Soul retrieval is a shamanic healing practice. A practitioner travels in non-ordinary reality, finds a part of your life force that left you during something overwhelming, and brings it back. Almost everyone who reads about it arrives at the same question: do I need someone else for this, or can I do it myself?
I get this question in my inbox most weeks. Usually it comes from someone who has been journeying for a while, who has read Sandra Ingerman, and who would rather not hand something this personal to a stranger. That is a fair instinct, and the honest answer is longer than yes or no.
Can you do soul retrieval on yourself?
Partly, yes. You can do your own retrieval work for recent, small losses: a part that pulled back after a hard conversation, a week of illness, a move, a season of overwork. You cannot safely do it alone for the old, heavy material, the kind that goes back to trauma, because the part of you that would have to hold the journey is the same part that is missing.
That is the whole answer in two sentences. The rest of this article is about where the line actually sits, and what you can do on either side of it.
What is soul retrieval, and what is soul loss?
Soul loss is the shamanic explanation for what happens when an experience is more than you can stay present with. A piece of your life force steps out of the situation so that the rest of you can keep going. It is a protective move, not a failure. Soul retrieval is the practice of going to find that piece and inviting it home.
Michael Harner described this in The Way of the Shaman as one of the oldest healing tasks a shaman has. Sandra Ingerman’s Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self brought the practice into a form that Western practitioners work with today. Both describe it as work between two people: one journeys, one holds the room.
If you are not sure whether this applies to you, look for signs that are quieter than most people expect. I wrote about them in 8 Reasons Soul Loss Looks Like Being Perfectly Fine.
What can you genuinely do on your own?
More than most people assume. Every retrieval has preparation before it, small everyday calling-back alongside it, and integration afterwards. All three are yours to do. The table below sorts the common practices by what each one actually does and whether it holds up when you work alone.
| Practice | What it does | On your own? |
|---|---|---|
| Journeying to ask what is missing | Gives you a picture of where and when a part left | Yes, if you journey steadily already |
| Calling back a recent, small loss | Returns energy lost to overwork, conflict, illness | Yes |
| Welcoming a part home after a session | Helps the returned part settle into daily life | Yes, and nobody else can do it for you |
| Retrieval tied to childhood or trauma | Returns a part that left under real danger | No, work with a practitioner |
| Retrieval while in acute crisis | Nothing good, usually destabilises | No, and not with a practitioner either until you are steadier |
| Extraction or cord work on yourself | Removes energy that is not yours | Only the light everyday version |
Why does self-retrieval stop working for the deep material?
Because you need a steady witness, and in a deep retrieval you cannot be both the one who goes and the one who stays. A journey asks you to stay grounded enough to track where you are. Old material pulls you into the memory instead of letting you observe it, and at that moment there is nobody left at the drum.
There are three things a practitioner does that you cannot do for yourself:
- They hold the container. They keep track of time, keep the drum going, and stay out of the story so they can bring you back.
- They see what you are too close to see. A part often shows up at an age or in a scene you have written off as unimportant.
- They stay steady when it gets intense. If something breaks open, someone is in the room who is not inside it with you.
There is also a quieter reason. Doing it alone lets you decide, mid-journey, that you have had enough. A practitioner will not push you, but they will notice when the work is getting smaller and say so.
How do you do a simple self-retrieval?
Here is the practice I give people for recent, light losses. It takes about thirty minutes and assumes you already know how to journey. If you do not, start with Journey to the Lower World: Step-by-Step Guide first and come back to this.
- Name one situation, not your whole life. One week, one conversation, one month of being stretched thin. One thing you can name, not everything at once.
- Ask your power animal to come with you. You are not going alone. People skip this one and then wonder why the journey feels thin.
- Journey with the question: what part of me stayed behind there? Do not steer the answer. Let the image arrive, even if it looks ordinary.
- Ask the part what it needs in order to come back. Often it is simple. Rest. To not be sent back into the same situation. To be believed.
- Agree to it, honestly. If you cannot promise it, say so. Lie to it and it leaves again.
- Bring it back and give it somewhere to land. Breathe it into your chest, sit quietly, drink water, eat something.
- Write it down the same day. Two or three sentences. What you saw, what it asked for, what you promised.
Do not run this practice more than once a fortnight. Retrieval is not a daily habit, and energy that comes back needs time to settle before you go looking for more.
How do you know whether something came back?
You usually notice it in your ordinary week rather than in the journey itself. People describe sleeping differently, having an appetite again, feeling an old interest return, or crying at something small after months of feeling nothing much at all.
What it does not look like: a dramatic shift, a permanent mood change, or a problem that stops existing. If you are expecting that, read 7 Things Soul Retrieval Cannot Do for You before you start, because people are almost always disappointed about the wrong thing.
What I have seen in my own practice
The people who come to me having tried it alone fall into two groups, and the split is remarkably clean. The first group worked on something recent. They did good, careful work, and they mostly do not need me for that layer. The second group went straight for the oldest thing they carry, got as far as the scene, and then spent the evening flooded with no way back out. Nothing came home. What they had done was open something and sit alone with it.
What changes in a held session is not the technique. It is that someone is in the room whose job is to stay on the outside of your story. I keep the drum going, I keep track of where you are, and I am not inside the memory with you. That is the entire difference, and it is bigger than it sounds.
My own first attempt at self-retrieval, years before I trained properly, belonged squarely in the second group. I learned the limit the slow way. If you are at that point, you can read how I work in a shamanic healing session and decide for yourself whether it fits.
When should you not do this alone?
Do not do this alone if any of these is true for you right now: you are in an acute crisis, you are in the early stages of trauma therapy, you dissociate easily, you are in active addiction or early recovery, or the memory you are circling is one you have never spoken about to anyone.
Shamanic work sits alongside medical and psychological care, never instead of it. If you are in treatment, tell your therapist or doctor what you are planning, and if you are not in treatment and the material is this heavy, that is usually the first call to make rather than the last.
Frequently asked questions
Can a beginner do soul retrieval on themselves?
Not yet. You need a reliable journey practice first, which usually means several months of journeying regularly and meeting your power animal. Without that, there is no steady ground to come back to.
How long does a self-retrieval take?
The journey itself is fifteen to twenty minutes. Preparing and settling afterwards takes longer than that, and integration runs for two to four weeks. Plan a quiet evening around it, not a lunch break.
What if nothing happens during the journey?
That is common, and it tells you something rather than meaning you got it wrong. It usually means the timing is wrong, the question was too broad, or the part is not willing to come back to the life you are currently living. Ask what would need to change first.
Can I do a retrieval for someone else?
Not without training and not without their clear consent. Retrieving for another person means tracking their energy rather than your own, which you have to be trained for, and doing it uninvited crosses a line whatever you intend.
Is self-retrieval dangerous?
If the material is light and you are grounded, no. Spirits and possession are not the risk. Opening old trauma with nobody there is, and that can leave you flooded for days.
How often can a part leave again?
As often as the conditions that sent it away come back. This is why integration matters more than the retrieval. If nothing in your life changes, the part has good reason to step out again.
About the author. I am Carolin, a shamanic practitioner and coach based in Portugal. I teach shamanic journeying and work one to one with people on soul retrieval, power loss and the long, unglamorous business of integration. Everything here comes from my own practice and from the people who sit across from me.
This article is for information. Shamanic work supports medical and psychological treatment and is no substitute for it. If you are in crisis, please contact a doctor or a local crisis service.
