Objective Spirituality
Well, it’s that time of year – the beginning of a new one – when it feels like changes for the better may actually be possible. When it seems like there may be something we can do differently, some way we can improve things a little. Perhaps it’s just a convenient time to make promises to ourselves – New Year’s Resolution time. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to change anything, does it? But what if, with no huge effort on our part other than just a little shift in our point of view, we may dramatically change practically everything for the better? What if we could give ourselves a whole new orientation that would simplify and clarify our experience of life?
My best resolution may be to leave my body (again).
Self-Created Obstacles
Most of our problems, most of the things we wish we could change for ourselves, are obstacles that we’re usually creating ourselves. We all know that already. Problems that pop up again and again and prevent us from reaching what we want or being what we’d like to be. But what might those obstacles look like if they weren’t right in front of us again, blocking our view and dictating our direction? What if we saw them from across the room? Or could look down on them, like a bird looking down from above? They probably would look like nothing much because, in truth, they usually are nothing but the constructions of our human minds.
Our human minds are very insistent mechanisms. They want us to believe everything they say is true. They want us to believe that we are our thoughts. But we’re not. We’re something else. Otherwise, how could we notice how crazy our thoughts can be? How could we say to ourselves I don’t even want to think about that and then not think about that?
You Are Not Your Thoughts
In Hinduism, there is a Sanskrit word sakshi which simply means the witness and it’s a simple idea. It’s an idea that you can assume as your own, because it’s about who you really are – apart from the demands of your rambling thoughts. Sakshi can suddenly shift your perception – your perspective – because it’s the witness that pays little or no mind to your mind. It applies no labels or judgments to what it observes. It’s the simple, pure awareness that looks upon all things with a graceful acceptance, with an objective compassion, as an intuitively analytical eye. Imagine being so cool! Now imagine it a little harder…
I had the mixed (but good) fortune of surviving multiple near-death experiences, and the first was in the classic out-of body motif. I looked down on the auto wreck and witnessed my own body, unconscious and apparently lifeless. Naturally, I suggest you avoid this scenario, but it was instructive. When I think about it now, I engage my memory, but I also engage my imagination – and you can do that, too.
Accessing the Sixth Sense
Imagine yourself outside of your body, being your pure self, unencumbered by the insistent designs and definitions of your mind. From there, you can look down on the limiting definitions your mind imposes on the huge potential of life; the power that’s so easily handed over to your old fears. From that point of view as the objective spiritual entity that you actually are, the world looks much simpler, much clearer. We experience what in Latin is called sub specie aeternitatis, the actual eternal nature of our pure self. The aspect of being that you may think of as an intuitive sixth sense and as a real, spiritual quality that we all as members of the human species possess.
When you identify yourself at that level, where your inner self and the rest of the universe are unified, the problems and obstacles of your life on Earth carry much less weight and power. For example, the guy at work who’s always in your face loses the label antagonist and is observed as simply demonstrating his need to express the demands of his own experience to anyone and everyone – not just to you. In fact, much less seems like it’s happening to you. It’s only happening for you, and because it must.
Becoming a Disembodied Spirit
With this simple change in perspective, you immediately gain a tolerant and empathetic consciousness, an acceptance of people as they are – and of the world – as it is. You are freed from personal expectations because you see them as simply part of the whole, as an inconsequential expression of the moment. This allows you to bring to each moment, and to the world, what you alone can bring to improve things as they are. You no longer have a horse in the race, because you’re watching the race from above with the objectivity of a disembodied spirit. Life becomes more easily acceptable. You can see the shape of every problem, so there’s no problem too large to be overcome.
This condition is a lot like Buddha Mind or Christ Consciousness – in which experiencing a little of either puts you in pretty good company and immediately bestows upon you a whole new definition of success.
A Tourist on Earth
You needn’t be concerned that you may become too detached from your own life or lose the passion you feel you need to inspire yourself. Your new point of view allows you to see your attachments and passions in a much truer context so you may engage them more accordingly. With the spiritual objectivity of sakshi, the size, shape and even origins of your personal obstacles become more apparent so you can see how they’ve fit into your past and how they can be dealt with more effectively as they pop up now. You engage your life as a whole – past, present and future to identify what works, what doesn’t and whom you would like to become.
Imagining that you’re up in the sky witnessing your body and mind (and everyone else’s) actually plants your feet more solidly on the ground. It empowers your actions, your effectiveness and your compassionate consciousness to show up for life with a simpler, clearer presence. Any responsibility can be met. Any obstacle can be dealt with – including those potential catastrophes that may lie just ahead of us all.
In Logion 42 of The (Gnostic) Gospel of Thomas, a rather Zen-like Jesus says, Be passersby, which could certainly stand in for the compassionate spiritual objectivity I’m suggesting – the slightly detached, fully engaged kind of tourist-on-Earth quality that can change our messy struggles into our empowering purpose.
For me, it may be summed up as a New Year’s resolution: I resolve to be a responsible, open-hearted, objective, compassionate witness of – and entirely engaged participant in – the remarkable, indescribable magic of life on this beautiful Earth.
To him who holds in his hands the Great Image (of the invisible Tao), the whole world repairs. – Tao te Ching, 35
About the Author
Shamanic Soul Retrieval: How to Recover Parts of Our Soul?
Shamanic Soul Retrieval: Sandra Ingerman on Recovering Parts of Our Soul
“Every book…has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.” ~ Carlos Ruis Zafon
It has been said, “The best things in life are free.” We can all agree it’s nice to be surprised with a gift, but not just any gift. The gift that arrives in your life precisely when you are ready to receive it. The gift is clearly a message to you and for you.
In this case, the gift is Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self by Sandra Ingerman.
With graceful delivery of rarely discussed phenomena, Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self combines shamanism and psychology to explain the effects of trauma that cause parts of the soul to leave the body and the process by which the part(s) can be retrieved.
Follow along as renowned psychotherapist, shamanic teacher, and author Sandra Ingerman delves into soul loss and retrieval.
What is Soul Loss?
Sandra Ingerman’s Abstract on Shamanism states that “there are many common symptoms of soul loss. Some of the more common ones would be dissociation, where a person does not feel fully in his or her body and alive and fully engaged in life. Other symptoms include chronic depression, suicidal tendencies, post-traumatic stress syndrome, immune deficiency problems, and grief that just does not heal. Addictions are also a sign of soul loss.”
For those who have lost parts of themselves, knowingly or unknowingly, “tremendous amounts of psychic energy” are unconsciously spent looking for the lost parts.
What Causes Soul Loss?
According to Ingerman, “The basic premise is whenever we experience trauma, a part of our vital essence separates from us in order to survive the experience by escaping the full impact of the pain.” This quiet occurrence, known as soul loss, takes the form of a perpetual feeling and experience of incompleteness and disconnection.
Ingerman says, “Anytime someone says, ‘I have never been the same’ since a certain traumatic event, and they don’t mean this in a good way, soul loss has probably occurred.”
Sandra Ingerman on Lost Soul Parts
Sandra Ingerman holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, professional mental health counselor, the author of more than ten books, and a board-certified expert on traumatic stress who was awarded the 2007 Peace Award from the Global Foundation for Integrative Medicine.
As a leading authority on soul loss and retrieval, Ingerman’s highly regarded career spans 35 years of conducting workshops and soul retrievals around the world.
For Ingerman, the leading practitioner of soul retrieval whose own spiritual journey to recapture her soul led her on various spiritual paths. The answer she found was in the ancient tradition of shamanism, which views soul loss as an important cause of illness and death.
The word shaman, originating from the Tungus Tribe of Siberia, means “one who sees in the dark.”
Soul Loss in Society
According to Ingerman, “A reflection of how much soul loss people are dealing with” is evident when “so many governments and businesses are valuing money over life.”
However, Western medicine has no framework for this kind of diagnosis because it only deals with imbalance when it appears on a physical and mental level.
Western medicine “treats chronic pain with pain medication, insomnia with sleeping pills, weight issues with diet and exercise, and most damagingly, may label soul loss as mental illness and cover up the symptoms with psychiatric medications that may make things worse by slapping a Band-Aid on a wound that’s not healing underneath the bandage.”
This “covering up” can lead to the deep unhappiness that many have come to consider as “simply ordinary.” Eventually, this prolonged dissociation produces a nameless void that shows itself through “a loss of meaning, direction, vitality, mission, purpose, identity, and genuine connection.”
This spiritual void, which is always present and always trying to get your attention, operates as the incessant yearning of your soul wanting to incorporate all of its highest qualities, all of God’s essence, all of you.
Simply put, the soul is always trying to reconnect with that from which it came.
Ingerman imparts, “If you are truly in your body (your whole soul present), you cannot place money over life. Planetary soul loss causes so much of the behavior we are currently seeing, behavior that no longer honors the beauty and importance of life.”
Signs of Soul Loss
The following checklist can help identify symptoms of soul loss:
- You have a difficult time staying “present” in your body
- You feel numb, apathetic, or deadened
- You suffer from chronic depression
- You have problems with your immune system and have trouble resisting illness
- You were chronically ill as a child
- Memory gaps of your life after age five where you sense that you may have blacked out significant traumatic experiences
- Struggle with addictions, for example, to alcohol, drugs, food, sex or gambling
- Find yourself looking to external things to fill up an internal void or emptiness
- Have difficulty moving on with your life after a divorce or the death of a loved one
- You suffer from multiple personality syndrome
Having read this book without prior knowledge of soul loss or retrieval, I found the concepts quite sobering.
Within situations of physical and emotional abuse, negation, and trauma, many experiences in life can be too difficult to bear. Soul loss is an understandable response to spiritual woundedness and deep fragmentation of one’s soul essence that would lead to an internal dissociation from natural balance.
What is Soul Retrieval?
During the soul retrieval process, the shaman moves into an altered state of consciousness to travel to realities outside of normal perception (non-ordinary reality), also known as hidden spirit worlds, to retrieve the lost part of the soul.
In some cases, there is reluctance of the soul fragments to return, or the soul may not even know a separation has occurred. While in most cases, the soul does want to return and become whole. It is, however, important to note that when the “soul returns, it comes back with all the pain it experienced when leaving.”
Once the lost soul pieces are located, the shaman will “acknowledge the former pain and gently negotiate the soul’s return to the body.” The shaman then brings the soul back to normal reality and (literally) blows the missing soul part(s) back into the body through the head or heart.
If a person is trained in shamanic journeying, they can ask their spirit guides or power animals to perform a soul retrieval on their behalf. Or anyone can ask for a healing dream where one sets the intention to request a soul retrieval to be performed during the dream state.
If these two processes do not create change or healing, then working with a trained shamanic practitioner is recommended.
Although Ingerman is clear that you should not try to practice soul retrieval based solely on the reading of this book, in an exclusive interview, Ingerman and I discuss what can be done when someone suspects soul loss has occurred.
Shamanic Healing Practice Interview
BJB: What can someone do if they suspect soul loss has occurred but do not have immediate access for soul retrieval with a Shaman?
SI: If a person has soul loss, they can work with a shamanic practitioner long distance. Most shamanic practitioners perform long-distance healings these days.
I have been training Soul Retrieval practitioners since the late 1980’s. I have a website where I have an international list of shamanic practitioners who have sent me case studies. Of course, no shamanic practitioner can ever promise a cure, but I know their work, and I trust them.
BJB: Is there a healing exercise the person can do to begin to address and/or heal the root cause of the soul loss?
SI: Nature is our greatest healer. A person who feels they have lost their soul can walk or lie down on the ground and reflect on what is the root cause of their soul loss.
You can also do automatic writing. This includes listening to spiritual music while writing the following question on a piece of paper: “What is the root cause of my soul loss?”
You then close your eyes and allow your hand to write. This is a powerful way to let your soul and intuition give you the truth of the cause of your soul loss and other information that is important for you to know.
BJB: What has been the most surprising or unexpected part of your work as a Shaman?
SI: All of my Shamanic work is a surprise.
The helping spirits never give expected responses to the questions I ask them. This is true also when I perform the healing journey for a client. I am always given information I did not expect or would rationally think of on my own.
Also, in my 35 years of working with clients, I continue to be surprised by the miraculous effects of the work.
Power of Ancient Shamanic Practices
The shaman’s toolbox is a personal and intimate gathering of powers. Some shamans learned through direct experience, others gleaned knowledge from master teachers like Sandra, and some are gifted in journeying to the depths of spirit realms.
A few tools are so foundational that nearly every shaman utilizes them. Soul retrieval is one such tool. Not only is it universally effective, but it’s also the pervasive root cause of illness overlooked by many in the medical field.
Soul retrieval is not a modern New Age therapy but a profound healing tradition practiced for thousands of years. It involves the reintegration of lost soul parts, that’s akin to the surgical reattachment of a body part but for our spiritual essence instead. By recovering these lost soul parts, individuals can restore wholeness and harmony within themselves.
The Most Important Factor in Personal Healing
Soul retrieval is not a quick fix. Sandra Ingerman states, “If the person has done a lot of personal work, the soul retrieval might be the end of the work. If not, the soul retrieval would be the beginning of the work.”
No matter where you may find yourself, at the beginning or near the end of working through an issue, the most important factor in all healing work is you.
You have to be willing to do the work that is necessary to participate in your personal transformation. You will have to be willing to look at yourself with new eyes, from a new shamanic perspective, and as an embodiment of completion and wholeness while knowing that willingness is the impetus for great change, which always begins with the heart.
For more information on Sandra Ingerman’s work, log onto SandraIngerman.com.
You can also learn more by watching this interview on Gaia.com with Jill Kuykendall on soul retrieval.
