Be Your Own Shaman
It seems like anyone with a drum, rattle, Reiki Level I or a recent trip to Peru can call themselves a shaman and a healer nowadays.
The same individuals that judge and demonize mainstream faiths for leading spiritually un-awakened individuals astray push their own modalities, ceremonies and products as though they are somehow different.
When it comes to healing and cleansing myself, I’ve done it all, and then some. I was the idiot with the Peruvian rattle and snake oil for two years before something inside said enough.
I grew up in a faith where I was taught a myriad of contradictions. God is most forgiving and merciful, yet anyone with an atom’s worth of sin cannot enter the gates of heaven. God loves all beings equally, oh, except for X, Y and gays.
God, the most omnipotent, all-knowing, all-loving and wise, needed us to stop what we were doing several times a day and bow our heads in worship, or off to hell for you, sinner!
Before you get your religious and New Age panties in a twist, this isn’t an anti-anything campaign. I’m not here to discuss the truths of religion or the Universe. I think everyone needs to hold their beliefs sacred to them.
That is, if you believe something to be true, then it is true for you. Your sacred truths don’t need to be peddled to others or defended. They are yours. Hold them in sweet reverence.
What I’m here to talk about is the concept of what I call the middleman.
This is not going to be an amazing spiritual concept definition as I made it up, but a middleman is anything you believe stands between you and a direct connection with God (or who I will refer to in the rest of the post as Source).
A middleman is also anything you believe is needed that comes from outside of yourself.
I’d like to focus on the use of middlemen when it comes to healing yourself physically, emotionally or spiritually.
After 13 years of trying everything from tree frog poison to anti-depressants to heal a variety of physical and emotional symptoms, I went on a sabbatical from anything that was a reliance on something outside of myself.
This included all herbal medications, supplements, healing modalities and the people in my life (bar the husband and the bestie… let’s not get carried away here!).
During this time, shit got real. Suddenly everything in my life was my own responsibility. I had to heal myself, forgive myself and love myself in ways I had never known.
I had to be my own mentor, prophet and healer, as well as creating my own direct line of communication to my body, soul and to Source itself. No one was going to do that for me. No one could.
After a good six months of not being able to get up out of a fetal position, I hauled ass to Kauai, Hawaii, for a month, and went through what Joseph Campbell refers to as the dark night of the soul. For nine days, I did a cleanse.
I sat and stared at the ocean with tears streaming down my face and accepted that this was it. There was no golden revolving ascension door where if I meditated or prayed hard enough I would walk through and enter a place of peace and joy.
Heaven was on earth, and my body was the vessel. From that moment on I started to listen to my body, really listen. It led me to each of the herbs that I use in my steams and teas. It led me to a complete change in diet and lifestyle.
It led me to understand my body’s natural cycles and how they coincide with the cycles in nature. It led me to a self-reliance and self-love that can be shaken but never taken away from me again.
It’s time to listen, to heal ourselves and to seek our own counsel. I promise you, your body already knows. You will feel it inherently and nothing will stop you.
The world is filled with amazing reflections of Source that can support you in your process, but they cannot heal you. Only you can do that.
So be your own shaman.
*****
Tina Ali, Creatress at Lily Pompom, online comms consultant, backyard herbalist, home wares designer, object curator and friend of Gaia. As I walk the path of the divine back to my own heart, I’m collecting everything that looks like unconditional self-love and I’m planting it here. You can connect with Tina via her website, blog, Facebook or Instagram.
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