is power-full, there is no room for illness or disease which are regarded as an invasive force. Power in the English language has a number of connotations which can make us feel uncomfortable. The meaning of power in the shamanic worldview, equates to power over ourselves, not power over others. The more power we have over ourselves, means that we are truly able to live our lives, without being knocked off centre, without having the need to react when our ‘buttons’ are pushed, we become less needy of other people’s power, and the more power we have over ourselves even makes it difficult to lie or dissemble, simply because we have no need to.
Soul Retrieval is one way to restore and maintain our life force, and power, and this is an act where we receive our own life-force. Another way to maintain our life-force is not to hold on to anybody else. In our