What is Shamanism?
Shamanism is the oldest spiritual and healing practice. It focuses on our connection with nature as well as sacred realms. It is said that Shamanism is the path of direct revelation because we have our own experience accessing guides, teachings, and wisdom. Each person's guidance is meant just for them. We all have this ability as well as a team of guides, they are just waiting for us to reach out and invite them in. It is not religion or a belief system but rather a spiritual and healing modality based on a personal connection with Spirit.
What does a Shaman do?
A Shaman can enter into non-ordinary reality in order to receive messages, guidance, and healing that they can bring back to this world. A Shaman can see beyond the physical and is able to tap into the energy field and the field of potentiality. The Shaman can act as a bridge between this world and the worlds beyond. Shamans work in partnership with their guides where the Shaman is the vessel for the guides to work through. Shamans are able to remove blocked energy, clear a path for energy to flow more freely, strengthen the energy field, track and remove faulty energetic imprints as well as ancestral woundings, receive guidance that they can offer, and retrieve soul parts as some examples.
What is a Shamanic Journey?
Shamanic journeying is at the heart of Shamanism. This is where one enters an altered state of consciousness (moving from beta/waking state to alpha or theta/in between waking and sleeping) through drumming or rattling. Shamanic journeying has also been called soul flight where we allow the soul to leave the body in order to move beyond ordinary reality. Anyone can journey, you don’t need to be a Shaman to do so. In the journey, you can meet guides, spend time with helping spirits, ask for guidance on life issues, or ask for a healing.
What does Shamanic Healing look like?
As a Shamanic Practitioner, I walk clients through the Medicine Wheel to access deep healing so that they can move forward in their lives with more confidence, ease, and grace. Here are the four directions of the Medicine Wheel.
Shedding the Past (Serpent, South)
Like a snake sheds its skin, we want to be able to let go of the past so that we can live in the present and dream our future into being. Initially it is necessary to heal past woundings and recalibrate the energy system. This is done through a deconditioning process of identifying and releasing outdated beliefs that aren’t true. These beliefs live in our subconscious and until we bring conscious awareness to them, they will be running the show in the background.
Shadow Integration (Jaguar, West)
Here we walk into our darkness, doing shadow work which involves meeting the parts of ourselves that we don’t like (anger, jealousy, shame, etc) to hear their messages and allow them to turn into allies. During this phase, we integrate lost soul parts and our shadow self so that we can own ALL of who we are. In this phase, we can heal ancestral wounding so that we stop living out the stories that have been passed down through the generations in our families.
Clarity in the Present (Hummingbird, North)
We then move into being present and having awareness when our old stories arise. Rather than being held hostage by them, we can choose a different path. At the same time, we work on identifying each client’s own values system and definition of success. The values become a filter for the client to make choices (if I do this, is it in alignment with my values and the life I want to create for myself). By having a personal definition of success, we can measure ourselves against that rather than the societal expectations and pressures of what we “should” be doing. There is a lot of freedom that comes from living life on our own terms.
Dreaming the Future into Being (Eagle, East)
The final phase is creating a life vision and breaking it down into smaller pieces. We begin to see life from a new perspective and believe that anything is possible. In this process, we work on manifesting the life of our dreams. We get very clear and precise about what we are asking for (making sure that it is from our soul’s purpose and not our ego) and tuning into our own inner guidance system, listening for messages and clues as to next steps to take in order to arrive at what it is we want. We look for synchronicities, follow our gut instincts, and co-create a life of our own making.
Let me know if you have any other questions about Shamanism or any of the work I do. I’m thinking about sending out some Journeying experiences (I’ve got journals full of them) and they’re pretty amazing! What else would you like to hear about or know more about…I’d love to share it with you.