Shamanic Healing and Soul Retrieval

by Dawn Paul

Many people ask me how I came to be a Shamanic Healer, and that is quite a story in itself! A few years ago, while working as a Senior Consultant for a top bank, I went to Peru and achieved my life-long dream of visiting Machu Picchu. I had climbed to the highest point on Machu Picchu - the “Intihuatana” – also known as the Hitching Post of the Sun. As I was leaving the small enclosure to go down the ancient steps to the plateau below, I looked down and saw that I was surrounded by Inca!  I could hardly believe my eyes, but despite blinking furiously they remained staring intently at me. With shaking legs, I made my way down the steps to face an Inca who was absolutely radiant with power and covered in golden armour. Somehow, I managed to maintain eye contact with him despite the ferocity of his intense gaze. Suddenly his arm shot up, he pointed directly at me, and I heard his deep voice say, “You will follow this path, and we will help you!”

And that was the end of my career in corporate finance and the start of my career as a Shamanic Healer of the Inca Tradition. Despite working for the bank I had had a keen interest in healing and all things spiritual since I was a child. Over the years I had looked into many different types of healing, but had never found anything that I felt went deep enough – so many healing methods seemed to provide a nice energy boost but left people still dragging their emotional baggage around with them. I wanted to find a way to help people get rid of their emotional baggage, help raise their vibration and then assist them to become whole again. And the Inca at Machu Picchu certainly showed me a way to do that, for which I am profoundly grateful. 

Shamanic Healing is very gentle, yet it works very deeply. We all exist on many different levels - physical, emotional, energetic, mental and spiritual - therefore our issues need to be addressed and healed on all of those levels. Shamanism can sometimes be misunderstood as dark and spooky, but this is not the case at all. Basically, shamanism is around 40,000 years old, and it is the medicine way of the first peoples of the Earth.  There are many different lineages of shamanism - Aboriginal, Native American Indian, South American Indian, and Siberian for example, but common threads run through all these lineages. 

Essentially the shamanic ways sees the Divine, or “Great Spirit,” not only as a presence in the sky, but in each and every thing, every blossom, plant, crystal, river, animal and of course in each person. Therefore, the shamanic way of life is to live with respect for each other and every thing, as it is aspect of the Divine. Having said that, shamanism is not a religion, and it is older than any religion. Shaman believe that one can have a direct relationship with God and also with nature. They live in balance and harmony with the Earth, which is why they are known to be able to communicate with the spirits of plants. For example, I have been with the medicine people of the Amazon Jungle, and they tell of visits from scientists asking questions such as, “How did you know that the sap from this tree would cure intestinal parasites?” and the shaman responds, “Because the tree told me.” 

Another common concept to the shamanic lineages is that of the three worlds, the Upper World, Middle World and the Lower World. The Middle World is the world we inhabit. The Lower World is not a hellish type place at all, just a lower dimension, with a landscape similar to this one. As a shamanic healer I spend a lot of time travelling between the worlds for my clients. One of the greatest and most beneficial aspects of shamanic healing is the concept of Soul Retrieval. Soul loss can occur frequently, initially between the ages of 0-10 and then ongoing, and it is a form of protection mechanism, which occurs after severe emotional, mental or physical shock. The best example I can give of soul loss (although admittedly it is not a very pleasant one) can be seen in articles in magazines where a woman describes being raped. It will often say something like, “I was completely detached from the scene, and seemed to be watching everything happening from above.” 

She actually is watching herself from above, as she will have completely left her body in order to distance herself from the event. What happens then is that not all of the soul (or spirit) returns to the body, because if it did, it would be too difficult for the woman to deal with what has happened to her. So some of her soul re-enters the body and the rest of it runs off to the safety of the Lower World. 

Let my try and explain this as easily as I can. Imagine if you will, a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, all those segments connected to each other in the foil wrapper. Imagine that the foil wrapper is the body, and the segments are the soul and also units of vital energy. Let us assume that a child is sexually abused by a parent, and six segments of the orange are lost from the wrapper. This abuse unfortunately sets up a pattern of abusive relationships and negative events, and as the person grows, segment after segment leaves the wrapper, until there are only a few segments left in the foil. The effects of the soul loss on the person will range from depression and low energy, to problems with the immune system, poor energetic protection, difficulty feeling anything and problems finding their place and purpose in the world. In short, they will feel like something is missing, because something is missing, those aspects of the soul. Often when people go on a “big search” – perhaps for the perfect job/partner/their real mother/their purpose in life/their spiritual path etc, what they are actually looking for is those soul parts, those aspects of themselves.

So in my work, I first of all assist the client to clear the emotional and energetic baggage of the past and then I journey down to the Lower World in order to retrieve those segments and put them back in the foil - the body - and this process is repeated until the person is whole again and moving on in their life. It is an amazing process and hugely beneficial to the client.

You may be wondering what sort of person comes to see me and the answer is…any sort of person, with any sort of issue! My clients range from 7 months old to 90 years old, from princesses and politicians to students and children and they come from all races and religious backgrounds. Some are into “spiritual” things but most have no knowledge at all. At the first appointment, the client and I chat over a nice cup of tea and then I carry out a full energy diagnosis to see what needs to be done in entirety. Alongside the shamanic healing, I also use more modern healing methods such as ThetaHealing, (which works on removing negative subconscious beliefs), EFT, Reiki and also Life Coaching and spiritual teaching. 

As you can probably tell, I am passionate about this healing work and the shamanic way of life. If we all followed the shamanic principles of living with respect for everything and everyone, how different would our lives and our world be? My work would not be possible without the Q’ero medicine people, who live high up in the Andes in Peru. The Q’ero are known as “the Wisdom Keepers of the Inca,” and they have kept this healing wisdom alive for hundreds of years via their oral tradition. I wanted to give something back to these wonderful people, so I have set up a fund to assist them and am working directly with the President of the Q’ero Nation, Don Francisco Apaza, to help alleviate poverty in the Q’ero villages and also preserve the wonderful teachings of his ancestors. If you wish to make a donation, please send your cheque, made payable to “The Q’ero Ayni Fund” to P O Box 1067, St Albans, Herts AL1 9QZ.  Further details on the Q’ero can be found on my website and a website for the Fund will shortly be available at www.qero.org. Thank you, and as they say in Quechua, I wish you “Tukumunayniyok” (the total power of unconditional love).

More information about my work, along with client testimonials, can be found on my website, which is at www.liberate-online.co.uk. If you have any queries as to whether this work may be suitable for you then please feel free to email me at dawn.paul@btopenworld.com or call me on 01727 845514.