of Retrieval

Recently, I worked with a dear friend and fellow healer, Liz Guerra. Liz is a talented shamanic practitioner whom I trained with, and like many of us, she found herself needing greater understanding of what was unfolding within her own inner landscape. Even for healers, it can be hard to see clearly into ourselves.

She had been navigating the emotional pain of her teenage children choosing to live with their father. While she logically accepted their choice, her mama-heart still grieved deeply. She was working on holding their decision without internalizing it as rejection or failure—trying to stand in acceptance without feeling “less than.”

In the midst of this emotional work, a powerful memory resurfaced: as a 10-year-old girl, she had a near-death experience. One of her brothers had been playing with their grandfather’s hunting rifle when it went off. The bullet whizzed past her head. She fell, believing she was dead. She "woke" to her mother screaming her name.

When the memory returned, her body began to shake uncontrollably. The somatic release was intense and lasted for hours—unlike anything she had ever experienced. She felt raw, vulnerable, and emotionally flooded. Her gallbladder began to ache, and her energy felt congested. She couldn’t see how this memory connected to the work around her children, but she knew there was a thread. That’s when she reached out to me.

As we talked, I connected to Spirit and asked for insight. I said to her, “As a child, if you imagined the perfect life, wouldn’t it have included your children being with you? So if there’s a part of you that believed you had died that day, could your children choosing to live with their father now feel like confirmation of that death—a kind of soul-level punishment?”

This landed powerfully. Liz was raised Catholic and had already done deep work to deprogram guilt and fear around her gifts. When I shared that insight, she said, “Whoaaaaaaa! Now my pelvis is pulsing.” Something clicked. The ups and downs of her life, especially this painful chapter with her children, had come to symbolize the confirmation of a subconscious belief that she had died back then. I invited her to go into the timeline where the bullet hadn’t missed.

As soon as she set the intention, she found herself in the basement of her childhood home, where the incident had occurred. She saw everything vividly—her body lying lifeless on the floor, and her young soul hovering in shock above it. She realized she had become stuck in a timeline that should have collapsed with her death but somehow didn’t.

She began to psychopomp her own soul—guiding that part of herself across. As the child-self crossed over, she saw a beautiful river filled with lotus flowers. The water was peaceful, though fast-moving. She saw herself as she had been then—long, beautiful hair flowing behind her. As she observed, her gallbladder pain vanished. Her body began to shake again, and her pelvis moved rhythmically. 

The healing was profound. She let me into the vision. I saw her child-self in a small boat surrounded by soft, radiant flowers. It was so beautiful—peaceful, ethereal. Yet, I could also feel fear in the child as she neared the end of the river. She didn’t know what was coming next. I had her call in her Abuela, a wise ancestor and spirit guide. Her grandmother’s loving arms reached out from the sky and gently embraced the child, guiding her forward. Liz whispered, “Gracias, Abuelita,” and we both felt the shift. She was completely exhausted. Her body had cried a river and gone through a deep somatic healing. Her pelvis continued to unwind, releasing trauma that had been stored for decades. 

We agreed to share this story for two important reasons...