Shamanic Awakening #5: Lessons and Frustrations

Buckle up for a candid exploration of expectations versus reality in spiritual training. This episode peels back the curtain on my ongoing shamanic education, revealing both frustrations and profound discoveries along the way.

My current shamanic training program has delivered a mixed bag of experiences. While marketed as shamanic study, much of the curriculum has ventured into non-shamanic territories – from EFT tapping to I Ching readings, with liberal doses of yoga and Tai Chi filling precious weekend hours. Many classmates and I have found ourselves questioning whether this program delivers what was promised or if it's simply a collection of various healing modalities under a misleading label.

Despite these frustrations, when the training actually focuses on genuine shamanic practices, the results have been nothing short of transformative. Learning to work with energy attachments, resolve residual trauma, and conduct cord-cutting ceremonies has yielded powerful results – including immediate shifts for clients who've experienced these techniques. These moments validate the incredible potency of shamanic work when taught and practiced authentically.

The most unexpected gift from this journey has been newfound confidence in my relationship with shamanic practices. I entered wanting to learn "properly" to avoid cultural appropriation, but discovered that shamanism, like all spiritual modalities, is meant to evolve and be personalized. This realization has freed me to work more intuitively while still maintaining respect for the traditions that inform these practices. Have you ever found unexpected wisdom in disappointing experiences? I'd love to hear your stories!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, welcome back to empower your
soul.
I am here with a shamanicupdate.
I'm really realizing I missed afew classes and wanted to give
you an update on how it's goingin my shamanism training.
So I think the last time Italked about shamanism don't
mind my rustling of papers herewe talked about Ayurvedic, we

(00:22):
talked about that kind of stuff,right, the doshas, etc.
So in the last few weeks it'sbeen really interesting, or the
last few classes, rather, it'sbeen a little interesting,
because the I'm gonna say it,I'm gonna say it, I'm not

(00:45):
thrilled with what we have beencovering in the shamanism class,
and I just say that because Ithink I was looking for more
traditional shamanism and thestuff that we're covering, I
think, although very helpful,very insightful, and I'm loving
a few of the things that I'velearned not necessarily shamanic
in my book and this is myopinion and you can take it or

(01:07):
toss it in the trash, I don'treally care which.
So, in terms of the things thatwe've been covering, I'm
looking at my agendas.
We've been talking about theuse of passwords, which I think
I got one nugget out of there,which was a really good nugget,
but I loved the idea ofpasswords and how different

(01:30):
words mean different things todifferent people, which is
something I preach about in alot of my mediumship classes,
because 99% of this work isn'tnecessarily receiving the
information.
It's just trying to make surethat your client kind of
understands the informationthat's been received, because,
again, I might say someone ismischievous and you might say no

(01:52):
, they weren't.
And then I might be like, well,they liked to trick people in a
very fun, silly way, andthey'll say, yes, and that's my
definition of mischievous, andmaybe theirs is is a different
definition.
So so, the power of words inmediumship readings, which I've
talked about a lot, so they wentover that, um, they went
through the meridians, the flowof energy, the eft tapping, not

(02:16):
shamanistic, right, um, I, I'vegotten a ton of acupuncture done
.
Love it, love the Love, theidea of the meridians.
I know EFT is a very, verypowerful tool, but again, not to
me.
It's not shamanism, it'simportant tools to know, though,
and so like I feel like I feellike this would be a really good

(02:39):
class if it were marketeddifferently, and I think this is
more about using any sort oftool across many, I'm going to
say, indigenous cultures, and Idon't know if that's the right
word.
Apologies if that is offensivein any way, but it is taking
like taking the fruits of all ofthese really great cultures,

(03:02):
like EFT the next weekend we didI Ching right, and, and and
also like soul retrievals, andit's taking these little nuggets
of gold from all of thesedifferent practices and putting
them into this training for thepurpose of healing yourself.
And I think if it were marketedthat way and if it were talked

(03:23):
about that way, that would be awhole different training,
because I think what's sointeresting and the woman I love
you, you know who you are thathelps run this school is
probably listening to thispodcast and I like, and so for
me, when you market something asshamanism, I think there's a
very particular clientele forthat right and I think people

(03:45):
who want to learn shamanism arelooking for shamanism specific
training, and so I'm going toactually say that probably
narrows down your potentialclientele for this type of work,
for that type of class, becausethe people that are coming to
you want shamanic practices, thepeople who might want these

(04:07):
more broad brush practices thathelp with healing with EFT, with
I Ching, with the Meridians,with Ayurvedic right.
I think that's a very differentaudience and I think if it were
marketed differently as in, wetake the best of the best from
all of the healing practicesacross the world and not put the
word shamanic in it then Ithink you would have a huge

(04:29):
clientele opportunity and Ithink you could market this
program very differently and Ithink you would get the right
people in there.
But when I'm in my breakoutgroups with some of my peers in
this class, a lot of them arescratching their head saying
what the hell is this?
It's good information, right,it's very helpful, but I don't

(04:55):
think it's what a lot of usexpected in this class.
So that's my two cents there.
So, like I said, we did the IChing, we did sand painting,
which was really cool, and then,most recently so needless to
say I skipped a couple weekendsbecause I have to spend 9am to

(05:15):
3pm all day Saturday, all daySunday, sitting in front of my
computer, after I sat in frontof my computer all week.
So, needless to say, I'velooked at a couple of these
agendas and I'm like Nope, I'mgood, I'm not wasting my weekend
.
And so I just caught therecordings afterwards and
watched it at two times speedand instead of wasting sorry,
I'm, it's the term I'm going touse instead of wasting.
You know six and a half hoursof my of you know, well, 13

(05:41):
hours in total for these twoweekends that I was listening to
these classes.
Instead, I just, you know, gotto the meat of it and probably
watched the replay that I neededto hear over the course of like
an hour hour and a half tops.
So I mean I'm getting efficientin in this shamanic stuff.
But I will say the latest classwe had was truly shamanic in

(06:07):
every sense of the word and Iloved it, like I was obsessed
with this class, and what Iloved about it is it was
specific.
It was very specific toshamanism.
So the tools that we learnedwere how to deal with, like
energy attachments whether youthink they're real or not.

(06:30):
That was cool.
Whether how to resolve residualtrauma in the body, like
energetic imprints in the body,how to find them and how to
remove them, which was supercool.
And then also energetic worms,which is just like stagnant
thought patterns using shamanictools.
Now, I loved this because I'venever approached number one

(06:51):
Again.
I don't know if I necessarily.
I don't.
I don't know enough.
I don't know if I think entityattachments are real or not.
I'm leaning on the side of not,but that's open to change based
on more information.
But what's so cool about thesethings is that I've kind of done

(07:11):
a little bit of thought patternstuff right, a thought pattern
clearing right.
I've done removing energeticobjects, which is, I think,
another term that I've used itunder is called psychic surgery,
I think it's the word I want touse under is called psychic
psychic surgery.
I think it's the word I want touse.
So it's like a form of psychicsurgery which I've kind of done
historically, like intuitively,through my Reiki practices, but

(07:33):
it was just cool to see itimplemented in a different way
here.
So I loved this last weekend andthen it was the beginning of
the third trimester, so we hadthe Peruvian shaman in in there
like doing the blessing, whichwas really cool, and it was a
really, really packed fullweekend where I was actually
thrilled to be there.

(07:53):
It was awesome, and I thinkthis is what I'm talking about
is when we're going through trueshamanic practices.
I'm there, I'm engaged, I'masking questions.
I'm so excited to be there andlearn these things, and with the
other stuff it just doesn't, Idon't know.
It just doesn't resonate asmuch with me.
It's not.
I feel like it's not what Ipaid for and, speaking of, we

(08:13):
continue to have essentially thefirst half of each class each
day, or I'm going to say likethe first third, instead of half
the first third of each class,either doing yoga or Tai Chi
again like if I knew that it'snot what I, it's not what I
signed up for.
I can do yoga before the class,right?

(08:35):
I can do Tai Chi before theclass.
If I want to do that, can wejust use the class time to learn
the things?
So, um, I'm a pain in the ass.
I'm sorry, but I'm real.
I'm a pain in the ass, I'msorry, but I'm real.
So it was.
So I really really loved it.
I really loved this latestweekend and I haven't looked at
the upcoming agenda for theupcoming weekend.

(08:55):
I don't think I can go to thewhole thing and I'm hoping it's
more of these shamanic specificpractices.
And I also hope if you'relistening to this, you know who
you are If we are going tocontinue the yoga and Tai Chi.
They tend to run 30 minutesover, like no joke.
So we're supposed to do it foran hour.
Then they end up doing it forlike an hour and a half and so,

(09:18):
and then what ends up happeningis then we learn the lesson, we
learn the cool fucking shamanictool, and then we don't have
enough time to practice it.
It's a rushed practice.
I'm like if we could just likerejigger how we allocate our
time in this class, it would beone of the best classes ever if
they could stick to the shamanicand like rejigger this thing,

(09:39):
because the knowledge myteachers have is clearly vast
and incredible.
It really is, and, and so Ilove the teachers.
I just wish for me and I knowthis is going to be different
for everybody I'm sure everybodyin the class wishes there were
some changes we could make forsome of this work, but for me, I

(10:00):
just I wish there were justthese few tweaks of just like
get rid of the yoga and the TaiChi, like focus more on the
actual shamanic practices, andthen, if they want to upsell
this extra shit like the EFT andthe I Ching, fucking do that
then.
But like give me the basics.
I don't give me the stuff thatI came here to learn.
I digress.
This is the problem with me.

(10:21):
It's not a problem, though,because I feel like this is.
I'm hearing the word integrityin my head.
I'm hearing the word integritybecause if you're going to
market this is the shamanicclass, then let's do a shamanic
class.
Let's not do I Ching Right, umand so I think, and everyone's

(10:41):
allowed to do whatever they wantto do, but when they're not
honest and upfront about it,that's when I have a problem
with it, because if I was honestand upfront and knowing that a
quarter of every single weekendor half of every single weekend
was going to be doing yoga andTai Chi, I don't know if I would
have invested this money.
And I think, for all the moneyand all the time I've dedicated

(11:02):
to this, walking away knowingI'm probably going to end up
going and taking like SandraIngerman's classes after this,
because I don't feel like I gotenough out of this.
Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, I have made some lovelyconnections, though I love the
people in the class.
Again, when we talk about theshamanic tools, I love it, but I
just I wish it were a littledifferent.

(11:22):
But, fingers crossed, there'stwo weekends left coming up.
I have, um, ah, I'm not surewhat we're going to learn, but
I'm really excited to hopefullywrap this up in the near future
and, um, the only other thingSpirit is kind of talking about
is the power of these tools whenthey're used, and so I don't

(11:44):
want to minimize although Ibitch and moan a lot about the
format of the class for theshamanism class, I have to tell
you that, in terms of the toolsand the practice of shamanism, I
really can't express howpowerful this work is.

(12:09):
I have never experiencedanything like this, and for
somebody who doesn't necessarilyI'm going to say quote unquote
believe some of this stuff, likeI'm a you got to prove it to me
kind of gal.
They do back a lot of thisstuff up with data and science.
Most of it I can find onlineand validate right, and the

(12:34):
impact of some of these toolshas been absolutely mind blowing
.
So most recently I've done so,since I've done this training,
I've done two cord cuttings andI don't um, I don't offer it, I
don't, it's not on my websiteanywhere, but I have done it
with two of my clients so farthat just needed it and I'm like
hey, do you want to try thistool?
I learned it in my shamanismclass.

(12:55):
It's pretty easy, it's notdifficult to do, but it has been
very impactful for the clientsI've done it on and those two
clients that I've done it on.
Both of them it was a cordcutting with a past relationship
and it's like immediately thatenergetic tie that they had with
this person was gone.

(13:16):
It was gone, and so it's beenimpactful.
And I think I need to gather afew more tools in my tool belt
and I'm getting a littleconfused on what tool to quote,
unquote, use, when I know thatthat's a simple problem because
I'm sure, intuitively, I'm goingto know what tool to use.
But a little more of thatstructure would be helpful,

(13:38):
because you have cord cuttings,you have all these other things.
Right, there's a there.
I've probably been taught.
Oh, I have a, I have a wholething in front of me One, two,
three, four I'm going to skipthe ones that are dumb Um, five,
nope, nope, nope.
Six, seven I've been taughtlike seven major tools and so

(14:02):
it's a little confusing on whatto use, kind of when, so to
speak.
But either way, they've beenimmensely powerful, immensely
powerful.
So I am, I am happy, I guess,overall that I took this course
and I'm excited to kind of closeit up and I think, the biggest
thing, as I literally closing my, my journal that has all of my
agendas and notes in here, andas I continue forward.

(14:24):
I think the biggest thing thisclass has taught me so far is
confidence in the shamanic workand I always thought and this
might be a repeat from previousepisodes I've recorded, but I've
always thought that shamanismis like this black box I need to
learn it from somebody.
I want to be respectful.
I don't want to do culturalblack box.
I need to learn it fromsomebody.

(14:45):
I want to be respectful.
I don't want to do culturalappropriation, I want to learn
it in a way that's respectful tothe traditions and the cultures
.
And again, like the history ofthis amazing work, and what I'm
finding is it's meant to change,right, it's meant to be
different.
You're meant to take it andmake it your own, just like
every other spiritual modality.
I've done, and so for me, I lovethis modality, I love the

(15:09):
shamanistic world and I think Iwill continue to study this and
learn how to incorporate thismore.
But it's given me being in thisclass and kind of seeing how my
teachers do it, how my peershave been doing it in the class,
it's just given me confidencethat I don't need anyone to
really teach this to me.
I just, like I always say, Ineed someone to kind of show me

(15:31):
the way a little bit, give me anidea of what's possible, and
then I'll work with my team tokind of figure out and how to
make it mine.
So I do love it.
I do.
I do love the modality itself.
If you have any questions on myshamanic journey classes, let
me know.
My next, my next one's comingup this weekend, so you'll
probably get an update from thatin a little bit.
But I just want to thank youall for being here and listening

(15:53):
in and, from my soul to yours,I hope you have an absolutely
wonderful day.
Take care.