Soul Retrieval - Pieces of the Puzzle

When I was a teenager, there were times when I would look in the mirror and not see myself. If I wanted to fix my hair or look at some other part, close-up, I could see that part, but I couldn’t step back and see what I really looked like. I can’t explain exactly what this was like any better than that. I remember knowing that my reflection was there, moving a hand to see it move, but also being aware that I was not seeing it as it was.

During the Soul Retrieval, yesterday, I was told there would be a mirror. I turned and saw the mirror and for a moment I felt terrified that when I looked in the mirror I would not see anything. I knew I was really sitting on a couch in an office on a sunny June day and at the same time I was entrenched in the dream of the room on a crystal mountain, with the mirror. Part of me wondered what she would say if I told her I didn’t see anything. Part of me wanted to open my eyes in the real world and not look at the spirit-mirror.
But, I had to know.

It was a relief when I looked and saw it was just me. I look as I do in my head, younger than I am, less detailed, perhaps, but still it looked like me. I knew it was not really me I was looking at. It was both more and less than one would see in the “real world”. In a way, it was very much like staring into the “hole in the soul” as I wrote about it in this story.

Then she said something about missing pieces. I don’t know exactly what she said because it seems as if I wasn't hearing the words, but was understanding the concepts without hearing.

I looked at the mirror and the area around my abdomen faded out. There it was, in the middle of me, a missing piece just as she had suggested.
Again, the hole in the soul idea flashed through my mind.

She asked me if I could find the missing piece. I knew I could. I knew exactly where it was, and in the next instant, I was standing there.

This was so much like doing the DNMS work with C, with two big differences.

One is that when I am working on an issue with C, she will ask me where I am in whatever memory is being triggered. When I know, I am instantly there – just like I was yesterday during the Soul Retrieval. However, with C I always AM the missing piece. I relive the events as if they are happening in the present, as if I am that little child again.

Yesterday, it was more like standing in the room, watching.

The second difference is that while it felt safer, or more in control, to approach these pieces as an empowered adult, in another way I felt less in control during the Soul Retrieval than I do with C. When C works with me, I feel as if I am leading all the time. With this deeper hypnoses, or guided journey, I felt as if I was being pulled along.

I’m not sure how much of this is just me, how much is the trust level I have with C after two-and-a-half years of working together, and how much is the actual processes, but that is how it was for me - as if I was being led and I ws never quite sure where I was going to be taken.

So - its all about control! I saw C, last night, several hours after the Soul Retrieval,a nd when I said something about this control issue, she laughed and commented on my codependent nature. I had to smile at that. You mean I'm not supposed to want to be in control all the time?

This is a somewhat edited, tamed-down version of what I saw when I went looking for the first missing piece:

As if from above, I see the bedroom I had when I was growing up. I see myself as a toddler, lying in bed. My father is standing in front of me. Behind him, I see the missing piece. She is watching. In her wide-eyed stare I see confusion and terror and so much sadness. I reach down to this little one, standing behind my father as he looked when I was little.

I pick her up. I hold her close for a while, and then I look at her face. I tell her she is safe, it is safe now. I promise that I will always keep her safe.

The Rainbow Lady asks me what gift this missing piece has for me.

I say, Innocence.

Next, she tells me to breathe through my mouth, in a certain way, to bring the missing piece into me. I do the breathing, expecting that this is how this piece will come home, but that is not what happens. It isn’t in the breath, at all. The breathing is like a doorbell, but it isn’t the door. As soon as I start the breathing, I feel this little one – who it still seems I am holding, right now – absorb into me.

She is right here, in front of me, with me.

When I tried to explain this to C, last night, I was saying something about how these pieces were right with me, now.

She asked, “they weren’t before?”

I said, “yes, but now it’s different. Before, it was as if they were behind me, following me. Now I feel like they are right here,” and I put my hands on my arms in an embrace.

I can still feel them… right here.

I went back to the mirror three more times.

The second time, the missing piece was in my throat. When I find this piece she was also two-years-old. This time, she was standing outside the cabinet where I hid one night. Inside the cabinet, I saw myself curled up on top of the extra baby blankets my mother kept in there. Outside, I sensed that this is when I first knew that I could not say what was real.

That night, when I was two, was the beginning of this difficulty I have in expressing myself verbally – and maybe it is another key to unlocking that flow of words, for me. While I can write just about anything, in person you would probably be surprised by how little I am actually able to say. It is frustrating how the words just shut off, how they refuse to make the journey from my mind to my mouth, and how – if I try to force it – they disappear from my mind as well.

This is what I try to explain to the Rainbow Lady when she asks what gifts this piece has.
She is easy to understand.
She knows how to be safe.
She is good, and none of this is her fault.
There is no shame here, and it is safe to talk.

I turned the watcher away from the little sleeping child in the cabinet. I picked her up and brought her home.

The third time I went to the mirror, it was my hands that were missing. At first, when I went looking for the missing piece, I saw only a piano. Gradually, I realized there was a twelve-year-old version of me looking at the piano. She didn’t want to touch it. Inside her, I sensed that she did not want to be heard. Unlike the two-year-old who was afraid to say what she needed to say, the twelve-year-old’s silence was motivated more by anger than fear. It felt like an attack.
In her narrowed eyes and tight-lipped expression, I sensed stubbornness that I remember well.
You will never know me.
I am not going to let you in.
I have gifts to share, but you will never hear them.

And who is the “you” in those statements? It is the whole world. My mother used to tell me I always looked like I was mad at the world… and in this adolescent staring at the piano, that is exactly what I found. If I can really get her to the place where she feels safe, she can give me so much.

I have something to offer, but I am not going to let you have it, yet.

I did bring this one home, but her stubbornness is not gone. I feel it is going to take some coaxing to get to the gifts she has. What she brings is confidence to express myself and to allow my talents and gifts to be heard.

The final trip to the mirror was different. Instead of a missing piece, I saw a gray area. At first, I thought that was because this piece was closer to coming home, but that is not true. I believe this piece is not really ready to come home. Interestingly, she is the one I am the most aware of, right now, but instead of sensing her calmly inside, I feel as if she is clinging tightly to me, terrified I am going to let go. I’m not sure what I have to do to make her feel safe.

When I looked in the mirror that fourth time, the gray I saw was on my legs. I knew it was about the time when I was sick, when I was six-years-old. I didn’t see just one place, or one image, I saw a bombardment of images of me at age six.

The doctor touching my legs.
Screaming and squirming and then being held down so they could draw blood or give me shots.
Lying in bed, waiting for someone to come get me because I couldn’t walk.
Lying on the sofa in front of the TV, alone.
Needing to go to the bathroom, but no one was around to carry me there.
Annoyed expressions when someone would be saddled with the task of taking me to the bathroom.
Waiting as long as I could to ask.
Then waiting some more.
The doctor touching my legs.
Screaming and squirming and then being held down so they could draw blood or give me shots.
Needing to go to the bathroom, but no one was around to carry me there.

It was swirling around in my head, and I started to panic. I tried to open my eyes, but it was hard. I blinked and the room literally swam in front of me.
I hadn't realized I was lying down. I'd been sitting, last I knew.
I saw the Rainbow Lady.
She said something.
I said something.
I don't know what.
I sat up.
I felt embarrassed and agitated at the concern on her face.
Telling her I needed to use the bathroom certainly didn't make me feel any less embarrassed.
She got up and moved the curtain from the door, and I went out into the bright hall.

In the bathroom, I wondered how I was going to explain this. I felt really mortified and wondered if I’d screwed up the entire thing. There were still forty-five minutes left in the appointment time.
Is that going to be enough time to get back to where I was?
Do I want to?

While I washed my hands, I looked in the mirror.
It was just me – older than I expected, looking tired and a little afraid.
But just me.

I went back in the room.

She asked, “Was it too intense?”
I tried to explain about when I was sick, when I couldn’t walk for two months, how helpless I felt. How I always felt like a burden to whoever was stuck taking care of me, and how the worst part was having to go to the bathroom because I couldn't go myself and no one wanted to be bothered with it and how I saw this six-year-old there and I had to help her...
all the thoughts came out in some kind of jumble that she seemed to understand.

I still felt embarrassed.

She said, “You spoke up for her, and you took care of her.”

Yes. That is what I did.
That’s exactly what I did.

I sat down, closed my eyes, and soon I was back to the six-year-old. I found her easily enough and when I picked her up she held on and I felt how she’s been waiting for me, all this time.

In a way, it hasn’t been long, for her, because she is still six, stuck in time… but in a way, it was a very long time because two months of not being able to walk, and then having to relearn how to walk is a very long time to a six-year-old.

I brought her back, but as I said, this part is different. I know I have more work to do with this one. It’s important that I do this work because she has a very important gift.

Personal power.

Time was short, by the time I held the six-year-old. The Rainbow Lady went through the rest of the things, and it felt a little quick, in a way. Even so, I knew I had done enough for one day. I was emotionally drained and physically felt as if I really had climbed a mountain. When she talked about other missing pieces, she said something about them all coming home, and for a little bit I saw that twinkling, like it had been in my dream. Spirit fireflies danced over my head... and some came towards me, but others stayed where they were.

I went back to the purple meadow, and she played a song I know. It is one by Shaina Noll, which C has played before, and I found it very comforting.

Then she counted up to five.
The world came back a little more gently than it had when I'd suddenly pulled my self out of it to go to the bathroom.

She asked how it was.
I told her it was intense.
She said, “you did a lot.”

Yes… I did.
It was a wonderful experience and I’m glad I did it.
It doesn't feel like this Soul Retrieval was complete, and maybe there is no such thing. There is no one thing we can do to get back what we've lost along the way. It's all a process, a lot of hard work that brings about a gradual shift towards our true selves. For me, this was a special piece of the puzzle that I will always remember, and I might even try it again, someday.