'What are some of the steps that helped you get to that point?' It's a darker truth, but one that most in their apprenticeship should know. At least on this level of spiritual education. Torment. It's called [[Self-Retrieval]] because your current state is a fragmentation of the whole of you. You chose to forget who and what you were because you couldn't live with the truth of it. The soul, in and of itself, is a localized mirror (or reflection) of one's higher consciousness in denser form. When what we are becomes unacceptable to us, that mirror is shattered and fragmented. The amnesiac mind retains the awareness the mirror held in its wholeness (holiness), but no longer holds within it the image or reflection of what it used to be. Thus, it is aware but incomplete. Able to conceptualize greater abstract thoughtforms - but unable to understand why. It is only one piece of a massive puzzle. One that must learn to use itself to recreate its elder form. And not only that, but to choose to change the image in the mirror as he recreates himself. This is why the mirror is broken in the first place - so that it can be reconstructed by the same meta-materials that created it, but with improved vision and context. But that singular piece, that divine spark is ample force to ignite the inner flames of rediscovery. The finality of a soul in its insane state, one that is no longer able to retain even a recollection of its once-great existence - is to degrade itself back into the primordial elements, so that a new mirror-consciousness (the "image" of god) is created. Nothing is lost, only progress, and the same things that made the old will make the new as well. So grief is misplaced here. If you wish to know who you are, then you must accept the devastation that comes with remembering why you forgot in the first place. Not what made you forget. But what made you *want* to forget. It's a painful experience, it really is - and it's usually much worse than you'd think it is. It's not about fixing little mistakes but rather about coming face to face with having to accept the immensity of the pain you have inflicted upon others and yourself in your past journeys. As a reference of just how great that darkness is - know that it was powerful enough to quite literally force your very soul to shatter and break itself apart. It hits you where you least expect it, and I can count on my fingers the amount of people I know that I'm sure have gone through full self-recovery and healed. ![[017578b6d97b9aab29aa0799369a947a.gif]]