How Social Media is Stealing Your Soul
What is Soul Loss, and how to get it back
Well, I don’t actually put it that way. Let’s not hand our power over to some app by saying that it is stealing our souls. We do, however, run the very likely risk of incurring a degree of soul loss by engaging with social media at all. Every day that we scroll through all the madness coming at us, the opportunity for soul loss comes from the feelings of instability that arise, perceptions of threat, or the shock of the story we were just exposed to. What we ingest on SM also has real life impact personally that can compound to make this situation one that presents challenges to those soul parts finding their way back.
The other day, I opened up my phone to the story of a woman who did something terrible to her dog at an airport, and now I can’t un-know that story. It’s been weeks, and the story haunts me. How could someone be so horrible? And honestly, why do I even need to know something like that? It only solidifies the narrative I have growing that humans are irredeemable. It doesn’t help me make informed decisions about elected officials, or government policy. There is nothing at all I can do to change what happened, or even to help prevent humans from doing such things in future. All that story caused was harm.
It is stories like these that potentially cause soul loss for us daily. Of course, there is much more content out there currently that could be argued does help us to stay informed, or that helps catalyze us to create change for the better, but that stuff also holds the potential for causing soul loss in the first place.
So, what exactly is Soul Loss?
In many indigenous cultures, soul loss is considered the primary cause of disease. The idea is that our soul is like a bowl of light. When we come in, our bowl is filled with all that radiance, but as we move through our Earthwalk, pebbles get placed in that bowl from painful interactions, and our light diminishes. Maybe you suffered an abusive childhood, or maybe you got into a car accident. Maybe you are going through a pinaful divorce. Or, maybe it was something as small as a balloon popping in your space when you were not expecting it. Whatever the traumatic incident, big or small, a piece of the soul left that circumstance in order for the rest of you to survive. In a perfect world where everything functions optimally, that soul piece, or pieces, would return after the event is over.
But, sometimes those pieces get lost. Sometimes the traumatic event is systemic, or takes a long time to resolve. Sometimes, it is just something that sticks with us for a while. That is when one might start to consider bringing in outside help to go retrieve those lost parts. You can think of it a bit like the story of Peter Pan. One night, Wendy had the painful shock of being told she would no longer be a child sleeping in the nursery with the other children. In comes a magical support to usher a piece of her, and the other kiddos, away to the Island of Lost Boys! Potentially, all the inhabitants of that island are lost soul parts just waiting to be found again. Eventually, she finds her way back home, and reintegrates as she moves on into her new adult life.
If you have been walking around saying that you just don’t feel like yourself these days, you feel like something is missing, you are living a half life, you feel numb or distant or separated from yourself, you feel like a piece of you is missing—these are all good signs that you are experiencing soul loss. Now, if you are a middle aged woman, you could simply be experiencing perimenopause. But, if you have gone through the medical checklist and everything is on the up and up, then you might consider this other possibility.
The reason that indigenous cultures consider soul loss to be the root cause of most human disease is because the universe abhors a vacuum. When our soul is whole and we are glowing brightly, there is little room for anything to take hold in our system. But, when a soul part leaves and cannot find its way back, we are left with a void. We could be walking around like a piece of swiss cheese, feeling disconnected from ourselves, from joy, from life, and things are going to come in and try to fill that void.
Thankfully, there is help. There are things that you can do. As my teacher used to say, “What do you do when your bowl of light gets filled with too many stones? You dump out the bowl!”
These days, no matter what country you are living in or what demographic you are in, there is ample opportunity to experience soul loss, big and small, on a daily basis through our engagement with social media. These platforms are designed for our captivation, and that means stories that encourage outrage are amplified. The old adage—if it bleeds it reads—is alive now more than ever. So, be mindful and protect your peace. The best way to heal from soul loss is not to incur it in the first place. Sometimes though, things catch us off guard, and sometimes that is just the price of staying informed—or of being alive. Therefore, if you do suspect that you are suffering from soul loss, reach out. We can chat about if a soul retrieval is right for you, and if I am the right person to help facilitate that for you. Let’s kick rocks, and dump out those stones together.