At times, pieces of soul will become frozen or crystallized, and fall out of reach, only to call out to us, through strange feelings or moods, images and dreams, and through a variety of what we often refer to as “symptoms.”These lost orphans of psyche and soma are personifications of our “unlived lives,” aspects of experience which we’ve lost contact with: unfelt grief, unmetabolized sadness, abandoned joy, disavowed anger and shame, dissociated states of connection and Unity.Recontacting the unlived life, and the figures who carry these experiences on our behalf, is the activity of mercy, compassion, and intelligence, a vital process on the path of embodied healing, individuation, and spiritual renewal.Whether due to unresolved trauma, stress, environmental or social factors, disorganization in attachment, or effects of a narcissistic or borderline early holding environment, these ones become sequestered into underground storage, into the shadow and somatic unconscious. From here, they live and move and breathe, spin and twirl, in their longing to return home.Especially in uncertain, transitional, and other in-between periods of time, it’s easy to lose contact with the figures who inhabit these more subtle regions of the spectrum of consciousness.As a result of this splitting, dissociation, and rupture in relationship, we can feel tired, weighed down, depleted, and exhausted, not only physically, but at a deeper soul level.Turning away from the unlived within us – personally, culturally, collectively, ancestrally – is something we all do as a way to protect ourselves, from fragmentation, a survival-level anxiety, and an annihilatory sense of panic. This is not neurotic, “unevolved,” or “unspiritual,” but intelligent and adaptive, early forms of self-compassion.It was the best way we knew to take care of ourselves and keep us out of an immediate, overwhelming, unbearable, naked confrontation with our historic core vulnerabilities and sensitivities, all of which have a way of surging in times of uncertainty and transition.Recontacting the achy, burning, longing, shaky, tender pieces of soul – turning toward them and holding them in love – is one of the essence-alchemies of our time.Learn more about Matt’s ongoing Spirituality & Healing online group and communityMatt’s YouTube pageLearn more about Matt’s summer in-person retreat (with Jeff Foster)