Depth Soul Retrievals
Mikkal is shamanic healer and depth psychologist. Here he discusses his
soul retrieval philosophy and practice.
Shamanic healing, like depth psychology is concerned with the care, the
health and welfare of the soul, the inner being who looks out through a
pair of eyes. Aliveness and vitality, awareness and compassionate
acceptance of all that we are, are hall marks of health and wholeness.
If you hunger for a fuller sense of self, if you seek a deeper
connection to life, and more creative voice and sense of empowerment in
the world, you are seeking a fullness of soul as being-in-the-world:
soul-fullness.
If you feel that something is missing, or that you have not been the
same since some heart-break, accident, illness or major surgery, or
other traumatic event, you are probably suffering from a condition
known in the shamanic healing system as “soul loss.” Soul loss means
that some vital energy or aspect of your being is not available, not
‘on line; or not ‘incarnate in your living.’ The shamanic ceremony of
soul retrieval can place you back on the heart path, put you back in
connection to the vital parts of You, so that you may continue in your
growth or healing process.
In ancient and indigenous cultures where social and spiritual life has
been relatively intact, the human soul has been fairly well supported
by the community, its mythology and ritual life, --the condition soul
loss was a fairly rare occurrence reserved for occasional traumatic
events and accidents. But today we who live in the culture of late
modernity live in societies that are driven by over stimulating media,
the competitive goals of domination and greed, materialism and overly
rational view, such that the soul is easily violated, the connection to
the heart broken, and parts of our essential being repressed or
dissociated.
So it is in our modern culture that it is a rather rare exception for
individuals to feel whole, fully alive, and satisfied with their lives.
Not feeling and living our wholeness, we yearn for substitute
gratifications to fill us up. We hunger for more and more food, money,
status, security, we seek esteem in the eyes of others and take our
sense of self-worth from external evaluations and externally derived
norms. Our modern societies are rampant with diseases (heart disease, a
variety of cancers, and many mental disorders), and addictions that are
themselves associated with broken hearts and the nagging emptiness soul
loss.
Because of this widespread soul loss condition, and in efforts to fill
the hole in our being, we have become a society obsessed with
addictions of various kinds, and with abusive and co-dependent
relationships, child abuse and incest, and shallow materialistic greed,
sex addictions, computer addictions, credit addictions, spiritual
tourism, and so on.
With more than 30 years experience as a depth psychotherapist I know
that psychotherapy can take years and in some cases decades to heal
unhealthy patterns originating from soul loss. Depth Psychotherapy
offers many important services to the soul, and good psychotherapy
entails increase in soul health, and many new growth directions can be
acknowledged as a result, with many smaller soul pieces coming on line.
But there are places where the therapy can be stuck, with some old
pattern hanging on and little or new growth in this one area.
For years I have plotted my clients growth directions on charts at 3
month intervals to see what has come on line and how the client has
progressed. Often there will be an area that won’t budge after two or
three years of therapy, and efforts to develop it just seem not to
work. These are areas where there is significant soul loss, and those
pieces need to be on line enough for the client to begin integrating
them. Shaman understand that growth won’t occur in areas where there is
significant soul loss, and significant means a rather large piece of
You is not on line. Often there are several such missing pieces, and
they are tied to some type of traumatic injury to the soul. It is
possible to find or pinpoint what was online before the accident or
traumatic injury, that was no longer available afterward.
From the viewpoint of a shamanic system of healing, soul loss occurs
when we undergo a trauma or injury severe enough for parts of us to
flip off, dissociate, be repressed and go into hiding (usually behind a
wall of fear). For therapy to be effective in healing the traumas,
those flipped off pieces need to come back on line. Without them there
is not enough of You present for psychotherapy to succeed in this
sector of your life.
Soul Loss, understood from a modern depth psychological perspective,
actually has a protective function, enabling the person to survive a
traumatic situation. Incest and rape survivors often report being able
to look down on the violent situation from above, as if floating above.
This disconnection enables survival of what otherwise would be
unendurable pain. The temporary soul loss can be a good survival
resource. The problem is when these soul parts do not return within a
short time frame, they may stay disconnected, problem patterns will
then develop, along with other problematic behaviors filling the void.
Some of the common symptoms of soul loss we are seeing a lot of in our
modern social context include
Dissociation
Repression of memories and life-energies
Feelings of passively observing life but not participating
Loss of memories around traumatic periods
Having enduring problem patterns (trouble enjoying a form of sex,
trouble trusting …, fear of love, chronic looking outside oneself for a
solution)
Addictions
Chronic illness
Ongoing Depression
Unresolved Grief (lasting years—known as broken heart, “she still has a
piece of my heart)
Chronic self-esteem issues
Loss of a sense of personal power
Not having a Voice in things
Not able to stand one’s own ground.
Always seeking to please others, fit in, rather than express your truth…
The list is endless, really. Traditional psychiatric and
psychotherapeutic systems of healing also becoming ongoing because the
piece or aspect of the person involved in the trauma is not on line.
The piece with the feelings, the memories, and with the assets and the
needed capacities has left the house of self. Such soul loss leaves the
person dis-spirited and weakened. The psychotherapist needs that piece
back on line in order to help you work the trauma through to
resolution, so you can move forward in life.
How is Shamanic Soul Retrieval Done?
For me it is a rather traditional sacred ceremony, invoking spiritual help, and entering an altered state of consciousness known now as the SSC (shamanic state of consciousness). I state my intent for this ceremony of ‘shamanic journeying,’and ask for help in being of service to You. In this state I use drumming to clear my consciousness, moving ego out of the way, and making room to get in touch with deep spiritual sources, known simply as ‘my spirit guides’. Some of these appear in animal form. This is a visionary state and is highly intuitive in nature. I put complete faith in my guides to find and access the information and pieces needed to help you move forward at this time. In accessing and trusting my guides, I put myself in connection with a profounder source of knowing and objectivity about the core of You and your soul condition, than is possible in an ordinary state of consciousness. The journey procedure is a way of setting aside the "modern doctor within", and accessing the "indigenous healer within." My shamanic training comes from several indigenous traditions, including initiation into soul retrieval and extraction by my Cherokee-metis Wolf Clan teacher Ai Gvhdi Waya, and a 12 year relationship with her (I am also Cherokee-metis), and an 8 year apprenticeship with the Taita Iachak (master shaman, curandero, and teacher), don Alverto Taxo, Quechua (Kichwa) tribe of Ecuador. My way of shamanic healing is also closely woven with and supported my training and years of experience in Jungian psychology, Focusing, and Transpersonal Psychology. I have long learned to access and navigate in the non ordinary reality, following the mystical iconography of the three-world visionary planes of consciousness commonly known in shamanism as the Underworld, Middle World, and Upper World. Shamans have accessed these realms for an estimate 40,000 years. For additional information about these worlds, I have written of them in my book, JUNG AND SHAMANISM IN DIALOGUE: RETRIEVING SOUL/RETRIEVING THE SACRED (PAULIST 1997, TRAFFORD 2007). There are many other books and websites where you can learn more about this mythical and mystical itinerary of shamans. Soul Retrieval Healing with me involves something like a very brief psychotherapy, because there are a couple of deep sessions prior to and after the soul retrieval. I insist on this as essential to solid and lasting results. The clients I do depth soul retrieval for must schedule three sessions with me. The first session is to get acquainted, explore the problem or complaint motivating soul retrieval service, and through heart to heart talks rapidly identify likely areas of soul loss. The client is also given some reading assignment, the articles on this website and a small book on soul retrieval to prepare them in terms of knowing what to expect, and to insure they know their my responsibility as well as theirs. Client preparation is essential to a solid and lasting soul retrieval. I then do a diagnostic journey and ask for permission of my guides to do the soul retrieval. Then an appointment is booked for the soul retrieval at some point in the near future, usually at least a week or two out. During this time the client may email information I have requested from them, along with questions. Preparatory Sessions usually last about an hour.
The Soul Retrieval Ceremony At the scheduled time, I perform the soul retrieval with my guides' help. Once in these non ordinary realms of consciousness I enlist the service of my chief guide and my power animals for assistance to find and bring back lost soul pieces that are needed at this time, to move forward. Once I have the “pieces”, they are returned to the client through the heart and crown charkas, and often enough there is some sense of new energy and sense of fullness as they enter the body in this way. Often the pieces come back with somatic or eidetic memories and emotions generated by the trauma that caused them to flip off. The intensity of the emotions subsides within a couple of days, leaving a renewed sense of presence and vigor since the piece that flipped off is now back home. I encourage clients to work with a therapist or ‘Focusing partner’ to work through any remaining emotions, memories, or other contents that come back with the returned pieces.
I am often asked about what the pieces look like. I can say I see them ‘imaginally’, so they come packaged often as some kind of image, and details of the images may have factual biographical details, or they may be entirely symbolic, or a mixture. The packaging is important especially if it is not what you expect, because the image is expanding your understanding, compensating your limited point of view, as Jung put it about dream images. Expansion of consciousness is one function of shamanic visionary work.The specifics of an image bring up exact facets of you that you would not ordinarily have thought of in this context, or that you were somehow defending against. The details of the image are often crucial to getting its essential message for you, and books on symbolism won't help. It if is a symbol, its a symbol of your soul part and no one elses. The soul quality that infuses and shines through the details of the image, its’ intra-psychic essence, potential or pattern that is what is being returned. Soul stuff in invisible, it’s the presentation which can be ‘seen’ in concrete detail. Welcome it, then, regardless of whether it is something you kind of suspected, and if it surprises you. One good way to respond to an image of a soul piece is in kind. I often have clients find or create symbols (masks, talismans for their meditation altars), to give them little tangible handles on the feel of a returned soul piece.
The Processing and Post Soul Retrieval Integration Session If the client is physically present with me, we welcome, and process the pieces right then and there in a post-soul retrieval session in my healing lodge or consulting room. If the client is long distance, in another part of the country or world, I email a report or sending a recording, and process things in a scheduled processing session by telephone at a time convenient for both, but as close to the soul retrieval ceremony as possible. Post soul retrieval sessions usually take an hour. In the processing session I answer additional questions regarding the soul retrieval, help the client make sense of the pieces and have a pretty clear understanding of how to welcome them and integrate them. I offer explicit daily meditations and practices for saying ‘Hello” to each of them, and updating them on your life, and finally integrating them. It can’t be emphasized enough how important it is for the client to actively relate to and integrate these pieces over the next few weeks. Shamanic healing requires action on the part of the client to make it solid and reliable. I ask the client to email me with in 48 hours with an update of how the integration process is going, and answer any questions they may have. I ask for another email up date at around the 30 day point.
Results of Soul Retrieval Details of results vary with the person and with the particular kind of piece that came back. Some immediately feel a gentle sense of well being, others feel powerful energies moving through their body, within a day or two as they come more alive, and still others simply feel more empowered and free during the time of the soul retrieval journey. The fullness of results and the new connections about the pieces accrue often over days or weeks. Often the person comes to look on the soul retrieval as a turning point, or major shift in their life, where new energies, new courage, and new action steps were taken to create a new life direction, and began living a more purposeful and meaningful life. During the integration phase you have work to do, but the results are highly rewarding and lasting as a result. Once all the significant parts of you are back on line and integrated, the old destructive behavior patterns begin crumbling as their old toxic mental scaffolding collapses. Some individuals ceremonially bury symbols of old patterns they are releasing, creating a kind of funeral for them. In relatively a short period of time old family patterns and resulting emotional dramas are broken because You are too present and empowered to tolerate them any longer. Any attachment to the pain of the past is broken, victim thinking is naturally shed as you more intentionally live from the heart, take responsibility for creating your life into something you really love. Often individuals feel free and more energized to become of service to others, and to Mother Earth.
Costs I charge $100. For the preparation and diagnostic session. I charge $200.00 for both the soul retrieval and post soul retrieval processing session. This includes the follow up emails and responses. Hence, the total cost per soul retrieval cycle is $300,00 which can be paid all at once or at the time of the preparation session, and the soul retrieval and post retrieval processing session. You may pay by Pay Pal, or through sending a personal check to his office: Mikkal 333 N. Second Street, Suite 304, Niles, MI 49120. Checks must clear before the date of the service. I have tried to price things in an affordable way. It is possible to space the distance between sessions so that you may spread out any burden of cost to you. To pay through PayPal simply go to PayPal, click "Send Money", put Mikkal's email address in the appropriate box:ShamanicAR@aol.com and enter the amount you are authorizing from your debit card or credit card. you will receive a receipt.
If you wish subsequent shamanic counseling or shamanic life coaching the fee structure is $120.00 per hour, and $65.00 per half hour. While it is true that we all have missing soul pieces, some repressed, some blocked, some dissociated, often these are not enough to seriously hamper our lives. Pieces can flip off through minor stresses and shocks, but often will gradually come back on line. However, when we are blocked or stuck in some important life area, over substantial period of time, significant soul loss is likely to be the case. Typically there are several major pieces you will need back on line. You don’t need soul retrieval every week or month…but you may need up to three soul retrieval cycles, spaced over several months, to get all the major pieces. Thus a second and third cycle soul of retrieval is often recommended for those clients who have multiple significant soul losses. The guides offer back only what the client needs next, and first soul retrieval pieces are needed to be in place to support the return of larger or more complicated pieces in subsequent journeys.
How to schedule a depth soul retrieval with Mikkal If you wish to schedule a depth soul retrieval with me, first read all the articles about soul retrieval here on this website. Then if you are sure you want to schedule such, email me and state your request and specify what you are seeking, and in brief why. Reading all the articles about soul retrieval and extraction on this website is necessary preparation-- so you know what it is I am willing and able to do for you and what you can expect from me, as well as know your responsibilities in this powerful shamanic healing process.
