Power-loss is the loss of life-force that comes from being cut off from nature, from the web of life and from Mother EarthMother Earth. The sacred Feminine pole: pure potential, from whom all the Peoples arise. The Lower-World is her realm, and she is all the realms: “The Earth is indeed our Mother.” More about this. Shamans see it, with soul-lossSoul-loss. The sending-away of parts of the self in order to survive: through shock or trauma, or (the chief modern cause) exiling our own parts to fit in. With Power-loss, one of the two root causes of shamanic illness. Read the full answer, as one of the two root causes of illness. It began with agriculture and is now so widespread that most people do not recognise it, though its symptoms, from anxiety and depression to a sense that something is missing, are everywhere, and its cure begins with reconnection, above all through the Power Animal.
What is Power-loss? #
Disconnection, and the weakness that follows from it. “Shamans say that, fundamentally, we get ill for one of two main reasons. These are power-loss and soul-loss. Power-loss occurs when we become disconnected from nature, from the interconnected web of life and our place in it. This disconnection weakens us.”1 More briefly, it is being cut off from nature, from the other Peoples and from Mother Earth.2
It means disconnecting and unplugging ourselves from the larger energy grid of each other and of the more-than-human.
What does “power” mean here? #
Life-force, not control over others. “By ‘power’, here, what shamans mean is essentially ‘life-force’.”3 If our life force is weak, we are prone to disease. That is why the Power Animal has its name: it brings us life-force, by reconnecting us to the living world.
What causes Power-loss? #
Cutting ourselves off from the natural world, a process that began thousands of years ago. “Power loss is caused by disconnecting from the natural world; by cutting oneself off from Mother Earth.” It began long ago: “Since the discovery of agriculture, going back to around 11,000 B.C. we have been disconnected from the consciousness and intelligence in nature”.4 That was when we moved from knowing we were part of the land to seeing ourselves as owning it.
Modern life keeps it going: “Most people these days live in urban environments and spend most of their life with little, or at best sporadic, contact with nature.”5
What are the symptoms of Power-loss? #
Much the same as those of soul-loss, with one addition. They include “Feelings of numbness or flatness; of just ‘going through the motions’; like a spark is missing”, and “A sense of being disconnected from life or what is around you; as if you are living in a dream.” The difference is this: “power-loss is characterised by some or all of the above symptoms, plus a disconnection from the natural world.”6
They include “anxiety, depression, a sense that something is missing or lacking in life, addictions, procrastination, boredom, a feeling of not being good enough, a disconnection from the sacred and the spiritual, loneliness”.7
Is Power-loss always obvious? #
No. It is so common that it looks normal. “As the Fall progresses, we lose all knowledge of soul-loss and power-loss, and how to recognise it and treat it.”8 Living in the country is no protection either: “these days, even those people living in the countryside are usually still suffering from power loss.”9 Many people sense that something is wrong without knowing what it is. Because the cause is so widespread, its signs are easily taken as simply how life is.
What does Power-loss have to do with modern civilisation? #
Modern civilisation depends on it. “From a shamanic point of view, we are suffering from severe and chronic power-loss, at a scale unprecedented in human history.” And “unlike shamanic cultures that would wish to heal this, modern civilisation is actually based upon keeping us full of holes.”10 If we feel that something is missing, we can be sold things that promise to fill the gap. In hunter-gatherer cultures, by contrast, power-loss and soul-loss were healed “as a matter of urgency”.11
What does Power-loss have to do with the body? #
It weakens our defences. “Both soul-loss and power-loss leave holes in us. In this weakened state, other things that may not be healthy for us can infect us”.12 It works like the immune system. Power-loss and soul-loss “leave our energy-body weakened”, and just as a weakened immune system lets in infection, “a weakened energy body means that other things, ‘intrusionsIntrusion. Something lodged in us that should not be there, having entered through the holes soul-loss and Power-loss leave. Four broad types: unhelpful thought-forms, introjects, foreign-body energetic intrusions, and entity possessions. More about this’, can get into us and cause harm.”13
What does Power-loss have to do with the other-than-human? #
Everything. Our power comes from being connected with the other Peoples, the Animal, Plant and Stone People. “Anything that helps us to reconnect helps in healing power-loss. First and foremost in this is doing a Power Animal retrieval, as they are your most important connection to the more-than-human.”14 The Power Animal is Mother Earth trying to tell you “how deeply she loves you and how much you are welcome on the earth.”15 See How does Power Animal heal and support us?
What does Power-loss have to do with the Adult? #
A true Adult is connected, not independent. In hunter-gatherer cultures, becoming an Adult meant “stepping up to take your place on the Earth as an interconnected-being, a part of the web of life and a member of the great tribe of all the PeoplesThe Peoples. The Animal People, Plant People, Standing People (the Trees) and Stone People: our elder kin, of whom the Human People are the youngest and least wise. A family, not a hierarchy. Read the full answer.”16 Our culture has the mistaken idea that a healthy adult is an independent being, but “For a twig to declare its “independence” would be both nonsensical and suicidal.”
Therapy can help us recover from cultural wounding, and “Animism then heals our disconnection from the other-than-human too, and that way we can learn not only to be fully adult, but fully human too.” See What is the Adult and what does healthy inner leadership look like?
How does Power-loss show up in parts-of-self work? #
As a weakness the parts cannot fix on their own. Power-loss and soul-loss share most of their symptoms; soul-loss adds “a sense that part of you is missing somehow”, whereas power-loss adds “a disconnection from the natural world.”17 Psychotherapy works with the parts of the middle-world selfMiddle-world self. The everyday self (ego, persona, head-and-heart), made of our stories and experiences. A genuine and needed part of the Inner Tribe: of service, not in command. Read the full answer, but “shamanism is specifically designed and equipped to deal with the problems of soul-loss and power-loss”.18
In parts work the two meet. When someone’s anxious child part is relieved and their Adult steps forward, Therapeutic Shamanism suggests they sense their Power Animal by their side, “because, remember, a true Adult is not an independent being but an interconnected being.”19
What is the relationship between Power-loss and the Mother-wound? #
They are related, since both concern our relationship with nature and Mother Earth. Our culture’s “profoundly wounded relationship with the earth and the other beings that we share the earth with, and even with Mother Earth herself” is the Mother-wound, and it “can colour our perception of the shamanic Lower-World”.20 It goes back to our abandoning the Lower-World, which created ““the Mother-WoundMother-Wound. The near-universal injury of inadequate mothering in Taker culture, scaling from the personal wound to a collective distortion of the Mother archetype itself. Largely pre-verbal, it is healed not by insight but by receiving healthy mothering: from the Lower-World, the Power Animal’s unconditional love, and Mother Earth. More about this”, and it lies at the heart of the Taker cult.”21
The personal and the collective feed each other: “if we have a mother-wound, then, until we do something about it, this can become a Mother-Wound.”22 Healing one helps to heal the other. The Power Animal helps here too: “it helps to begin to heal the deep Mother wound – the disconnection from nature, the sense of not really fitting in or of being welcome in the world”.23
Is Power-loss the same as losing personal power? #
No. Power-loss is not the same thing as the loss of personal power.24 Personal power is about assertiveness and boundaries in our human lives. Power-loss is about our connection with the living world. See How are Power-loss, soul loss and loss of personal power different?
What is the difference between a part of self and an intrusion or entity? #
Whether it belongs to us. “Parts that are not intrusions, but which belong in someone are known as ‘parts-of-self’.”25 An intrusion, by contrast, is “Something inside someone or attached to them, but which does not belong to them.”26 Intrusions can be many things, and one of the commonest is the introjectIntroject. A foreign belief, message or story swallowed whole (often in childhood) and lodged inside as if it were our own; a type of intrusion. More about this.
Mistakes either way do harm. “Taking away a part of someone is to create soul-loss and leave a hole in them that an intrusion (or worse) could then get into.”27 Yet what feels like a demon may be a real being or a disowned part, and “The problem these days is that either could be the case.”28 Disowned parts need a different response from intrusions: “For inner ‘demons’ need facing, embracing and integrating, not further demonisation.”29
What are introjects? #
Rules taken in from outside that we come to treat as our own. “An introject is a ‘must’ or a ‘must not’; a ‘should’ or a ‘should not’; an ‘ought’ or an ‘ought not’.”30 They are “‘thrown into’ us from other people, school, religion, advertising, and society as a whole.”31 They are “a kind of thought-formThought-form. A human-created living being: an ideology, religion, corporation, conspiracy theory or platform that has taken on a life of its own. Genuinely alive, but soul-less in the deep sense: natural things alone are full of Soul. More about this”, usually short and simple, which “can have a life-long and profoundly negative effect on people’s lives.”32 Most people have them. Because they do not belong to us, they can be released.
Is illness always caused by emotional or spiritual issues? #
No. Power-loss and soul-loss are the shamanic causes of illness, but not every illness is shamanic: “Not all illnesses have a shamanic cause, and so, shamanic healing is not appropriate in treating all diseases.” A renowned shaman in Peru asked visiting doctors for medicine for his own fungal foot infection, yet healed a sick child whose illness had a shamanic cause: “That shaman knew when something needed western medicine, and when something needed shamanic medicine.”33
In other words, “Some things need shamanic medicine, some things need allopathic medicine, and some things need acupuncture, chiropractic, Bowen and other things.”34 And “Shamanism is not a magic cure.”35
