Sandra Ingerman On Breaking Free From Illusion, Reclaiming Joy, and Shamanic Soul Healing

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Sandra Ingerman, world-renowned shamanic teacher and author, joins us for a powerful conversation about how to break free from illusion, heal soul fragmentation, and walk through darkness to reclaim joy. Drawing on over 40 years of shamanic practice, Sandra shares how the cycles of suffering we face today are echoes of the past—and how reclaiming our soul energy is the key to breaking those patterns.

In a world where our energy is scattered across hundreds of expectations, roles, platforms, and global crises, Sandra offers grounded practices for calling our Soul home, reconnecting with our true self, and rediscovering joy. She reframes darkness not as something to fear, but as a sacred initiation that reveals our deepest spiritual strength.

If you're navigating spiritual burnout, emotional overwhelm, or simply longing to feel whole again, this episode will reconnect you to what matters most—and remind you that you have the power to shift your reality.

Along the way, we discuss:

• The illusion of life and how to break free
• How collective struggles are repeating historical patterns
• Life as a cosmic play: masks, roles, and lessons
• How to break free from limiting identities and stories
• A dream that transformed Sandra’s view of suffering
• The energetic cost of absorbing global suffering through media
• Practices for calling your energy and soul parts back home
• Why following your unique path supports collective healing
• Darkness as a necessary spiritual initiation—not something to fear
• Grounded practices for restoring personal wholeness
• If clairvoyance is necessary for shamanic or spiritual work
• A powerful tool to instantly connect with your intuition
• And so much more!

..........

Connect with Sandra:

Website: https://www.sandraingerman.com/

Walking Through Darkness: https://a.co/d/d47kRlH

Polishing the Path of the Soul: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6WZNDR5?ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_9BBT3ZJS20EANW67VWW3_1&bestFormat=true

Shaman's Cave Podcast: https://shamanstv.com/

Moon Rising Shamanic Institute Links:
Website: https://moonrisinginstitute.com/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/moonrisinginstitute
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/moonrisingmystics
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moonrising.institute
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@moonrisinginstitute
Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://moonrisinginstitute.kit.com/spiritguide

Book a session with Isabel: https://calendly.com/into-the-deep/schedule

Book a FREE 15 minute connect call with Izzy: https://calendly.com/moonrisinginstitute/connect

Book a session with Christine: https://calendly.com/christinerenee/90-minutes-intensive

Book a FREE 10 minute connect call with Christine: https://calendly.com/christinerenee/10-minute-connect-call-srpt

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
It's time to remember your divine purpose and
limitless potential.
Welcome to Wisdom Rising, theofficial podcast of Moon Rising
Shamanic Institute.
Join shamanic Reikipractitioners Christine René,
isabel Wells and Chantelle Ochoaas we guide you on a journey of
radical self-discovery andspiritual guidance.

(00:26):
Each week, we'll dance throughthe realms of shamanism,
mysticism, energy, healing andpersonal development to
illuminate your path to truehealing and self-sourced wisdom
Through weekly inspiredconversations and interviews
with leading spiritual andshamanic practitioners.
We are here to help youacknowledge, reconcile and

(00:49):
balance your energy so that youcan awaken to the whispers of
wisdom rising from within.
Hello, hello and welcome backto this very special episode of
the Wisdom Rising podcast.
This interview has been over ayear in the making and we are

(01:13):
incredibly honored and excitedto welcome Sandra Ingerman to
the show today.
In today's episode, we talkabout how we are looping history
and how to understand thateverything here is an illusion,
so that we can step out of theillusion to create a beautiful
life.
We also talk about walking theshamanic path to find joy,
understanding that living lifehere on this earth is the same

(01:35):
as taking part in the play oflife and choosing the role that
you wish to play.
We'll talk about fragmentingourselves, and how our current
culture, and especially ourmedia, calls us to separate
ourselves into so many differentdimensions of life, and the
importance of calling all of usback home.
We talk about how we can dothis and why it means that we'll

(01:57):
then be able to live abeautiful life, the importance
of community letting go of fear,and Sandra's personal shamanic
journey experience that allowedher to see every aspect of life
as a new adventure.
At the end, we also do a quickfire round with some questions
that she's never been askedbefore.
We also touch on herperspective of journeying and

(02:20):
why, if you don't see anythingwhen you're meditating or
journeying, it doesn't meanyou're doing it wrong.
So if you've been askingyourself that question, be sure
to listen to the very end tohear Sandra's very insightful
and thought-provoking answer.
Sandra is widely recognized andcredited as being one of the
most influential people to keepshamanism alive in our modern

(02:40):
Western culture and isrecognized for bridging ancient
cross-cultural healing methodswith today's modern culture.
She's taught for over 40 years,including workshops worldwide
on shamanic journeying, healingand reversing environmental
pollution using spiritualmethods.
Sandra is also a licensedmarriage and family therapist, a

(03:02):
professional mental healthcounselor and a board-certified
expert on traumatic stress.
Watkins' Body Mind Spiritmagazine honored her by
including her in their 100 mostspiritually influential people
of 2020, and she was also chosenas one of the top 10 spiritual
leaders of 2013 by Spiritualityand Health magazine.
She was also awarded the 2007Peace Award from the Global

(03:25):
Foundation for IntegrativeMedicine.
She's authored 13 books,including her most recent books
Walking Through Darkness and heraudio book Polishing the Path
of the Soul.
We're diving deep into thetopics covered in both of these
books in today's interview.
It was truly an honor to get tospeak to Sandra in this
conversation and an honor towitness her wisdom.

(03:46):
I hope that you enjoy today'sepisode as much as I do and, of
course, this is an invitation toget her books for yourself so
you can dive even deeper intothe topics we discussed today.
The links for her book WalkingThrough Darkness and her
audiobook Polishing the Path ofthe Soul, as well as links to
her website, are in the shownotes below, and, of course, we

(04:06):
would love to hear your toptakeaways from today's episode
over in our Moon Rising ShamanicMystics Facebook group.
You can join by clicking thelink in the show notes, and
don't forget to subscribe to thepodcast so that you can get
access to new episodes sooner,and share this episode with
someone who needs to hear it, sowe can spread this net of light
and healing across the entireglobe.
With all of that said, let's goto the show.

(04:28):
Hello, hello, and welcome backto another episode of the Wisdom
Rising podcast.
It is my great honor and joytoday to be joined with Sandra
Ingerman.
Sandra, thank you so much forcoming on the show today.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, it's a real delight, Isabel.
I'm really excited about beingwith you today.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Beautiful.
Well, obviously you need nointroduction to our audience.
I know they are so thrilledthat they get to hear from you
today, but I would love to juststart, as I do with most of our
podcast guests, with hearingfrom you your perspective on
your journey.
I know that's a big question,but maybe what the broad strokes
are of how you got to where youare and maybe, even more

(05:10):
importantly, what's reallysparking your love and energy
these days.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, so I'm 72 to write an autobiography of my
life and I actually can't dothat because I've lived like 10
lives.
In this one life I came in as areal spiritual being, really in

(05:38):
love with nature, singing tothe trees, singing to the stars,
singing to the moon.
I was a bookkeeper, I lived inthe Haight-Ashbury, I did the
whole hippie thing.
So many different jobs, so manyprofessions, a firefighter, all
of this.
It's like I really took theopportunity in this lifetime to

(06:02):
just explore so many differentroles that you can play in life.
And so my life has been reallycomplex on a lot of levels so
it's hard to really break itdown.
But I really did come in as aspiritual being.
I did have all the abuse thatso many people have in life and,

(06:26):
you know, grew up in a culturewhere there was right and wrong
and you know, stick to society'srules and don't shine too
bright and don't be too creativeand keep your head down and
things will be good.
But I wasn't born with thatsoul, I wasn't born with that

(06:49):
spirit.
So I never let society put medown and I always just went for
it and at the same time as I wasloving life and loving nature
and sang to nature and had allthese spiritual downloads as a

(07:12):
child, and I got hit bylightning as a child too, and so
, from a shamanic point of view,that was my initiation into
shamanism, which I had no eldersat the time to tell me this.
So I'm seeing now what I'vemissed from actually not having

(07:33):
elders who helped me understandthe initiation that lightning
was bringing into my life.
But at some point I just waslooking at how miserable people
were and I felt like everybodywas getting life wrong, because

(07:56):
as a kid I was just seeingflowers and colors and beauty
and so much suffering on thehuman realm.
And so I remember sitting onthe couch of my house one day
and saying everybody's got thiswrong and I'm going to spend my
life helping people find joy andhelping people find what life

(08:22):
is really about and how we cancreate the life that we want.
The very first paper I everwrote in high school was on
manifestation how we canmanifest anything that was in
high school.
So I always had this spiritualdrive and at the same time, when

(08:43):
I reached puberty, I hit a realplace of depression and when I
looked at it as a teenager Ireally saw how much of the
world's issues, how muchsuffering I had taken on into my
own self and that had caused meto become extremely depressed

(09:06):
and suicidal.
And that energy stayed with me,even though I was very aware of
the cause and I knew I'm apsychotherapist and I have three
licenses.
But I knew that psychotherapywasn't my answer.
I knew this was a spiritualissue.
So as a teenager I just reallywell, for one thing, I grew up

(09:30):
in the 60s so I really dove intopsychedelics and drugs.
But I really dove into esotericliterature to try and get an
understanding and I got so muchdeep wisdom and understanding
from that.
But I didn't have a path, Ididn't have a practice and in

(09:52):
1980, the universe kind ofpicked me up, put me down in a
place of.
I was in a graduate school formy master's in counseling
psychology and an anthropologistcame out to teach a workshop.
I heard I could get two easyunits if I signed up for it and

(10:16):
I was working 60 hours a week toput myself through school.
So two easy units sounded greatfor me and it was a workshop on
shamanic journeying and that wasHalloween of 1980.
I met my helping spirit, whatwe call in shamanism a helping

(10:37):
spirit, and that helping spiritstarted answering all the
questions that I had in life,and that was 44 years ago, and
I've been journeying every daysince I found my path and so
teaching, learning, healing frommy spirits and how to help

(10:59):
people heal and in the tarot,I'm the archetype of the teacher
heal and in the tarot I'm thearchetype of the teacher and it
really was my destiny and I justlove to teach people the power
of direct revelation, which iswhat shamanism is about how to
stop giving our power away toothers and how we have the

(11:23):
ability to be able to get allthe wisdom, the guidance from
the divine that we need withoutany intermediaries.
That's direct revelation, andto have that, you know, as
something a personal practicethat I can do and everybody can
do is just such a blessing,especially for the times that

(11:47):
we're living in right now.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Beautiful and I'm curious.
This might be a bit of a broadquestion as well, but you spoke
at the beginning about how youwere seeing all of this
suffering in the world andfeeling like people were getting
life wrong, and that it wasyour journey to bring more joy
back in.
Looking back now, what wouldyou say is the biggest shift

(12:13):
that you're working to?

Speaker 2 (12:14):
invite into people so that they can find that joy.
The biggest shift is in everyspiritual tradition, in every
esoteric book on the planet, itis taught that life is an
illusion, that we come here totake a role.
We put on a costume the bodythat we took and we take a

(12:39):
particular role in life, andit's a play of life.
And so when I really got that,not just intellectually, but
when it really filtered down andwas absorbed into all the cells
of my body, I got that as areal truth that we're just here

(13:01):
to learn and so we take on theseroles in order to learn certain
lessons.
And so when I realized thatit's like, well, yes, we get a
tremendous amount of lessonsfrom pain and suffering, but
we're also here, in a play oflife, to realize that we can

(13:23):
change roles and costumes.
So, as an example of this, I hadthis unbelievable nightmare
once.
It was unbelievable, it was solong ago and it was bloody and
it was violent.
It was like back in Roman timeswhere everybody had their

(13:43):
swords out and they were cuttingpeople up and it was just chaos
.
It was this gigantic war ofblood limbs everywhere.
That's not my thing.
So then the dream changed.
And all of a sudden I'm sittingin an audience and there's a

(14:03):
stage and the main warrior he'sdressed, he's still dressed in
his costume, he has blood allover him and he's standing up
and we're all asking him whatwas that like for you to play
that role?
And it was such an amazingmessage in the stream of

(14:25):
realizing that we put ondifferent costumes, we put on
different roles, but we'relearning something as we go.
And so when do we get to thepoint where we realize that we
can move forward out of thatrole, we can take off that
costume, move forward out ofthat role.

(14:48):
We can take off that costume.
We got what we needed to fromthat costume.
Or we realize the costume rolethat we're playing is
destructive in our life and it'sour choice to take on a new
role.
And what would that be for youand what would that costume be
for you?
And that's a real turning pointin my work of really just

(15:11):
seeing where here I've alwaysbeen writing and talking about
how we're in earth school.
But we took on a body, we playthese roles and but underneath

(15:35):
all of that, we're just theseshining lights of spirit,
learning here about the middleworld, about living on earth.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
And I'm curious in in both of your recent books
you've written many, but in bothof your recent books Walking
Through Darkness, that youco-authored with Lynn Roberts,
and your audiobook Polishing thePath of the Soul they both
focus on that idea of sufferingand, in this framework, of the
roles that we play.
How much of the suffering thatwe're seeing both in individual

(16:08):
lives but also in the worldright now do you think is
connected with holding on toroles that we could release or
move on from?

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Well, because of the age I am and also knowledge of
spiritual history, we're justlooping.
I mean we're looping, so it'sreally easy to see that we're
still in the same play.
So, for example, we know fromarchaeological evidence that

(16:40):
there was nuclear war on theplanet before.
We know that we already didthat one I grew up.
When I grew up, we had air raiddrills.
We had to get under the deskand we had to sit in the hallway

(17:02):
and I came home and my fatherwould show me brochures of the
bomb shelter he was going to buyto protect our family.
If you look at a lot of theissues that we're dealing with,
we're just simply looping.
We know about all thecivilizations that went extinct

(17:24):
due to greed, power over andruining the environment.
So many civilizations wentextinct already.
How many times do we have to dothis?
So we're just doing the samething all over again.
We're just looping the samething all over again.

(17:53):
We're just looping.
So if we're looping.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
When do we make the choice inside of ourselves to
stop the loop?
And do you feel?

Speaker 2 (18:03):
like we are destined to continue looping or do we
have the chance to stop the loopand start a new path?
Well, we definitely.
We have the power.
I try to explain to people thatsource is above.
There is a creative force ofthe universe.
You don't have to be religious,but in shamanism it is believed
there's all different creationstories, very different from the

(18:24):
Bible that there was a source,a loving source of creation that
created the world, and so weare a seed of that because we
were born from that source.
So we are a seed of source.
So we have that inside of us,but we're choosing to let our

(18:49):
egos run away and run amok aboutall the things we're supposed
to be and all the things we'resupposed to do and how society
will accept us or not accept usbased on our behavior.
But if we really honor that,we're a seed of source.
We have the ability to create adifferent life for ourselves

(19:15):
and we have a different abilityto create a different life for
the planet.
But part of the issue is peoplenumber one have to step out of
ego and recognize that they'reletting ego run the show, which
ego just helps us move throughtime and space.

(19:35):
It knows how to put the foot onthe brake in the car.
It knows how to put our foot onthe gas.
Spirit doesn't know how to dothat.
Our foot on the gas, spiritdoesn't know how to do that.
And so our ego is really hereto help us live here, but we
gave it so much power that it'srunning amok.

(19:55):
So the challenge is how manypeople are going to wake up to
the fact that they are spiritand they are a seed of source,
and that money, more things,more power doesn't create joy
and happiness, but connectingwith nature as um, as alive, and

(20:19):
we're part of it and we arenature, and that we do have the
ability to create the life wewant.
We do have the ability tocreate the life we want.
We do have the ability to stepin the dimension of reality that
we want to live in.
How many people are willing todo that?
I don't know how many peopleare willing to do that.

(20:41):
I do know that there'sthousands of spiritual
practitioners who are willing todo it and who are waking up to
different possibilities andopportunities that we have.
So how I describe this is wecould either see ourselves on a

(21:02):
ship that's sinking which it is,but we have the choice to get
off the ship and swim, and Idon't know how many people are
just willing to go down with theship.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
I'm curious do you have, or have your guides helped
you see a vision for what itmight look like if the masses
decided to start swimming?

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Well, I think the masses.
What the masses are doing isthey're all creating their
different dimensions, they'reall creating different bubbles
of dimensions.
And so, just to give an example, my husband was telling me and
I was just floored by this, myhusband was telling me and I was

(21:50):
just floored by this there's amovement to go back into old,
traditional life, and so there'sa whole population called
traditional wives, and you know,it's living the old way of
staying home, raising yourchildren, taking care of your
family.
And so my husband read anarticle about how the

(22:14):
traditional wives have takenaliases and they've started
groups where they're talking toeach other about how they gave
up everything, they gave uptheir money, they gave up their
freedom.
They're stuck and just tryingto get help from each other.

(22:37):
I was not aware of thisdimension of reality.
I mean, it's so far from myconsciousness.
When my husband told me this, Iwas like, wow, that's a whole
bubble, that's an entire bubblethat I don't live in and I don't
know about.
So that's just an example I'mtrying to bring up.
How many different bubbles dowe have in this collective where

(23:03):
we actually have no idea what'sgoing on?
And so, instead of trying toget into everybody's bubble and
either try to heal it or try tobring in help where help hasn't
been asked for.

(23:23):
What about learning about thebubble that you want to live in?
You know we have groups ofpeople who didn't just give up
but are living in their smallcommunities.
They're all helping each otherbuild, they're all helping each

(23:44):
other garden, they're allhelping each other feed
themselves in this challengingtime, and so we have examples
where people have stepped into abeautiful reality, where they
are one with nature and they'reliving in community, helping
each other.
So all these differentsituations are in our world at

(24:12):
the same time and we pandemic.
Everybody is how do we get backinto community again?

(24:32):
I want to be back in a healthycommunity again where we're
journeying together, where we'rehelping each other, where we're
supporting each other, and sothat's a whole different
dimension of reality than a lotof the collectivists living in.
But we're doing it.
We're doing it so it's possible.

(24:54):
If one group can do it, it'spossible for everyone.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Yeah, that need for community, I think, is so
inherent to who we are as humanbeings, and one of the things
that I see a lot happening rightnow not just in the spiritual
community but, as we said, inthe masses is that kind of
emptiness that we feel that lackof connection.
We end up trying to fill itwith the news or politics or

(25:22):
being aware of as many of thosebubbles as we can be at one time
.
Are you seeing that and whatkind of impact are you seeing
that have on us as humans andsouls?

Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, I think it's making us sick on every single
level.
And so, you know, people whoare interested in shamanism are
empaths.
They're empaths and we have atremendous amount of compassion.
And on the negative side ofthat, we want to save everybody.

(25:57):
You know, we just want to saveeverybody going into countries
who are dealing with all kindsof challenges right now, but we
don't know the ancestors of theland there, we don't know the
karma of what those people aregoing through, we don't know the

(26:19):
destiny.
And so what I see is happeningright now is people go to places
on the planet where people arestarving, are going to places on
the planet where and I meanconsciousness-wise not actually
traveling there where people arein prison, where people are

(26:42):
getting deported, where peopleare getting hurt on some
particular level.
And so what's happening iswe're actually splitting
ourselves into too manydifferent dimensions, so we're
not inhabiting our body fully.
We split our soul into oh, I'vegot to help here, I've got to

(27:02):
help here.
Oh, I've got to see what'shappening here.
Oh, I have to journey on this.
And all of a sudden we're nothome inside of ourselves.
And if we're not home inside ofourselves, we start to get
depressed, we start to getphysically ill, we start to feel

(27:23):
confused, we don't know what'sgoing on, and so we start to
look to other sources forinformation, like the news A lot
of people are going to AI rightnow to get comfort and to get
understanding.

(27:44):
So I feel that it's reallyinappropriate for us to be split
into all these places and it'stime for all of us to call
ourselves back home, andeverybody.
If you know how to do that, ifyou know how to journey and work
with helping spirits, you canjourney on that.

(28:05):
Or you can simply do ameditation where you put on some
really nice spiritual music andyou go inside yourself and see
all the places they sentthemselves to in the past and

(28:31):
are starting to call themselvesback home again.
Their faces are changing, sotheir families can see the
change.
The light in their eyes arechanging and they're getting
that reflection back from theirfamilies.
What are you doing?
You look different, you lookbrighter, you look happier.

(28:54):
It just involves coming backhome again.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
It's that modern take on soul retrieval in a way that
need to continuously callourselves back, especially in
today's day and age where we areso split.
And I'm curious because we havea lot of students and community
members and I think this is,like you said, kind of inherent
to being an empath where theyfeel like it's selfish or they

(29:21):
feel guilty for callingthemselves back and not being in
every dimension.
Can you speak to that?

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I can get so lost insuffering and I have a brain
disorder, which is why we're onaudio and many, many stresses
created it.
But some of those stresses werehow I split so much into.

(29:51):
I used to be on Twitter when Iwas promoting one of my older
books, so we're going back yearsand there was a woman who was
always posting about animalcruelty and she said if you're
not willing to watch thesevideos, you're being selfish.

(30:12):
And so I watched all thesevideos of animals being raised
and tortured and all this stuffgoing on in the planet and I got
really really sick, reallyreally sick and the split that

(30:53):
we keep doing and how we keep.
There's a difference betweenhaving compassion and there's a
difference between taking on allthat pain, and that's something
people in the spiritualcommunity needs to understand
the difference.
So I work with as a helpingspirit, I work with the Egyptian
goddess Isis, and when I waswriting my book Medicine for the
Earth back in the 1990s, shesaid to me of the Earth.
Back in the 1990s she said tome you know this community and

(31:15):
you everything that you're partof.
We really can't work with you.
You're so empathetic, you'retaking on so much stuff.
How are we supposed to workthrough you to bring healing to
the planet when you're so filledwith suffering that doesn't
belong to you?
So she was saying, because ashaman is a hollow bone.
A shaman brings through thepower of the helping spirits,

(31:40):
but if you're so filled withsuffering, how do you actually
bring through that power of thehelping spirits?
And so fast forward to today,where so many of us I've taught
so many people how to work withthe power of light?
And how do we let light shinethrough us when we're filled

(32:02):
with so much suffering?

(32:26):
And so the selfish part ofclosing our eyes to what is
happening, to take care of achild who isn't being given food
that's not my karma, that's notmy destiny.
So when I get lost in thatplace, I'm losing my own destiny
.
I'm losing why I came here,what my soul came here for.

(32:51):
So I think it's the egoic partof ourselves that gets into
selfishness.
The spiritual part of ourselvesis more neutral Understanding.
Like for myself, it's not aboutI'm in pain or what's happening
to me.
It's more about understanding.

(33:13):
I'm a divine being who'slearning a particular lesson
right now and stay focused onthat and grow and evolve so that
I can come to a different placein my life.
When we start getting involvedbecause we feel guilty, we lose

(33:36):
our own path in life.
We're not following our destinyanymore.
We put ourselves in somebodyelse's destiny.
I don't know if that makessense.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
It does make sense and I have to say thank you for
that answer.
It was really beautifully saidand illuminated some things.
For myself as well.
It's interesting because Ioften tell my students that a
lot of times humility is kind ofthe antidote for those
anxieties about what if it'sselfish or what if I'm being a
terrible person for letting thisthing go.
But having that humility to,like you were saying, be able to

(34:13):
say that story, that dimension,that bubble isn't mine, it's
not my karma, I'm just here todo my path to walk my destiny is
so powerful.
But I also think that egoicpart of ourselves can also then
get caught up on the other sideof things in feeling like
there's this one specific thingthat we are meant to do in this

(34:34):
lifetime, this one thing thatwe're meant to be, and then we
get caught up in that.
Can you speak to that side?

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Yeah, I think you know life is a winding path and
you know, if you take a hike innature, you spend a lot of time
in nature everything is alwayschanging.
You know nature's alwayschanging.
Nature's always in perfectorder, but it's always changing.

(35:02):
Even when it's in chaos, it'sin perfect order.
There's an order to the chaosthat's happening.
And so I think to feel thatwe're in one role for all of our
life is a little limiting,because who wants to have one

(35:25):
role for their whole, entirelife?
So, besides practicingshamanism for over 40 years or
for my whole life, I alsostudied the tarot.
And when I studied the tarotand I worked with my teacher,

(35:45):
she has a particular way ofworking with numerology so that
you can see what year you're in,but you can also see your whole
life path, and so when I was inschool, I had to do a paper on
my life path and I saw that mydestiny as a teacher ends at a

(36:08):
particular time and I said toher is that when I'm going to
die?
And she said well, think aboutGrandma Moses.
And she started painting whenshe was in her 90s, or something
like that.
And so we take on a particularrole and a particular passion.

(36:30):
But we also change as we gothrough life.
We age, we move into differentcycles of life where it's
actually no longer healthy forus to keep living out that same
destiny because we're in adifferent cycle of life.
And so you might feel like, oh,I want to be out there and I

(36:55):
want to help as many people aspossible, but then you're
naturally going to enter into acycle that draws you more within
to be more self-reflective,more within, to be more
self-reflective, to spend moretime in nature, to not be around
so many humans and not help somuch.

(37:15):
So if you look at the earth,we're always changing cycles.
We're always changing cycles.
So we can't expect that we'rejust going to have this one
destiny.
We can't expect that we're justgoing to have this one destiny.
I know people who try to do itand I don't know how well it
works out for them, but I lovethe excitement of life changing

(37:40):
so much as I've shared.
I've just had so manyprofessions in this lifetime and
so many adventures in thislifetime.
I can't imagine giving that upfor just one role in life.
There's just too much toexplore in the adventure.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
I wish that more people and I suppose that's the
intention behind your work andmy work and this conversation is
I wish that more people couldfeel that excitement of the
buffet of opportunities that wehave in this lifetime.
I like to call it the raptureof being alive, that experience
of just living.

(38:23):
And do you see that people areable to embody that more easily
once they start calling thosepieces of themselves back home?

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Yeah, yeah, that's one of the things I'm seeing.
I'm seeing this incredibleexcitement in people who are
calling themselves back homeright now and exploring all the
different things that theyhaven't done in their lives,
that they're really lookingforward to finally doing, and

(38:51):
knowing that that's going tochange over time too.
That, um um, time is a livingbeing.
Time is a helping spirit.
Time is not linear, it's amalleable, it's always changing
too, and it's actually, inshamanism, it's a sentient being

(39:13):
that changes.
That is a helping spirit for us, and past and present future
are all happening at the sametime, and so when you actually
step into that reality, yourealize that there isn't that
much to fear.
There actually isn't that muchto fear.

(39:36):
It's like open yourself to anew adventure and realize how
much spiritual help and how muchspiritual support that you have
.
You have it from the earth.
You have it from source.
You have it from the earth.
You have it from source.
You have it from the sun.
You have it from the moon, thegalaxies, the nebula, the
universe, time, space.

(39:57):
There's so many helping beingsout there, and so if we could
start feeling a deeperconnection, so, again, maybe
putting on some music or doing ashamanic journey where you're
not dissociating, you're notsending a part of yourself,

(40:20):
you're doing the opposite.
It's where you experienceinside of yourself a deep
connection to the heartbeat ofthe earth.
And you know the earth, whichis billions of years old, is
feeding you and holding you inlove and you allow your body to

(40:40):
connect to that.
And you allow your body toconnect to the connection to the
sun, which gives us all thelife we need to thrive, and we
allow ourselves to connect tothe power of the wind the wind
is actually the very firstliving being that ever appeared

(41:01):
on earth and to connect to thatpower and to feel it as an ally
for you and to the primal seawhere you were born from, to
connect to that power and thento allow yourself, when you feel
ready, to stay connected toyour helping spirits and to

(41:25):
source and then allow thatconnection to move to the moon
and the stars and the galaxiesand the shamanic ancestors and
the helping ancestors of theland.
So if you start to feel areally strong connection, like

(41:46):
you would have with yourfavorite plant or your favorite
person, where you don't give apart of yourself away but you
feel this energetic connectionbetween the two of you.
If you allow yourself to startto fill up with the power of
those connections, with thepower of those connections,

(42:08):
think of the force and thestrength non-egoic, not power
over power with the force ofnature, which is power, with
that power just in all of yourveins, pumping through your

(42:30):
blood, all of a sudden you canstep more into the adventure
because you know you're beingheld.
I think that people won't stepinto the adventure because they
don't feel held enough and theydon't feel supported enough.
And I understand that.
We've all been through that andwe all cycle through that.

(42:50):
When we're going throughchallenging times, I have no
support, nobody through yourveins, because those forces are
in you and they're outside ofyou.

(43:14):
And so how can you fail?
I mean, how can you fail?
What's the worst thing that'sgoing to happen to you?
Isis used to.
She came to me once.
My spirits don't do this asmuch as they used to, but they
used to come to me and just giveme surprising messages.

(43:35):
And Isis came to me once andshe said to me you know what
your problem is?
And I said no, what?
And she said you just don't seelife as an adventure.
So I started giving her myworst case scenarios.
And I grew up in Brooklyn, newYork, and again, you know I'm

(43:59):
more of an elder at this pointand back when I was growing up,
a fear in New York that peoplewould plant inside of you was
that you were going to become abag lady.
So it's just a common thing thata lot of women who grew up in
New York that seed got plantedwithin us and so I said to Isis,

(44:21):
what if I end up as a bag ladyin New York?
And she looked at me and shelooked away and she looked back
at me again and she said what anincredible adventure that would
be, what an incredibleadventure that would be.
And so spirits come here forthe adventure, they come here

(44:46):
for the adventure, we takebodies for the adventure, and so
the fear ends up in prison andkeeps us in prison and so we
never feel freedom.
And so the fear stops us fromhaving full joy, full bliss,

(45:06):
full adventure, full gettingourselves in and out of trouble
and going.
Oh my God, what an adventurethat was.
But I had the power and thestrength and I had the support
of the universe to experienceand then get out of and walk out
of it when it was time was time.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
I love that story.
I love how upfront our guidescan be sometimes.
It's funny, though, becausethat idea of the fear that we
get stuck in, I think, also thenstarts breeding the fear of it,
but also the judgment itself of, like you were saying, being a
bad lady and why that would besuch a terrible thing and what

(45:49):
that would mean about you.
But when we go into the spiritrealm, those judgments don't
really exist the way that theydo to our egos and that idea of
taking life as an adventure.
It's not that it's negating thesuffering, because I can hear
some of the listeners saying,well, but that's not going to
change the fact that maybe I'llexperience grief or loss or a

(46:11):
difficult situation, but it canchange the way that you look at
them.
I know in your books you referto a lot of suffering as a rite
of passage, that kind ofinitiation of the next phase.
Can you speak on that a littlebit?

Speaker 2 (46:27):
Yeah, for me, the power of walking through the
darkness.
And Lynn and I wrote WalkingThrough Darkness, I think even
before the pandemic, and so wedidn't even know that people
were really going to need this,and I recorded Polishing the

(46:50):
Path of the Soul, again before alot of issues were actually
coming up.
There's such power in walkingthrough the darkness.
The darkness is such a place ofgrowth.
It's not a scary place at all.
It's not a scary place at all.
And in shamanism, in shamaniccultures, people were put

(47:15):
through initiations really earlyin life to actually get them in
touch with their spiritualstrength, and so your ego cannot
help you walk through a fire,but your spirit can.
So the purpose of an initiationand walking through the

(47:42):
darkness is to actually gothrough a dismemberment where
your ego is put aside and whereyou have the test that leads you
to the opportunity of tappingin to the spiritual part of you
that can do anything.
That can do anything, but firstyou have to lose everything.

(48:02):
First you have to loseeverything.
So darkness can be seen as aterrible place of suffering
because you're grieving, youlost everything.
You know you lost everythingthat you love, but it was all to
bring you to a place of lettinggo of what is inauthentic in

(48:25):
you and bringing you back to thetruth of who you are.
And so in shamanic cultures,you have to understand that they
couldn't have weak links intheir community because they
wouldn't be able to survive.
So people were put throughthese really harsh initiations

(48:48):
because they had to be strongenough to be able to bring their
gifts to the community, becauseeverybody has a piece of the
puzzle.
And are you strong enough tobring your piece of the puzzle
to the community so that you cansurvive together, survive

(49:13):
together.
And so initiations where welose everything, sure they bring
up terrible fear in us, butthat's life.
We have to go through them.
It's how we grow.
If you think about fall, theseason of fall, everything that
is old and is no longer growingand is no longer vital anymore,

(49:33):
goes back to the earth to becomposted, and so that's what
the darkness is Walking through.
The darkness is letting go ofeverything that's inauthentic in
your life, that is not real andthat is drawing away your
strength from being able to be ahealthy person in your own life

(49:58):
and a healthy person in yourown community to share the
brilliant pieces of the puzzlethat you came in with the
brilliant pieces of the puzzlethat you came in with.
So I know that people are afraidof loss, grief and pain, but I

(50:22):
know that everybody who'slistening, who has been through
loss, grief and pain, knows theecstasy that comes from that too
.
There's an ecstasy that comesfrom the deepest pain and all of
a sudden you're open up to thebiggest downloads of your own
soul and of your spirits and ofthe planet.

(50:42):
But it takes that kind ofbreakdown to get there, and so
it's actually nothing to fear,because even while you're in it
there's an ecstasy to it.
You have to experience that toreally understand it and how

(51:03):
much opening it brings.
It blasts your heart open, muchopening it brings.
It blasts your heart open.
So so much more is available tocome into your life, more
opportunities.
But we're all the whole entireplanet is in a gigantic
initiation right now.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Absolutely, and so for people who are feeling that,
who are really feeling likethey're in the midst of the
darkness, you shared thatbeautiful ceremony for calling
yourself home, but what are somethings that people could do to
bring that into their daily lifeand really help propel them
through the darkness?

Speaker 2 (51:49):
tool and so I start talking about this immediately
and walking in darkness and thenin the audio book is our
intuition, because what happensin darkness is the very first
thing we do is we look to othersto take us out of the darkness,
whether it's.
You need the supplement, youneed this form of therapy, you

(52:12):
need to practice shamanism,whatever it is.
You need to practice meditation, you need to breathe.
Who did that come from?
You know you're turning tosomebody else to tell you how to
heal your life, and yourintuition is actually your
strongest gift that you wereborn with.

(52:34):
It's a gift that we were allborn with, and so I find that
the biggest downfall that I'veseen as people walk through the
darkness is they give away theirpower to every authority, I
mean whoever it is.
They don't even care.
They just want somebody to tellyou what to do, and so the

(53:00):
biggest tool that you have iswhen you follow your intuition.
All of a sudden, there's alight inside of you that emerges
, and you can follow that lightinstead of following other
people's voices.
So you follow your own deepknowing.

(53:22):
And then another thing that Ithink is so important and people
already have gotten this in ourtime.
Now, if you have any spiritualpractice, is spending more time
in nature chaos.

(53:52):
So to emerge yourselfcompletely in nature and to
start connecting with the powerof trees and the power of the
plants and the power of the wind, and to actually lie on the
earth Again, the earth isbillions of years old To lie on
the earth and connect your heartto the heartbeat of a being
that's billions of years old,and to stand out and raise your

(54:16):
arms to the sun and to let thesun help to clear you and to
fill you with that energy oflife.
So you can see that even in thedarkest times, there is help
everywhere, and the biggest helpthat people are actually

(54:40):
experiencing right now is theirintuition.
People who realize oh my God,I've been listening to everybody
but myself and people who arelying on the earth and talking
to the sun and the clouds andthe winds and the waters of the
world and the plants and thetrees.

(55:02):
We're all feeling more balancedand more secure and more
centered, and so I reallyencourage people as much as
possible to spend as much timein nature, even if you live in
the city and I work a lot withomens, because the universe is

(55:53):
always showing their support toyou as you sit or walk in nature
, by bringing your favoritenature being in front of your
eyes a butterfly, a dragonfly.
Just when you needed that sign,just when you needed it, the
universe provided, provided itfor you.
Uh, just to give a funny exampleof this, of how nature really
works with us um, we have Ilived out in the country and we
have we feed birds and um, Imade I made an agreement with
the spirits to always make sureto have water for the animals,
and so water attracts animals.

(56:15):
So we have a lot of naturebeings that we live with, and so
we have this bird, chickadee,and my husband really, really
bonded with Chickadee I meanreally bonded with Chickadee and
some shamans in the Andes gaveme a ceremony to do, where I had

(56:38):
to walk a really far distanceand put something into the earth
, and my husband and I brought ashovel and we were on to do our
ceremony and there wasChickadee walking with us this
really long time and thenwalking with us back.
Then Chickadee disappeared andwe got the flu and my husband

(57:04):
was really going down withChickadee not being around.
So I went outside and I startedscreaming Chickadee, chickadee,
chickadee what's new to you?
And Chickadee came out.
And then Chickadee to shortenthe story because it could go on

(57:28):
Chickadee recently disappearedto have babies, but then they
all disappeared and we thoughtthey were dead, actually put its
beak on our door and knocked onit and when Woods opened the

(57:49):
door, chickadee was there, justwith its wings, letting us know
it was still there.
So the point of this story is,as we allow ourselves to connect
more deeply with nature, werealize that we're not alone.

(58:09):
We have an amazing amount ofsupport.
Even though, as a collective,all of life is going through
this unbelievable initiation ofdeath, loss, grief, suffering,
pain, illness, we still have allthese supportive beings.

(58:31):
We have our communities, wehave nature, we have the
elements, we have the greaterforces that basically run this
earth and they're all helpingspirits for us to connect with
and they're all helping spiritsfor us to connect with, and so
that gives us the strength tokeep going, even in the darkest

(58:53):
of times, when we see the loveand the help and the care that
we're being given by our humanand nature community.
It gives us the strength tokeep walking.
And what I keep sharing, becausethis was the very second
journey I had ever, in 1980, wasmy power animal saying to me

(59:19):
whatever happens, never, eversit down in the dark, ever sit
down in the dark.
That was the very secondshamanic journey I had and I
learned, it's true, it doesn'tmatter how small the step is.

(59:39):
You saw the sun and you had asecond of joy.
Come in through that pain andthat fear.
That second of joy, come inthrough that pain and that fear,
that second of joy is a stepforward.
So what would help you in lifeto take that tiny step forward,

(01:00:00):
instead of sitting down in thedarkness, because sitting down
isn't going to lead you anywhere.
As you keep walking through thedarkness, the light always
finds you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Beautiful, beautiful.
I have one final question onthat.
As we're walking forward andwe're finding the light, one of
the questions that I hear a lotis well, how do I know if it's
my ego, or how do I know if it'smy intuition or nature speaking
through me?
What's your piece of advice forpeople asking that question?

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Well, for me, everything comes back down to
intuition, and so when I wrotemy first book, I actually put in
an exercise to get in touch, toknow the difference between ego
and intuition, and I've beenusing it every day since I

(01:00:58):
learned it back in the veryearly 80s.
And so you sit down and youclose your eyes.
This whole exercise you can dolater takes less than five
minutes.
You sit down and you thinkabout something you really,
really, really love, really loveit, and you notice what you're

(01:01:21):
feeling in your body by sayingthe truth and then get up and do
something really distracting Gowash the dishes, go brush your
teeth, do something verydifferent and then come back and
say I hate that same thing thatyou said you loved, and watch

(01:01:43):
the reaction in your body whenyou told yourself a lie, the
reaction in your body when youtold yourself a lie.
And so for me, this is just me.
I get a green light when it'strue and I get a red light when
it's a lie.
But those were the two symbolsthat appeared for me when I did
that exercise.

(01:02:03):
So when I start to question, isthis my ego?
So when I start to question, isthis my ego, where's this
coming from?
Did I hear it from somebody?
Is this really true?
I go inside and I look forgreen or red, and that's how I
know, and so it's a greatexercise to test whether it's

(01:02:25):
coming from your ego or whetherit's coming from the deepest
part of your soul.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Beautiful.
Thank you for sharing that withus.
I can see how that would besuch a powerful and easy way to
tune in in the day to day.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
It's so easy.
I've been doing it forever, andthe only time it's not worked
is when I haven't listened.
And the only time it's notworked is when I haven't
listened.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
I often do the same thing, but mine is is this a yes
or is it a no?
But that internal feeling thatyou have in your body is so
powerful.
Our nervous system really isthat bridge between our
intuition and the physical.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
Yeah, yeah, beautiful .

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Well, Sandra, I know we're coming close to time.
I often like to do a quick fireround of short little questions
at the end.
Are you willing to join me inthat?

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Absolutely, yeah, beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
Okay, so what is your favorite shamanic tool or ally
right now?
What are you feeling mostconnected with?

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Oh, my drum, Always my drum.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
Have you had the same drum all your years of teaching
?

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
I haven't, and I had to change my drums due to
climate, and so I actually douse a synthetic drum now, but to
me it's absolutely alive, it'sin my will.
I will die with this drum withme.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
Beautiful.
What's one memory from yourshamanic practice that stayed
with you over the years?

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
Oh just, I have this incredible power animal and he
lives on an amazing mountain andhaving the opportunity to drink
tea with him and converse withhim and to laugh with him, it's
going to absolutely be mygreatest memory in life.

(01:04:22):
He walked every step of my pathwith me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
That's amazing.
What piece of advice.
If you could go back toyourself when you were just
starting your shamanic journey,what would you tell yourself?

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
I would actually tell myself to listen to my younger
self, because I'm actuallyreading my old books and I was
so much wiser when I was youngerthan I am now.
So don't always believe thatage brings you to the place of

(01:05:02):
wisdom.
Your younger self holds a lotof knowledge.
Go back and talk to youryounger self and find out some
of the wisdom that you forgot.
That's what I'm doing now.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
I love that so much as someone who is very much a
spiritual being in a very youngbody right now.
I appreciate that piece ofadvice.
Is there a natural element thatyou feel most deeply connected
to at this point in your journey?

Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
Well, they really shift.
For me.
All the time I was reallyterrified of wind because how
wind pushed me around as a kidand because of the turbulence
that I used to travel 300 days ayear teaching, so I've been in
a lot of turbulence, so the windactually became my greatest

(01:05:58):
ally.
Right now, I have to say I havea love affair, a true love
affair, and I have for yearswith earth, air, water, fire.
I absolutely love them and Iabsolutely believe they love me,
and so we're just in thisglorious relationship, all the

(01:06:23):
time together, where I alwaysfeel their strength, their love,
their power and I'm neverafraid of them, because they're
life itself and they are me.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
Beautiful.
Final question.
That's maybe a little longer,but I've been very curious to
ask you this About a year ago.
I'm in your Facebook group, theShaman's Cave.
Highly recommend anyonelistening to join you this About
a year ago.
I'm in your Facebook group, theShaman's Cave.
Highly recommend anyonelistening to join that community
.
But you commented on a Facebookpost that you don't always see
things when you journey, andthis is something that my

(01:06:57):
students have a really hard timewith.
They often feel like if theydon't see things in their
journey, that they're not doingit right.
So I would love to hear fromyou on that, because I think
they'll listen Right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
So I would love to hear from you on that, because I
think they'll listen.
Yeah, this is the biggestquestion that I've been talking
to people about for 44 years ofteaching.
I am not a visual person.
I talk in visual terms.
I say I saw this in my journey.
I saw that I have actuallynever seen anything in a journey

(01:07:30):
visually.
We are such a TV movie culturethat we believe the visuals are
our strongest sense.
And I don't want to offendanybody, especially at the end
of this, but actually ourvisuals are at least evolved
sense, and so I'm clairaudientand I'm clairsentient.

(01:07:55):
I hear the wisdom of my helpingspirits.
I don't see, I hear, and I feelit in my body.
I feel it in my body, I feel itin my bones.
I believe the most evolvedsense that we have is
clairsentience, and I believethat's where human beings are

(01:08:17):
going to be evolving to.
And so why, when you graduatedcollege, are you trying to go
back to kindergarten?
Stop it.
Stop it.
If you're a clear audience, ifyou're hearing and if you're a
class sentient, you've alreadygraduated college.

(01:08:39):
You're already in a differentconsciousness and incredibly
involved.
If you're stuck on the visuals,it means you just want to watch
more TV, and more TV has nothelped anybody grow, so I've
never been visual.

(01:09:00):
As I said, I talk in visualterms but think I've written 13
books.
I've helped tens of thousandsof people heal from trauma,
abuse and all kinds of illnessesand I've never seen anything,
and so the visuals are extremelyoverrated.

(01:09:22):
They're for people who want tobe entertained.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
I love that and that clairsentience, that feeling it
in your bones really goes backto that intuition exercise that
you gave us of knowing what itfeels like in your body.

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
Exactly, yeah, beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
Well, Sandra, thank you so much for your time today.
Is there anything else that youwanted to share that you feel
is important for our audience toknow?

Speaker 2 (01:09:48):
else that you wanted to share that you feel is
important for our audience toknow.
Well, I just really want peopleto take the pressure off of
themselves.
I think people are putting toomuch pressure on themselves
right now, I feel, where everysingle one of us is doing the
best we can right now.
Every single one of us is doingthe best we can right now and,

(01:10:08):
from a spiritual perspective, Isee the greatest wound in the
spiritual community is that welack self-love and we lack
self-worth.
It's the biggest wound in thespiritual community and it's
what's keeping us from beingable to tap into our destiny,

(01:10:31):
tap into our gifts, tap into thepassions, everything that we
want to create and the powerthat we came in to change our
life and to be a real force ofchange in the world.
You can't do it when you'rejudging yourself.

(01:10:52):
You can't, and so to reallymeditate or journey on the love
that went into your creation andhow much trust that your spirit
and your soul has, because itholds all the knowledge.

(01:11:13):
So really try and heal anywounds that you have around
loving yourself and feelingworthy.
I feel that if we can't healthis wound as a spiritual
community, we're not going to beable to walk forward to the
dimensions of life that arecalling to us right now, and I

(01:11:38):
feel that we all have theopportunity to do this, and I
really want to encourage you todo whatever work you can to heal
that particular wound, so thatyou're moving from a place of
knowing your power and knowinghow much love that you were
created with and that you are aseed of source, and that power

(01:12:03):
and that love of source is inyou.
It was a seed, and now it'sgrown into who you are now.
So look at your beauty insteadof what you're lacking.
Honor your beauty, honor whoyou are, and that's all life is

(01:12:25):
asking you to do right now.
That's all life is asking youto do right now.
That's all life is asking ofyou right now.
So I just want to say thank youfor doing the best that you can
, and I send blessings toeveryone.
And thank you, isabel.
This was really a joy to bewith you today.
Thank you for the brilliantwork that you're doing out there

(01:12:45):
.
It's so needed.

Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
Thank you, sandra.
It has been a true honor andjoy to speak with you, and thank
you for the brilliant work thatyou're doing out there.
It's so needed.
Thank you, sandra.
It has been a true honor andjoy to speak with you, and thank
you for the work that you'redoing.
Thanks, blessings, everyoneBlessings, and to everyone
listening, until next time, mayyou awaken to the whispers of

(01:13:08):
wisdom rising from within.
Thanks for tuning in to today'sshow.
The Wisdom Rising podcast issponsored by Moon Rising
Shamanic Institute.
If you enjoyed this episode, besure to subscribe to the show
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You can find us on Instagram,facebook, youtube and TikTok at

(01:13:28):
Moon Rising Institute, or visitour website,
moonrisinginstitutecom to learnmore about our mission and find
future opportunities to connectwith our community of shamanic
mystics.
Once again, thank you forsharing space with us today, and
until next time, may you awakento the whispers of wisdom
rising from within.