When the Past Knocks: A Soul Retrieval in Motion
Time is not linear to the soul. What we call ‘memory’ may be an invitation. A doorway. A return.
Lately, I've found myself visited by vivid dreams—unexpected, oddly detailed, emotionally charged. In them, people from my distant past appear. Middle school friends I haven’t spoken to in decades. An estranged sister-in-law helping me move furniture. Even her pregnancy, hidden beneath a new identity, felt symbolically potent. These are not people I actively think about, and yet... here they are, showing up in my sleep, asking for my attention.
When the past rises like this, it’s not nostalgia. It’s initiation.
There are moments when the soul begins to stir beneath the surface of our everyday life. When memories we thought were long buried resurface. When people we haven’t seen or thought of in years begin to show up in dreams. When the past doesn't whisper—it knocks.
That’s what has been happening to me: in dreams, in meditations, in the quiet of night and the chaos of day.
At a recent retreat in Sedona—The Gathering of Shamans—I was meditating when something cracked open. Out of nowhere, a long-forgotten relationship from my 19-year-old self resurfaced with startling clarity —a love that was deep, real, and raw, and ultimately devastating.
I had buried it. Suppressed it. Told myself it was over, irrelevant, healed. But when this ex resurfaced years later with a message, I declined to engage. I thought I had closed the door. That very night, I woke with the worst stomach pain I’d ever felt. I landed in the ER, and no one could find anything wrong.
Now I see. That night, my body was speaking the grief my spirit had never released.
What Is the Soul Asking?
These dreams aren’t random; they are soul signals —invitations to retrieve forgotten parts of yourself that were buried under change, loss, or survival. Not to relive your past, but to reclaim your wholeness.
You see, there are chapters in our lives we move past on the surface, but they stay stored deep within. A school year tied to grief. A family member exiled from the collective memory. A version of you that had to grow up too soon or stay silent too long.
When that part of you is ready to come home, it often knocks in dreams.
These Dreams Might Be Whispering:
“There is a version of you that wants to be seen.” The child who felt abandoned. The woman who held secrets. The healer who needed healing.
“Something new is gestating.” Pregnancy in dreams is rarely literal; it’s symbolic of new life—new insight, creativity, or soul work. But before the new can emerge, we’re asked to clear space. To visit the storage unit of our psyche and sort what to keep, release, or finally acknowledge.
“You are not who you were, but that doesn’t mean you’ve outgrown your roots.” Healing isn’t about cutting away the past; it’s about integrating it into the wisdom of the present.
When Spirit Calls Through Memory
If you’re also having vivid dreams about people you thought you'd forgotten, pause. Listen.
What version of you is asking to return? What emotion was never felt fully? What story wants to be rewritten in truth?
You are not being haunted. You are being healed. You are being brought back to yourself.
Not the surface self—the deeper, wilder, more authentic self who remembers.
And in that remembering, you make space for a new becoming.
Shadow Work as a Rite of Passage
Since that retreat, dreams from my past have flooded in: middle school friends, estranged family, and long-forgotten scenes. Each one a thread, leading me back to the parts of myself I exiled to keep going.
In spiritual psychology, this is known as shadow work—the reintegration of rejected, abandoned, or shamed parts of ourselves. But it’s also a deep cosmic alignment.
The stars themselves are conspiring to help us clear the old:
Saturn moving into Aries initiates a 29-year karmic rebirth cycle.
Retrograde planets are calling us inward.
Eclipses have ripped open the veils.
This is not regression. This is soul retrieval.
Rituals for Soul Retrieval
This journey is sacred. And it is ongoing. Here are some ways I’m walking this path:
1. Grieve with Intention
Write a letter to the younger self who lived that love, felt that pain, and never had a place to release it. Burn it under the moon. Let the ashes rise.
2. Energetic Release
Speak aloud:
“I release all old soul contracts that no longer serve my highest good. I call back every part of my spirit now ready to return. I am whole. I am free.”
3. Welcome Innocence Back
Make time for joy, for wonder, and laughter. Color outside the lines. Dance with no reason. Let your inner child lead the way.
A New Becoming
I believe all of this is happening because I’m preparing to create something sacred —a healing retreat, a sanctuary, a home for seekers.
But before you can build a temple of light, you must clear the debris beneath your foundation.
I am doing that now.
This is not a breakdown. This is a breakthrough.
To anyone else going through this: you are not alone. Your past is not rising to overwhelm you; it is here to return you to yourself, to reclaim what was lost, and to rise whole.
🌙 Journal Reflections:
What parts of my past have I locked away that may hold medicine for my present?
Is there a part of me that wants to be birthed into this next phase?
How can I honor the versions of myself that have gotten me this far?
Healing is not forgetting; it is remembering differently.
With grace and unfolding remembrance,
— A Seeking Yogini
