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[Diana]

Soul Retrieval may just be another way of describing Fragmentation. When there is a trauma which threatens to undo us, we isolate that part of ourselves and bury the memories and feelings. This can be seen when adults suddenly are triggered to remember a sexual abuse as a child, when they had no memory of it before. It's a useful skill regarding survival, but presents as a barrier later on. The isolated portion still triggers us, and we don't know why.

So Soul Retrieval is presumably the shamanistic method of reintegrating those portions of our emotional selves, which have been fragmented and isolated from our consciousness to protect us, back into our conscious awareness. By doing so we can shed the triggers we react to without knowing why we are reacting. 

I had a dream once years ago that a spirit guide dug a room out under the house I grew up in and showed me a large, pristine room with only a bed in it and a child sleeping in the bed. The child was me, at age 6 or so. I went to the bed and sat on it, and asked my little-girl self if she wanted to come with me. She looked tired and said no. I "knew" at that point there was a room beyond that one where my 13-year-old self was sleeping. Oddly, I'd had that dream when vacationing in Jamaica. After that dream, I had the intention of reintegrating that little-girl self back into my consciousness, and sometimes meditated on it. About 6 years later I was sitting at my computer, and out of blue I felt that little-girl self come right into my heart. I felt a wave of emotion. I think this is an example of Soul Retrieval. The 13-year-old has not awakened yet.

I think we all repress traumas. I also think that the intention of wanting to reintegrate all parts of the self, however they may have been repressed, will start the process of uncovering those "lost" portions under guard and protection.