Finding My True Calling: Moving Away from Social Expectations Towards My Soul Path

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Ever wondered how someone becomes an intuitive healer? Shannon takes us on a deeply personal journey through the unexpected twists and turns that led her to a 25-year career in the healing arts.

Starting as a university-educated English teacher with dreams inspired by "Dead Poets Society," Shannon quickly discovered her sensitive, empathic nature wasn't suited for the classroom. This first career disappointment launched her on a winding path of self-discovery. As someone who had experienced physical therapy as a competitive gymnast, she thought she'd found her direction—until the repetitive nature of the work left her feeling unfulfilled despite helping patients.

The pivotal moment came through friendship with a massage therapist, opening Shannon's eyes to hands-on healing that resonated deeply with her soul. With determination and support, she completed her thousand-hour training program, discovering this wasn't just a career shift but the gateway to a profound spiritual journey.

Shannon's story reminds us that sometimes the most meaningful paths aren't the most practical ones on paper. Her evolution from teacher to intuitive healer—encompassing massage therapy, Craniosacral therapy, Reiki, Spiritual Direction, and Meditation—shows how listening to our inner wisdom can lead us to fulfillment we never imagined possible. Ready to explore your own calling? Join Shannon for her spiritual classes and ceremonies on Insight Timer. 

Shannon Sullivan:

Artful Touch Therapies – my professional website

https://www.artfultouchbyshannon.com/  

 

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(Download Insight Timer app. Then click link to my teacher page)

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Link Tree Information:

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10 Day Course for Empaths and Highly Sensitive People

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Blue Heron Creates 

This is my music artist name where I share mantras and original songs from many different faith traditions.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, thank you so much for joining me today.
I'm Shannon and this isStarseed Evolution, bringing the
wisdom and insight of thecosmos to you.
I'm grateful that you'relistening.
I am often asked by my clientsand students how I stepped into

(00:27):
the healing arts as a career.
For over 25 years I have beenpracticing as a licensed massage
therapist, craniosacraltherapist, reiki master teacher,
spiritual director andmeditation teacher.
The one thing I can tell you isthat it was not a direct path.

(00:51):
One of my clients recentlyasked me what I would label
myself as, since she felt like Iwasn't just a massage therapist
.
I told her the closest definingphrase that I could come up
with that encompasses all of itis intuitive healer.

(01:11):
It turns out that when I wasyoung and they would ask all of
us children the question what doyou want to be when you grow up
?
That particular job title wasnot on the list.
Nor would I have known it evenif it had been.

(01:31):
My journey has been a windingone of unknown twists and turns,
where I have stumbled manytimes into dark places,
constantly blindly trying tofeel my way through as I move
forward on my path, which hasbecome more clear the more I've

(01:52):
stepped into it.
So let's start at the beginning, at least, back to my college
days.
I attended the University ofArizona on an academic
scholarship, moving from Yuma,arizona, where I was born, and
coming out to Tucson, arizona,for the university experience.

(02:14):
My major was education, with aminor in English and Spanish.
My focus was on education inthe high school tradition,
teaching English.
I was a writer at heart andloved reading and diving into
characters and stories andseeing the beautiful way to

(02:38):
connect to the human heartthrough these stories.
It turns out, though, throughthese stories.
It turns out, though, thatactually teaching high school
English isn't quite the same inperson as it was for Robin
Williams in Dead Poets Society.
When I graduated from the U of Aat the age of 23, before I knew

(03:02):
all the defining things aboutmyself, I was, and still am, and
will always be, a sensitive,empathic, introverted person.
After six months of teachinghigh school, I just couldn't do
it anymore.
I was miserable every day.

(03:23):
I did not have the mind orfortitude to face that kind of
teaching assignment.
So I left the high schoolacademic arena and over the next
three years after that, I justworked at a local grocery store

(03:47):
and did all the different typesof jobs that you would learn
there.
And while I worked whichallowed me to care for myself
physically, mentally I beganexploring on the side the things
that I enjoyed about life.
One of the things that I enjoyedwas the physical therapy

(04:11):
tradition, because I spent a lotof time growing up in physical
therapy.
I was a competitive gymnast andso I was always getting injured
, and so it required me to spenda lot of time in physical
therapy repairing my body.
Because I knew how helpfulphysical therapy could be, I

(04:32):
decided to start volunteering inthis direction, just to
discover if it's a direction Iwanted to go in my own life,
career-wise.
As I volunteered in physicaltherapy, there became an aha
moment inside my mind.
Well, if I want to go in thisdirection, I probably need to

(04:54):
get some more job-relatedexperience in the medical field
so that I could learn more ofthe medical terminology.
Learn more of the medicalterminology.
Around that time, I found thatthere was a job at a radiology
clinic for CAT scans and MRIsthat was looking for a tech
assistant where you could learnon the job.

(05:17):
I was hired and worked therefor two years and learned how to
interview patients for twoyears and learned how to
interview patients, order stockthat the CAT scans and MRI techs
needed, retrieving scans,meeting the radiologists that
work there and just becomingassociated with the medical

(05:40):
field.
The biggest thing that Ilearned during this job
development and development ofmy inner self, learning about
who I was and the direction Iwanted to go was that, as much
as I enjoyed working with thepeople I did, I wanted more

(06:02):
contact with people rather thanjust the interviewing process of
getting ready for a scan.
I felt like I wanted a deepercontact with individuals.
Part of it was knowing that Iwanted to be more present for
people on their journey as theyneeded it.
Because, at the same time, Iwas also volunteering in

(06:25):
physical therapy and enjoyedworking with patients, I decided
to apply too, got accepted andwent to school to become a
physical therapy assistant and,as that door opened up for me
during the program, steppingmore into the direction of

(06:46):
knowing what I wanted to do orat least I thought this was the
end game of things.
Before I graduated for theprogram, I landed a job at a
local physical therapy clinicwhere I started working
full-time.
One of the skills that I learnedby being on the job as a
physical therapy assistant wasnot so much about the career.

(07:11):
It was more about me being ableto become more professional,
become more articulate, learningto sit with people and enjoy
talking to them, being presentfor where they were on their
path into healing, and thehealing was more directed around

(07:31):
the physical body.
It was something that I knewtoo, because I had experienced
it myself for many years.
It myself for many years.
I did notice that because I wasquite shy, it was sometimes
hard talking to people duringtheir recovery and I wanted to

(07:52):
become more confident orarticulate when I spoke with
people and to build thatconfidence, I decided to take a
public speaking class at thelocal community college.
This allowed me to practicespeaking and building up my

(08:12):
inner confidence to use my voice.
As much as I enjoyed helpingpatients being a physical
therapy assistant, I did realizethat my role was limited to
just doing exercises withpatients and it was very

(08:33):
monotonous over and over and itwas hard for me to feel
passionate about what I wasdoing, even if I could see
people getting better.
Just knowing that my role herewas limited, I saw my brain
getting bored and restless andknew I needed to expand.

(08:54):
Now, as I talk about this partof my journey with you.
Yeah, it sounds easy that Ijust came to a realization and
knew that I easily needed toshift.
But it wasn't, because part ofunderstanding myself was change
is very difficult for me andI've learned at this age, many

(09:19):
years hence, to work with thefeelings of change that come up
for me.
But at this time it was verytrauma-inducing, knowing that I
needed to make a change, notknowing how and trying to figure
out what direction I was goingor how I'd even make it come to

(09:39):
life.
So I did experience a lot ofanxiety and panic, and that was
another part of myself that Ihad to learn to work with going
into counseling.
So even though my soul self, myinner self, could feel I needed
to make this change, my brainhad trouble adapting to it.

(10:01):
So it was sometimes anexcruciating medical-based
personal training for cardiacrehab patients and along with it

(10:30):
what they offered was massagetherapy.
I became friends with one ofthe massage therapists that work
there and as we became friendsI began to see and experience
what physical therapy washands-on as a way of a healing
modality.

(10:50):
It did become an adjunct intophysical therapy as an assistant
, where sometimes I was taughtand shown how to give specific
15-minute sessions and that wasmy introduction into massage
therapy.
My brain likes to try andorganize and figure out paths,

(11:11):
so at this point I began tocompare the two possible paths
that I could go in and lookingat the pros and cons in and
looking at the pros and cons.
So one of the paths that becameavailable was I could go into
the field of physical therapy bygoing back to school to become

(11:32):
a physical therapist and at thattime it required a master's
degree.
Now if you look 20 years laterit is a doctorate, but back then
it was a master's degree.
Although I did have abachelor's, it was in English
and education.
So if I were to go down thatpath of getting the master's

(11:55):
degree in physical therapy, Iwould have had to do two years
of additional prerequisites ofall the sciences.
When I looked at the other path, which was getting training to
become a massage therapist, Ididn't have to complete any
prerequisites because part ofthe training program that we had

(12:18):
, which was a thousand-hourprogram, it went through all of
the things that we needed in theclassroom.
As I looked at both of the paths, I did discover that massage
therapy matched more thedirection that felt not only
easier for me to go into with ashorter amount of training, also

(12:42):
that it would open doors that Ididn't yet know about.
The question then became for mymind which is what I was
looking at was I always had gone, both in college and after
college, towards things thatwere more practical, not

(13:02):
necessarily that I would enjoymore, but that were more
practical.
In order to explore the massagetherapy path, which in my mind,
didn't seem as practical oruseful as becoming a physical
therapist, I decided to justexplore by calling and

(13:24):
scheduling a meeting with somemassage school director and take
a tour of the local school,which was called Desert
Institute of the Healing Arts,which drew many students from
around the country.
After going on the interview,sitting down with myself and
reviewing it, I made thedecision that this is the road

(13:49):
that I would like to go down.
I received an acceptance letterfrom this school and they let
me know that I could enrollright away, to begin in
September, because I had goneinto the interview during August
.
However, I knew inside myselfthat I needed to wait a year

(14:11):
before enrolling, and the reasonfor this is because I didn't
want to go into debt byattending school, I decided that
I needed an additionalpart-time evening job that I
could use to save all of thatmoney that would help me pay for
the schooling program.

(14:31):
And in fact I did stumble upona part-time night job.
That was really easy to do,although it meant that I would
have long days for a year.
But the good thing was that itnot only helped me pay for my
massage therapy training, whichis a one-year program, but when

(14:54):
I was in the day program formassage therapy I was able to
keep that night or evening jobpart-time so that I could still
pay for all of my rent and food.
And the sweet thing about itwas when I got ready to enter
into the massage therapy programa year later, my parents gifted

(15:18):
me some additional funds.
That also helped to put methrough school as well, which I
am grateful for Now.
The program was a year long.
During the day, full time, itwas a thousand hour program.
When I graduated I did become alicensed massage therapist.

(15:40):
This licensing program opened adoor not only in my heart but
in my head that allowed me tostep into a whole new world of
healing and actually become acareer path that could lead me
deeper into my own spiritualpath.
And as I step through this door, through massage therapy and on

(16:06):
this career path, that was justthe beginning career path.
That was just the beginning.
Now, for the sake of our podcast, I'm going to wrap it up here
and call this part one, and itwas the first part of stepping
into my career in the healingpath.
In part two, which will becoming up next, I'll explore and

(16:30):
share with you how steppinginto the massage therapy field
then created this whole anotheruniverse for me that I'll share
with you about the spiritualactivation that took place
inside of myself, stepping intoReiki and its healing presence
in my life, and also all thedifferent modalities that I

(16:55):
became connected with, learnedand experienced on my path, not
only as a career, but also myown spiritual journey.
I'm grateful that you joined metoday and I look forward to
seeing you in our next episode.
If you'd ever like to join melive, I teach spiritual classes

(17:18):
and ceremonies on Insight Timer,which is a meditation app, I'll
place the link in the shownotes below and, if you'd like
to check those out, the linkwill show you all the different
classes that I have coming up.
All of them are offered bydonation.
I'm Shannon.
You've been listening toStarseed Evolution.

(17:41):
I'm wishing you a beautiful day, namaste.