April 15, 2025 • 25 mins
What does it mean to be spiritual but not religious? Drawing from personal experience healing from religious trauma, this raw exploration delves into the profound differences between organized religion and authentic spirituality.
Growing up in an intensely religious household—complete with 5 AM devotionals, multiple weekly church services, and constant fear of eternal damnation—created deep wounds that took years of therapy to heal. That journey from fearful religious conditioning to authentic spiritual freedom forms the foundation of this heartfelt conversation about finding your true spiritual identity.
Shamanism offers a different approach to spirituality—not as another religion demanding adherence, but as practices supporting personal truth and healing. The key distinction lies in autonomy: religion often positions external authorities as arbiters of truth, while genuine spirituality emerges from personal introspection and self-discovery. While most religions contain beautiful core teachings about love and connection, problems arise when these teachings become twisted to instill fear, control, or manipulation.
True spirituality begins with the profound question: "Who am I?" This goes beyond external identifiers like family connections, career achievements, or relationship status. It requires facing yourself in the mirror and understanding your authentic nature independent of childhood conditioning or societal expectations. If you believe you have a soul—that you're more than just your physical body—you're already a spiritual person. The journey involves rediscovering who you truly are without using religion as your sole identity.
Whether you're questioning your religious upbringing, healing from religious trauma, or simply curious about different spiritual perspectives, this episode offers a compassionate framework for finding your authentic spiritual path. Can you answer who you are beyond what you've been told to believe? Your spiritual journey begins with that question.
I'd Love To Connect With You..Send Me A Message!
To Connect With Me, Visit Me At: www.joyfulshaman.com
Follow Me On Instagram: @joyfulshaman
Have Questions Or Episode Ideas?? Email Me!
Naomi@joyfulshaman.com
Thank You So Much For Supporting Me & Energetically…The Collective
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Joyful
Shaman.
I am Naomi, your host with themost, and I am glad to be back
here with you for anotherepisode, and so this week I
really want to talk aboutreligion and spirituality, and
this has been on my heart.
I made a video a couple weeksago on my Instagram in regards
(00:23):
to my perspectives and myinterpretation of what
spirituality is, how I perceivereligion, especially since I
work a lot with people in mylocal community that are healing
from religious trauma, and howmuch therapy I have had because
of my own religious trauma.
(00:43):
So I feel that, given thecircumstances in the US right
now regards to religion andseparation of church and state
or what it should be, let's diveinto this.
So, from a shamanic perspective, I am not a religious person.
I don't view shamanism as areligion, although some people
(01:07):
may equate it to be, butshamanism to me is just a
blanket word for the practicesof spiritual rituals, so to
speak, that support the beliefsystems that are intrinsic to
that person.
That support the belief systemsthat are intrinsic to that
person and that could be foranything, and it really is.
(01:29):
The shaman is a leader, ateacher, a guide, could be a
preacher, could be a counselor,could be a doctor.
It's just an authority in thatpeople trust in that individual
to be able to assist them inhealing a part of themselves and
activating their own healingwithin, ideally.
(01:51):
So I want to say, like,shamanism is not my religion.
I don't believe I have any typeof religion, but that's just my
perspective.
That's just my perspective.
So I really wanted to talkabout this topic because I live
(02:12):
in a very ultra conservativecommunity.
It might be changing, you know,in the last couple of years,
but I do want to preface that ifyou're listening to this and
you are religious, I love you.
Want to preface that.
If you're listening to this andyou are religious, I love you.
But these are my thoughts andfeelings and they come from my
(02:33):
personal experiences.
So, where I live, I wouldconsider, if you know, red and
blue are the political colors.
It's very red and there areprobably close to 200 churches
for a community of about 140,000people.
So you know there's a littlebit of something for everybody
that wants to be part of thosecommunities.
(02:55):
For me, I grew up if you'velistened to my other podcast
episodes in a very, veryreligious home.
I grew up in the Assemblies ofGod church and then proceeded to
go to a more non-denominationalchurch, but still evangelical
church.
My parents both grew upCatholic my dad being Catholic
(03:19):
from Mexico, so that's reallypart of the culture and then my
mother growing up Catholic.
I will say that both of themconverted and I feel that their
fervency and their own beliefsystems was really not a choice
for my sister and I growing upand for myself, it felt very
(03:44):
forced and it was.
You know we went to Christianprivate school from kindergarten
until 10th grade, over twostates when we moved from
Louisiana to Florida, and youknow everything was about church
going to church on Wednesdays,going to Bible study, going to
Sunday school, go on bothservices on Sunday in the
(04:05):
morning and at night.
You know not really havingaccess to as much as my father
could control.
You know being part of theoutside world, as he would call
it.
You know we would wake up at 5am to do morning devotionals.
You know when we're trying tostay awake right before school
(04:29):
and it was very regimented.
You know my grandmother, sheconverted as well and you know
it was one of these things whereI believe that the culture of
my grandmother and mygrandfather, you know, with
Catholicism just kind oftransferred over into their
version of Christianity.
I will say that the churchprovided a really cool community
(04:51):
for me, especially since, whenwe lived in Louisiana, the
church that we went to was alsothe school that we went to,
feeling a familiarity of growingup with kids that I knew and
you know, being friends withthem and learning, and it really
opened up my eyes to betterunderstand the messages you know
(05:13):
from the Bible.
But I didn't really care that Iwas forced to do it instead of
being given a choice or beingtaught to not interpret the
Bible so literally and to begiven an opportunity to explain
things and to ask questionswithout being told that
(05:36):
everything was a sin.
And so I grew up fearful,extremely afraid in my life and
afraid of constantly dying andthen burning in hell if I didn't
ask God to forgive me or if Ididn't pray to God before I go
to sleep or if I wasn't in thisconstant state of prayer in my
(05:56):
day-to-day life.
And it created a big identitycrisis within me and you can
hear this in my other podcastsin my twenties, and I had a
mental breakdown because of that.
And so I was told when I was 18, that you know.
If I didn't want to go to church, if I didn't want to do any of
(06:16):
that, I didn't have to once Ibecame a legal adult, and so I
was literally counting down thedays where I wasn't being forced
to go to church.
I wasn't being forced to singin the church, I wasn't being
forced to be part of the youthgroup or be part of the
performance group or whatever itwas.
At that time I wanted out,mainly because I just wanted to
(06:38):
be free to think for myself, tofigure out who I was and to make
sense of what my own internalbelief systems were.
It really wasn't until, I wantto say, in my early thirties
because I'm nearing 40 now thatI really started to ask myself
(06:58):
the questions of what are mybeliefs, what is spirituality to
me versus religion, what do Ibelieve, how do I want to live
my life and what are the supportsystems that I have in place to
help me.
And that's where I started toformulate my own perspective and
(07:19):
understanding for myself ofwhat my own spirituality was and
how it differentiates thanreligion.
Now I will say religion iscreated by man.
All religions come fromperspectives of individuals and
their interpretations, and Idon't believe that religion is
inherently horrible, unless thatreligion is to cause harm to
(07:42):
other people, then no, I dobelieve that at the core of most
religious indoctrinations orreligious texts or practices
that there is a basis of loveand of understanding and of
really personal development andconnection.
(08:03):
The issue is when religion getstwisted by people for the use
of fear, control, manipulation,abuse and harm in the name of
religion, and so that's where Idraw the line of no, that's not
for me.
(08:23):
I love world religions.
I actually studied worldreligions a lot in college.
I find a lot of comfort in thepractices and beliefs of
Buddhism.
I find a lot of comfort inother belief systems as well,
and I love the history ofreligions.
I love the practices of certainreligions and what they mean on
(08:45):
a deeper level.
That supports my spirituality.
I don't label myself asChristian, I don't label myself
as Buddhist.
I don't label myself asanything except for I am Naomi.
I know who I am, and for me todiscover what your spirituality
is starts with discovering whoyou are as a person.
(09:07):
Who are you, you know?
Who are you outside of yourfamily, who are you outside of
your job, who are you outside ofyour personal relationships?
Who are you outside of thesociety that tries to tell you
how to be?
At the end of the day, imagineyourself looking at your face in
(09:27):
the mirror and you say who am I?
Could you answer that question?
And if you say I don't know,well, that's the path of
self-discovery and that leads toyour own spirituality.
And spirituality for me, in themost simplistic way, is my
personal, innate belief systemin the relationship of who I am
(09:51):
to my mind, to my body, to myspirit.
That is my personal truth.
That is who I am, what I standfor, my morals, my values and my
beliefs that I have created,regardless of my childhood
conditioning, regardless of myexperiences, regardless of what
(10:13):
society tells me or anythingelse.
That is an externalcircumstance.
I have come to theseconclusions based on my own
personal development, my ownreflection, and I stand in that
truth, and then I findsupportive practices to help me
(10:34):
live by that truth.
Now, that, to me, isspirituality, and everybody's
spirituality is different, and Ibelieve that people have souls,
but other people may notbelieve in souls.
I believe that there is ahigher power that I call creator
, and sometimes I do use theword God, but I don't
(10:56):
necessarily mean it in theJudeo-Christian belief system of
God as a deity or a being.
It's more of an energy, it'smore of a consciousness.
It's a living breathing centeror source that we all come from.
There has to be a master designto everything that we know that
(11:19):
is in our current 3D world andbeyond.
So that's my personal belief,but that's part of my
spirituality, but it's not myidentity.
Who I am is a person of love.
I am a person of kindness, ofcompassion.
I am a person of strongboundaries.
I am a person that will fightfor others that are being
(11:43):
oppressed and that are beingpersecuted.
I am a person that will defendmyself and defend my family and
defend my community.
I am a person that, for me,self-care is doing the hard
shadow work, is doing the innerwork.
I'm a person that will expresstheir emotions.
I'm a person that's notresponsible for other people's
(12:07):
reactions and responses to mypersonal truth.
And I'm a person that willcontinuously check themselves to
ensure that I am living in mymost authentic and genuine self.
And my self will change as Iage, as I go through more things
.
As I do greater self reflection.
As I mature, more.
(12:28):
My spirituality may change, butat the core, today, at almost
38 years old, this is who I am.
This is my spirituality.
Now I have chosen shamanism asmy foremost spiritual practice
to help support my personalspirituality.
(12:50):
I still definitely reflect onthe stories of the Bible.
I still reflect on the messagesthat Christ tried to share and
the underlying message of it allyou know, am I a person that
believes that if you don'taccept Jesus as your personal
Lord and Savior, you're going toburn in hell?
No, I don't believe that.
No, I believe that there are alot of things that have been
(13:14):
interpreted or written that youknow.
The Bible's been translatedprobably close to 16,000 times
from the original text, and it'sall about the deeper
interpretation.
And so for me it's like how doI perceive this?
How does this resonate with me?
And for me, I feel that it'smore of opening your mind and
(13:38):
accepting the greaterconsciousness that we're all
connected, that we should all bereflective of love, and that is
the pure energy source of wherewe come from.
And that's just my personalbelief, and I truly feel that
that's what Christ was saying inthe text, if I were to
interpret it today for myself.
(14:00):
Now, a lot of times I work withindividuals that are like I'm
new to the spirituality thing.
You know, I'm no longer part ofthe church, I'm just trying to
discover who I am and what myfaith is, and you know what is
my spirituality?
And I tell people I'm like well, you have a soul.
If you believe you have a souland you're more than just your
(14:22):
meat suit, you're more than justthis 3D reality.
You're already a spiritualperson.
It's more of rediscovering whoyou are, what you stand for, how
you identify yourself and maybenot using religion as your soul
identity.
I see a lot of people in mycommunity and a lot of people
online and in the world that douse religion, various religions,
(14:45):
as their soul, identity andspirituality, and the issue
within there it just is veryrestrictive.
It's when it starts to becomeconvoluted, where people don't
know they may not have theskillset or they may not feel
they have the permission toactually think about how does
(15:07):
this resonate with me?
How do I apply, how do Iinterpret it?
They take it so literal thatthey close themselves off to the
possibility of otherinterpretations or other
meanings, and yet they followsomeone, a teacher, a guide,
whom they put their trust in totell them.
(15:27):
So that's where it, for me,gets very dangerous, because
that's when what I call the herdmentality comes, where they are
flocking to this quote, unquoteshepherd and this shepherd may
be intentionally leading peopledown a path of.
(15:47):
This is literal truth.
There is no other variation,and to possibly think otherwise
is wrong, a sin or will lead todamnation.
That, to me, is extremelyharmful.
I don't believe that Christ, inthe biblical sense, came here to
(16:08):
do any of that, and you canread it.
If you're going to interpretthe Bible, you're going to read
that Christ didn't come tocondemn people.
Oh, if you're going tointerpret the Bible, you're
going to read that Christ didn'tcome to condemn people.
Christ was among all kinds ofpeople and welcomed people with
open arms from all differentbackgrounds and experiences, and
so that is what I try to embodyto be open to all people.
(16:31):
Now, if your spirituality is afear of hate, of harm towards
other people, I can't changethat about you.
But if your practices are, youknow I come from this place of
fear and I want to cause harm,and that supports that.
There's a problem there andyou're going to have to face the
(16:56):
repercussions you know by theauthority that will catch you.
You know I hate that theremight be harm that happens to
other people until that personis caught.
But that is the reality whenyou think about it.
And I don't believe that peopleare born inherently evil.
I think all of us are puresouls, believe that people are
(17:18):
born inherently evil.
I think all of us are puresouls.
It's just we are conditionedfrom our experiences since
childhood to fear, to have maybea false understanding of what
is morally okay and what ismorally wrong sometimes, and
that has to do with culture andthat has to do with culture and
that has to do with twistedreligion and that has to do with
(17:39):
trauma and grief andgenerational woundings that
happen as well.
Everybody's experience is goingto be different, but if we can
all be awake to go withinourselves at some point and stop
and pause and say I don't haveto be these things, even if
(18:00):
these things happened in my life, I don't have to go along with
that, when you come to thatrealization, that is the first
step in awakening and saying toyourself I need to know who I am
despite all of this.
The rest of that journey ishard I'm not going to lie and
(18:22):
it's lifelong, and you have tobe consciously committed to
doing that work every single day.
So that, to me, is thedifference between spirituality
and religion.
I have no issues with religion.
I have many clients that arevery religious that come to me
for energy work as well.
Why?
Because they can see thatenergy is our life force, is the
(18:47):
emotional and mental body.
We create energy.
If you're listening to me, youcreate energy.
Your heart is alive, your brainis functioning, your body is
functioning.
You're creating energy.
You have mitochondria in yourcells that utilize energy for
your body to function.
Your emotions create energy.
You can sense when there'sdanger.
(19:09):
You can sense when something isgood.
You can you know wheneveryou're feeling things based on
the physical reactions thatemotions are having in your body
.
That creates a sense of energy.
It sends signals to the brainto react in certain ways, and so
energy work is really justworking on recalibrating these
(19:31):
signals and the responses in thebody and regulating the nervous
system from a scientificstandpoint.
You know, shamanism is just thepractice that I choose, which is
a variety of different culturesthat I've been exposed to and
continue to be exposed to, ofdifferent practices of
mindfulness to balance the mind,to go within, to be safe, to
(19:56):
access the heart space, to askourselves who am I, what is home
to me, what do I stand on, whatis my truth and how do I live
that and how do I support myselfin my day-to-day walk with that
?
That's spirituality.
So when I say you know, andpeople ask me, oh, are you
(20:18):
Christian, are you religious?
And I say no, I don't labelmyself as such, I'm just a
spiritual person.
That's because I believe thatfor myself.
I try to live my life everysingle day in conscious
awareness of my own personaltruth, with every situation and
with every single person that Imeet and interact with, even
(20:41):
when I'm not working.
Who am I on a day-to-day basis?
What's my inner dialogue like?
What am I saying to myself?
What am I saying to otherpeople?
What are my thoughts thatbecome actions?
Saying Is it an alignment withmy own truth?
That, to me, is spirituality aswell.
(21:03):
So I just wanted to share thatso that if you find this and
you're trying to understand,especially if you're here in the
US, you know what is happening.
Or if you're trying tounderstand, especially if you're
here in the US, you know whatis happening.
Or if you're experiencingdisagreements and discord among
people that are religious andmaybe you are not and it's
(21:25):
becoming an issue for you, maybeuse this podcast and maybe use
just my perspective and my storyas a way to relate and I hope
that you can relate to someaspects of it so that you can
better navigate that world foryourself.
If you're like, how can Iexpress myself to my loved one
(21:46):
or to my friend who'squestioning who is asking?
Because questions are good.
Questions hopefully open up thetable for healthy dialogue and
discussion.
But yeah, this came across myInstagram in a message today and
it's just been coming up a lotin my awareness of spirituality
(22:09):
and religion and hurting oneanother in the sake of religion
or in the sake of your personalbelief system and understanding
that religion is there tosupport you.
At the end of the day, you'rethe one that has to face
yourself.
Face yourself, not what youbelieve, not the church, not the
(22:43):
minister, not the deacons.
It's you.
So, if you're standing thequote-unquote judgment, how did
you live your life?
How did you choose to live yourlife?
How did you choose to live yourlife?
How did you choose to love oneanother?
How did you choose to showkindness and compassion.
That's all of our purposes andservice and our mission here.
(23:04):
That, I believe, is part of thehuman existence.
How we serve and love and showkindness and compassion is
unique to all of us.
But if we're serving from aplace of fear, that can become
hate, that can become darkness,that that becomes evil.
What are we doing then?
(23:26):
Religion then no longer servesus.
It becomes a weapon, a weaponfor hate, and that's not what
it's about.
It's never been about that.
We've just kind of lost our wayin the melee of the world and
the atrocities of the world andare trying to find some external
(23:51):
validations instead of goinginternally within ourselves and
facing our own shadows and ourown darkness, and that's the
honest truth, in my opinion.
So just a perspective for youall that I just wanted to share.
But if you find this, know thatyou are a beautiful person,
(24:13):
you're a beautiful soul.
There is a plan and purposehere for you, and maybe this
episode will inspire you to askthose deeper questions.
If you're questioning, askyourself who you are.
I do a beautiful meditationbased on Toltec beliefs and
practices, called the Artist,the masterpiece of your life.
(24:36):
Imagine yourself standing infront of a canvas an empty
canvas, and you have everysingle paint color and brush
available to you on a table andyou're being asked to paint a
masterpiece of how you view yourlife.
Yet the masterpiece can changeand you can always add in or
(24:56):
delete or completely start over.
It's ever evolving.
Can you pick up the brush anddip it into the first color and
just paint, just from the heart?
What would your masterpiecelook like?
Do you know who you are?
Do you know why you're here?
(25:18):
Do you know what your purposeis and how you're going to
fulfill it?
Ask yourself those fourquestions, and that's your
spirituality.
You are a beautiful soul.
Thank you so much for listeningand share this podcast with
someone if it really resonateswith you, until we meet again.
(25:40):
Be well, friend sat nam, andI'll see you soon.
Welcome back to another episode of the Joyful
Shaman.
I am Naomi, your host with themost, and I am glad to be back
here with you for anotherepisode, and so this week I
really want to talk aboutreligion and spirituality, and
this has been on my heart.
I made a video a couple weeksago on my Instagram in regards
(00:23):
to my perspectives and myinterpretation of what
spirituality is, how I perceivereligion, especially since I
work a lot with people in mylocal community that are healing
from religious trauma, and howmuch therapy I have had because
of my own religious trauma.
(00:43):
So I feel that, given thecircumstances in the US right
now regards to religion andseparation of church and state
or what it should be, let's diveinto this.
So, from a shamanic perspective, I am not a religious person.
I don't view shamanism as areligion, although some people
(01:07):
may equate it to be, butshamanism to me is just a
blanket word for the practicesof spiritual rituals, so to
speak, that support the beliefsystems that are intrinsic to
that person.
That support the belief systemsthat are intrinsic to that
person and that could be foranything, and it really is.
(01:29):
The shaman is a leader, ateacher, a guide, could be a
preacher, could be a counselor,could be a doctor.
It's just an authority in thatpeople trust in that individual
to be able to assist them inhealing a part of themselves and
activating their own healingwithin, ideally.
(01:51):
So I want to say, like,shamanism is not my religion.
I don't believe I have any typeof religion, but that's just my
perspective.
That's just my perspective.
So I really wanted to talkabout this topic because I live
(02:12):
in a very ultra conservativecommunity.
It might be changing, you know,in the last couple of years,
but I do want to preface that ifyou're listening to this and
you are religious, I love you.
Want to preface that.
If you're listening to this andyou are religious, I love you.
But these are my thoughts andfeelings and they come from my
(02:33):
personal experiences.
So, where I live, I wouldconsider, if you know, red and
blue are the political colors.
It's very red and there areprobably close to 200 churches
for a community of about 140,000people.
So you know there's a littlebit of something for everybody
that wants to be part of thosecommunities.
(02:55):
For me, I grew up if you'velistened to my other podcast
episodes in a very, veryreligious home.
I grew up in the Assemblies ofGod church and then proceeded to
go to a more non-denominationalchurch, but still evangelical
church.
My parents both grew upCatholic my dad being Catholic
(03:19):
from Mexico, so that's reallypart of the culture and then my
mother growing up Catholic.
I will say that both of themconverted and I feel that their
fervency and their own beliefsystems was really not a choice
for my sister and I growing upand for myself, it felt very
(03:44):
forced and it was.
You know we went to Christianprivate school from kindergarten
until 10th grade, over twostates when we moved from
Louisiana to Florida, and youknow everything was about church
going to church on Wednesdays,going to Bible study, going to
Sunday school, go on bothservices on Sunday in the
(04:05):
morning and at night.
You know not really havingaccess to as much as my father
could control.
You know being part of theoutside world, as he would call
it.
You know we would wake up at 5am to do morning devotionals.
You know when we're trying tostay awake right before school
(04:29):
and it was very regimented.
You know my grandmother, sheconverted as well and you know
it was one of these things whereI believe that the culture of
my grandmother and mygrandfather, you know, with
Catholicism just kind oftransferred over into their
version of Christianity.
I will say that the churchprovided a really cool community
(04:51):
for me, especially since, whenwe lived in Louisiana, the
church that we went to was alsothe school that we went to,
feeling a familiarity of growingup with kids that I knew and
you know, being friends withthem and learning, and it really
opened up my eyes to betterunderstand the messages you know
(05:13):
from the Bible.
But I didn't really care that Iwas forced to do it instead of
being given a choice or beingtaught to not interpret the
Bible so literally and to begiven an opportunity to explain
things and to ask questionswithout being told that
(05:36):
everything was a sin.
And so I grew up fearful,extremely afraid in my life and
afraid of constantly dying andthen burning in hell if I didn't
ask God to forgive me or if Ididn't pray to God before I go
to sleep or if I wasn't in thisconstant state of prayer in my
(05:56):
day-to-day life.
And it created a big identitycrisis within me and you can
hear this in my other podcastsin my twenties, and I had a
mental breakdown because of that.
And so I was told when I was 18, that you know.
If I didn't want to go to church, if I didn't want to do any of
(06:16):
that, I didn't have to once Ibecame a legal adult, and so I
was literally counting down thedays where I wasn't being forced
to go to church.
I wasn't being forced to singin the church, I wasn't being
forced to be part of the youthgroup or be part of the
performance group or whatever itwas.
At that time I wanted out,mainly because I just wanted to
(06:38):
be free to think for myself, tofigure out who I was and to make
sense of what my own internalbelief systems were.
It really wasn't until, I wantto say, in my early thirties
because I'm nearing 40 now thatI really started to ask myself
(06:58):
the questions of what are mybeliefs, what is spirituality to
me versus religion, what do Ibelieve, how do I want to live
my life and what are the supportsystems that I have in place to
help me.
And that's where I started toformulate my own perspective and
(07:19):
understanding for myself ofwhat my own spirituality was and
how it differentiates thanreligion.
Now I will say religion iscreated by man.
All religions come fromperspectives of individuals and
their interpretations, and Idon't believe that religion is
inherently horrible, unless thatreligion is to cause harm to
(07:42):
other people, then no, I dobelieve that at the core of most
religious indoctrinations orreligious texts or practices
that there is a basis of loveand of understanding and of
really personal development andconnection.
(08:03):
The issue is when religion getstwisted by people for the use
of fear, control, manipulation,abuse and harm in the name of
religion, and so that's where Idraw the line of no, that's not
for me.
(08:23):
I love world religions.
I actually studied worldreligions a lot in college.
I find a lot of comfort in thepractices and beliefs of
Buddhism.
I find a lot of comfort inother belief systems as well,
and I love the history ofreligions.
I love the practices of certainreligions and what they mean on
(08:45):
a deeper level.
That supports my spirituality.
I don't label myself asChristian, I don't label myself
as Buddhist.
I don't label myself asanything except for I am Naomi.
I know who I am, and for me todiscover what your spirituality
is starts with discovering whoyou are as a person.
(09:07):
Who are you, you know?
Who are you outside of yourfamily, who are you outside of
your job, who are you outside ofyour personal relationships?
Who are you outside of thesociety that tries to tell you
how to be?
At the end of the day, imagineyourself looking at your face in
(09:27):
the mirror and you say who am I?
Could you answer that question?
And if you say I don't know,well, that's the path of
self-discovery and that leads toyour own spirituality.
And spirituality for me, in themost simplistic way, is my
personal, innate belief systemin the relationship of who I am
(09:51):
to my mind, to my body, to myspirit.
That is my personal truth.
That is who I am, what I standfor, my morals, my values and my
beliefs that I have created,regardless of my childhood
conditioning, regardless of myexperiences, regardless of what
(10:13):
society tells me or anythingelse.
That is an externalcircumstance.
I have come to theseconclusions based on my own
personal development, my ownreflection, and I stand in that
truth, and then I findsupportive practices to help me
(10:34):
live by that truth.
Now, that, to me, isspirituality, and everybody's
spirituality is different, and Ibelieve that people have souls,
but other people may notbelieve in souls.
I believe that there is ahigher power that I call creator
, and sometimes I do use theword God, but I don't
(10:56):
necessarily mean it in theJudeo-Christian belief system of
God as a deity or a being.
It's more of an energy, it'smore of a consciousness.
It's a living breathing centeror source that we all come from.
There has to be a master designto everything that we know that
(11:19):
is in our current 3D world andbeyond.
So that's my personal belief,but that's part of my
spirituality, but it's not myidentity.
Who I am is a person of love.
I am a person of kindness, ofcompassion.
I am a person of strongboundaries.
I am a person that will fightfor others that are being
(11:43):
oppressed and that are beingpersecuted.
I am a person that will defendmyself and defend my family and
defend my community.
I am a person that, for me,self-care is doing the hard
shadow work, is doing the innerwork.
I'm a person that will expresstheir emotions.
I'm a person that's notresponsible for other people's
(12:07):
reactions and responses to mypersonal truth.
And I'm a person that willcontinuously check themselves to
ensure that I am living in mymost authentic and genuine self.
And my self will change as Iage, as I go through more things
.
As I do greater self reflection.
As I mature, more.
(12:28):
My spirituality may change, butat the core, today, at almost
38 years old, this is who I am.
This is my spirituality.
Now I have chosen shamanism asmy foremost spiritual practice
to help support my personalspirituality.
(12:50):
I still definitely reflect onthe stories of the Bible.
I still reflect on the messagesthat Christ tried to share and
the underlying message of it allyou know, am I a person that
believes that if you don'taccept Jesus as your personal
Lord and Savior, you're going toburn in hell?
No, I don't believe that.
No, I believe that there are alot of things that have been
(13:14):
interpreted or written that youknow.
The Bible's been translatedprobably close to 16,000 times
from the original text, and it'sall about the deeper
interpretation.
And so for me it's like how doI perceive this?
How does this resonate with me?
And for me, I feel that it'smore of opening your mind and
(13:38):
accepting the greaterconsciousness that we're all
connected, that we should all bereflective of love, and that is
the pure energy source of wherewe come from.
And that's just my personalbelief, and I truly feel that
that's what Christ was saying inthe text, if I were to
interpret it today for myself.
(14:00):
Now, a lot of times I work withindividuals that are like I'm
new to the spirituality thing.
You know, I'm no longer part ofthe church, I'm just trying to
discover who I am and what myfaith is, and you know what is
my spirituality?
And I tell people I'm like well, you have a soul.
If you believe you have a souland you're more than just your
(14:22):
meat suit, you're more than justthis 3D reality.
You're already a spiritualperson.
It's more of rediscovering whoyou are, what you stand for, how
you identify yourself and maybenot using religion as your soul
identity.
I see a lot of people in mycommunity and a lot of people
online and in the world that douse religion, various religions,
(14:45):
as their soul, identity andspirituality, and the issue
within there it just is veryrestrictive.
It's when it starts to becomeconvoluted, where people don't
know they may not have theskillset or they may not feel
they have the permission toactually think about how does
(15:07):
this resonate with me?
How do I apply, how do Iinterpret it?
They take it so literal thatthey close themselves off to the
possibility of otherinterpretations or other
meanings, and yet they followsomeone, a teacher, a guide,
whom they put their trust in totell them.
(15:27):
So that's where it, for me,gets very dangerous, because
that's when what I call the herdmentality comes, where they are
flocking to this quote, unquoteshepherd and this shepherd may
be intentionally leading peopledown a path of.
(15:47):
This is literal truth.
There is no other variation,and to possibly think otherwise
is wrong, a sin or will lead todamnation.
That, to me, is extremelyharmful.
I don't believe that Christ, inthe biblical sense, came here to
(16:08):
do any of that, and you canread it.
If you're going to interpretthe Bible, you're going to read
that Christ didn't come tocondemn people.
Oh, if you're going tointerpret the Bible, you're
going to read that Christ didn'tcome to condemn people.
Christ was among all kinds ofpeople and welcomed people with
open arms from all differentbackgrounds and experiences, and
so that is what I try to embodyto be open to all people.
(16:31):
Now, if your spirituality is afear of hate, of harm towards
other people, I can't changethat about you.
But if your practices are, youknow I come from this place of
fear and I want to cause harm,and that supports that.
There's a problem there andyou're going to have to face the
(16:56):
repercussions you know by theauthority that will catch you.
You know I hate that theremight be harm that happens to
other people until that personis caught.
But that is the reality whenyou think about it.
And I don't believe that peopleare born inherently evil.
I think all of us are puresouls, believe that people are
(17:18):
born inherently evil.
I think all of us are puresouls.
It's just we are conditionedfrom our experiences since
childhood to fear, to have maybea false understanding of what
is morally okay and what ismorally wrong sometimes, and
that has to do with culture andthat has to do with culture and
that has to do with twistedreligion and that has to do with
(17:39):
trauma and grief andgenerational woundings that
happen as well.
Everybody's experience is goingto be different, but if we can
all be awake to go withinourselves at some point and stop
and pause and say I don't haveto be these things, even if
(18:00):
these things happened in my life, I don't have to go along with
that, when you come to thatrealization, that is the first
step in awakening and saying toyourself I need to know who I am
despite all of this.
The rest of that journey ishard I'm not going to lie and
(18:22):
it's lifelong, and you have tobe consciously committed to
doing that work every single day.
So that, to me, is thedifference between spirituality
and religion.
I have no issues with religion.
I have many clients that arevery religious that come to me
for energy work as well.
Why?
Because they can see thatenergy is our life force, is the
(18:47):
emotional and mental body.
We create energy.
If you're listening to me, youcreate energy.
Your heart is alive, your brainis functioning, your body is
functioning.
You're creating energy.
You have mitochondria in yourcells that utilize energy for
your body to function.
Your emotions create energy.
You can sense when there'sdanger.
(19:09):
You can sense when something isgood.
You can you know wheneveryou're feeling things based on
the physical reactions thatemotions are having in your body
.
That creates a sense of energy.
It sends signals to the brainto react in certain ways, and so
energy work is really justworking on recalibrating these
(19:31):
signals and the responses in thebody and regulating the nervous
system from a scientificstandpoint.
You know, shamanism is just thepractice that I choose, which is
a variety of different culturesthat I've been exposed to and
continue to be exposed to, ofdifferent practices of
mindfulness to balance the mind,to go within, to be safe, to
(19:56):
access the heart space, to askourselves who am I, what is home
to me, what do I stand on, whatis my truth and how do I live
that and how do I support myselfin my day-to-day walk with that
?
That's spirituality.
So when I say you know, andpeople ask me, oh, are you
(20:18):
Christian, are you religious?
And I say no, I don't labelmyself as such, I'm just a
spiritual person.
That's because I believe thatfor myself.
I try to live my life everysingle day in conscious
awareness of my own personaltruth, with every situation and
with every single person that Imeet and interact with, even
(20:41):
when I'm not working.
Who am I on a day-to-day basis?
What's my inner dialogue like?
What am I saying to myself?
What am I saying to otherpeople?
What are my thoughts thatbecome actions?
Saying Is it an alignment withmy own truth?
That, to me, is spirituality aswell.
(21:03):
So I just wanted to share thatso that if you find this and
you're trying to understand,especially if you're here in the
US, you know what is happening.
Or if you're trying tounderstand, especially if you're
here in the US, you know whatis happening.
Or if you're experiencingdisagreements and discord among
people that are religious andmaybe you are not and it's
(21:25):
becoming an issue for you, maybeuse this podcast and maybe use
just my perspective and my storyas a way to relate and I hope
that you can relate to someaspects of it so that you can
better navigate that world foryourself.
If you're like, how can Iexpress myself to my loved one
(21:46):
or to my friend who'squestioning who is asking?
Because questions are good.
Questions hopefully open up thetable for healthy dialogue and
discussion.
But yeah, this came across myInstagram in a message today and
it's just been coming up a lotin my awareness of spirituality
(22:09):
and religion and hurting oneanother in the sake of religion
or in the sake of your personalbelief system and understanding
that religion is there tosupport you.
At the end of the day, you'rethe one that has to face
yourself.
Face yourself, not what youbelieve, not the church, not the
(22:43):
minister, not the deacons.
It's you.
So, if you're standing thequote-unquote judgment, how did
you live your life?
How did you choose to live yourlife?
How did you choose to live yourlife?
How did you choose to love oneanother?
How did you choose to showkindness and compassion.
That's all of our purposes andservice and our mission here.
(23:04):
That, I believe, is part of thehuman existence.
How we serve and love and showkindness and compassion is
unique to all of us.
But if we're serving from aplace of fear, that can become
hate, that can become darkness,that that becomes evil.
What are we doing then?
(23:26):
Religion then no longer servesus.
It becomes a weapon, a weaponfor hate, and that's not what
it's about.
It's never been about that.
We've just kind of lost our wayin the melee of the world and
the atrocities of the world andare trying to find some external
(23:51):
validations instead of goinginternally within ourselves and
facing our own shadows and ourown darkness, and that's the
honest truth, in my opinion.
So just a perspective for youall that I just wanted to share.
But if you find this, know thatyou are a beautiful person,
(24:13):
you're a beautiful soul.
There is a plan and purposehere for you, and maybe this
episode will inspire you to askthose deeper questions.
If you're questioning, askyourself who you are.
I do a beautiful meditationbased on Toltec beliefs and
practices, called the Artist,the masterpiece of your life.
(24:36):
Imagine yourself standing infront of a canvas an empty
canvas, and you have everysingle paint color and brush
available to you on a table andyou're being asked to paint a
masterpiece of how you view yourlife.
Yet the masterpiece can changeand you can always add in or
(24:56):
delete or completely start over.
It's ever evolving.
Can you pick up the brush anddip it into the first color and
just paint, just from the heart?
What would your masterpiecelook like?
Do you know who you are?
Do you know why you're here?
(25:18):
Do you know what your purposeis and how you're going to
fulfill it?
Ask yourself those fourquestions, and that's your
spirituality.
You are a beautiful soul.
Thank you so much for listeningand share this podcast with
someone if it really resonateswith you, until we meet again.
(25:40):
Be well, friend sat nam, andI'll see you soon.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.