Soul Retrievals: Journey to Wholeness
by JoAnne Dodgson

“Something's missing.” This commonly heard and felt sentiment is expressed by people of all ages in widely diverse circumstances. To ease the unsettling discontent, confusion and grief around the elusive missing pieces, something or someone eventually gets used to fill up the empty places inside.

Shopping for more stuff. Creating busy-ness and stress. Addictively reaching for foods, drugs, alcohol and sex. Joining the frenzy of competitive sports and political battles. Filling the void with a bigger house, a new car, a better body, a different lover or spouse, another baby, a grander guru, a more impassioned social cause, a trendy tattoo or body piercing, the latest technological gadgets, a hip pair of sunglasses or shoes.

Art by Sue Miller

The desire to live fully, to have a rich and delicious, juicy life, is not to be diminished or squelched. The pursuit of personal happiness and wholeness is a sacred quest. It's just that the maps we've been given by our modern-day world don't get us where we're really trying to go. Grabbing onto someone or something to fill up the empty spaces is only a temporary fix, a convenient distraction, a band-aid concealing unhealed wounds.

Because the recycling “something's-missing,” that haunting sense of emptiness, means what's missing are precious pieces of you. Pieces of your spirit. Elements of your joy. Aspects of your awareness and power. Pictures of your dreams. Expressions of your creativity, freedom and voice. Feelings of connection and belonging. Knowings of unconditional love.

Vital aspects of your spirit, your self, are lost as a result of traumatic life events--accidents, unexpected change, surgery, illness, lack of emotional and physical safety, violence, abuse. Pieces of your spirit leave the energy field of your body for purposes of protection--so these vital aspects of your very essence can stay alive; so you can survive the traumatic circumstances.

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