Articles by Katharine Lee

What is Soul Retrieval Therapy?

The Soul Retrieval Practitioner’s way of doing healing should not be considered an exclusive method of confronting psychological and/or medical problems. It should be viewed as an adjunct to orthodox medical or psychological treatments.

“You cannot find peace until you find all the pieces”

Have you ever wondered why a woman keeps on choosing an abusive husband for a marriage partner? Why a person keeps on having car accidents? Why the same individual keeps on getting hi-jacked? Why certain personalities suffer from pain, anxiety, or stress of unknown origin?  The answer could be that they are suffering from ‘soul loss’.

What is ‘soul loss’? As we move through life, many of us encounter situations that are too frightening to deal with, so we block off parts of ourselves, push aside the energy associated with the situation and continue with our lives as best we can.  The ‘wounded’ portion of self (the soul) stays trapped in the event, and like a stuck record, continues to play over and over again, resulting in repetitive behaviour patterns, events, or symptoms of ‘soul loss’.

Marie Von Franz, a prominent Jungian analyst wrote, “Soul loss can be observed today as a psychological phenomenon in the everyday lives of the human beings around us. Loss of soul appears in the form of a sudden onset of apathy and listlessness; the joy has gone out of life, initiative is crippled, one feels empty, everything seems pointless”.

Unable to communicate verbally, these ‘wounded fragments of soul’ work through the subconscious mind, and the person feels unable to get on with their life’s work, is unable to focus or to concentrate, feels ‘emotionally dead’, ‘spaced out’ and ‘not really present’. Other symptoms include severe depression, grief and an all encompassing feeling of fear and different kinds of psychosomatic, emotional and physical illnesses that do not seem to respond to any kind of conventional treatment.

People suffering from ‘soul loss’ need ‘soul retrieval’. They need a soul retrieval practitioner, a person who is able to journey, in an altered state of awareness, into non-ordinary realities on their behalf to retrieve their soul fragments, still trapped in the trauma of past events. This is done with the help of their power animal, a specialised animal spirit guide that will be in charge of the journey to find and heal the origin of the problem.

The beauty of soul retrieval is that the person suffering from soul loss does not have to revisit the past, or know the origin of the problem. It is also a safer and gentler alternative to Past Life Regression in that, if the problem is linked to a previous life, the client does not need to be regressed and to re-live the trauma associated with a previous incarnation, in order to be healed. The experienced Soul Retrieval Practitioner is able to retrieve, and reintegrate that soul fragment while the client is in a deep state of relaxation.

The wounded aspects of self (soul fragments) are retrieved over a period of time, healed, re-integrated and then brought back to the present, by blowing the energy of the fragmented parts back into the heart or crown centre. It is the soul retrieval practitioner’s duty to restore wholeness.

Depending on the severity of the problem, soul retrieval may require one or more sessions, until such time as all the retrieved soul parts have been gently re-integrated. Benefits include feeling more focused and orderly, feeling more present, more alive, lighter, being able to set boundaries, increased feelings of self-worth,  people feel more in touch with their feelings, feel more powerful as individuals, people feel more energetic, things seem more ‘real’, there is a greater richness of ‘being’ and so on.

For private consultations or to enrol to study to become a Soul Retrieval Practitioner contact katharine@mweb.co.za

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What makes a person great?

The whole world held its breath when Christopher Reeve struggled for life on Memorial Day, 1995. On the third day of a riding competition, Reeve was thrown head first from his horse in an accident that broke his neck and left him unable to move and to breathe. In the years that followed, Reeve not only fought to survive, but fought for himself, for his family and for the hundreds of thousands of people with spinal cord injuries around the world.

Listening to the audio cassette of his book Still Me, produced by Harpur Collins Audio Books, I was deeply moved by his story, how after his accident, completely paralysed, he would lay there looking up at the ceiling and think, “this can’t be my life, there has been a mistake”. Only in his dreams could he escape and sail anywhere he wanted to and remember the days when he played Superman, loved to sail, play tennis, scuba dive and do show jumping.
Even then, he was always cautious and in control, because always in the back of his mind, having played the role of Superman in so many films, he had often though of how embarrassing it would be, if the headlines in the New York Times read “Superman Hit by School Bus!”

The accident was so humiliating and embarrassing, for a whole year afterwards, he berated himself for taking the impulsive decision to enter the competition at the last minute. Why did he act so impulsively? Was it his fault?
Maybe if he had not entered, this would not have happened. Was his injury an accident or was he responsible for what happened. Then there were those days when he thought to himself, and I quote “Christopher, this time you really fucked up”.

Until eventually he came to the conclusion that, to speculate served no purpose other than to torment himself. If he made a mistake, then he had to forgive himself. After all, and to quote him again “what the heck, we are all only human and we all make mistakes.”

With his first and second cervical vertebrae damaged Christopher would never breathe on his own and I soon realised that he would be a terrible burden to his family if he decided to live. He was unable to breathe for more than 3 minutes on his own and asked his wife Dana, “Maybe we should let me go?” She looked him straight in the eye and said “I will support you, and I am here for the long haul. You’re still you and I love you”.

At that point says Christopher, if she had looked away or hesitated just for a minute, he would have called it a day, but what she said gave him the courage to go on.

He realised then, that if he survived and was going to be a burden, his job would be to find new ways to cope, to be as productive as possible, so as not to be a burden to his family. He also realised that, despite his terrible condition, and the awful equipment keeping him alive, his family still needed him.

On the day of his surgery, when Christopher’s head had to be re-attached to his spinal column, as he waited anxiously to go into theatre, a short, guy, wearing a blue scrub hat and a yellow gown and with a Russian accent, being some insane Russian doctor, burst into his room saying that he was Christopher’s Proctocologist, and that he had to examine him immediately. It took Chris a few moments to register before he realised that it was Robin Williams and for the first time he laughed and he knew that life was going to be o.k.

What I loved about this incredible man’s story is that he was so honest about his feelings when he talked about the days that followed. He had never read any books on positive thinking or been particularly religious. From being proudly independent, famous, rich, good looking and a man who had everything, in a split second, he was reduced to someone who, could not breathe on his own, was totally paralysed, and completely dependent on others. His feelings vacillated between self pity, anger, horror, helplessness, gratitude, confusion, despair, loss, humiliation and embarrassment. Alone with his thoughts, his mind would drive him crazy.

He had never been particularly religious, but came to think as long as we believe there is something greater than ourselves that is enough.

God does not make things happen, but where grace enters, is the way you find the strength to deal with it. You may not know where it comes from but there is an enormous power at work.  As Chris said, “Thinking and believing that God is Love, helped me to get past the, me, me, me, my body, my problems, myself.

The greatest moment of my life, was when five months after his accident, they wheeled Christopher onto the stage in his wheelchair at the Annual Fund Raising Dinner for the Creative Co-illations Dinner at the Pier Hotel. It was the first time he had been seen in public since his accident. I watched on television, with tears pouring down my face, as they pushed this brave man onto the stage, and 700 people rose cheering to their feet and the ovation went on for more than 5 minutes, before the auditorium lapsed into an intense silence, after which the evening became a celebration of endurance. After that Christopher fought for himself, for his family and for the hundreds of thousands of people with spinal cord injuries all over the world.
Whenever making public appearances, he often had to enter hotels through the kitchens and backdoors and staff would rush to meet and shake his hand and time and time again would say “We love you Superman, you are still our Superman, you are our hero”. Only then did he realise that he would always be their Superman!
Christopher Reeve eventually passed away on the 10th October 2004, ten years after his accident.

He ends his book by talking about how one of the most difficult lessons he had to learn was to give, when sometimes all he wanted to do was to take.

That it was part of his duty as a father to Will his 3 year old son, not to cause him to worry about him; that if he turned inward and started mourning the past, he could not be there for his other two children, Mathew and Alexandra, two teenagers who could still turn to him for advice.

And what kind of life would that be for Dana, if he let himself go and just became a depressed hulk in a wheelchair? All of this took great effort on his part, because it was still very difficult to accept the turn his life had taken all because of one unlucky moment.

But always in his mind he would be a free spirit, sailing out into the open sea, holding onto the happy memories of the past.

He finishes describing himself falling asleep. “And now, I’m sailing again, but this time onboard the Sea Angel headed for Maine. Its night time and I am at the helm. Down below Dana and the children are sleeping and we are sailing down the path of the full moon. For a moment I look behind me, fascinated by the boiling water that the boat has stirred, when I look even further behind us, our wake has disappeared, and there is nothing to show that we were ever there. I think this image comes out of fear, that the best moments of my life are behind me, I look back longingly, hoping that the memories won’t disappear. I have to stop the cascade of memories, or at least take them out of the draw for a moment, have a brief look and put them back, but luckily I turn away from my fascination with the wake behind us, and can concentrate on what lies ahead. But now the boat is damaged, I’ve been injured, and we’ve lost our charts, everyone is fully alert and gathered around, quietly waiting to see if we can navigate to shore. Off in the distance is a feint flashing light, if could be another ship, or the entrance to a safe harbour, we have no way of knowing, how far we have to go, or even if we have to stay afloat, until we can get there, we agree to help each other, to steer, in the morning, if we stay the course, our beloved Sea Angel, will be tied up safely at the dock and together we will start walking home”.