Reintegrating -- Part 1

A soul retrieval brings back parts of your essence that have fled at some point in your life as a result of trauma or loss.  The shaman tracks down the parts and convinces them to return "home."  Once that has occurred, the real work begins:  how can these returned parts of the self be reintegrated into the life being lived in the present?

I have three "returned" parts of my soul, my essence.  Each of them brings something that I've, apparently, been missing.  They have gifts to give me, and wisdom to share.

I just need to make them welcome; nurture them; provide the safe place for all of us to live and learn together -- and find our way to some healthier and happier life...

I.

Have.

No.

Idea.

How.

To.

Do.

That.

So.  Forgive me for dwelling on my (non-physical) parts and pieces.  Forgive me for sounding unsure and uncertain.  Forgive me for filling these pages with angst-y fussing about all this weird, unexplainable, unfathomable, shamanic stuff.  I can't help it.  "They" are in there; inside of me.  I can feel them; hear them -- and I don't know what to think or feel about having us all trying to live here together.

For me right now, the easiest one to be with is the little one.  She is three.  The shaman called her Suzy.  Suzy.  That's what my Dad called me.  No one else.  Only Dad.  The shaman said that, when she found her, she was hiding behind a big rock.  She was very timid and very shy.  She'd been very wounded, and was "tender."  I didn't really expect her.  I figured that the part that would come back to me would be the even younger child who had been so dreadfully abused by my mother -- age two.  When I "talked" with her after the retrieval, I asked her what I could do for her.  She told me she just wanted to be wanted.  That went straight into my heart and lodged there.  I've kept hearing those words over and over for the last week or so...  She is not the hurt and angry baby.  She is the little girl who lost her beloved Daddy; her protector.  It was the year that I was three that my father was promoted at his work.  He'd been a lineman for the phone company; climbing poles and stringing phone line.  It was regular work, and it paid well for a guy with just a high school education.  That year, when I was three, my Dad was promoted to PBX installer and repairman.  He went to work installing and maintaining the big phone exchange systems in Denver's downtown office buildings -- and he quit being home most nights.  With the promotion came an unbelievable number of overtime hours.  Before he could get home from work most evenings, they would call the house and tell my mother that he was needed back to troubleshoot some problem or another.  She'd meet him at the front door with a packed lunch -- and send him off into the night.  By the time he'd get home, I'd be long in bed.  The abuse that was so much a part of the story before I turned two was replaced by a deep sense of abandonment by the one person who had offered some sort of safety.

So, I imagine that Suzy just wants to be cared for, wanted, assured that she matters.  She is curious and she brings a sense of wonder and simple joy.  I love having her back and I want to make things good for us together.  It shouldn't be hard.  She is sweet and lovely and trusting.  I can wrap her up, sit with her on my lap, walk with her hand in mine -- and I can feel the softening of my heart when that happens.  I know it is weird, but it is also true.

At least that one is relatively easy.  The other two?  More complicated.

swan