January 8, 2024 • 34 mins
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Have you ever felt like you've lost a part of yourself due to life's challenges? Elaine Egidio, an experienced practitioner in shamanic healing, joins us to discuss how soul retrieval can help regain one's complete sense of self. She shares her insights on recognizing when parts of our essence may be concealed due to past traumas and the healing process involved in reclaiming them. Elaine explains the soul retrieval process, highlighting how it reintegrates lost parts of ourselves, leading to emotional renewal.
In our conversation, we also delve into the connection between our personal grief and the rejuvenating power of nature. Elaine views managing our grief as essential to maintaining the vibrancy of our inner selves. We discuss the significance of various metaphors and symbols in the healing process, often revolving around nature and love. This episode is a journey into understanding how healing our internal wounds can impact the broader world, providing a counterbalance to the hectic nature of modern life. Tune in for an enlightening discussion that goes beyond mere storytelling, offering insights into how to rediscover and reintegrate lost parts of ourselves.
Show introduction: One Drum: Stories and Ceremonies for a Planet by Richard Wagamese
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Foundation for Shamanic Studies: Explore here
“The Way of the Shaman” book by Michael Harner
Society for Shamanic Practice: Explore here
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John@urbangriefshamans.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
John Moir (00:39):
Grief protests and stirs within us a profound
defiance against living a lifefilled with numbness.
It emboldens wildness like athunderstorm, untamed and as we
learn, grief is the primeemotion for the soul's vitality.
Contrary to common belief,grief is teeming with life.
It resists being gentle and yetmoves us so passionately.
(01:04):
There can be no doubt thisemotion springs forth from the
wells of the soul.
In our podcast, we will explorethis defiance, embrace its
wildness and find peace withinits untamed vitality as we live
in the hustle of everyday life.
Dr Patricia Jones is apsychotherapist at John Moyer, a
(01:25):
retired paramedic.
As we explore the spiritual sideof grief, welcome to the Urban
Grief Showman's.
I'm your host, john Moyer.
In this episode we're joined byElaine Indigio, who brings a
wealth of knowledge andexperience in soul recovery and
(01:46):
its transformative power.
In our discussion, we explorethe delicate process of soul
retrieval, a cornerstone ofshamanic practice.
Elaine beautifully explains howtrauma in its many forms can
cause fragments of our essenceto become dislodged, seeking
refuge in safer places.
This fragmentation, shesuggests, leaves us feeling
(02:08):
incomplete, vulnerable toexternal influences and
sometimes trapped and unhealthypatterns.
Through shamanic healing, weembark on a journey to reunite
with these lost pieces ofourselves, restoring wholeness
and vitality.
Thanks for joining us as weenter into our conversation.
I was hoping that we could takea look at soul loss and soul
(02:32):
recovery.
Elaine Egidio (02:32):
Absolutely so.
For my understanding of whatI've been taught and what I've
learned through my shamanicpractice is that when we
experience things that aretraumatic, with the grace and
understanding, trauma is trauma.
So it could be falling down andbumping your knee, or it could
(02:53):
be falling down and breakingyour arm, or it could be being
in a car accident or somethingemotional happened, abandonment,
falling in the human body.
That could be considered atraumatic experience or a harsh
experience.
I mean, there's just a littlepiece of ourselves that goes off
(03:15):
to be in a state where I couldgive you a psycho babble.
We call that dissociation.
However, we'll stay on theshamanic spiritual hermitage and
if there's a piece of us, thekind of leaves, and it's for
safety, because sometimes what'shappening is just too much.
(03:35):
When that happens, we're notfully ourselves because we're
not full of ourselves.
We need to be full of ourselves, that vital life force.
We need to have it be fullywith us.
Then, from a shamanic healingperspective, then what we do is
we, first of all, if a personcomes to us and says I need some
(03:59):
healing work, what's oftenhappens I need a soul retrieval.
First, we say I will alwaysconnect with our compassionate,
helping spirits who we there areco-creators of the healing help
for the people that we'reworking with and we check in and
make sure that that's what theperson needs.
And when it's indicated that iswhat the person needs, we work
(04:21):
with our helping spirits and werestore that vital force.
Some of the things that happenwhen we don't have a vital force
is that we might be tooinfluenced by other people.
Places and things we try tofill that gap within ourselves
with maybe aren't so healthy forus or galanced, and sometimes
(04:43):
it kind of leaves us open thatwe could be, we could attract
influence that is not us, it'snot fully us.
And then the soul retrievalprocess is really pretty simple.
When the shaman works withtheir helping spirits it's very
simple.
And then the person hasthemselves.
(05:05):
I know for me, when I work withpeople, I always suggested they
always check to make surethey're not going back to work
or grocery shopping or somethingthat they take it easy, that
they give themselves some goodmellow, self-care time.
I often suggest that a persongo out in nature and sit by a
tree and really feel the treeagainst their back, experience
(05:28):
the roots of the tree connectinginto the earth and connecting
with the support system of theroots of other trees and then
also the bark.
The tree opens up and has thebeauty of the sky and connecting
.
So you just bring all of thosehealing elements into yourself
after having an eye-light.
(05:49):
To call it a ceremony, the soulretrieval ceremony.
John Moir (05:53):
I can remember the first soul retrieval.
Actually, I had my first soulretrieval and energy extraction,
one after the other, and bothtimes it was like all I remember
was seeing lights lashing.
Body became so cold I couldn't.
When everything was done, I wascrying, I just was.
(06:15):
Something was brought backthat's been missing for a long
time and the reunion I guess Icould call it was just so full
of joy.
I don't know why I was cryingso hard.
And then, when it was all done,all I could do was just lay
there.
I couldn't even move my arms orsit up.
And poor fella he's probablyused to it, he's a wise old one
(06:40):
and the wind got me a blanketand just let me recover and then
set up.
And so there's a lot of power inreturning parts of ourselves,
fragments, to us, and, as you'resaying, I know that I always
think of it as just a loss oflife essence.
And when we don't, as youmentioned, just emphasize is
(07:01):
that when we lose parts of oursoul, we lose parts of our
purpose, our life, energy.
And you're right, it makes iteasier for spirit, attachments
that don't belong to us, thatinfluence, and that's a whole
other zone right there.
And what I found for myself,elaine, was that we develop all
(07:26):
the favors that we try tocompensate with.
There can be addictions,there's depression, pulling back
from the family you just don'tbelong.
But you make it worse and youfeel that you don't amount too
much.
And, as you said, you use theword association and I think
that's still a good word, butit's coming from?
(07:47):
Yeah, it's what happens.
We just dissociate from who weare as people.
I think when we lose ouridentity of purpose, why we're
here.
Elaine Egidio (08:00):
It's extremely sad and distressing, and
especially a lot of times whenpeople don't understand what
this is all about.
It brings all sorts of feelingsabout themselves.
You were saying self-worth,shame, guilt, lack of sense of
purpose.
I was in a clinical session andtrying to explain to people
(08:21):
that I wasn't going to be ableto do so retrieval, because that
wasn't my purpose there.
But I wanted them to understandhow sometimes there's pieces of
themselves that just and thenthey fill it with things that
aren't quite healthy, and so Iused to think of a piece of
Swiss cheese, those holes, andthen you start filling them with
(08:42):
all this other kind of stuffthat's not so healthy.
So that's how can we?
We would do like littleceremonies, but not shamanic,
because it was not the settingfor the little ceremonies to
release with my intention, asthat would be helping them
release and then to replace them.
We would enjoy and caring andself-love and all that stuff.
(09:05):
It was really for me veryempowering as a clinician and as
a shamanic practitioner to beable to translate that over to
another setting to make it moreavailable.
Other thing, if I may, when youwere talking about the
(09:26):
extraction work and that is trueoftentimes when there is so
retrieval.
For me when I work, it'sindicated also to do extraction
work, and I was pondering thismorning about holding on to
things and even how much ourorgans can hold on to things
like grief and loss, and howimportant it is to remove that,
(09:52):
to allow yourself to be aware ofand to remove it from our
organs, from our spiritual being, to then be able to have the
space People often have said.
I was finally able to take thatdeep breath.
There are a lot of tears.
Absolutely, you are unique andspecial.
(10:13):
However, there's a lot of tearsin.
Many People have received soretrieval and getting warm.
I always have a couple blanketshandy because you're filling
yourself and you can feel thevibrations.
It's really pretty.
It's a beautiful experience tobe able to return someone's
vital essence and for the personto be open to receiving.
John Moir (10:36):
Just for the listeners.
A big influence for myself andPatricia is Francis Weller, who
I was mentioning to you earlier,who wrote the book Wild Edge of
Sorrow.
I highly recommend that for ourlisteners to go out and buy a
copy if they haven't already.
But part of the loss of essence, what we would describe it as a
(10:57):
numbness that overcomes us, ornot to feel anything anymore,
like a loss of compassion, aloss of being able to love big,
start to have self abuse that wejust don't think that we're
worth it.
Then it's.
I just can't imagine howsomebody could love somebody
else or something other thanthemselves with any kind of
(11:17):
intensity and truth and honesty.
So it's a big thing to lose ourlife essence.
Elaine Egidio (11:25):
Yes, yes, and the book sounds fascinating and I
really think it's a beautifulconcept from what you've shared
with me before on how man innature because I believe that
there's soul loss in nature alsothat affects us as humans and
(11:48):
in some grief or some disconnectthat we feel, because it's also
it's, you know, nature is alsoexperiencing that.
Places in nature.
I could go on, I know, as apractitioner and a true
understander, I believe.
But we are here to co-createwith nature in many ways, and so
(12:11):
I myself have done soulretrieval, with permission, of a
place in nature that I feel hasexperienced so long, maybe from
the ways that we humans haveforgotten that we need to be
co-creators with nature in orderto be able to have a vibrant,
vital force world.
And so I think, there again, asI said, I do send people out in
(12:35):
nature to support the healingwork they just had done, to help
them remember the healing workthat they had done, to help them
remember to be grounded andpresent, but also to understand,
as practitioners, that thereare places in nature that need
for us to be able to do soulretrieval or extraction work, or
(12:57):
the same work that we would do,only with permission, of course
please don't go running off anddoing stuff without permission
on man or nature.
John Moir (13:08):
I'm glad you brought up the nature side, because
where in his book grief is?
I think we underestimate theeffect of grief as we're not
used to working with our deepemotions.
We've grown up learning thatgrief isn't welcome, and pretty
much everybody in North Americawould agree with that from if
(13:29):
they're white and European, forsure, I think.
And so for a while or thatfirst gate is everything that
you love you'll lose, and so alove and grief go hand in hand,
because you can't have onewithout the other.
Just in a nutshell, the more weunderstand that, whatever we
love our cars, our family andeventually our own lives and
(13:54):
it's that quintessential emotion, no matter how hard it is, we
defines it as human.
It's not just that.
And the other one was thatearlier we're talking about
shame and those plays, parts ofourselves that are just banished
.
So we do that.
We feel shameful aboutsomething childhood, we get
(14:16):
stained in different waysteenage years, adults and so we
don't want to see it, we don'twant to talk about it, we don't
want anybody to know about it.
But that's part of us, that'spart of ourselves that we banish
, and so there's so loss in thatpart, and then there's the loss
of purpose, of not havingpeople around to support us in
(14:38):
our purpose and the gifts thatwe bring into this world, and
there's loss from that.
There's also a zest of griefthat has passed down that we all
for myself, my father was analcoholic, his father was an
alcoholic and his father was analcoholic, and when we do
ancestral healing what we try todo is break that and heal those
(15:00):
parts that we might be caringbefore, and there's some other
gates that I won't go into now,but the whole idea is that
whatever healing we canencourage for ourselves, it
affects our offspring.
Elaine Egidio (15:13):
Correct, absolutely Absolutely, and also
the world around us.
I think sometimes that we don'tremember that.
I think that if we acknowledgedoing my personal healing or
doing healing for someone else,it's like that ripple effect.
(15:34):
If you get up in the morningand say, okay, today I'm going
to be kind and you really starta night, today I'm going to be
kind, and you greet people andyou open doors for someone, all
of a sudden you notice someoneelse is opening another door,
the car stops so you can crossthe street.
What we do and what we allowfor ourselves then really
(15:56):
ripples out.
You mentioned the ancestralpiece, and that is so
interesting.
I think, when we're talkingabout grief, I think so many
times that I work a lot with thebody and so we can find that
our body holds on to things, andsometimes it's.
Is it nature or is it nurture?
(16:18):
If you're around people thatare holding on to grief or
choose to respond to grief indysfunctional ways, such as so
many times, we get angry.
And when we strip away the angerunderneath.
That is intense grief.
Like you said, we're notallowed to feel grief.
Give ourselves permission, givethose around us permission to
(16:43):
feel the grief, to allow thegrief to emerge, and then we're
not stuffing it down with allsorts of other stuff.
That's not really working.
But so many times I find, whenthere's like intense anger, if
we can just move it aside, wehave grief.
And there's so many times thatgrief is yeah, that's how it was
(17:04):
.
My father was an alcoholic, butmy parents held their grief.
They didn't talk about it.
When, then the next one and thenext one and now that's really
the important thing for us allto remember and then again we're
holding on to things.
That's not allowing our vitalforce to expand, don't?
(17:24):
I think we can have spontaneoussoul returning, or soul return
when we let go of some of thosethings all of a sudden, when
they maybe go out in nature ordo some meditation or some
allowing your body to expand.
Wow, wait a minute, what wasthat?
What just happened there?
And that's something that wasspontaneously returned, which I
(17:47):
think is a beautiful thing.
Also, that allowance.
John Moir (17:51):
You brought up an interesting point.
For me, the whole idea oftending to our grief and why
it's important is it's well, Isay it's to.
If we don't tend to our griefand we just keep pushing it down
, it becomes hard and cold likelead.
And this is where Weller kickin and talk about the alchemy of
the soul.
And to keep that grief warm andmobile and moving, so to keep
(18:17):
tending to our grief, we knowthe soul needs to express the
grief that we're holding onto,and when we don't do that, then
we start to notice smallmaladaptive behaviors creeping
in and it doesn't do us good anygood.
It doesn't do our families anygood, the world around us.
And so it's important to tendto our grief, either through
(18:39):
shamanic methods or throughtraditional clinical counters
with psychotherapists orpsychologists, or therapists.
I want to ask you about yourexperience of what do you see
when you do a soul retrieval,like how does it present?
Are you able to just touch anyrecent ones that you could
(19:02):
describe?
Elaine Egidio (19:04):
It's really interesting because for me my
soul retrieval work has shiftedand what I'm shown isn't what
I'm visually shown.
It's what I feel in my body andwhat my helping spirits feel.
It's always an amazinglybeautiful metaphor for something
(19:27):
that sometimes it's.
There's something might notlook like the person, it might
look like something in nature.
Oftentimes it does look likesomething that's just fondant,
it's lonely, that as soon as Ishow up becomes joyful and
bright and shiny.
Or sometimes it's somethingshiny, it's under the little,
(19:52):
maybe a leaf covering.
You know how, when you do yourleaves pile up in the fall, kind
of thing.
It's just this light that'ssweeping out and sometimes it's
totally this bright light.
A lot of times I would have tosay there's a brightness,
there's a vitality.
It is interesting is sometimesit's this little hide and seek
kind of thing, but my helpingspirits are really good at
(20:15):
finding those things and if Iopen my heart then I can feel it
also.
So then I'll bring back in myhands and I usually just hold it
for a moment and just share thelove that I have for humanity.
Perhaps if I know the personwell, just the love that I have
(20:38):
for them, and feel thingsbrighter and brighter.
Then I do the process.
I blow into the solar plexusand I usually wait for just a
minute to let that soul essencejust move through the body and
then I encourage the person tosit and blow in the top of their
head and then let them lie down.
(20:59):
When I do a soul retrieval I'vedone a little healing work
before I do the soul retrieval,the actual piece of it, and then
afterwards I do I kind of powerup more with my help in spirit
who does the work with me andjust pass that power through the
person afterwards and then Ijust leave them be.
(21:19):
I don't sit and hold their hand.
I don't touch them.
I sit by them.
They know I'm there.
I'm in the process of thinkingmy helping spirits for
supporting me in the work andtheir helping spirits, because
we do also, yes, their helpingspirits to be supportive of the
work and the spirits of thespace.
So that's being polite, to justlet the person be in their
(21:42):
process until they arise, untilthey begin to move, and then I
might guide them how to do it alittle bit more gently.
Don't jump up, and kind ofthing.
I mean you could, if you want,you can do whatever you want.
Just allow yourself to feel,just allow yourself to feel that
what's expanding, how you'reexpanding.
John Moir (22:04):
Did you ever have soul fragments that didn't want
to come back?
Elaine Egidio (22:08):
Have I ever had soul fragments that didn't want
to come back?
Not that they didn't want tocome back, and that was more in
the older days but that wereafraid to come back?
Perhaps they left because ofsome real traumatic situations
that happened to you and theyneeded to know that things, the
(22:34):
person was safe and that wherethe person was safe and
sometimes the truth is too issometimes if a person is in an
unsafe situation not that thefragments were not a different
scenario the person is in anunsafe situation.
Sometimes doing a soul or twowill give them that vital force,
that fullness of themselves asbeing who they are, that they
(22:57):
can remove themselves from thattoo.
But there were times in theolder days where there was like
no, this person is safe, becausesometimes I know a little bit,
I don't often need to hear thestory anymore.
I left my help in spirits.
Take me to soul parts that areready and willing to be returned
(23:18):
to this person.
John Moir (23:20):
Yeah, yeah, I had a couple of just popping into my
memories.
One was looking for fragmentsof this lady and sometimes what
I do see is younger versions ofthe person.
In this particular time it wasa sort of like a three year old,
but there was an older part ofherself that left to protect the
(23:43):
younger one.
And I can't remember the storyof the why the younger one but
it was the older one left, Ithink she was like seven went to
protect this younger one and Ithought that was.
It was surprising but it wasjust a teaching in how sometimes
love works that we'll loseparts of ourselves not because
of fear but out of love forsomething else.
(24:06):
And I have to point out alittle bit.
Elaine Egidio (24:09):
That does make a lot of sense.
And there were times when morestories, when I did see more
stories and actually I did seesimilar situations where you
know that one part went to carefor another and yeah, and then
you just need to let everybodyknow it's safe and also that not
only is it safe, but you areneeded so that you can really
(24:35):
feel filled with yourself.
It's important for you to comeback, because that the person is
able to, and sometimes thosekind of things definitely part
of the process, and that's kindof how I would handle it.
It's great I've had so muchlove here.
(24:55):
We just bring all this lovethere.
John Moir (24:58):
I know another.
Actually it's a favorite one ofmine.
I don't want to reveal too much, but then it belongs to me.
It was a friend of mine and shewanted to try the shaman stuff,
and so the journey, sometimeswhat we'll do as shaman's is do
what we call a diagnosticjourney, where we meet with the
(25:19):
spirits and the spirits of theprotectors of the person who's
seeking the retrieval for whatthey want us to do and get some
background.
But, anyways, when the time cameto do the retrieval, that mix
of metaphor and premonition allcame together and what I saw was
(25:42):
this it was a grass field thatwas walking in the journey and I
came across this one white lily, and it was stunning.
The colors of it was just sopure and white and I'm looking
at it.
And then it morphed the outerappearance.
So now I'm looking at thereproduction parts of the plant
(26:04):
and I thought that's interesting.
And then I saw this old coupleno, I'll leave that one out.
And then I saw this small girlstanding near a pond and would
look very curious of thecreatures that was in it, but
she had this beautiful red dressand shiny black shoes, and so
(26:25):
that would why, would somebodyin a red dress, for example,
start hanging out in a muddypond?
And there was some more stuffthat I won't reveal, but I'm
trying to figure out.
What does all this mean?
It means nothing to me, whichis often the case, and so I said
to my friend.
I said this is all going tosound really crazy, but this is
what I saw, and I don'tunderstand the idea of the lily,
(26:48):
the young girl that I broughtback to her.
She was excited for her.
She said that she was reallywish that she had that childhood
curiosity back.
So that had merit for her andthe other parts all went in
there.
But she said one thing I didn'ttell you was that my husband
and I had been trying to have ababy and I thought, okay, that
(27:12):
explains the lily.
Elaine Egidio (27:14):
Sure Thanks, Sarah.
Reproductive parts.
John Moir (27:17):
Yeah, so I said I don't think you have to worry
about that anymore.
And, needless to say, monthswell, a number of years she did
in fact become pregnant and hada beautiful child, Isn't that?
Elaine Egidio (27:30):
the same, because I've actually done soul
retrievals and the person hasgotten pregnant afterwards also
who had been wanting to getpregnant Fascinating.
John Moir (27:39):
Yeah, so I've heard of that too.
I haven't had anybody who wentthrough that that way.
But the is it due to that youget more of your life essence
back, or is there a healing withthe organs?
We never know that part.
We're going to have fun tryingto think of it.
Elaine Egidio (28:00):
Yeah, I had thought about that in years.
I don't believe because it wasquite a while ago.
I don't believe that part ofthe soul retrieval was so that
they could get pregnant.
I don't even know if I want, ifI knew they wanted to get
pregnant.
I just know we did the soulretrieval and then they went oh
guess what?
And we've been waiting and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but oh
(28:22):
, that's pretty interesting, andthen just moved on.
John Moir (28:27):
So that's interesting it's it's again when you see
all these metaphors that have nomeaning for us and we're almost
embarrassed to tell the clientthis is what we see, this is
what was said, or whatever meansabsolutely nothing.
I have no context to help youat all.
And then they just beam oh,it's got everything that they
(28:47):
wanted in those metaphors.
And sometimes people just needa little help to kind of touch
the metaphor in a way that theycan now start to understand and
then that metaphor unfolds forthem and it's kind of like a
poem so much is said, which inthe spirit world, metaphors
pretty much like that for me.
Elaine Egidio (29:09):
Yeah, yeah, oh, absolutely, I know that.
Yeah, definitely, definitely.
The spirits big and metaphors,kakai coup sometimes.
John Moir (29:16):
Yeah, yeah.
And the other thing I find isthat, with the so why the soul
retrieval is so powerful.
I mean, it's all combined withgetting your life essence back,
but it's such a big one.
When you get these bigger partsof ourselves returned, all of a
sudden, you're emboldened.
You have this courage, you havethis more power that you're
(29:38):
holding inside, and so if youhave difficulties in your life,
you either have the courage tomake those changes.
If you're in a bad relationship, that no, and this is what I'm
going to do, you have thecourage and the strength to do
that.
Or you say, no, I'm going tostick it out, but I'm going to
work harder to do whatever it isthat I need to resolve issues.
Elaine Egidio (30:03):
Do you think because again this is my area of
expert that when people receivesoul retrieval, soul healing,
that it does help them heal thegrief, to support the pain of
the grief?
John Moir (30:19):
Yeah, the whole idea of healing grief is a misnomer.
I use it and I'm quiteconflicted with that the use of
those words but at the same time, I think that the general idea
is that you believe that somehowgrief will have less of an
effect on you.
There's, first of all, there'snothing that is broken in us
(30:40):
when we are grieving or havedeep grief.
It's part of our maturation asa human being to learn more
about compassion, more aboutlove and different parts of
ourselves that are giving us abrighter, bigger, happier life
in the long term.
We still miss what we grievefor, but it's in a way that
(31:03):
there's gratitude and we havegreat gratitude for the things
that were brought to us in thoserelationships.
Elaine Egidio (31:10):
And being more full of, however, than being
more full of yourself, whatwould help you expand what you
were just saying the gratitude,the love, versus not being fully
you?
It's so hard to feel somethingbeyond when we're not.
Absolutely.
(31:32):
Yeah, I was.
As I was using the word healinggrief, I was like I'm sure
there's different, somethingdifferent, but the adjectives
that you put in there, reallyyeah.
John Moir (31:44):
Yeah.
Elaine Egidio (31:45):
For me.
Anyway, I hope that yourlisteners were able to hear them
all yeah.
John Moir (31:50):
I think so, retrieval from shamanic practices that we
can do, and dismembermentjourneys.
I think grief is, it's aninitiation and so it means that
your initiations are all aboutgoing through that door.
That's opening up, in a sense,and letting go of the things
that we no longer need, andthere are a couple of things
(32:11):
that I think are just part ofthe healing.
Healing that is available toeverybody.
It comes from a differentavenue, other than the hospital
or clinician or that kind ofthing.
Elaine Egidio (32:25):
I really admire the work that you and Patricia
are doing with grief, because Ithink it's certainly something
that is used, that earlier thatour society we've learned, we've
been taught not to and don'tallow it to be, then it does
become hard and penetrable andthen is that really what we want
(32:46):
.
But, yeah, I think to thatallowance that grace, I do think
grace and tenderness is reallyimportant, because I hear a lot
of the words that aren't greatand tender about people who are
working with whatever the wordswould be have grief in their
life and they're not sure how tohandle it.
John Moir (33:05):
Yeah, all right, maybe that's a good place to end
for today.
Elaine Egidio (33:10):
Okay.
John Moir (33:10):
And, yeah, I want to thank you so much for your
inspiration and your words andyour wisdom, so thank you so
much for inviting me andallowing me to touch the
inspiration.
Thank you.
Elaine Egidio (33:22):
Thank you listeners.
John Moir (33:26):
Grief is a heavy burden to bear and can often
feel isolating and overwhelming.
That's where grief circles comein, offering a supportive and
understanding community to thosewho are grieving.
You can't be both the grieverand the container of your grief.
This is the purpose of griefcircles to be the holder and the
witness to your pain.
Your soul wants you to speak ofyour grief, to express your
(33:48):
pain, your loss and to shareyour history and stories of that
which has been taken.
The Urban Grief Shaman'spodcast is an offshoot of
Soulful Sorrows, a grief tendingwebsite.
Here under the service menu youwill find our monthly circles.
Please take the time to take alook and book into one or more
of these monthly circles.
(34:13):
Thank you for joining us intothe world of shamanism and its
connection to grief, healing andspiritual growth.
If you enjoyed thisconversation be sure to
subscribe to the Urban GriefShaman so you never miss an
episode and if you have anyquestions or would like to
explore this topic furtherplease reach out to us in
comments and support in theworld to us.
(34:33):
Until next time, may you findgrace and insight into your own
spiritual journey.
Grief protests and stirs within us a profound
defiance against living a lifefilled with numbness.
It emboldens wildness like athunderstorm, untamed and as we
learn, grief is the primeemotion for the soul's vitality.
Contrary to common belief,grief is teeming with life.
It resists being gentle and yetmoves us so passionately.
(01:04):
There can be no doubt thisemotion springs forth from the
wells of the soul.
In our podcast, we will explorethis defiance, embrace its
wildness and find peace withinits untamed vitality as we live
in the hustle of everyday life.
Dr Patricia Jones is apsychotherapist at John Moyer, a
(01:25):
retired paramedic.
As we explore the spiritual sideof grief, welcome to the Urban
Grief Showman's.
I'm your host, john Moyer.
In this episode we're joined byElaine Indigio, who brings a
wealth of knowledge andexperience in soul recovery and
(01:46):
its transformative power.
In our discussion, we explorethe delicate process of soul
retrieval, a cornerstone ofshamanic practice.
Elaine beautifully explains howtrauma in its many forms can
cause fragments of our essenceto become dislodged, seeking
refuge in safer places.
This fragmentation, shesuggests, leaves us feeling
(02:08):
incomplete, vulnerable toexternal influences and
sometimes trapped and unhealthypatterns.
Through shamanic healing, weembark on a journey to reunite
with these lost pieces ofourselves, restoring wholeness
and vitality.
Thanks for joining us as weenter into our conversation.
I was hoping that we could takea look at soul loss and soul
(02:32):
recovery.
Elaine Egidio (02:32):
Absolutely so.
For my understanding of whatI've been taught and what I've
learned through my shamanicpractice is that when we
experience things that aretraumatic, with the grace and
understanding, trauma is trauma.
So it could be falling down andbumping your knee, or it could
(02:53):
be falling down and breakingyour arm, or it could be being
in a car accident or somethingemotional happened, abandonment,
falling in the human body.
That could be considered atraumatic experience or a harsh
experience.
I mean, there's just a littlepiece of ourselves that goes off
(03:15):
to be in a state where I couldgive you a psycho babble.
We call that dissociation.
However, we'll stay on theshamanic spiritual hermitage and
if there's a piece of us, thekind of leaves, and it's for
safety, because sometimes what'shappening is just too much.
(03:35):
When that happens, we're notfully ourselves because we're
not full of ourselves.
We need to be full of ourselves, that vital life force.
We need to have it be fullywith us.
Then, from a shamanic healingperspective, then what we do is
we, first of all, if a personcomes to us and says I need some
(03:59):
healing work, what's oftenhappens I need a soul retrieval.
First, we say I will alwaysconnect with our compassionate,
helping spirits who we there areco-creators of the healing help
for the people that we'reworking with and we check in and
make sure that that's what theperson needs.
And when it's indicated that iswhat the person needs, we work
(04:21):
with our helping spirits and werestore that vital force.
Some of the things that happenwhen we don't have a vital force
is that we might be tooinfluenced by other people.
Places and things we try tofill that gap within ourselves
with maybe aren't so healthy forus or galanced, and sometimes
(04:43):
it kind of leaves us open thatwe could be, we could attract
influence that is not us, it'snot fully us.
And then the soul retrievalprocess is really pretty simple.
When the shaman works withtheir helping spirits it's very
simple.
And then the person hasthemselves.
(05:05):
I know for me, when I work withpeople, I always suggested they
always check to make surethey're not going back to work
or grocery shopping or somethingthat they take it easy, that
they give themselves some goodmellow, self-care time.
I often suggest that a persongo out in nature and sit by a
tree and really feel the treeagainst their back, experience
(05:28):
the roots of the tree connectinginto the earth and connecting
with the support system of theroots of other trees and then
also the bark.
The tree opens up and has thebeauty of the sky and connecting
.
So you just bring all of thosehealing elements into yourself
after having an eye-light.
(05:49):
To call it a ceremony, the soulretrieval ceremony.
John Moir (05:53):
I can remember the first soul retrieval.
Actually, I had my first soulretrieval and energy extraction,
one after the other, and bothtimes it was like all I remember
was seeing lights lashing.
Body became so cold I couldn't.
When everything was done, I wascrying, I just was.
(06:15):
Something was brought backthat's been missing for a long
time and the reunion I guess Icould call it was just so full
of joy.
I don't know why I was cryingso hard.
And then, when it was all done,all I could do was just lay
there.
I couldn't even move my arms orsit up.
And poor fella he's probablyused to it, he's a wise old one
(06:40):
and the wind got me a blanketand just let me recover and then
set up.
And so there's a lot of power inreturning parts of ourselves,
fragments, to us, and, as you'resaying, I know that I always
think of it as just a loss oflife essence.
And when we don't, as youmentioned, just emphasize is
(07:01):
that when we lose parts of oursoul, we lose parts of our
purpose, our life, energy.
And you're right, it makes iteasier for spirit, attachments
that don't belong to us, thatinfluence, and that's a whole
other zone right there.
And what I found for myself,elaine, was that we develop all
(07:26):
the favors that we try tocompensate with.
There can be addictions,there's depression, pulling back
from the family you just don'tbelong.
But you make it worse and youfeel that you don't amount too
much.
And, as you said, you use theword association and I think
that's still a good word, butit's coming from?
(07:47):
Yeah, it's what happens.
We just dissociate from who weare as people.
I think when we lose ouridentity of purpose, why we're
here.
Elaine Egidio (08:00):
It's extremely sad and distressing, and
especially a lot of times whenpeople don't understand what
this is all about.
It brings all sorts of feelingsabout themselves.
You were saying self-worth,shame, guilt, lack of sense of
purpose.
I was in a clinical session andtrying to explain to people
(08:21):
that I wasn't going to be ableto do so retrieval, because that
wasn't my purpose there.
But I wanted them to understandhow sometimes there's pieces of
themselves that just and thenthey fill it with things that
aren't quite healthy, and so Iused to think of a piece of
Swiss cheese, those holes, andthen you start filling them with
(08:42):
all this other kind of stuffthat's not so healthy.
So that's how can we?
We would do like littleceremonies, but not shamanic,
because it was not the settingfor the little ceremonies to
release with my intention, asthat would be helping them
release and then to replace them.
We would enjoy and caring andself-love and all that stuff.
(09:05):
It was really for me veryempowering as a clinician and as
a shamanic practitioner to beable to translate that over to
another setting to make it moreavailable.
Other thing, if I may, when youwere talking about the
(09:26):
extraction work and that is trueoftentimes when there is so
retrieval.
For me when I work, it'sindicated also to do extraction
work, and I was pondering thismorning about holding on to
things and even how much ourorgans can hold on to things
like grief and loss, and howimportant it is to remove that,
(09:52):
to allow yourself to be aware ofand to remove it from our
organs, from our spiritual being, to then be able to have the
space People often have said.
I was finally able to take thatdeep breath.
There are a lot of tears.
Absolutely, you are unique andspecial.
(10:13):
However, there's a lot of tearsin.
Many People have received soretrieval and getting warm.
I always have a couple blanketshandy because you're filling
yourself and you can feel thevibrations.
It's really pretty.
It's a beautiful experience tobe able to return someone's
vital essence and for the personto be open to receiving.
John Moir (10:36):
Just for the listeners.
A big influence for myself andPatricia is Francis Weller, who
I was mentioning to you earlier,who wrote the book Wild Edge of
Sorrow.
I highly recommend that for ourlisteners to go out and buy a
copy if they haven't already.
But part of the loss of essence, what we would describe it as a
(10:57):
numbness that overcomes us, ornot to feel anything anymore,
like a loss of compassion, aloss of being able to love big,
start to have self abuse that wejust don't think that we're
worth it.
Then it's.
I just can't imagine howsomebody could love somebody
else or something other thanthemselves with any kind of
(11:17):
intensity and truth and honesty.
So it's a big thing to lose ourlife essence.
Elaine Egidio (11:25):
Yes, yes, and the book sounds fascinating and I
really think it's a beautifulconcept from what you've shared
with me before on how man innature because I believe that
there's soul loss in nature alsothat affects us as humans and
(11:48):
in some grief or some disconnectthat we feel, because it's also
it's, you know, nature is alsoexperiencing that.
Places in nature.
I could go on, I know, as apractitioner and a true
understander, I believe.
But we are here to co-createwith nature in many ways, and so
(12:11):
I myself have done soulretrieval, with permission, of a
place in nature that I feel hasexperienced so long, maybe from
the ways that we humans haveforgotten that we need to be
co-creators with nature in orderto be able to have a vibrant,
vital force world.
And so I think, there again, asI said, I do send people out in
(12:35):
nature to support the healingwork they just had done, to help
them remember the healing workthat they had done, to help them
remember to be grounded andpresent, but also to understand,
as practitioners, that thereare places in nature that need
for us to be able to do soulretrieval or extraction work, or
(12:57):
the same work that we would do,only with permission, of course
please don't go running off anddoing stuff without permission
on man or nature.
John Moir (13:08):
I'm glad you brought up the nature side, because
where in his book grief is?
I think we underestimate theeffect of grief as we're not
used to working with our deepemotions.
We've grown up learning thatgrief isn't welcome, and pretty
much everybody in North Americawould agree with that from if
(13:29):
they're white and European, forsure, I think.
And so for a while or thatfirst gate is everything that
you love you'll lose, and so alove and grief go hand in hand,
because you can't have onewithout the other.
Just in a nutshell, the more weunderstand that, whatever we
love our cars, our family andeventually our own lives and
(13:54):
it's that quintessential emotion, no matter how hard it is, we
defines it as human.
It's not just that.
And the other one was thatearlier we're talking about
shame and those plays, parts ofourselves that are just banished
.
So we do that.
We feel shameful aboutsomething childhood, we get
(14:16):
stained in different waysteenage years, adults and so we
don't want to see it, we don'twant to talk about it, we don't
want anybody to know about it.
But that's part of us, that'spart of ourselves that we banish
, and so there's so loss in thatpart, and then there's the loss
of purpose, of not havingpeople around to support us in
(14:38):
our purpose and the gifts thatwe bring into this world, and
there's loss from that.
There's also a zest of griefthat has passed down that we all
for myself, my father was analcoholic, his father was an
alcoholic and his father was analcoholic, and when we do
ancestral healing what we try todo is break that and heal those
(15:00):
parts that we might be caringbefore, and there's some other
gates that I won't go into now,but the whole idea is that
whatever healing we canencourage for ourselves, it
affects our offspring.
Elaine Egidio (15:13):
Correct, absolutely Absolutely, and also
the world around us.
I think sometimes that we don'tremember that.
I think that if we acknowledgedoing my personal healing or
doing healing for someone else,it's like that ripple effect.
(15:34):
If you get up in the morningand say, okay, today I'm going
to be kind and you really starta night, today I'm going to be
kind, and you greet people andyou open doors for someone, all
of a sudden you notice someoneelse is opening another door,
the car stops so you can crossthe street.
What we do and what we allowfor ourselves then really
(15:56):
ripples out.
You mentioned the ancestralpiece, and that is so
interesting.
I think, when we're talkingabout grief, I think so many
times that I work a lot with thebody and so we can find that
our body holds on to things, andsometimes it's.
Is it nature or is it nurture?
(16:18):
If you're around people thatare holding on to grief or
choose to respond to grief indysfunctional ways, such as so
many times, we get angry.
And when we strip away the angerunderneath.
That is intense grief.
Like you said, we're notallowed to feel grief.
Give ourselves permission, givethose around us permission to
(16:43):
feel the grief, to allow thegrief to emerge, and then we're
not stuffing it down with allsorts of other stuff.
That's not really working.
But so many times I find, whenthere's like intense anger, if
we can just move it aside, wehave grief.
And there's so many times thatgrief is yeah, that's how it was
(17:04):
.
My father was an alcoholic, butmy parents held their grief.
They didn't talk about it.
When, then the next one and thenext one and now that's really
the important thing for us allto remember and then again we're
holding on to things.
That's not allowing our vitalforce to expand, don't?
(17:24):
I think we can have spontaneoussoul returning, or soul return
when we let go of some of thosethings all of a sudden, when
they maybe go out in nature ordo some meditation or some
allowing your body to expand.
Wow, wait a minute, what wasthat?
What just happened there?
And that's something that wasspontaneously returned, which I
(17:47):
think is a beautiful thing.
Also, that allowance.
John Moir (17:51):
You brought up an interesting point.
For me, the whole idea oftending to our grief and why
it's important is it's well, Isay it's to.
If we don't tend to our griefand we just keep pushing it down
, it becomes hard and cold likelead.
And this is where Weller kickin and talk about the alchemy of
the soul.
And to keep that grief warm andmobile and moving, so to keep
(18:17):
tending to our grief, we knowthe soul needs to express the
grief that we're holding onto,and when we don't do that, then
we start to notice smallmaladaptive behaviors creeping
in and it doesn't do us good anygood.
It doesn't do our families anygood, the world around us.
And so it's important to tendto our grief, either through
(18:39):
shamanic methods or throughtraditional clinical counters
with psychotherapists orpsychologists, or therapists.
I want to ask you about yourexperience of what do you see
when you do a soul retrieval,like how does it present?
Are you able to just touch anyrecent ones that you could
(19:02):
describe?
Elaine Egidio (19:04):
It's really interesting because for me my
soul retrieval work has shiftedand what I'm shown isn't what
I'm visually shown.
It's what I feel in my body andwhat my helping spirits feel.
It's always an amazinglybeautiful metaphor for something
(19:27):
that sometimes it's.
There's something might notlook like the person, it might
look like something in nature.
Oftentimes it does look likesomething that's just fondant,
it's lonely, that as soon as Ishow up becomes joyful and
bright and shiny.
Or sometimes it's somethingshiny, it's under the little,
(19:52):
maybe a leaf covering.
You know how, when you do yourleaves pile up in the fall, kind
of thing.
It's just this light that'ssweeping out and sometimes it's
totally this bright light.
A lot of times I would have tosay there's a brightness,
there's a vitality.
It is interesting is sometimesit's this little hide and seek
kind of thing, but my helpingspirits are really good at
(20:15):
finding those things and if Iopen my heart then I can feel it
also.
So then I'll bring back in myhands and I usually just hold it
for a moment and just share thelove that I have for humanity.
Perhaps if I know the personwell, just the love that I have
(20:38):
for them, and feel thingsbrighter and brighter.
Then I do the process.
I blow into the solar plexusand I usually wait for just a
minute to let that soul essencejust move through the body and
then I encourage the person tosit and blow in the top of their
head and then let them lie down.
(20:59):
When I do a soul retrieval I'vedone a little healing work
before I do the soul retrieval,the actual piece of it, and then
afterwards I do I kind of powerup more with my help in spirit
who does the work with me andjust pass that power through the
person afterwards and then Ijust leave them be.
(21:19):
I don't sit and hold their hand.
I don't touch them.
I sit by them.
They know I'm there.
I'm in the process of thinkingmy helping spirits for
supporting me in the work andtheir helping spirits, because
we do also, yes, their helpingspirits to be supportive of the
work and the spirits of thespace.
So that's being polite, to justlet the person be in their
(21:42):
process until they arise, untilthey begin to move, and then I
might guide them how to do it alittle bit more gently.
Don't jump up, and kind ofthing.
I mean you could, if you want,you can do whatever you want.
Just allow yourself to feel,just allow yourself to feel that
what's expanding, how you'reexpanding.
John Moir (22:04):
Did you ever have soul fragments that didn't want
to come back?
Elaine Egidio (22:08):
Have I ever had soul fragments that didn't want
to come back?
Not that they didn't want tocome back, and that was more in
the older days but that wereafraid to come back?
Perhaps they left because ofsome real traumatic situations
that happened to you and theyneeded to know that things, the
(22:34):
person was safe and that wherethe person was safe and
sometimes the truth is too issometimes if a person is in an
unsafe situation not that thefragments were not a different
scenario the person is in anunsafe situation.
Sometimes doing a soul or twowill give them that vital force,
that fullness of themselves asbeing who they are, that they
(22:57):
can remove themselves from thattoo.
But there were times in theolder days where there was like
no, this person is safe, becausesometimes I know a little bit,
I don't often need to hear thestory anymore.
I left my help in spirits.
Take me to soul parts that areready and willing to be returned
(23:18):
to this person.
John Moir (23:20):
Yeah, yeah, I had a couple of just popping into my
memories.
One was looking for fragmentsof this lady and sometimes what
I do see is younger versions ofthe person.
In this particular time it wasa sort of like a three year old,
but there was an older part ofherself that left to protect the
(23:43):
younger one.
And I can't remember the storyof the why the younger one but
it was the older one left, Ithink she was like seven went to
protect this younger one and Ithought that was.
It was surprising but it wasjust a teaching in how sometimes
love works that we'll loseparts of ourselves not because
of fear but out of love forsomething else.
(24:06):
And I have to point out alittle bit.
Elaine Egidio (24:09):
That does make a lot of sense.
And there were times when morestories, when I did see more
stories and actually I did seesimilar situations where you
know that one part went to carefor another and yeah, and then
you just need to let everybodyknow it's safe and also that not
only is it safe, but you areneeded so that you can really
(24:35):
feel filled with yourself.
It's important for you to comeback, because that the person is
able to, and sometimes thosekind of things definitely part
of the process, and that's kindof how I would handle it.
It's great I've had so muchlove here.
(24:55):
We just bring all this lovethere.
John Moir (24:58):
I know another.
Actually it's a favorite one ofmine.
I don't want to reveal too much, but then it belongs to me.
It was a friend of mine and shewanted to try the shaman stuff,
and so the journey, sometimeswhat we'll do as shaman's is do
what we call a diagnosticjourney, where we meet with the
(25:19):
spirits and the spirits of theprotectors of the person who's
seeking the retrieval for whatthey want us to do and get some
background.
But, anyways, when the time cameto do the retrieval, that mix
of metaphor and premonition allcame together and what I saw was
(25:42):
this it was a grass field thatwas walking in the journey and I
came across this one white lily, and it was stunning.
The colors of it was just sopure and white and I'm looking
at it.
And then it morphed the outerappearance.
So now I'm looking at thereproduction parts of the plant
(26:04):
and I thought that's interesting.
And then I saw this old coupleno, I'll leave that one out.
And then I saw this small girlstanding near a pond and would
look very curious of thecreatures that was in it, but
she had this beautiful red dressand shiny black shoes, and so
(26:25):
that would why, would somebodyin a red dress, for example,
start hanging out in a muddypond?
And there was some more stuffthat I won't reveal, but I'm
trying to figure out.
What does all this mean?
It means nothing to me, whichis often the case, and so I said
to my friend.
I said this is all going tosound really crazy, but this is
what I saw, and I don'tunderstand the idea of the lily,
(26:48):
the young girl that I broughtback to her.
She was excited for her.
She said that she was reallywish that she had that childhood
curiosity back.
So that had merit for her andthe other parts all went in
there.
But she said one thing I didn'ttell you was that my husband
and I had been trying to have ababy and I thought, okay, that
(27:12):
explains the lily.
Elaine Egidio (27:14):
Sure Thanks, Sarah.
Reproductive parts.
John Moir (27:17):
Yeah, so I said I don't think you have to worry
about that anymore.
And, needless to say, monthswell, a number of years she did
in fact become pregnant and hada beautiful child, Isn't that?
Elaine Egidio (27:30):
the same, because I've actually done soul
retrievals and the person hasgotten pregnant afterwards also
who had been wanting to getpregnant Fascinating.
John Moir (27:39):
Yeah, so I've heard of that too.
I haven't had anybody who wentthrough that that way.
But the is it due to that youget more of your life essence
back, or is there a healing withthe organs?
We never know that part.
We're going to have fun tryingto think of it.
Elaine Egidio (28:00):
Yeah, I had thought about that in years.
I don't believe because it wasquite a while ago.
I don't believe that part ofthe soul retrieval was so that
they could get pregnant.
I don't even know if I want, ifI knew they wanted to get
pregnant.
I just know we did the soulretrieval and then they went oh
guess what?
And we've been waiting and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but oh
(28:22):
, that's pretty interesting, andthen just moved on.
John Moir (28:27):
So that's interesting it's it's again when you see
all these metaphors that have nomeaning for us and we're almost
embarrassed to tell the clientthis is what we see, this is
what was said, or whatever meansabsolutely nothing.
I have no context to help youat all.
And then they just beam oh,it's got everything that they
(28:47):
wanted in those metaphors.
And sometimes people just needa little help to kind of touch
the metaphor in a way that theycan now start to understand and
then that metaphor unfolds forthem and it's kind of like a
poem so much is said, which inthe spirit world, metaphors
pretty much like that for me.
Elaine Egidio (29:09):
Yeah, yeah, oh, absolutely, I know that.
Yeah, definitely, definitely.
The spirits big and metaphors,kakai coup sometimes.
John Moir (29:16):
Yeah, yeah.
And the other thing I find isthat, with the so why the soul
retrieval is so powerful.
I mean, it's all combined withgetting your life essence back,
but it's such a big one.
When you get these bigger partsof ourselves returned, all of a
sudden, you're emboldened.
You have this courage, you havethis more power that you're
(29:38):
holding inside, and so if youhave difficulties in your life,
you either have the courage tomake those changes.
If you're in a bad relationship, that no, and this is what I'm
going to do, you have thecourage and the strength to do
that.
Or you say, no, I'm going tostick it out, but I'm going to
work harder to do whatever it isthat I need to resolve issues.
Elaine Egidio (30:03):
Do you think because again this is my area of
expert that when people receivesoul retrieval, soul healing,
that it does help them heal thegrief, to support the pain of
the grief?
John Moir (30:19):
Yeah, the whole idea of healing grief is a misnomer.
I use it and I'm quiteconflicted with that the use of
those words but at the same time, I think that the general idea
is that you believe that somehowgrief will have less of an
effect on you.
There's, first of all, there'snothing that is broken in us
(30:40):
when we are grieving or havedeep grief.
It's part of our maturation asa human being to learn more
about compassion, more aboutlove and different parts of
ourselves that are giving us abrighter, bigger, happier life
in the long term.
We still miss what we grievefor, but it's in a way that
(31:03):
there's gratitude and we havegreat gratitude for the things
that were brought to us in thoserelationships.
Elaine Egidio (31:10):
And being more full of, however, than being
more full of yourself, whatwould help you expand what you
were just saying the gratitude,the love, versus not being fully
you?
It's so hard to feel somethingbeyond when we're not.
Absolutely.
(31:32):
Yeah, I was.
As I was using the word healinggrief, I was like I'm sure
there's different, somethingdifferent, but the adjectives
that you put in there, reallyyeah.
John Moir (31:44):
Yeah.
Elaine Egidio (31:45):
For me.
Anyway, I hope that yourlisteners were able to hear them
all yeah.
John Moir (31:50):
I think so, retrieval from shamanic practices that we
can do, and dismembermentjourneys.
I think grief is, it's aninitiation and so it means that
your initiations are all aboutgoing through that door.
That's opening up, in a sense,and letting go of the things
that we no longer need, andthere are a couple of things
(32:11):
that I think are just part ofthe healing.
Healing that is available toeverybody.
It comes from a differentavenue, other than the hospital
or clinician or that kind ofthing.
Elaine Egidio (32:25):
I really admire the work that you and Patricia
are doing with grief, because Ithink it's certainly something
that is used, that earlier thatour society we've learned, we've
been taught not to and don'tallow it to be, then it does
become hard and penetrable andthen is that really what we want
(32:46):
.
But, yeah, I think to thatallowance that grace, I do think
grace and tenderness is reallyimportant, because I hear a lot
of the words that aren't greatand tender about people who are
working with whatever the wordswould be have grief in their
life and they're not sure how tohandle it.
John Moir (33:05):
Yeah, all right, maybe that's a good place to end
for today.
Elaine Egidio (33:10):
Okay.
John Moir (33:10):
And, yeah, I want to thank you so much for your
inspiration and your words andyour wisdom, so thank you so
much for inviting me andallowing me to touch the
inspiration.
Thank you.
Elaine Egidio (33:22):
Thank you listeners.
John Moir (33:26):
Grief is a heavy burden to bear and can often
feel isolating and overwhelming.
That's where grief circles comein, offering a supportive and
understanding community to thosewho are grieving.
You can't be both the grieverand the container of your grief.
This is the purpose of griefcircles to be the holder and the
witness to your pain.
Your soul wants you to speak ofyour grief, to express your
(33:48):
pain, your loss and to shareyour history and stories of that
which has been taken.
The Urban Grief Shaman'spodcast is an offshoot of
Soulful Sorrows, a grief tendingwebsite.
Here under the service menu youwill find our monthly circles.
Please take the time to take alook and book into one or more
of these monthly circles.
(34:13):
Thank you for joining us intothe world of shamanism and its
connection to grief, healing andspiritual growth.
If you enjoyed thisconversation be sure to
subscribe to the Urban GriefShaman so you never miss an
episode and if you have anyquestions or would like to
explore this topic furtherplease reach out to us in
comments and support in theworld to us.
(34:33):
Until next time, may you findgrace and insight into your own
spiritual journey.
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