Many years ago, I was in a shamanic journey, doing a soul retrieval for a client, when my guides said, “This man needs a power retrieval as well as soul retrieval.” The guides proceeded to walk me through a process to help restore his personal power.
Psychological work to restore a sense of power is helpful. And I believe we get the best results when we pair that with a direct, energetic healing intervention to restore lost power. This works below the level of identity or consciousness and restores an important part of our core essence. Thus allowing us to use it in our daily lives. For the purpose of this article, I’m speaking about “power retrieval” as a form of shamanic intervention. However, it can also be supported by energetic approaches aside from shamanic journey work.
Benefits
As with soul retrieval, the benefits of a power retrieval healing can include:
- Feeling secure in who you are.
- Seeing many choices and options that feel good and aligned.
- Leaving or reconfiguring relationships that are based on disempowerment.
- Better manifestation.
- Living an empowered life.
- Better physical health.
- Speaking your truth more easily.
- Finding your passion and soul purpose.
- Gentle and accelerated healing.
It’s important to be in a clear and healthy relationship with our power. Even as adults, we often encounter situations where the perceived price or the actual price of speaking our truth or holding a boundary seems to be too high. Navigating these moments with clarity about what likely is and isn’t real and finding more aligned relationships and situations has a huge impact on our quality of life. Power retrieval can help with this.
Many people experience significant power loss. This can leave them feeling vulnerable and anxious and sometimes even trapped and helpless. When we have access to our authentic power, we experience more resilience, self-confidence, and creativity combined with a deep sense of safety.
While on average we’re raising children with more power and voice than ever before, there’s still much to be desired. Few adult survivors of childhood have a dynamic and easeful relationship with personal power. At least not without a fair bit of inner work. It’s mirrored in a much larger societal situation that abounds with misused power. Furthermore, even beyond the actual misused power, one of the most common narratives to simplify a complex situation is the victim, persecutor, rescuer triangle. This automatically erases personal power. Interestingly, the ubiquitous “hero’s journey” story is also a power retrieval journey.
Seeing Power Differently
Rather than seeing power as some limited commodity we all squabble over, consider the idea of “power with” rather than “power over.” In coming into an updated relationship with your personal power, you’ll be in a stronger place to honor and celebrate the authentic, healthy power of others as well as your own.
It’s interesting to consider how power dynamics have shaped our world. Many of us have experienced power struggles and abuses, especially in childhood. This can lead to a cycle of disempowerment and difficulty in asserting our own voice as adults. Through power retrieval work, we can reclaim our personal power in a balanced and authentic way.
When we feel empowered, we are more grounded and resilient, able to set boundaries and respect others’ boundaries too. It’s about celebrating each individual’s power without seeking dominance or control. Understanding this will help reconnect you with your inner strength. It will also help you clear past pain that may have hindered your ability to assert yourself. And to make choices in your life, and to choose again when needed.
Power retrieval work is something you can work on with your guides if you are competent with the skill of shamanic journey. It’s also something a shamanic practitioner can do on your behalf. I offer a Power Retrieval Intensive once a year to help with this and support my clients in one-on-one sessions with this work. I also offer a guided journey to help you to do power retrieval on your own.
If none of the previous suggestions is a fit for this type of healing, consider that much of shamanic work changes things through the use of intention and focus. Therefore, understanding power retrieval work and intending this healing for yourself, along with some specific exercises, can achieve solid results.
Steps to Power Retrieval
Step 1- Clean Up the Past- It’s good to clean up past life wounds from misdirected power. This can be done in shamanic journey or with Fire Ceremony. We also want to clean up the pain from the past in this lifetime from when people misused power. In particular, being aware that learned helplessness https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325355 can happen when we’ve had certain experiences of misdirected power is helpful to healing. Cleaning the past helps to set the stage for a clear, clean, and contemporary relationship to your power.
Step 2- Restore Power- This step is best done during a shamanic journey by someone skilled in working with the guides. Power Retrieval work is a direct energetic intervention to restore personal power that has been lost, forgotten, disowned, or otherwise disconnected.
Step 3- Integrate and Embody Power- With your power restored, we can come into a relationship with our power and integrate it back into our lives.
Step 4- Activate Your Perception of Power- Our biology can cause our brain to default to perceiving things in terms of a false dichotomy of only having two options, both of them bad. To access our full power and choice, we need to override this default. This part of the journey is about working to strengthen your access to your ability to see a range of options and choices. This can happen both through your own discernment and by being able to receive counsel from your guides.
Getting Help with Power Retrieval
I hope the above information sparks some ideas to support yourself in this important area. If you’d like some more help, please consider:
- Booking a Soul Retrieval or Shamanic Healing Session with me. You’ll need to request power retrieval as a part of a soul retrieval session. Or you can get it as a $25 add-on in my shamanic healing sessions.
- Getting my Power Retrieval Course with Guided Journey. You can buy this in my Academy of Practical Shamanism and have it on-demand with no time limits.
- Signing up for my mailing list. I offer a Power Retrieval Intensive once a year to work deeply on this topic on behalf of my clients. I also offer a $25 group healing (link will show the format and current topic) with a smaller scope about once a year. Sign up for my mailing list to find out when I next offer these.
Whatever approach you take, I hope this supports you in feeling authentically empowered in your life.
