Tom O'Neill Therapy
The Soul Retrieval Course
Thanks for your interest in Soul Retrieval! You might ask: Why in the world would I want my soul retrieved? Has it gone missing? Likely not, but perhaps you have lost your connection to it and now feel unmoored from an essential source of vitality and meaning. The Soul Retrieval course, which derives its name from the practice of soul retrieval in the ancient healing art of Shamanism, seeks to help you restore your connection to your vitality that neglect, trauma, painful experience, or acculturation has interceded upon. When I talk about the soul, I mean the
aspect of your nature that is unconditioned by experience and so is open-hearted, wise, and spacious. (For a thorough description of the Soul Retrieval process, please click here.)
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Open-hearted The quality of holding yourself and others in affection and tenderness. You can open your heart to all the parts of yourself.
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Wise The quality of clearly seeing the relational forces that have shaped you and are shaping you still. You can stand at the center of your life, in the power of your knowledge, and make decisions that disrupt harmful trends and foster beneficial ones.
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Spacious The quality of letting your experience express in the infinite space of your soul, like storm clouds rolling through the clear blue sky. You are that vast and that powerful.
Soul Retrieval is a process of empowerment, of stepping out of fear-based habits and into your soul-given powers of love, insight, and expansiveness. In facilitating the transfer of your power, in spending less time managing your emotions and thoughts, you open yourself to your potential from which your authentic life is free to express.
In seven, one-hour, one-on-one sessions, I will guide you through the steps of that process, which will give you the skills and understanding to help you return to soulful living. You can expect:
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Guided experientials that engage the qualities of your soul (open-heartedness,
wisdom, spaciousness), starting the
process of bringing you back into your
power.
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An understanding of your relational patterns and how they obstruct or deepen your sense of vitality and meaning.
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Skills and strategies that will help you work with your obstructions.
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An introduction to an approach to living in which you see in life’s various expressions and challenges opportunities to deepen in meaning, connection, and freedom.
Because you will work through the course material using your life experiences, you will not simply learn the teachings but embody them. Please be aware, however, that the course is psychoeducational in nature and limits the space to process painful emotions that might arise. Pausing the course to work with those emotions in added sessions or moving through the course more slowly is always an option. After you complete the course, you might also elect to work with the teachings in individual therapy, in a process group of other course graduates, or on your own.
The per-session fee is $65. You are free to discontinue the course at any time.
And please feel free to contact me here with any curiosities and questions you might have. A free, half-hour consultation is also available and encouraged.
May you respond to the calling of your soul!
Course Outline
Session 1
a.) Claiming your power, an
introduction;
b.) Guided meditation: soul contact;
c.) What are your challenges?
Homework suggestions.
Session 2
a.) Contacting and welcoming in
the part of you carrying painful
experience;
b.) Exploring the ways you have
kept yourself safe from harm.
Homework suggestions.
Session 3
a.) Waking up to wisdom by taking in the vast system of the self;
b.) Creating your genogram.
Homework suggestions.
Session 4
a.) Moveable vs. immoveable grief
(the Four Quadrants);
b.) Discussion of the ways you’re
already grieving.
Homework suggestions.
Session 5
a.) Fight, flight, or freeze—how do you
respond?
b.) Completing the expression;
strategies to move out of the
holding pattern.
Homework suggestions.
Session 6
a.) A new approach to challenging
emotions: guided meditation;
b.) Mindful self-care using the Two
Wings of Awakening.
Homework suggestions.
Session 7
a.) Collaborating on a map of your
emotional patterns and protective
strategies;
b.) Collaborating on a list of different
responses to practice;
c.) What questions and open issues do
you have?
d.) Plans for the future!