Soul loss can manifest in feelings of lack of joy and purpose. Rhianna Quanstrom explores the potenital to recover your missing essence through shamanic soul retrieval AKA ensoulment.
Do you feel disconnected from yourself? From your joy, purpose, and aliveness? Are you overwhelmed by feelings of loneliness, depression, anxiety, or hopelessness?
If so, these could be signs that you are disconnected from your soul. But what does that actually mean? There are a few ways to interpret what soul loss is, including traditional shamanic and modern understandings. Together, we’ll explore what it may mean for us and how it might show up in our lives.
Hand-in-hand with soul loss comes soul retrieval and the process of how to get your soul back. Soul retrieval, also known as ensoulment, may just be the golden key you’ve been searching for to unlock your purpose, joy, creativity, and connection to yourself and to life.
So, What is Soul Loss Exactly?
In traditional shamanic cultures, it is believed that when the body or mind experiences a shocking or traumatic event, parts of the soul leave the body. A modern perspective on this is that parts of the psyche detach from the experience, which aligns with the psychological understanding of dissociation.
To be clear, speaking about a topic such as soul loss is to enter the waters of mysticism and esoteric wisdom. As such, all definitions and understandings are not concrete; they are attempts to explain the truly unexplainable. Given this, there are multiple ways to look at soul loss, and all of them may be true. It is about learning what metaphors and language best resonate with you.
Lack of joy and purpose are possible signs of soul loss
For instance, I believe the soul can never truly be shattered or broken into pieces – it is the part of us that is unshakable. No matter what happens on the surface of our lives, the soul remains steadfast and everlasting.
With soul loss, it may be more accurate to understand it as part of our essence, psyche, or spirit detaching from our true, soul selves. Soul loss occurs when we forget our soulful nature. All of us, to varying degrees, are in the process of remembering our true, Divine selves. When there are veils of illusion in our minds and psyche that obscure us from our innate truth, we can experience the symptoms of soul loss.
Another way soul loss occurs is when part of our psyche or essence gets “stuck” in a traumatic experience because it left our body and is still “existing” within that moment.
Soul Loss and the Invisible Realms
To better understand soul loss as it relates to “existing” in another moment, it’s important to know about the invisible, or unseen, realm. In shamanic and mystical traditions, there is a belief that an unseen reality exists just beyond the veil of known reality. When you dream at night, your consciousness is experiencing the unseen realm. That is why it is also called the “imaginal realm.”
When it comes to soul loss, part of our psyche or essence can leave our body and enter the unseen realm at the moment of the traumatic or shocking event. Time does not exist within the unseen realm, so part of the psyche could still be living in that moment, separated from your current reality.
“Soul retrieval, also known as ensoulment, may be the golden key you’ve been searching for to unlock your purpose, joy, creativity, and connection to yourself.”
While these parts of the self are separated, they are still connected because they all belong to you. In my mind's eye, I see it as a subtle cord of energy weaving between the two – the part stuck or lost, and your current essence. Sometimes this cord is more dense; other times, it is barely there. This lost part of the self does not need to be lost forever; it can and will return through the process of soul retrieval.
What is Soul Retrieval, AKA Ensoulment?
In essence, soul retrieval, or ensoulment, is about calling back the lost parts of yourself. You are “retrieving” what has been lost and integrating that energy back into your body. By doing this, you are connecting with and remembering your soul self, embodying it to the next degree that serves your soul path.
Retrieving lost parts of yourself may seem scary because we don’t want to relive those painful experiences. But that’s not what ensoulment is about.
Ensoulment is a technique to try and retrieve part of the soul
Shamanic soul retrieval is about reclaiming your energy and connecting more deeply to who you truly are. Because here’s the thing: when you lose a part of yourself, you lose part of your vitality. You may even lose or forget your innate joy, strength, innocence, and gifts.
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So, part of soul retrieval isn’t just processing the pain of that experience; it is about reclaiming your joy, innocence, confidence, peace, love, wisdom, or whatever was “lost” during that challenging experience. While a soul retrieval may bring up some hard emotions, they usually appear because they are meant to be processed and released. And through releasing those emotions, you find gifts and wisdom waiting for you.
Causes of Soul Loss
Soul loss can occur with any sort of traumatic or shocking experience, whether to the body, mind, or emotions, including:
- Surgery or traumatic injury
- Physical accidents
- Any form of abuse (physical, emotional, sexual, spiritual, mental)
- Loss of consciousness
- Loss of a loved one
- Serious or chronic illness
- Intense fear or shock
- Being in a coma
- Being a victim of a terrorist attack
- Divorce
- Acting against our values and morals
- Addiction
- Being in war
- Being a victim of a natural disaster
It’s important to note that not everyone experiences soul loss with these examples. It all depends on the person and the experience. What may cause soul loss in one person may not cause it in another.
Shamanism and Soul Retrieval/Loss
One of the vital roles shamans play in their communities is that of a soul retriever. A shaman can walk between worlds – between this known reality and the unseen, spirit world.
As such, they act as intermediaries with the spirit world. When someone is living from depression, hopelessness, numbness, or lack of purpose, a shaman will typically enter the unseen world and perform a soul retrieval.
Shamanic soul retrieval can involve 'blowing' the lost soul part back
In modern psychology, soul loss aligns with dissociation. Both modern and shamanic understandings agree that it is a natural protective mechanism of the psyche. Therefore, soul loss is not necessarily a “bad” thing.
In her blog about soul retrieval, respected author and shamanic practitioners Sandra Ingerman states:
“It is important to understand that soul loss is a good thing that happens to us. It is how we survive pain. If I was going to be in a head on car collision, the last place that I would want to be at the point of impact is in my body. My psyche could not endure that kind of pain. So our psyches have this brilliant self protect mechanism where a part of our essence or soul leaves the body so that we do not feel the full impact of the pain.
“Although soul loss is a survival mechanism, the problem from a shamanic point of view is that the soul part that left usually does not come back on its own. The soul might be lost, or stolen by another person, or doesn’t know the trauma has passed and it is safe to return. It has always been the role of the shaman to go into an altered state of consciousness and track down where the soul fled to in the alternate realities and return it to the body of the client.”
Soul Retrieval Methods
Modern psychology has a few methods that might lead to soul retrieval. They don’t label it as ensoulment, but rather view it through the lens of treating PTSD, dissociation, or depression. Therapy methods might include somatic techniques, EMDR, cognitive processing therapy (CPT), or prolonged exposure (PE).
A shamanic soul retrieval can be performed on your behalf by a shamanic healing practitioner, or you can perform it yourself with a guide. That guide may be your personal spirit guide, or it may be someone leading you through a meditative journey.
“Shamanic soul retrieval is about reclaiming your energy and connecting more deeply to who you truly are. Because here’s the thing: when you lose a part of yourself, you lose part of your vitality.”
During a soul retrieval session, the shaman enters the unseen world and, with the help of their spirit guides, locates the lost part of their client’s soul. They will then perform a ceremony to return the lost soul part to the person’s body.
Expect to feel more joyful and rejuvenated after a soul retrieval
They typically blow the soul part back into the body, and the client is encouraged to consciously receive and integrate this returned essence into their body. The shaman might share what they saw or heard in their journey, and may explain the gifts and strengths they are returning to the client.
What to Expect After a Soul Retrieval
What happens after a shamanic soul retrieval is a unique experience for each of us. It may bring up some hard memories or emotions, or it may feel like nothing really happened at all. It’s best to trust your experience and know that what whatever comes up for you is what is meant for you to process.
That said, here are some common experiences after a soul retrieval:
- Feeling more grounded and present in the body
- Feeling more connected to one’s vitality or life force energy
- More joy and aliveness
- Remembering gifts or natural ways of being (such as innocence or child-like wonder)
- More clarity around purpose
- Resurfacing of old memories that bring up emotions that must be worked through
- A sense of freedom from old ways of being (victimhood, depression, etc.)
Takeaway: Soul Retrieval and Loss
Soul loss is a shamanic way of understanding the result of traumatic and painful experiences. It helps us recognize what happens to our spirit and our psyche during those moments. Amazingly, it also holds the key to healing and integrating what has been lost through a soul retrieval ceremony.
Shamanism tells us that there’s an answer for our pain – for our hopelessness, depression, fear, and numbness. It tells us that we don’t have to continue living this way, and through the help of a guide, we can retrieve what has been lost. We can lift the veils of obscurity from our consciousness and remember our innate, Divine, Soul essence within.
Whether you visit a local shamanic practitioner or search for a guided meditation, a soul retrieval ceremony will help you bring back lost parts of yourself. And by doing so, you welcome back your vitality, strength, and unique, soul-given gifts. ●
Images: shutterstock/exebiche, shutterstock/Ammit Jack, shutterstock/F01 Photo, shutterstock/KieferPix
Written by Rhianna Quanstrom
Rhianna Quanstrom is a freelance writer, herbalist, and spiritual seeker with a passion for nature-based healing and sacred wisdom. Her writing draws from years of experience with meditation, shamanic practices, plant medicine, dream work, and the reclamation of the Sacred Feminine. Discover more of her writing and poetry on her Mystic Love Substack.
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