Soul Loss & Soul Retrieval: Part 1
Relationships, suppression & our bag of shadows
“It’s like I’m recovering pieces of myself that I had put away—that I lost—when I was in that relationship.”
This is what a client (let’s call her Sage) said to me recently, following the breakup of her four-year relationship.
In shamanism, these “pieces of self” are valuable, tangible, and real parts of the soul. They carry our vital essence and contain fundamental characteristics of our personality.
When we “put them away,” they are no longer available. This is called soul loss.
And it is a loss—sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle. These parts separate from ourselves—from our awareness and from our place of access—and take their power with them. This power contains the vitality within that essence, as well as any abilities associated with our “lost” characteristics.
“Looking back now, I felt like I wasn’t allowed to be myself and that I had to make myself smaller.”
Sage only became aware of what was lost when she had space to experience life outside of the relationship.
Similar to her recovery from alcohol abuse, she couldn’t sense what was lost while still participating in the cycle of addiction.
The ending of the relationship was like early sobriety. It offered distance from the force that caused Sage to lose those pieces. Once the “blockage” (in the form of her partner and the relationship) was removed, these soul parts began returning. They brought their power and their gifts.
Sage’s story is not unique. It’s common in recovery and common generally. One way or another, we all do it.
The Bag We Drag Behind Us
Robert Bly’s seminal work, A Little Book on the Human Shadow, is one of the few books I still own and is the most succinct and articulate description of what happens.1
Although Bly doesn’t call it soul loss, he uses the language of energy instead of power. He bridges into psychology’s concept of “the shadow,” but the mechanism is the same.
Bly begins by talking about the exuberant energy of a child—which appears as a complete sphere at once emanating from and engulfing our younger selves. We are whole, intact, and ready to meet the world.
But early on, we receive messages from our parents, such as: “Can’t you be still?” Or: “It isn’t nice to try and kill your brother.”
Because our parents don’t particularly like these aspects of us, we put them in an invisible bag we drag behind us. We make a silent agreement to sacrifice these parts in exchange for our parents’ love and attention.
Bly explains that as we grow up and start school, our teachers prompt us to put more of our parts in this bag. By high school, we are active participants—loading up the bag in exchange for acceptance by peers. As he puts it:
“We spend our life until we’re twenty deciding what parts of ourself to put into the bag, and we spend the rest of our lives trying to get them out again.”
Indeed.
And, this provides a visual, poetic metaphor for how we become willing participants in relinquishing our power—engaging in this trade-off and losing a soul part.
This is a very different brand of soul loss than the sort most commonly referenced in traditional shamanism. In that more traditional scenario, the soul part is forced to leave as a survival mechanism in the face of trauma.
In a future post, we’ll explore those trauma-response situations and how they manifest in addiction.
But for now, in Part 1, know that the impact of “self-as-participant” can be just as devastating. The dynamic is subtler and harder to catch since we are the ones relinquishing our own power, our own essence, our own souls.
Back to Sage
“Thinking back to some situations, I can’t believe how jealous he was and how easily triggered he could get.”2
Sage’s partner was insecure, especially in situations involving her ex-husband. This showed up at her kids’ high school sporting events—where she, her new partner, and her ex were in attendance.
“I would have to walk around on eggshells at these games. God forbid if I hugged my ex or let him know how thankful I was for whatever simple errand he had done for me.”
To avoid unpleasantries, Sage made the decision to put that gregarious and genuinely loving piece of herself neatly in the bag dragging behind her.
“It just made things easier. I wouldn’t have to deal with his jealousy, which usually escalated into an all-night fight,” Sage said.
Sound familiar?
Are there soul parts dragging in the bag behind you that “just make things easier”?
In relationships, we all do this to some extent. Where things get ugly is when the decision is final. We put those parts into the bag never to be seen or heard from again.
“It doesn’t matter how much we talk about it or analyze it, this jealously wound of his doesn’t change. And he’s not willing to go into it further.”
Yup. That’s a sign that the bag(s)—both hers and his—are cinched pretty tight.
So, she made a decision:
“If he doesn’t change, then I guess I’m the one who has to. It’s just easier to put on a smiling face and act.”
Sage, like many of us, believed this would keep the peace.
This is true—it does. That is, until “the act” doesn’t work anymore and what’s in the bag starts to stir.
A Doctor’s Take: Attachment vs. Authenticity
I listened to a podcast recently with Dr. Gabor Maté, who spoke about this same mechanism using the language of modern medicine and psychology.
In that conversation, he explained that we have two primal needs, and they are especially true when we are young: One is attachment; the other is authenticity.
In his words:
“Ideally, the two are not in conflict. Ideally, you can be in a relationship or I can be in a relationship where we can be ourselves and be accepted and be connected with.
But what happens to your life when you’re a young child and you’re authentic and you’re not accepted? So, for example, some psychologists recommend that children should be punished for their anger. Rather than to be understood as to what it’s all about, and the child being taught different ways to express it, they’re just to be punished for it.
[And now with us in the role of parent], you punish them. You give them the message that you’re not acceptable to me when you’re angry, you have to be a certain way for me to accept you.
Or, you mustn’t be sad. Cheer up. What’s wrong with you?
When children are given this message of conditionality, that you are acceptable to me only if you behave in ways that I approve of—otherwise the attachment relationship is threatened—then the child is faced with this choice, which isn’t a choice at all: Do I stay attached to my parents?”
He goes on to explain:
“If my father is an alcoholic and the only way that I can find acceptance is by repressing my emotions and not showing my sadness and my fear, do I show my sadness and my anger and my fear or do I threaten the relationship?”
Well, there’s no choice at all. The child will choose the attachment.
Bingo.
We, as children, learn early on to “choose the attachment” over expressing our own authenticity—when, as Gabor says, “It’s really no choice at all.”
The problem is that in order to receive this attachment, we must keep our side of the bargain. We must lose pieces of our soul, in the form of our authenticity. The magic and power of those pieces is then lost to us, relegated to our bag of shadows.
Fast forward to those children as adults, when they meet other adults, and guess what? Those other adults are just as weary from dragging their bags behind them.
How much authenticity is left to offer one another?
How much “need for attachment” still remains?
This is one of the formulas that determine a marriage.
When the Honeymoon Is Over
Here’s the quick of it:
No one can fill the hole that the lost piece of soul left behind.
No one can replace the piece that we’ve put in the bag.
Despite this, we desperately try to get our partners to do those very things.
This in mind, the way out is as simple (but not easy) as: Stop pounding the square pegs of our partners into the round holes of our soul’s vacancies. From there, we must make new choices:
I can see my choices that caused soul loss.
I understand the natural process of how and why I put those pieces in the bag behind me.
Only when I learn to do this for myself will I be more available and more authentic—for myself and the relationship.
This is what “cleaning up my side of the street” looks like. Only from this place can we more fully, compassionately, and authentically show up for our partner or meet a new parter tending to their own side of the street.
This form of treatment is all about returning those lost pieces of soul to our current lives. When we do, we get an initiatory infusion of life.
In Sage’s words:
“I just went to my son’s basketball game, and it was like I was 15 pounds lighter. I drove another mother and her son to the game, hugged my ex, and said hello to other parents I’d avoided for the past four years. I felt free. I felt real.”
And while this is great, we now have awareness around it. It now becomes our responsibility.
The return of these soul parts usually isn’t one-and-done. It requires a new brand of work—often called “integration.” In my program, it’s the fourth Medicine, and we call it Practice.
Last Words (For Now)
I love that we can explore these mechanisms of pathology and means of healing from myriad perspectives.
I love finding what works best for each individual, respecting their beliefs and resonant approach to healing. From here, we can bridge:
The shamanic work of soul retrieval.
Poetic imagery of the bag we drag behind us.
Modern medicine and psychology’s perspectives on the suppression of emotion.
Whatever language you prefer, truth is truth. It’s powerful and beautiful to discuss shared truths in the realm of dis-ease and healing.
To join the conversation, please leave your thoughts or just say hello in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!
Also feel free to email me at Randy@AlchemistRecovery.com.
And if you’d like a step-by-step guide to undertake a Medicine Drum Journey or a Shamanic wRites exercise, just click those links. See you inside.
With All Good Medicine,
Randal
Editing by my wife and partner, Dr.
, who shares raw, unfiltered writing about sobriety and soulful living at .In relationships, it’s always a dance, with each person playing an equal-and-opposite role. I’ve never encountered a situation where “It’s all their fault!” (even in cases of severe, active addiction). That said, we can only take responsibility for “our side of the street,” and this post’s exploration of soul loss is only concerned with Sage’s experience.
This is lovely, Randy - I love the way you interweave these concepts from different places and perspectives and illustrate how universal these truths are, and how necessary it is to grapple with this work in whatever our preferred language might be to give ourselves a path to healing. Beautifully put as always!