HEALING DEPRESSION AND THE SOUL

If we do not expect the unexpected, we will never find it.

Heraclitus (6th century BC), Greek Philosopher

 In early 1990s a woman in her late twenties, whom I shall call Ethel, worked with me as a healer until she fully recovered from severe carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) in both wrists and from a related deep depression (after having been told by her doctors and physiotherapists that she would never be able to use her hands again, following two years of treatment that did not improve her condition at all). From then on we kept in touch socially, and she appeared to be fully functional, healthy and got happily married. 

'Causeless' Depression

Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.

Voltaire, born François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), French Author

A few years later she came to see me again for a healing, saying that she felt depressed, unmotivated, lethargic and without direction, yet she was not able to pinpoint any reason for it in her mind, emotions, sensitivity, intuition, physique, relationships or work – in fact, she felt healthy and truly happy about everything in her private and professional life. Assuming that there must be some reason for her condition at a subconscious level, she hoped that by reading her energy patterns I could detect the hidden cause of her condition and heal it at an energy level. 

I had never heard of an apparently ‘causeless’ depression, especially in someone as inquisitive and insightful as Ethel, who did not display any denial during our previous healing work. On the contrary, she has been very interested in, introspective and open minded about all of her issues, so that the psycho-somatic healing was an essential part of what led to her complete recovery from the original ailments. 

During the session Ethel lay down with her eyes closed and kept silent during the session, since there was nothing to talk about. I systematically checked her energy patterns by using my hands as scanners from a couple of meters distance. As usual, at the same time, I kept asking probing questions in my mind and kept observing carefully the energy shifts as her non-verbal response. 

All of her energy patterns confirmed what she told me – everything felt well balanced, healthy and happy. At a loss about what to do next, feeling relatively uptight in my body and annoyed at not being able to find any clue about what to do next, I thought sarcastically, “Surely I don’t need to check her ‘soul’ too!” implying that it would have been a nonsense, since as an atheist I was convinced that there was no such thing as a ‘soul’. I believed that it would have been only an old religious label for one’s subtle energy field (aura), and in particular for its emotional patterns, since I understood the word ‘soulful’ to mean ‘deeply feeling, empathic, compassionate’.  

Soul  

Belief is not the beginning but the end of all knowledge.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German poet and dramatist

To my amazement, at the very instant when I had my cynical thought, Ethel’s whole aura appeared to have simply vanished or, at least, I could not sense it any more around her body. I had never experienced nor heard of anything similar, other than assuming that one’s complete aura would disappear at the moment of death. Strangely, but fortunately, Ethel’s healthy face colour and regular breathing did not seem to change at all with this sudden disappearance of her normal energy field. 

Since this sudden and quite drastic shift took place the very instant when I made a reference to her ‘soul’, that was the only clue that I had and could follow. So I opened my mind to the possibility that maybe Ethel’s depression could have been due to her soul not being in her body. 

I thought that, despite my doubts about the existence of the soul, I had nothing to lose if I proceeded to explore that possibility. To find out more about Ethel’s Soul, I asked in my mind where it might have been in space, since it appeared neither to be within nor around her body. 

The instantaneous response came as a vision in my mind’s eye. It was a semi-transparent image of Ethel, as though in her early twenties, floating somewhere high up in the stratosphere. While fully aware of being in my body in the consulting room, I was at the same time looking at that ethereal image apparently from a few meters above and about twenty meters away from her. I felt that Ethel’s Soul did not want anyone’s closer presence, but was decisively guarding her own space. Feeling respectful towards that entity as I would towards a real person, I started considering it in its own right as an aspect of Ethel’s Being (which is why I am now using the capital initial for her Soul). 

Out of Body

To my surprise, it appeared that we were located above Tanzania. Looking North I could see the Horn of Africa with the Ethiopian plateau, the Arabic Peninsula, the Red Sea and a good portion of the Indian Ocean. But Ethel’s Soul did not seem to relate to anything down there on Earth.  

Without understanding why someone’s Soul would be floating in that middle of nowhere, with no apparent connection with that part of the globe, I kept simply working with the information that I received. As usual when I would be faced with a novel experience during the energy healing, I put my lack of knowledge and prejudice aside, keeping an open mind and communicating with this image as something real, so that I could learn what healing might be appropriate in this strange case.    

In response to my mental question, why Ethel’s Soul was not in her body, I heard in my head its quiet voice saying, “Because I don’t trust that Ethel would take care of me!”   

Knowing that Ethel had learned to take very good care of herself since we have worked on healing her previous depression and CTS, I asked what was the reason for that mistrust. The Soul said emphatically, “She had never looked after me!”   

Still believing that the Soul would correspond to one’s emotions and intuition, I argued otherwise, since Ethel now truly honored those aspects of her Being.  Her Soul’s response, “I am deeply hurt from having been jolted out of Ethel’s body early on in her childhood, when she started trying to live up to other people’s expectations!” made it clear that I was missing the point.

While I knew that Ethel felt pressured and unsupported in her childhood, it never occurred to me that one’s Soul could be ostracized from one’s body because of that. 

Feeling very compassionate towards Ethel’s Soul, I conveyed to it that I was aware of Ethel’s chronic stress from early on in her life, yet that it would have been overcome as part of her previous healing with me. Her appropriate assertiveness, which had enabled her to feel healthy and happy during the past few years, was the living proof of such a change.   

Her Soul surprised me by saying that it did not know anything about Ethel’s emotional life nor about her recovery. In spite of what I had said it still did not feel safe about coming back into Ethel’s body.   

I asked what specifically did the Soul mistrust so much in Ethel, and got a perfectly clear and emphatic answer, “I don’t trust Ethel’s mind. It is too unsafe for me to have any connection with her body ruled by that mind!”  

Although I thought that Ethel, being highly intelligent, very insightful, inquisitive and educated, had a great and very open mind, now I recalled that even though she trusted Nature’s healing forces (including the energy healing that I was offering), she was not religious nor did she ever speak to me about being spiritual. I wandered whether that was why her Soul would not trust Ethel’s mind, because, similar to mine, it did not hold even a belief in the existence in one’s Soul? The Soul, apparently indignant, confirmed that I finally understood.

Offering to act as a mediator, I promised to Ethel’s Soul that I would let her know about her Soul’s actual existence, and about its not negotiable requirement to be recognized and cared for in its own right.   

Without having heard any response from her Soul, I sensed that it would have accepted my word as good enough. I lost the inner vision and at the same time my hands felt again the fully balanced energy field reappear around Ethel’s body.   

She opened her eyes and asked me what I had done, because her depression had lifted at once. I took that synchronicity to be the confirmation that I have actually done some real healing work with her Soul (rather than having just imagined it), which after a very long time would have come back into Ethel’s body and by doing so eliminated her depression.  

I told Ethel about my encounter with, understanding of, and promise to, her Soul, emphasizing that from then on Ethel needed to keep in mind that she does have a Soul, who requires clear recognition and being cared for in its own right.

Follow Up

After that session, I did not see Ethel as a patient for several years, but spoke with her socially a few times since then, including after her close ones’ traumatic death. She never mentioned being depressed, only told me how difficult it was for her. Possibly her Soul’s presence in her body might have helped her through those trials, which to me appeared much bigger than the ones that we did the healing for initially. Therefore it appeared that Ethel’s original problems would have broken her body (which manifested as CTS) amongst other possibly because her Soul would have been out of her body.

Lessons

The man who fears no truth has nothing to fear from lies.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), US president

For me, as well as for Ethel, this experience was very educative in a natural way, about a specific aspect of her Being, the Soul, and also about its significant potential relationship to the rest of her psyche and body.

This case taught me experientially about the existence and characteristics of Ethel's Soul, and about the possibility to heal her depression by negotiating with her Soul. Up till then no teachings nor traditions about Soul's existence that I was aware of (including Christian and shamanic) succeeded in making me believe in the reality of the Soul, probably because they did not offer any convincing proof to my atheist’s mind, nor offer any helpful instruction to a non-believer (or even a cynic) that I used to be. Much later, in 2010, in the shamanic course about Soul Retrieval, I realized that my experience and work with Ethel's Soul was parallel to what shamans must have also experientially found out about that subtle aspect of one's Being. Being a healthy skeptic, l needed to comprehend the full logic of what has taken place in my session with Ethel in order to confirm my experience analytically.

I trusted that I did get in touch with Ethel’s Soul for the following reasons:

1. I cannot think of any other explanation for the significant synchronicity and co-relations during the session: 

a. The instant energy depletion as I wandered whether I should look at her Soul;

b. The return of full auric presence the very moment when I offered an apparently acceptable solution to Ethel’s Soul and when I lost my inner vision of it; and

c. Ethel’s feeling that same instant that her depression had lifted completely. 

2. Since I had the intention to heal, not to deplete Ethel’s aura (even if I would have wanted to, I would not have known how to achieve it), on the contrary, it would have disappeared temporarily due to something in her own Being, and it appeared to be the absence of her Soul.

 3. If the initial disappearance of Ethel’s aura might have had to do with my disbelief in the existence of her Soul, it would not be logical that I would then immediately be presented with the vision of her Soul and have the lengthy inner voice dialog with her. 

4. If the depletion of Ethel’s aura would have been due to my disbelief, and its reappearance to my freshly formed belief in the existence of her Soul, and/or to my imagination, it could not explain why Ethel would have been depressed before seeing me, nor why her depression would not have lifted up as soon as I accepted that the Soul might exist.

5. The fact that Ethel’s depression disappeared just when her Soul would have apparently accepted that it could trust my offer to inform Ethel about the Soul’s requirements seemed to indicate that the Soul was the one that resolved Ethel’s depression.

6. After I offered to mediate I expected the Soul to confirm its agreement verbally, but it disappeared from my vision instead. I was pleasantly surprised that the ‘answer’ to my proposal was the re-appearance of Ethel’s aura, but since it happened contrary to my expectation, the sequence could not have been due to my thinking. 

7. In my dialog with Ethel’s Soul there were several other instances when my argument was contrary to her Soul’s, which indicates that the healing that took place was not due to my wishful thinking.   

8. My disbelief in religious and some traditional views about one’s Soul seem not to have had anything to do with Ethel’s recovery from depression.

9. I cannot think of any reason why something that would not be Ethel’s Soul would have responded to my initial sarcastic thought about the ‘soul’. In case any malicious entity would have pretended to be Ethel’s Soul (as certain Christian commented when I told him about this case), I believe that Ethel would not have recovered from depression, nor lived afterward a normal, happy and productive life, while manifesting the strength and endurance as she did in relation to her close ones’ dying. 

I seem to have helped in this case by my -

1. Conviction that even a seemingly ‘causeless’ condition had to have some real cause, and my sincere and open minded attempt to find out what it might have been.

2. Steady intention to find out how to bring about the healing outcome by a win-win conflict resolution approach in the mental dialog with Ethel’s Soul. 

3. Willingness to shift my whole belief system about anything to do with one’s Soul, and form a new belief on the basis of my actual experience, irrespective of how different and well entrenched my (or any other people’s) previous ideas might have been. 

Those are the same aspects that I find helpful in all other cases that require healing, in my patients and in myself.  Truly holistic healing, carried out with full respect of each healee's idiosyncrasies, is in fact an ongoing learning by both the patient and the healer or therapist.

Applications of Soul Healing

Working with Ethel’s Soul opened up my mind to a new level of truth about humans. It seems to indicate that the consequences of our beliefs, assumptions and ways of interpreting what one’s Soul is could be the root cause of more conditions than we are aware of. It is possible that other cases of the rampant depression would have similarities with Ethel’s case, even if the sufferers would have their individual rationale for feeling down.

Disbelieving that one's Soul exists might by itself cause a psychological dysfunction, like in Ethel's case. That is why it appears appropriate to explore by holistic healing, including energy reading and healing, one's personal beliefs about the Soul.

Some of my patients and I benefited significantly from our exploration of those questions and from looking each one for our Soul in a healing way. Because every case is unique, we needed to use an appropriate, personalized approach to heal each particular Soul and its condition. The healing outcomes have been also varied, sometimes unexpected, but invariably profound.

The young woman's heavy nervous breakdown, during which she feared that she could loose her mind and die, resolved promptly by us finding her Soul, healing it and bringing it into her body. 

Another patient, a migrant still unsettled after having lived several years in Australia, without work or social life, became peaceful instead of deeply anxious for the first time in her life, and experienced a major openings which she happily took up privately and socially, after the healing of apparently lost and heavily traumatized Souls that seemed to have been attached to her from birth, so that she could never sleep without the light on all through the night.

In my own case, the fifty years old side effects (throat hyper-sensitivity and killer rage) due to the ether used as a general anesthetic on me as a child, cleared from my body (as ether smell) and emotions as I reconnected with my Soul. That aspect of mine was apparently asleep in me ever since that traumatic experience of being exposed to ether, when I felt that it was going to suffocate me to death. While I was aware back then that the nurse who was holding me tight on her lap was not responsible for my anesthetic, I hated her wholeheartedly for holding me prisoner to it. That feeling appeared to have represented one root out of which my rage would steam later on. After the ether smell came out of my body, which apparently healed my Soul from that extremely traumatic experience, helped me become much more peaceful.

In 2010 an additional shamanic Soul Retrieval helped me become mush less vulnerable to what I experienced as psychic attacks, in particular during my sleep. I would be rudely woken up about every hour during the night by sudden, sharp, toxic, needle-like pains coming from the outside into my body, especially into major acupuncture points. In addition, the sucking sensation on all my major chakras (energy centers) would deplete my normal vital energy, making me suddenly exhausted. As my energetic boundaries improved from the shamanic Soul Retrieval, I became more centered, instead of feeling extremely revengeful, in relation to the forces behind those psychic attacks.

Those and other Soul healing cases appear to indicate that Soul healing is necessary in many cases, same as we need to heal our emotions, thoughts and body.

The Wise Woman's Stone 

Author Unknown

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. 

"I've been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone."