souls send out their own guardian spirit or power animal to retrieve the lost soul. Navajo tribal elders knew that to bring the living dead back to life was to ritualize the process of having them call their spirit back into their body.
Western trained healers would understand the psyche’s mortal wound as an emotional and mental violation beyond what the human mind can cognitively comprehend. They would describe the symptoms as some kind of mental or psychological illness or disease. To treat the symptoms, they often prescribe antidepressants that can sometimes prolong the suffering and increase drug tolerance for even more mental and physical complications. The western healing approach may have good intentions but it often misses the third and most important component of a mind-body-spirit solution – spirit.
What western healers can realize is that successful treatment results in a psychic death not a physical death and what may be needed is a more integral approach of both western and alternative healing modalities that include mind, body and spirit. This is why 12 step recovery programs are often successful when other western healing solutions have failed.
The only way for wounded healers to become well is to retrieve the fragmented pieces of their mind, body and spirit. Of course, we never really loose our spirit or souls but to “call our spirits back” is an important and symbolic way to describe returning from the Dark Night – the emotional underworlds of lost souls and the living dead.
The Ultimate Solution – Ego Death
Paradoxically the Dark Night is also a time of tremendous grace since deep suffering offers the wounded healer the opportunity to realize at any moment they don’t have