In our society, there is a mysterious phenomenon occurring known as “Soul Loss” arising in all people of all ages, genders, races, and backgrounds.
Indigenous people have known about the occurrence of Soul Loss for millennia, and understand it as the result of an inner fragmentation caused by unawareness, a traumatic experience, or an intense shock to the mind and body.
When we experience Soul Loss, a part of our Soul – or living essence – ‘hides’ or shuts away, hindering us from expressing and experiencing our true potential and wholeness as human beings. Often times entire aspects of our psyches are completely blocked out or repressed.
While for many of us Soul Loss may sound uncomfortably familiar, this experience is usually temporary, and with the proper inner work these lost elements of ourselves can be reintegrated into our lives.
What Is Soul Loss?
During my introduction to shamanism and the methods of ritualistic ‘soul retrieval‘, the basic understanding of Soul Loss that was expressed was that parts of our souls travel off into other realms, or alternate realities, sometimes being possessed by spirits.
In the shamanistic perspective, when these parts of our souls are not recovered, we can’t seem to find inner completion or wholeness.
Before psychology, this explanation was the only way primal cultures could explain such a common phenomenon in order to find ways to treat it – and it was immensely effective.
Soul loss is, in fact, the rule rather than the exception. As individuals, unless we have become Awakened Souls, we lose our soulful energy every time we identify with our egos; every time we seek to feel whole through addictions, stimulation seeking, dogmatic beliefs, conditional relationships, and workaholism.
Aside from our incapacity to feel whole, when we experience Soul Loss we begin experiencing feelings of weakness, fatigue, depression, anxiety and emptiness. We just know something is missing from our lives – but many of us struggle to discoverwhat exactly is missing.
To understand Soul Loss as a loss, or disconnection, from the most vital parts of who we are, is known in psychology as ‘dissociation‘ – a root of many mental maladies.
The Psychology Behind Soul Loss
Once we recognize our souls (or consciousness) as an intensity of energy – anything that creates a reduction in this energy will result in listlessness, moroseness, and depression.
To create an imbalance within the psyche is to allow the individual parts of the personality (e.g. the shadow self, anima, animus, etc.) to make themselves independent and thus escape the control of the conscious mind.
Psychologist Carl Jung understood this process as relating to our ‘psychic libido.‘ Jung proposed that our psychological personalities were composed of different ‘complexes’ (or parts of our sense of self), and the primary one of those responsible for control over all the others was our ‘ego’ which is the mental image we have of ourselves, or what we believe ourselves to be.
Our conscious energy can be weakened due to one of these ‘complexes’ escaping the control of our ego and becoming autonomous, therefore leeching all of our ‘psychic libido’ energy and creating a psychological imbalance that shatters our natural wholeness.
So what causes one of our psychological ‘complexes’ to emancipate itself and become a tyrannical usurper of consciousness? Often the answer is that identifying with something harmful, or experiencing a trauma of some kind creates this phenomenon.
An extreme example might help us understand better:
Imagine that a young child is molested or abused. In order to cope with the horrendous experience, the child escapes by disassociating, or detaching themselves, from the situation. In the process of protecting themselves, the child creates various alter egos or entirely different personalities within themselves as a defense mechanism.
In psychology, this is treated as “multiple personality disorder” (now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder). It is easy to understand how tribal cultures would have perceived this as a loss of the Soul. But essentially, psychological disassociation is nature’s way of protecting our physical organism against intense trauma and loss by blocking these wounding situations out. In the end, however, it is our responsibility to protect our spiritual organism, our soul.
But Soul Loss or psychological disassociation is not limited to these extreme cases and can be found in different degrees in most people.
Addictions, eating disorders, identity disorders, post traumatic stress, depression, codependency, narcissism, low self-esteem, and adjustment disorders are all common causes for Soul Loss in our superficial, fast-paced, materialistic modern societies that are mostly devoid of all sense of sacredness.
A young woman who dreams of being an artist but has to live up to her parent’s expectations of being a doctor will lose a little bit of her soul, ignoring an essential part of her being. Or suppose the young woman does go ahead and follows her dream of being an artist, but deep down she still depends on her parent’s approval.
She then either blames them to avoid taking responsibility for pursuing her passion, or she grows low in self-esteem because she is not accepted by them. This story might sound familiar to you.
Next, you will be able to apply this knowledge of Soul Loss to yourself. Are you experiencing it?
Signs You Might Be Experiencing Soul Loss
There are a variety of physical, psychological and spiritual symptoms pertaining to Soul Loss. When we experience Soul Loss – or parts of our soul ‘hiding away’ or disassociating from us – the result is a loss in soulful energy, or the very vitality of our lives. This loss of energy prevents us from living healthy, fulfilling and creative lives.
Sometimes Soul Loss can last for a whole lifetime, resulting in the development of a self-destructive person who we often refer to as a “Lost Soul” in our language.
To recover these lost parts of ourselves, and to become balanced, whole and centered once again, we must first identify the symptoms of Soul Loss within us. Below you will find some of the most common symptoms:
- Memories and parts of your life have been blocked out.
- You experience strong periods of depression.
- Parts within yourself feel missing or broken.
- You experience a general numbness to life.
- Constant feelings of fear or anxiety plague you.
- You go through long periods of insomnia.
- You feel lost or incomplete.
- You feel like a ‘different person’ after a shocking or traumatic life event.
- You feel stuck or incapable of overcoming a certain issue in your life.
- You feel disappointed with life.
- You feel as though there are multiple “selves” within you.
- You try to escape by turning to alcohol, drugs, sex, television, or excessive busyness.
- You feel unworthy of being loved.
- You are experiencing a dark night of the soul.
- You want to find your purpose and meaning in life.
- You feel like your daily life is meaningless and task-driven.
- You avoid feeling vulnerable and keep others at a distance.
- You long for wholeness and a sense of belonging.
- You sometimes feel that you’re not in control of yourself.
- You constantly feel mentally or physically fatigued for no medical reason.
- You thirst for authenticity and complete acceptance of yourself.
To be healthy, to feel whole and to live a harmonious life, you must recover the vital lost parts of yourself by learning to live a life of balance, authenticity and self-love.
Finding the fragments that are lost and restoring them in your life is to return to your innate wholeness, to restore the essential vitality that is your Soul. To learn to slowly reintegrate the lost elements of your Soul through the practice of inner work is to live a life of mindful, heart-centered and bodily alignment.
This was written by Mateo Sol for LonerWolf.
Mateo Sol is a prominent psychospiritual counselor and mentor whose work has influenced the lives of thousands of people worldwide. Born into a family with a history of drug addiction, schizophrenia, and mental illness, Mateo Sol was taught about the plight of the human condition from a young age.
As a spiritual counselor and mentor, Sol’s mission is to help others experience freedom, wholeness, and peace in any stage of life.
Very interesting topic, appreciate it for putting up.
Hello, i think that i noticed you visited my blog thus i came to “return the choose”.I am attempting to to find issues to improve my web site!I guess its adequate to make use of a few of your concepts!!
Magnificent web site. Lots of useful info here. I’m sending it to several friends ans also sharing in delicious. And naturally, thank you in your sweat!
This website online is known as a walk-by means of for all the data you wanted about this and didn’t know who to ask. Glimpse right here, and you’ll positively discover it.
I really like your writing style, fantastic information, thanks for posting :D. “God save me from my friends. I can protect myself from my enemies.” by Claude Louis Hector de Villars.
I appreciate, cause I found just what I was looking for. You have ended my four day long hunt! God Bless you man. Have a nice day. Bye
lamisil for sale suprax 200mg us amoxicillin over the counter
Whats Going down i am new to this, I stumbled upon this I have found It positively helpful and it has aided me out loads. I hope to contribute & help other users like its aided me. Great job.
tadalafil 10mg us purchase fluconazole generic buy ed pills tablets
Someone necessarily help to make seriously articles I would state. That is the very first time I frequented your website page and thus far? I amazed with the analysis you made to create this actual post incredible. Wonderful activity!
We stumbled over here different web address and thought I may as well check things out. I like what I see so now i’m following you. Look forward to looking at your web page for a second time.
Whats up very nice web site!! Guy .. Excellent .. Amazing .. I’ll bookmark your website and take the feeds additionally?KI am glad to find numerous helpful information here within the submit, we need develop more techniques on this regard, thank you for sharing. . . . . .
Hi this is kinda of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding knowledge so I wanted to get advice from someone with experience. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
You made some respectable factors there. I appeared on the internet for the issue and found most individuals will go together with with your website.
I’ve read some excellent stuff here. Certainly worth bookmarking for revisiting. I surprise how much attempt you set to create one of these excellent informative site.
I¦ve learn several excellent stuff here. Definitely price bookmarking for revisiting. I surprise how a lot effort you put to make one of these fantastic informative site.
I went over this website and I think you have a lot of superb info , saved to fav (:.
Really fantastic visual appeal on this website , I’d rate it 10 10.
buy azulfidine 500 mg pill buy calan 120mg verapamil cheap
I believe this site holds some really wonderful information for everyone : D.
I love it when people come together and share opinions, great blog, keep it up.
It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d certainly donate to this outstanding blog! I guess for now i’ll settle for book-marking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to brand new updates and will talk about this site with my Facebook group. Chat soon!
I’ve recently started a web site, the information you provide on this web site has helped me greatly. Thanks for all of your time & work. “The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” by Jean Paul.
Good ?V I should definitely pronounce, impressed with your site. I had no trouble navigating through all tabs as well as related info ended up being truly easy to do to access. I recently found what I hoped for before you know it at all. Reasonably unusual. Is likely to appreciate it for those who add forums or something, web site theme . a tones way for your customer to communicate. Nice task..
Very great post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and wished to say that I have truly loved browsing your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing in your rss feed and I am hoping you write again very soon!
It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d without a doubt donate to this excellent blog! I guess for now i’ll settle for book-marking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to brand new updates and will share this site with my Facebook group. Talk soon!
As I website owner I believe the articles here is very great, thankyou for your efforts.
Very interesting subject, thanks for posting.
Hi, Neat post. There’s an issue together with your web site in internet explorer, could check this?K IE nonetheless is the market leader and a good element of folks will leave out your wonderful writing because of this problem.
A lot of of the things you state happens to be supprisingly precise and it makes me ponder the reason why I hadn’t looked at this with this light before. This particular article really did switch the light on for me personally as far as this subject goes. However there is actually one particular issue I am not necessarily too cozy with and while I attempt to reconcile that with the actual core idea of the point, permit me see what all the rest of the readers have to point out.Nicely done.