Have you ever felt like something is missing?

Have you ever felt like something is missing, even when your life looks fine on the outside?

That feeling is not a flaw. It is not weakness. It is not you being broken.

In shamanic traditions, this experience is called soul loss. It happens when staying fully present was not safe, so a part of you learned to leave in order to survive. That part does not disappear. It does not die. It goes somewhere safe and waits until your body, nervous system, and subconscious are ready to feel again.

Modern psychology now mirrors this ancient understanding through parts work, trauma theory, and somatic healing. Trauma does not just live in memory. It lives in the body. In fascia. In organs. In breath. In posture. In emotional patterns and survival responses.

Soul loss often shows up quietly as emotional numbness, chronic fatigue, anxiety, depression, dissociation, difficulty receiving love, fear of intimacy, feeling disconnected from your purpose, or the sense that you are watching life instead of living it.

These are not diagnoses. They are messages.

They are signs that a part of you went somewhere safe and has not yet been invited back home.

Healing is not about forcing yourself to move on. It is about creating safety in the body so the parts of you that left can return willingly.

Nothing about you is wrong. Your system adapted perfectly to what it survived.