Jill Kuykendall, RPT, is a registered physical therapist, as well as a minister of The Church of the Sacred Earth. She has worked within the standard Western medical paradigm for over 25 years, often in an advisory role to bring transpersonal medicine and its practices to the healthcare community, practitioners and patients alike. For five years prior to leaving California in 2007, she facilitated a Women's Shamanic Drumming Circle for personal growth and community development. Jill co-authored *Spirit Medicine: Healing in the Sacred Realm* with her husband, Hank Wesselman (Hay House publisher, 2004) and is on the faculty of the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA. Jill is currently living and farming in South Kona, Hawaii and in private practice at the Honauanau Healing Center, with a specialty in the transpersonal healing modality generally known as Soul Retrieval.

Among the indigenous peoples of the world, it is generally understood that traumatic life experiences can result in the fragmentation of our inner, vital essence or soul, and the subsequent loss or disassociation of parts of the self often results, a phenomenon generally known as 'soul loss'. Among the traditionals, soul loss is regarded as the primary cause of serious illness and premature death, yet curiously, it is not even mentioned in our Western medical textbooks, and our contemporary physicians are often at a complete loss at recognizing it as well as knowing how to reverse its effects.

Soul loss often occurs in response to severe life traumas such as physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, a molestation experience during childhood or being ruthlessly teased, a bitter divorce, a shocking betrayal, a sexual assault, a surgery, or a terrible car accident, to name just a few. The post-traumatic stress syndrome that was experienced by military veterans from Viet Nam and Operation Desert Storm is a classic example of soul loss. Yet soul loss can also be the result of a very subtle troubling experience, so personal to an individual at their perceptual level that no one else would know that a "trauma" had occurred. This is often the case with early childhood soul loss in which there has not been an overt trauma, yet the person feels fragmented in their emotional and psychological realities.

Soul loss is a life-coping mechanism in which the dissociated soul parts leave, carrying the burden of the pain, shock, or extreme emotion, or the memory of the trauma which may be simply unbearable to the sufferer at the time it occurs. Symptoms of soul loss frequently manifest as feelings of being fragmented, of not being all there; blocked memory or not being able to remember parts of one's life; a sudden onset of apathy or listlessness, or a lack of joy in life; the inability to feel love for others or receive love from another, often resulting in the sense of being emotionally flat-lined. The loss of these parts of the self manifests frequently as despair, as suicidal tendencies and/or addictions, or most often--depression.

Among the traditional peoples, those medicinemakers who specialize in soul retrieval work are aided and assisted by their spiritual allies, tracking the lost soul parts, finding them, and returning them to the person who has lost them, restoring the individual's soul to its original, undistorted state. And in the process, the person's vital essence returns as well, an experience that they frequently experience as life-changing. This is ultimately accomplished with the willing participation of the client in creating a sincere call for this work, as well as integrating their soul parts back into their overall vital essence.

If you are interested in contacting Jill regarding Soul Retrieval, please contact her at jk@sharedwisdom.com

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