In a soul retrieval the practitioner journeys with their GuidesGuides. The Lower-World and Upper-World beings a practitioner works with and learns from, of whom the Power Animal is the first and foremost. True Guides are ethical to their core; the shaman’s power comes from the depth of these bonds, not from the shaman. More about this, finds the lost part, persuades it to return and brings it home, usually with healing along the way. Lost parts most often appear as the person at the age they were lost. Because the part of us that stayed behind may not want the lost part back, that part has to be heard first, and afterwards life often has to change to make room for what has returned.
How does soul retrieval work? #
In outline, simply. The practitioner journeys with the help of their Guides, finds the lost soul partSoul-part. A small-s, middle-world part of the self that can be lost (sent away) and can be retrieved. Not the capital-S Soul. Read the full answer, persuades it to return, and brings it home. Sometimes it can be that simple. Usually, though, “some healing has to be done before a returned soul part can be fully integrated back into the person”.1 In one example, that healing was given by Lower-WorldLower-World. The realm of Mother Earth: pure, unspoilt, wild nature, with no technology and no agriculture. Home of the Peoples and of our own Soul, and completely safe: feeling threatened in a journey is a reliable sign of not having reached it. Read the full answer Humans in a longhouse.
It is rarely quite so simple today. We also need to ask why the soul part left, whether other parts of us are ready for it to return, and what needs to happen for it to stay. See What is soul retrieval?
What might a lost soul part look like? #
Most often, like the person at the age the part was lost. Of all the forms soul parts can take, “by far and away the most common is for them to appear in human form, usually simply looking like the client at the particular age that the part left or was lost. For example, the frightened little three-year-old hiding under the kitchen table, the lost and bewildered twelve-year-old schoolgirl, the grieving and heart-broken thirty-year-old, and so on.”2
Parts lost very early can look different. They “may never fully arrive and settle into the body and into human form. Sometimes they appear just as a ball of light, or an energy or colour. Sometimes they may take the form of an egg”.3 In that example, the egg had been kept safe by Raven.
What kinds of parts are lost? #
Often qualities we learnt to hide. Many are parts of who we really are. “We variously send away our own playfulness, creativity, spontaneity, joy, passion, wildness, sensitivity, vulnerability, confidence, assertiveness, care-freeness, cleverness, sadness, tears, anger, and so on.”4 Each was sent away so that we could fit in.
What if the lost soul part does not want to return? #
The practitioner’s task is to persuade it, and part of the work is asking what needs to happen for it to stay. The fuller teaching on parts that are not ready to come back is given to students.
What if part of me does not want the soul part back? #
Then that part needs to be heard. It is usually the fort-holderFort-holder. A protective part of the self that stayed behind to ‘man the fort’ when we were wounded: the inner critic, perfectionist, pusher, pleaser: the loyal soldier still fighting a war that ended long ago. Usually the part that sent an orphan away, so no deep healing holds without its consent; befriended, never extracted. Read the full answer, the part that stayed, which “may be ambivalent or even outright opposed to the ‘lost’ soul part returning. Because it is the fort-holder who sent the lost soul-part away in the first place, to try and protect us, and help us to survive.”5 Most people are not aware of this: “there is an ambivalence in them about having the soul part back; an ambivalence that they are usually not consciously aware of.”6
The psychotherapist Arnold Mindell calls what we are aware of the “primary process” and the parts we are not aware of the “secondary process”. The same is true of extraction work: “even if someone says they want something extracted, that does not necessarily mean they really do want it gone. This is because different parts-of-self may want different things.”7
Why does the fort-holder’s consent matter so much? #
Because without it, nothing lasts. “One thing I have learnt, with absolute certainty, is that no deep or permanent change happens without the fort-holder’s consent. If a fort-holder part is resistant, then they are implacable. It does not matter if they are 80% on board, or even 95%.”8 The practitioner’s task is to “greet and acknowledge them, listen compassionately and respectfully to their concerns, and see if their concerns can be addressed”.
Healing can be given to the fort-holder too. This can involve “journeying back to meet the fort-holder in childhood” and asking the Guides to help that child, so that “we become the child’s ‘guardian angel’”.9 See What are child, Orphan, fort-holder and protector parts?
What if the soul part returns but life has to change? #
That is part of the point. The fort-holder is often nervous “about the changes that doing a soul retrieval could (and would) bring.”10 A soul part does not return to be hidden again; the person may need to change old patterns and make space for what has come back.
Someone has to look after the returned part, and that is the Adult’s job. “Your wounded inner-child needs your Adult to arrive and parent it.”11 For one man, Ben, the change came over months: “Over the next few months, and with more skilful help from the practitioner, Ben was able to begin to face up to the reality of what had happened to him in childhood”.12 See What happens after soul retrieval and why is integration essential?
