One does not go into home ownership thinking they will recapture their soul. If that was part of the sales pitch (a lovely well-appointed home ready for soul retrieval), you would immediately be skeptical thinking the real estate agent was masking a septic tank problem. Like marketing a swallow infestation in the back hedges as a “yard full of bird song.” I had no intention of finding my soul through a home-buying ring of fire, but the house I bought in South LA, the Universe, and divine timing had much greater plans for me.
Finding a soul sounds dramatic. Like how does one lose a soul in the first place and how does one tangibly identify a soul as misplaced? I am not out to make you a soul retrieval convert but let me guide you first through my introduction to soul retrieval and you too may one day be telling close friends and allies, “Yep, that soul. Didn’t know I lost it, but it sure is found now.”
The education began pre-house in January 2020, two months before we were struck globally with the pandemic. It was the fuel that got me into this home. A Shamanic duo I had received monthly newsletters from for years announced a retreat south of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I’m simultaneously practical and impulsive, so on one hand going to the Mexican jungle to a remote resort to explore Shamanism seemed way out there but also called to me like my life depended on it. The trip was also perfectly timed to my 50th birthday celebration. I needed something to hang my hat on for this monumental birthday and a girl spa day wouldn’t hold weight. So, with the vague understanding that Shamanism essentially connects us to all oneness in nature and an infinite amount of possibilities for all you could want and desire, I dropped three grand for the all-inclusive trip.
Myself and thirty strangers ranging from the evolved to the semi-evolved to the flat out co-dependent passive aggressive (aka my roommate from Michigan) gathered from all over the US, subtly side-eyeing each other, in the yoga studio where the facilitators, Jose and Lena, would deliver daily curriculum each day for the week of our stay. The teachings and ceremonies would be focused on the discovery of our original blueprint and our life purpose. I had my notebook at the ready to take down teachings like a good student, unaware that this was a program of natural integration. I was caught in the chasm of having to be “in charge” of my change, and arresting my old thinking to surrender to where this trip could heal me. I rose each morning from a satisfying sleep, despite the winds howling and tropical bugs buzzing, to sit with my notebook in the post-dawn light and watch the undulating dynamics of the ocean on our secluded slip of beach. As the morning lectures would end at 11 and the afternoon activities not pick back up until 3, my question to Jose, what do I do with all that time, was answered with, watch the ocean. I wanted to punch him and hug him at the same time, which only affirmed his instruction was spot on. Each day, for seven days, for four hours (minus lunch) I noted the ocean’s variance as it reflected back the rigid to fluid variances of my personality. I moved between two selves preparing to transition to a whole new me while having no idea this was the purpose of this trip. From a secluded straw beach mat, I bounced from extreme boredom to limpid relaxation and then back to counting the minutes before I heard the lunch bell.
In those five days with no internet or phone service unless you stood in one particular curve in the path up the hill at 3:20 PM, I would learn the power of the spoken word, and its aryvetic vibration. I am that I am. I would seek to dissolve the fears of not having a true-life partner, or producing my best writing work, or having financial limitations. While I had done many forms of self-development in these areas over the last decade, what would pale in comparison was the poignant words whispered to me in a ceremony by Lena that would change my understanding forever about why certain parts of myself still didn’t fit. As I lay with my head in the v-formation of her legs, her daughter singing cantos and dusting me with eagle feathers and an alcohol mist, she said “Your original soul identity was taken away when you were young and the work you are here to do is to get it back.” That was it. I was not handed a set of instructions (an Ikea manual for soul retrieval would have been nice), but simply told to talk to my DNA and get it on board to release old patterns. Back I went to the ocean, continuing to stare, blame, cry, shift and change.
The battlefield of my journey to my original self was evident in the way I took on the sea. On the first day, I had marched down to the ocean and plunged into the roaring toppling waves. Instantaneously, I torqued my back in a rogue wave, and retreated from the sea’s froth like a farm dog nipped by an irritated cow. I couldn’t swim much that whole week, reminded by the ache in my back to drift cautiously in the undulating tide. By the end of the trip, I was laying on the placid water top in a communal surrender exhausted from the week’s deep seeking. I had spent my whole life looking out on oceans, swimming deeply, floating, but this elongated time to entwine myself with the ocean as a pattern of self, awoke a deeper knowing within me. I just hadn’t seen it yet.
Upon my return to the Los Angeles, I was eager to integrate the Shamanic teachings of that week into my existence when Covid hit within the month. I bought the South LA house, isolated, and explored my original identity as a child by the imprinting of the unevolved and damaged adults that raised me. I saw my healing was intrinsic to my own awareness – uncomfortable, unpleasant and often more than not, a celebration. I started to contemplate who I was if I stood in my original being and accept thoughts I had about the lifestyle changes I needed to make, and what valued came up as new to embrace. A slow decomposition of all the ways I had thought I had to behave to protect myself and feel safe began. I deepened my backward glance at that hopeful young girl, as a child, then as a woman, who used drugs and alcohol to quell the noise inside of her head that was screaming, we’re fading! You are losing the you that is left! While I was once layered under dust, turmoil and residual rage, peering out at myself from behind a tattered velvet curtain, I now understood the show I had put on for so long as someone who was not me. I was an actor in my own life. The time had come to create a new role. And a new soul. Except I had no freaking idea what to do next. I sat in the house and waited for the next sign to come.
At the six month mark of owning my house, I was referred to a Shamanic couple, Sam and Sandy, who wanted to write a book. As I learned about Shamanism on another level while coaching them through their writings, they offered to do a soul retrieval.
“Let it be our gift to you for all you have done for us,” said Sam.
“Does it hurt?” was my first facetious question, even though I knew in an instant that while I was helping them to write a book, they had been divinely sent to me to continue to ignite the seed planted on the Mexico retreat.
“Oh no, we just light you on fire,” Sam said, with a dry sense of humor I had finally gotten to understand after weeks of him having to say “Kim I am kidding” after statements. I enjoyed a Shaman with a sense of humor.
The soul retrieval was remote. Disbelievers among you can give me flack but from their home in Arizona, and me lying on my bed in Los Angeles, I felt them inside my body. And at one point, I felt my right hand light on fire. Sandy shared with me later that while she had been inside me in the retrieval, yelling to me, shouting to me, as she saw the fire raging in my sixteen-year-old heart. Time had unraveled me like a spool of fallen yarn, rolling, knotting, landing in silence. The work they did with me would slowly start to chip away at the unrest deep in my heart, like I was missing something that could not be found. Self-love, self-confidence and a committed kindness to my new soul.
Before this experience, on face value, if you asked me to write a small ditty about who I was, I wouldn’t have much to say. I was so opposed to the past because I felt ensnared by it. With the understanding that I could now excavate who I came to this earth to originally be in my oneness, I was able to tap into details that no longer scared me. They were just the external details. Only I could know the internal mechanisms of my soul self.
Changes started to occur around me and in me after the soul retrievals that pointed to the emergence of my original identity. For a period of a day, memories of my adult life flooded my consciousness like snapshots except this time they were without trauma, judgement, sorrow or over analysis. As I sat on the couch in my quiet living room in the midst of the pandemic, these memories came simply and gently and I no longer needed to get to the bottom of them. They were more of a noticing of the mosaic of my life and while in the past I would feel a bit of horror at a recollection, like screaming at someone or making a poor career choice, now I saw myself as less of a loose canon loser and embraced that part of me as current evidence I had a character trait that was maligned but could be transformed into personal power. In the past, lack of confidence in my inner knowing found me linking to unhealthy people or situations. Then I would freak out like a tiger sprung from a cage when I saw the writing on the wall, while simultaneously invested in the relationship. For the first time in decades, from a simple shift of the soul, I could actually have healthy boundaries with my memories and stand in a place of ownership of who I am today.
By no means did I grow in perfect spiritual formation overnight or beaming with angelic energy. I was simply on a new path. Yet, it was from a place that was my identity, not my mother or fathers, or my grandparents, teachers or caretakers. I had a new found hope for change.
Self-examination isn’t pretty. Let’s just take a surfing class or stay in bed all day Saturday. Lovely actions, but only with their face value intent. Surf and sleep. Ripping a band aid off the coping mechanisms and diving deep into the soul of self reveals a whole top level of living. When your true soul identity is awakened, a messy period ensues. You are not suddenly enlightened basking with purity in the light of the wolf moon. You have simply decided to clear away the murk and mess to uncover who you one hundred percent are. You start to tap directly into the source of self and find you peacefully know the answers. Yet we question. Boy, that felt way too easy. How can I be so sure that is not good enough for me? You start to walk away from a lot of what may have appeared before as opportunity, fun, or connection. We now wait for that person, place or experience that vibrates from our sane place. We become surfers because we understand our place in the sea. We sleep in because we know our internal rhythm. Our overwhelm and anxiety are our sign posts when we are off in our new identification. We start to see where we have fallen off our throne of brilliance and right size ourselves with new practices such as correcting the energetic field around us, connecting with our Spirit Animal, taking inventory of who is in our life and why, and going deeper within to recenter our trust in our best judgement.