‘The soul is something that is always trying to leave,’ announced a sad young woman in one of my workshops – sad until she received the gift of soul recovery, and the light came back on in her eyes and her life.
Most of us know what it feels like to be missing a part of ourselves, or to encounter someone who is ‘not all there.’ This is reflected in our everyday speech. We might say of ourselves, ‘I was out to lunch,’ or of someone else, ‘He is a few sandwiches short of a picnic.’
Western psychology offers many tools and models for dealing with aspects of the self that are present within an individual. It rarely addresses the problem of what to do when aspects of the self are missing.
Soul loss may be caused by pain or abuse, trauma or heartbreak. We are hurt or scarred so deeply that a part of ourselves leaves the body and does not come back because it does not want to suffer the same grief or trauma again.
Soul loss also results from life choices. We decide to leave a relationship, a home, a job, a country, a lifestyle – and part of us resists that choice, sometimes to the point of splitting away and withdrawing its energy from our lives.
We lose soul when we make the choice to give up on our big dreams, when we refuse to make that creative leap of faith, or to trust ourselves to love.
We lose soul when we take up the habit of lying, to ourselves or others.
Our dreams show us how to heal our divided selves and bring missing parts of our energy and identity back into the body, where they belong.
Dream invitations to soul recovery
Here are some of the ways in which dreams introduce soul matters and open paths for soul energy to come home.
Dreams about shoes
Shoes have ‘soles’ and dreams of shoes often involve ‘soul’ in the deeper sense. In dreams, the state of your shoes – especially if one or more is missing – may be telling you about something that has happened to your soul.
Dreams of the old place
Dreams in which we go back to a scene from our earlier lives, especially when this happens over and over, may indicate that a vital part of our energy and identity is still in that old place. We may find ourselves returning in dreams, again and again, to a childhood home, or the home we shared with a former partner. These dreams may be an invitation to reach back into that place and recover one of our soul-selves that is stuck there. The ‘old place’ may also prove to be a place of encounter with family members and loves ones who have passed on – or need help in passing on.
Dreams of our younger self as a separate individual
These types of dreams may be nudging us to recognize and recover a part of ourselves we lost at that younger age. Sometimes we do not know who that beautiful child is, until we take a closer look.
Sometimes we see our missing parts in that magic mirror. Roger dreamed he looked in a mirror and saw many selves, aspects of himself at many different ages. He was thrilled as he watched them coming together, hugging each other, and uniting – all except for a shy five-year-old who drew further and further away.
Roger went back inside the dream – through a technique we call dream re-entry – and offered his five-year-old self toys he had loved, coaxing him with thoughts like: ‘You don’t have to come over here. But if you want to have some fun...’ When his five-year-old self finally came back, Roger felt lighter and charged with energy.
Maggie shared a dream in which she recognized a lovely three-year-old who was hiding out in Grandma’s yard – and realized, in the dream that it was time to get her lost child out of the old place. ‘My three-year-old wouldn’t come over the fence until I offered her a cute little stuffed lion. Then she came with me. We had a picnic and sang over and over, ‘Lock her up and take her home, take her home, take her home.’ I know my little girl is with me now.’
Animal helpers guide us to our missing selves
Many big dreams that offer an invitation to soul recovery involve animal guides.
A woman named Peggy told me a dream in which she was standing on a hillside, surrounded by other figures she slowly began to recognize as aspects of herself – a baby self, a lively teenager, and a sad and estranged eleven-year-old. She wanted to bring the whole group together, but the eleven-year-old turned her back and moved off.
Peggy looked down across the valley and saw an animal feeding in the distance. It raised its head, and she saw it was a large black bear. The force and directness of its gaze were shocking. The bear came racing towards Peggy, climbing the hill at amazing speed. As it neared her, it raised up on its hind legs. Peggy stood frozen before the bear. The bear took her hand in its great paw and told her, ‘I am your very best friend.’
Peggy woke elated, charged with energy, feeling that her life was full of possibility. I shared her joy, because the dream offered so many gifts and such profound and immediate healing. In her dream, Peggy was able to recognize different aspects of herself – including younger selves who had been missing for many years through soul loss – and bring them together. And she acquired a powerful ally. The dream left something important to be resolved: how to bring home the energy of that eleven-year-old self. Peggy decided to work with the help of her ‘very best friend,’ through the dream re-entry technique, to bring that eleven-year-old child home.
Sometimes the process of soul recovery and integration may be completed with the help of dream animals inside a single night dream. A woman named Holly dreamed a dog and a fox rescued four younger versions of herself – pieces that had been missing for many years – from a place deep underground. The dream animals brought Holly and her four child selves to a blue lake of healing where they bathed and played together and became one.
From The Three 'Only' Things © 2007 by Robert Moss, published by New World Library.
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