The Underworld in shamanic practice is the place where our psyches store our contracts, lost soul parts, and ingrained beliefs.  It is considered a place of the soul's history.  Sometimes when I journey to the underworld for a soul retrieval, the underworld does not look normal.  It can be clogged with old debris, dangerous looking creatures, and all sorts of weird dark stuff.  For me, usually the darkness represents punitive belief systems from either the client or the client's past lives and ancestors.  Cleaning up the rooms in the underworld can considerably lighten the whole outlook of the client.

One of my peers performed an underworld extraction for me recently.  I had been wanting to start my own family for a few years, but no pregnancy had resulted, even though I felt sure there was a soul of a baby near by.  At the same time I had very mixed feelings about becoming pregnant at all.  It felt like a dangerous prospect;   I felt like if I did get pregnant I was going to be sick the whole time, and I would probably need a c-section to save my life.  Having these strong feelings about pregnancy was very disturbing---they felt very real to me, and I had no rational explanation for them.

When my shaman went down to my underworld to see what was going on, the rooms in my underworld were filled with darkness.  Spikes lined the floors and ceilings, and it felt like others had died in there.  When she cleaned out the rooms she discovered a grandmother of mine and a grandfather who had written contracts that said that having children led to death and suffering.  She worked to heal both grandparents and also rewrote the contract so I would not have to fear for my life if I did have children.

After the cleaning and healing took place my grandmother came to her and thanked her for removing the curse from the women in my family.  It needed to be done before I was free to become pregnant.  The irrational fears I had about pregnancy disappeared, and I actually began to look forward to becoming pregnant with anticipation of happiness and being part of the flow of life.  All feelings of impending danger and death disappeared.

As it turns out, my grandmother died of an infection soon after giving birth to my mother's younger brother, who died soon after her death.   My mother spent time in the hospital after losing a late term pregnancy before I was born.  My sister needed two emergency c-sections and developed rare infections after both of them.  My shaman did not know any of this before she performed the journey, so we were both surprised and pleased by the results.

Underworld extractions and generational imprints go together, but sometimes an underworld extraction just to clear out the rooms of darkness and debris is all that's needed.  Another client of mine experienced recurring dizziness and scattered thoughts.  I had removed the energetic imprints by doing solid extractions on our plane, but also went to the underworld to see if there was anything stored there that was keeping the pattern recurring.  Sure enough, cleaning up much of the chaos in the underworld almost immediately relieved her symptoms.  She needed to do other work to change her habits and behaviors, but once the energetic imprints are gone in both the underworld and our world (called the middle world) change and healing proceeds rapidly.

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