Aion Farvahar  0:13
Soul Retrieval: Restoring the Soul We Once Had 
By Aion Farvahar
"Soul is not just a spiritual concept. It is the life source behind our existence. 
When we lose our connection to our soul, we feel uninspired in life, 
as if our life is devoid of any meaning. 
But, when we restore our connection to our soul, 
we feel alive and live life with a sense of openness, courage, and inspiration." 

Aion Farvahar  0:53
Hi, this is Aion Farvahar. 
I am glad you are here.
This channel is about self realization, and honoring our life purpose and meaning. If you are interested in these topics, please subscribe to stay connected. Your support is the foundation of this channel, and encourages me to create more content in the future. 
Today, we want to focus on Soul Retrieval. Soul is not just a concept or an intriguing idea to believe in. It has life-nourishing qualities, qualities that can transform how we view ourselves and experience life. We can notice the fullest display of these qualities in children, especially preschoolers. Children are soulful and full of life because they are connected to their soul and its life energy. For children, every day of life is an opportunity for adventure. They are playful and have no fear of judgment. They play together without prejudice. Even when they play alone in their little worlds, they talk to themselves, as if they are their own best companion. When they hear music, they sing and move with it, as if they are the only one in the room. Even when they fall and experience pain, they get over it as quickly as they can, because they don't want to miss out on anything in that playful day. 

Aion Farvahar  2:34
Children know how to appreciate little things in life, even a candy gives them a reason to celebrate, to appreciate. They know how to laugh at silly things. They are free, imaginative, and creative. They are connected to life and one with their soul. They feel alive far more than all serious adults around them. They wonder about these adults and what happened to them. They wonder why these adults can't be as inspired or as playful as they are. Why they can't be as imaginative or as creative as they feel. They wonder why the adults cannot laugh like them. Why they don't appreciate life as they do. They probably wonder what happened to them.  
We adults were once these preschoolers, but something happened to us. We became those serious, preoccupied, overworked, and uninspired adults. Somewhere in the road of life, we lost our playfulness, we forgot being imaginative, stopped being creative. We started to care about what people think of us. We forgot to be inspired, forgot to feel alive. We forgot how we used to be. How did we lose the soulful nature we once had as preschoolers? What happened to us? What happened to the soul we once had? How did we lose that beautiful connection? We need to know the answer, if we want to change things, if we want to feel inspired again, to imagine and to create again, to sing with our soul and feel alive again. 

Aion Farvahar  4:38
The presentation invites you to be curious about the soul and how we adults have lost our connection to it. We can restore that connection, but to do that we need a soul retrieval journey to recover the lost parts of our soul, which were separated and now forgotten in the axis of our past time. This presentation explains how soul loss happens and how we can reverse it. More specifically, we cover the following topics:
How do we lose our connection to our Soul? (Understanding Soul Loss)
How can we restore our connection to our Soul? (Psychological, Shamanic, and Psychoshamanic Soul Retrieval)
Psychological Soul Retrieval (Parts and Inner Child Work)
Shamanic Soul Retrieval
And, Psychoshamanic Soul Retrieval.
Let's go over these. Please note that ideas explained here are subjective and based on my personal experience and understanding. To know more about these ideas, consider further research on your own. 

Aion Farvahar  6:01
How do we lose our connection to our Soul?(Understanding Soul Loss) 
When we first came to this world, experiencing life as children, we were fully-connected to our soul and its life energy. Unfortunately as we grew up, we started being conditioned by our environment and interactions with the adults around us, usually demanding us to be or behave in certain way, in order to be protected and loved. We could not be who we wanted to be and had to become who our environment demanded us to be, so we can survive to become adults. Unfortunately in this process, many of us ended up being separated from our soulful nature, and partially lost connection we once had to our soul. 
Let's have an example to further clarify this. For example, if I was unfairly accused of doing something that my older sibling did when I was 5 years old, and was unfairly punished and rejected by my parents because of that, I may feel sad and abandoned. Because I want this to never happen to me again, I grow up not trusting people around me, because they can choose to reject me one day without any reason. And, regardless of how wise or rational I may become as an adult, my 5-year old inner child continues to feel sad and abandoned, not wanting to build trusting connections with others, even without me noticing why I feel that way. 

Aion Farvahar  7:46
This example brings us to the psychological concept of Inner Child and the shamanic idea of Soul Loss. These two are closely interrelated. In psychology, Inner Child is a younger part of our personality that holds emotional burdens due to an adverse or emotionally-charged traumatic experience. In many situations, the psychological issues we adults experience are related to our Inner Child trauma. In shamanic and ancient wisdom traditions, the adverse or emotionally-charged traumatic experiences are not viewed as purely psychological but rather psychospiritual and energetic events, causing a part of the soul to be separated and exiled as a result. This loss of connection to the soul is also known as Soul Loss. Soul loss is not limited to our negative experiences during our childhood and can happen due to other adverse or existentially-significant events in our adult life, for example a severe illness, an accident, loss of emotional attachment, and even during an unsupervised psychedelic experience. Most individuals experiencing soul loss have little or no recollection of the exact event, as if a part of their soul that experienced that event was separated from them, and is now lost, taking with it the memory of that event. 
The more we experience emotionally-charged events in life, the more soul loss we have, and the less connected we may feel to our soul and its life energy. In a way, we can view severe depression or the experience of dark night of the soul as a sign of loss of connection to the soul and its life energy. 

Aion Farvahar  9:54
How can we restore our connection to our Soul?
(Psychological, Shamanic, and Psychoshamanic Soul Retrieval)
As mentioned our soul is the spiritual essence of our being and the life force behind our existence. When we are fully connected to our soul, we live life with a sense of openness, courage, and inspiration. We feel more present and alive, and are open, genuine and authentic in our relationship with others. In contrast, when we are disconnected from our soul, it seems hard to feel alive or inspired, or feel genuinely connected to ourselves and others. We may still participate in the societal rituals of life, such as socializing, working, and taking care of ourselves and others, but our experience of life is largely focused on our existential and emotional needs, and are therefore not as soulful or as inspiring. Without our soul, we still know how to live, but we forget how to feel alive. 
Soul retrieval is a type of inner work that restores our connection to our soul. Depending on the nature and severity of Soul Loss, soul retrieval process is usually performed using one of the following three approaches:
Psychological Soul Retrieval (also known as Parts or Inner Child Work)
Shamanic Soul Retrieval
And, Psychoshamanic Soul Retrieval
It'd be useful here to briefly review and explain these approaches.

Aion Farvahar  11:47
Psychological Soul Retrieval (Parts or Inner Child Work)
Soul retrieval is strictly a shamanic term. However, there are psychological approaches, like parts work or inner child work that serve a similar purpose as soul retrieval, but in a psychological context. One of the most effective of these approaches is IFS or Internal Family Systems, pioneered by Dr. Richard C. Schwartz. Going back to my earlier example, using IFS, I can connect to my 5-year old inner child, listen to him with an open heart and compassion. Letting him explain how he felt back then and making sure he realizes my care and compassion for him. My compassionate inner connection to my inner child provides an opportunity for him to feel understood and validated, and be open to let go of the sadness and abandonment he felt back then. This emotional liberation transforms the psychological state of my inner child, creating space for restoring his soulful nature, which was suppressed and lost back then. In a way, letting go of the emotional burdens of that experience, feels like a soul retrieval because it creates space for restoration and integration of the divine and soulful nature of my inner child. 

Aion Farvahar  13:23
Shamanic Soul Retrieval
Unlike psychological soul retrieval, Shamanic soul retrieval is spiritual and energetic in nature. Shamans view the material world as a manifestation or a subset of an all-encompassing spirit world. In shamanic view of the world, everything even a piece of rock, has spiritual energy and influences its surroundings. Shamans are aware of these spiritual energies and have been using this awareness to protect the vitality and soul sovereignty of the members of their community. To a shaman, adverse or emotionally-charged traumatic experiences are not psychological as such, but rather an exchange of spiritual energies that negatively burden the soul, and affect the individual psychologically. To heal an individual who is not emotionally or physically well, shamans search for a vital part of the soul that should be present but seems to be missing. They view this missing part as a Soul Loss or Power Loss. To restore vitality, Shamans use rituals, shamanic journeys, or plant medicine ceremonies to connect to the spirit world, locate this lost part of the soul in there, and help the person spiritually reintegrate it. This shamanic healing process is usually referred to as Power Retrieval or Soul Retrieval. In Shamanic Power or Soul Retrieval, the individual has a limited and passive participation, and the spiritual inner work is performed by the shamanic practitioner and usually guided by practitioner's chief guide or guardian spirit.  

Aion Farvahar  15:22
Psychoshamanic Soul Retrieval
Psychoshamanic Soul Retrieval is neither purely psychological nor spiritual, but rather, psychospiritual, where both psychological and spiritual insights related to an adverse or emotionally-charge experience are used in combination. In a psychoshamanic setting, shamanic practitioner uses shamanic rituals and guided journeys or ceremonies to create a sacred and spiritually healing environment for the individual, who is experiencing a power or soul loss. Unlike shamanic soul retrieval, the individual has an active participation in the psychoshamanic soul retrieval, and shares the psychological insights related to the experience with the shamanic practitioner. In addition to these psychological insights, the shamanic practitioner also receives spiritual insights from the practitioner's chief guide or guardian spirit, and leads the soul retrieval process based on them. Psychospiritual soul retrieval can be more effective because the individual experiencing it, has an active participation in the ritual and can therefore experience a positive psychological shift as a consequence. 

Aion Farvahar  16:46
In closing, I want to leave you with the following suggestions:
If you can, reflect back on the moments is your life, when you felt more inspired and alive. Check if you can notice your soulful nature shining through you back then. 
If you feel different today, look for any emotionally-charged event or experience, which could have separated you from that soulful nature. 
Become curious about that event or experience, and how it might have affected you emotionally, or negatively changed how you view yourself and others. 
Consider some inner works, maybe parts work or inner child work to connect and liberate the part of your soul that was lost due to that event or experience. 
In addition to inner works, consider changing your environment and daily habits to deepen your connection to your soul. I've provided the links to some of my previous presentations in the description below, which can be helpful in this process.    
Remember that we are soulful beings, and have experienced the life energy of our soul when we were little. We just happened to get drifted away from our soul through our difficult life experiences and ordeals. We need to find our way back to our soul, so we can feel inspired again, imagine again, sing with our soul and feel alive again. 
If you have found this presentation inspiring, please like and share it with your like-minded friends. Please subscribe to my channel and share your thoughts and comments. For more information about myself and my life mentorship practice, please find my bio link in the description below.
Blessings.