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Soul Retrieval

One of the central themes of Shamanism is Soul Retrieval, reuniting and reintegrating the person's soul back into their body. To understand Soul Retrieval, a person must understand how Soul Loss happens and to understand Soul Loss, it's useful to have a better understanding of the process of a Soul's entry or incarnation into the body. As you will learn, for many people the problem of soul loss relates back to conception, birth and early childhood.

Incarnation is a process whereby the soul grounds itself into the human body. This process does not just happen at one moment during conception as most people would believe. Incarnation is a slow and gradual process that continues throughout childhood, and in fact, throughout a person's life. The process of incarnation can easily be interupted or delayed through traumas or a lack of "fertility" in the energetic and emotional atmosphere of the mother and the home. The process is very dependent on the quality of bonding primarily between mother and incoming soul and then mother and baby and then later between baby and the father and other significant figures in the baby's life.

What is Soul Retrieval? It is a very ancient and very active form of spiritual healing. It involves journeying to track, find, heal and return the lost or missing Soul Parts. When trauma occurs, we often tend to leave (potentially causing mild to severe disassociation), a part of our 'life-force' or 'essence' leaves.

Symptoms of Soul Loss are wide and varied. People often have a sense of observing reality, are prone to addictions, destructive behavior patterns and illnesses. Soul Loss ultimately leads to a whole host of problems if not repaired. People who have suffered Soul Loss are missing out on life and unable to fully ground themselves in the centre of their own life to the extent that they need to.

Why does the Soul Leave? Soul loss, or splitting off as it's often referred to, is a natural coping mechanism, which helps us survive traumatic experiences. What defines whether or not an experience is traumatic, or whether or not the trauma will result in Soul Loss is complex and very individual. Generally, speaking, if the intensity of the emotions that are provoked by the traumatic event are more than the person has the capacity to cope with at that time, they will involuntarily shut the emotions down and compress them into an energy block. The painful emotions are compressed, repressed and ultimately become encapsulated within a certain area (or many areas) within the body and energy field. When the emotions are repressed and the connection to them breaks down, it is effectively like a little death (although not necessarily a permanent one) and the corresponding aspect of the person's soul is pushed out of the body, much in the same way as the essence or life force or a branch will leave if that branch is broken off the tree. The tree lives on, but it's missing a branch.

Who needs Soul Retrieval?: Soul Retrieval is something that almost everyone needs, although it’s hard to recognize the need for it because we often can’t appreciate what’s missing until we get it back and feel what we’ve been lacking in terms of our own power, feelings of connection, knowing, confidence, feelings of belonging and ability to bond with others. Many recognize it because they know they have certain blocks; repeating unhealthy patterns, addictions, inability to remain connected in relationships, illnesses, fears and phobias. In my experience I have found that those who have the foresight to recognize that soul retrieval could help and seed help with it, generally feel very blessed that they’ve discovered it.

Testimonial:
"I have during 2004 experienced Genevieve's healing work in the form of shamanic soul-retrieval processes. The result of this work has had a profound effect on my life and my ability to be fully present. She was able to skillfully guide me deeply into severely limiting pain which was restricting my ability to be fully in my power in the present. This shift has fundamentally changed me and has allowed me to stay much more fully in the moment.
Thanks, Angel Genevieve!
Tejas Engel 21 March 2005"

Soul Retrieval: It is important also to make the point that having a Soul Retrieval session with a Shamanic Practitioner is not the only way that Soul Retrieval can happen. It also can happen spontaneously when the energy blockage relating to the original trauma (and subsequent soul loss) is triggered by a similar event and the person can allow themselves to stay with and journey through the natural self healing process that's initiated. This generally involves the deep feeling of, and cathartic release of, the associated pain. It can happen through deep emotional process work with a therapist who can support their client's journey down into their own shadowlands. It can happen I believe through primal therapy or rebirthing.

Our longing to be able to "Just Be Ourselves": To be truly in oneself, to experience and express oursevles from our soul's essence, as our soul's essence, is something that everyone innately craves. However, when a person is not aware that it is their connection to their true self that they really need and desire, this natural desire generally becomes deeply buried and disguised as very unhealthy needs and addictions. The perfection and intelligence of our nature is attempting to bring about the unfolding of our true selves all the time through life's opportunities and challenges that provoke the opening of our pain. The more a person understands that the opening and trigerring of their painful feelings offers them the opportunity to this time choose to feel, heal, understand and resolve their blocks from the past, will begin to embrace life's painful challenges as they arise, knowing it's taking them closer to being their true self.

Soul Retrieval through Parenting: The approaches I teach in my parenting courses, basically start to teach parents how they can recognize the powerful healing potential of a child's cathartic expression of their pain and how the parent can learn to recognise and support this process.

During pregnancy: I have discovered and experienced again and again through my work that the part of one's soul that has left the body, or been unable to anchor in in the first place, needs to be invited, to be sincerely called into the body and mind of the person. During pregnancy a soul needs to anchor to a certain degree to make the pregnancy strong enough to hold. So every human is, of course, an embodiment of their soul. As adults who were not strongly called in by their parents, they need to either seek help from somebody who will do this on their behalf or learn to call themselves back in with a heartfelt cry from the heart. A person's whole journey through life, and particularly their conscious healing journey, is a journey of negotiating and working towards bringing one's soul essence into embodyment. Many soul's experience a struggle around anchoring their soul into their physical body in utero, during birth, during babyhood and early childhood years. A mother who is aware of this process can meet their child's need to feel welcomed and pulled in through their love and desire for their child. In fact, children of all ages can still longed to be called in, to feel the strength of their parent's calling to their soul.

Soul stealing happens when someone consciously or unconsciously takes part of another person’s soul. This can result when one person so envies another, that they want to be them, it can happen when a parent tries to lead their life through their child. It can happen when an adult seeks their unmet needs for emotional and/or sexual attention from a child. It can happen when a person strongly desires another, but feels like they can't "have them", they will take what they can, manipulating the other person for their time, attention, sympathy, etc and basically pulling the other person's energy into themselves. As horrible as this may sound, it's unfortunately very common because of the disconnected and dysfunctional environment that most people grew up in. This can cause a whole range of problems for both parties and can seriously inhibit spiritual growth. What's important to note, is that everything can be healed and repaired and awareness is the big key. If you start to recognise a pattern like this, you start to claim yourself back. Again, a Shamanic Practitioner can journey to see if this is the case and can help the process of recovery.

Soul Loss leads to Vulnerability: When soul loss occurs, the person's energy field and personal power are weakened, leaving the person vulnerable to psychic attack, illnesses, addictions (attempting to fill the unmet needs) chronic fatigue, depression, mental instability, emotional instability and also possessing spirits.

Depossession is the removal of a foreign soul from the body, mind, heart or organs of their host. It is necessary when a person's body has become inhabited by a soul who has died but not yet moved on. The host is generally vulnerable because of their energy field is weak due to soul loss, addictions, illness, operations, the effects of abuse, etc. The host's emotional, mental, spiritual and physical health is generally adversely affected by depossession. Both the host and the possessing spirit both need assistance. The foreign soul’s journey is thwarted. Intrusions are treated in a respectful way by the Shaman who assists in their removal to a healing place.

Power animals exist in the spiritual realm as our guardians. They are with us throughout life and bring us great gifts and guide our spiritual path. We generally have more than one power animal. Some leave and new ones take their place, depending on life circumstances. When power animals leave, we also loose our power. Loss can manifest as chronic illness, depression, suicidal ideation. Power animal retrieval is very beneficial to a person's journey to greater personal power, wisdom and spiritual development.

(For more background on Genevieve's experience, see Biography)

Clients work with Genevieve for a huge variety of reasons, many who recognize the need to look deeper into the cause of illnesses, relationship problems, addictions and general lack of peace emotionally and mentally. Genevieve has worked extensively with abuse and trauma and is passionate about working shamanically with the deepest wounds that have no voice and are too fragile to access help in the "normal" world.

Genevieve is gifted with very clear perception on many levels of reality, as she is a well traveled journeyer in the non-ordinary realities. She acts as a communicator between the self and lost aspects of self to midwife the re-membering divine gifts and abilities.

The sessions provide a space that is conducive to deep relaxation, trust and insights. They are warm, friendly and empowering. During the sessions layers of tension and energy blockages are transmuted, allowing the body, mind, emotions and spirit to come back to greater balance. Most clients notice an immediate release of stress and anxiety and an increase of energy, confidence and clarity during or after the session.

The work facilitates the client's journey to gently let go of the grasp of the mind and bring life, awareness and awakening back to the person's body consciousness, their breath and the energies of the body which offer endless gateways into non ordinary reality where lies all the memories, the gifts, the passion, the intuition, the knowing, the joy, the love, the deep deep knowing of who we are and the path of our individual soul.

Genevieve is based in Whangarei and also sees clients in Auckland once a month.