Healing Arts

Jian Ghomeshi: Male Pain and Male Voice Part I

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Healing Arts, The Soul

The news in Canada this week has been dominated by accusations of sexual abuse by Canadian Broadcasting Company radio personality Jian Ghomeshi (the story has gotten some attention in the US press). The controversy began when Ghomeshi made a public announcement on his Facebook page claiming he was the victim of a smear campaign and that the CBC unfairly fired him for his kink/BDSM sexual preferences. He also announced he would bring a $50 million suit against his former employers. In a shrewd PR move Ghomeshi preempted the CBC’s own announcement and for a brief moment controlled the social media narrative: a lone heroic individual oppressed by a cold conservative institution who couldn’t handle his unorthodox sexual practices. He further insinuated that the accusations were from only one jilted ex-lover and that the entire thing was essentially a conspiracy to bring him down.   

Since his original reply however more women have come forward (some have been willing to make their claims public). At the time of this writing eight women. As more stories have emerged some are not related at all to questions around kink/BDSM further undermining Ghomeshi’s defense.

Ghomeshi’s show Q was exquisite in its best moments though of course that doesn’t change or diminish the harm he’s caused. It does perhaps explain why there was an initial outcry of disbelief and a rush to defend him in many quarters. (As more stories and accusations have emerged many of those voices are seeming to die down).

The story has ignited a series of related but distinct discussions around consent, sexuality, power, privilege, and abuse.

In terms of required reading there’s the following pieces:

This one (from a former prosecutor) explores the serious barriers that make it difficult for many women to come forward with reports of sexual violence. 

This one on the very real existence of rape culture (and the ways it’s revealed itself in this case). 

This one on the ways in which Ghomeshi was not following proper ethics as prescribed within the BDSM community. And therefore his initial response that he was a victim of prudery doesn’t cut it. (We’ll come back to this point in a bit as it’s a very important one).

It is true that a huge number of people immediately jumped to Ghomeshi’s defense rather than taking seriously the possibility that the reports could be well founded. A number of posts (including the ones linked above) have been doing a very good job of revealing all the unjust ways in which burdens are placed on individuals who are sexually violated. This is particularly the case when the man in question is a well known and well loved public figure and to expose oneself into the media circus and frenzy can bring with it death threats, cyber-bullying, and public attack.

Legit practitioners of BDSM are right to clearly differentiate their understanding of on-going consent and the ethical complexities of that path from Ghomeshi’s very simplistic and ignorant view that one is simply into BDSM/kink, tells say a date, the date responds with something like ‘yeah I’m into that’ in some general sense, and then he takes that to mean that all manner of actions (even the most controversial within the BDSM world itself) are given a green light.

All those points of view are true. There is however another angle of this story I would like to share, a potentially very controversial one: male wounding.

It’s a complex topic that I’ll explore more directly in the second part. Before delving into it however I want to make clear that any discussion about male wounding (as is about to happen) must take place within the context set by the earlier points. Namely recognition of the pervasive nature of sexual violence, most prominently (though not exclusively) against women and children. (*See Update I below, point #3 for more clarification on this point*.) The reality of rape culture–i..e. a cultural framework which minimizes the effects of sexual violence, believes (falsely) sexual violence to be rare or extreme, and blames victims (‘she was dressing too provocatively’) rather than focusing on the actions of perpetrators.

Those criteria distinguish my perspective from that of the men’s rights movement. The men’s rights movement does speak of male hurts and unacknowledged needs (which I agree need to be addressed) but it then blames feminism as at the source of these problems. It’s at that point that I part company with them. I don’t believe feminism is the problem here–rather it’s patriarchy.

Any male discourse that blames feminism inevitably leads to some nostalgic romantic return to pre-feminist patriarchal ideals of manhood–ideals that are problematic for everyone, including men (e.g. see the pick up artist subculture.)

To the degree that men in our society only identify themselves within the roles and identities ascribed to them by patriarchy then I can understand how criticisms of patriarchy have left some men feeling as if they personally are being criticized and that their maleness is itself a flaw.

If however we can separate men per se from men in and under patriarchy, then we open a door to another way of thinking, feeling, and being. In this understanding the pains underlying a Jian Ghomeshi and the pains underlying many men in our culture could be the source of potential transformation. These pains and hurts are subtle information. Our psyches as men are telling us something and we aren’t listening to ourselves. We also aren’t necessarily being listened to by wider circles, but until we listen first ourselves, how would we have anything coherent to say to which we should be heard?

The Ghomeshi case shows both the failure of patriarchy as well as the lack of a strong, post-patriarchal male discourse.

Rather than blaming feminism, I think a mature men’s movement would acknowledge the wisdom of feminism and then seek to offer it’s own complementary voice of male experience. This approach allows feminism to focus on the empowerment and flourishing of women (and children). Feminism doesn’t need to incorporate male experience. What’s needed is a male movement and male voice that takes feminism seriously, so seriously in fact it would be a core element of its makeup. This male movement I’m imagining would one that acknowledges its class orientation, its social location, its ethnic makeup, etc. In other words the men’s movement I’m describing is largely a middle-upper class, North American one, most likely with a strong though not exclusive heterosexual orientation.

I believe such a male discourse is important because there are gaps in our collective work. For every case like a Jian Ghomeshi we miss an opportunity to speak about this important missing element. (For the record I’m not saying this missing element is more important than responses pointing to rape culture and the like–only that this discourse would be complementary and is needed as well).

The men’s rights movement blames feminism for not hearing the voice of men but why should feminism be oriented to men? Why shouldn’t men find their own voice and add it to the wider ecology of voices and perspectives?

Feminism (in all its varieties and flavors) is only one set of a larger ecology of liberative post-patriarchal ways of being and thinking. Other planets in that galaxy would include queer perspectives, transgendered thought and experience, bisexual reflection, asexual interpretation, intersex and so on. As well as various forms of postcolonialism, ecological insight, aboriginal perspectives, and economic critique. We could even include here voices within the kink/BDSM and related sexual worlds.

That’s not to say male voices are entirely absent from those discourses–men’s voices are prominent in a number of them (e.g. most obviously the experience of gay men but also postcolonial, aboriginal, ecological, kink, transgendered, etc.). But there is a missing aspect here: a form of mostly (though not entirely) heterosexual, North American, middle-upper class men in this world speaking from the position and experience of being a man.

I point to Ghomeshi because he fits all of those characteristics. In saying that though I’m going to say again explicitly, nothing I write here  or part II should be taken as a defense for indefensible actions. In Part II I’ll explore what those pains are and how men can begin to deal with this pain but I think it’s important to really get a grasp of the context for best approaching this topic. Without a strong grasp of the context it’s very easy for an investigation into men’s pain to slide subtly or not subtly back into a place of blaming women. I’ve been at pains in this discussion to make clear I don’t think that way nor do I think that view best serves men (or women).

—

Update I:

I’ve already received a good deal of feedback. A number of critiques have been raised. Blogging is nothing if not a form for real time correcting and editing.

#1 I didn’t nuance my understanding of feminism. 

This one is true. I can only focus on some many things in one piece but yes a more developed in-depth look would parse out some different schools of feminism, different feminist thinkers. Feminism is by no means a monolithic reality. There are certainly some individual writers and writings (and even arguably some camps within feminism) that could legitimately (I think) be labeled anti-male. I don’t think however that anti-maleness is intrinsic to feminism in the way that anti-feminism is intrinsic to the men’s rights movement. I would say anti-patriarchy is intrinsic to feminism (of all varieties) and it’s important, as well as complex, to sift out at times what is a critique of patriarchy and what is a critique of men wholesale.

#2 I need to be more explicit about advocating for concrete acts of political solidarity.

The critique here is that I’m overly focused on this men’s movement creating solidarity along lines of hearing each others stories, pain, and the path of healing (and then sharing men’s pain) and that I need to put more emphasis (if not priority) on concrete political systemic acts first. This criticism also has a point.

#3 I didn’t clarify enough what I meant by the pervasiveness of sexual violence against women. 

So let me do that here now. I was admittedly using my terms fairly loosely above but I had in mind any and all of the following kinds of acts under that umbrella: from rape, to domestic violence, to stalking, to ‘handsy’/unwanted groping, to harassment, to intimidation/catcalling in public, to public shaming or cyber-bulling, to sexual emotional or verbal abuse. If we are only looking specifically at rape it’s easy to get into a very complex debate about how exactly prevalent rape of women really is (how often it’s reported, not reported, false accusations and all the rest) but thinking of the topic more broadly as I had in mind here I think establishes well the pervasive nature of the reality.

#4 Using the Jian Ghomeshi case as an entry point prejudices this discussion by placing all (or the majority of) men into a category of potential rapists. 

I had no intention of doing any such thing in this piece. In part, I’ve responded to this charge in #3 just above. If we’re only discussing rape than yes most men are not rapists and are not would-be rapists. If we are talking about the entire spectrum of such abuse (all the ones listed above) then the percentages are sadly higher. Obviously not all the behaviors listed above are of an equally horrid nature. Some are clearly worse than others but all are wrong.

Even acknowledging that however in what I’m attempting to do here, I want to focus on the nature of the pain I see in many men. I was not pointing to some kind of linkage between Ghomeshi’s indefensible actions and the majority of men. Only that this story and the reactions to it show an element that’s missing: namely male pain. (Which even if apparent in Ghomeshi’s case or anyone else’s does not legitimize or soften illegitimate abusive behavior).

03 Nov 2014 1 comment / READ MORE

Against High Vibrations: A Critique of New Age Spirituality

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Healing Arts, Mystics, Spirituality, The Imaginal, The Soul

If you’ve ever read any self-help books or attended any personal development workshops or gone to any number of spiritual retreats you’ll very likely have come across the idea of maintaining a high vibration. I hear it all the time.

A quick Google search of high vibration brought up a slew of articles about what is a high vibration, why it’s important to have it, and what you can do to raise yours.

This teaching lies at the heart of almost, if not, all New Age spirituality, as well as various traditions influenced by New Age thinking–which increasingly is a wide range of spiritual teaching.

Of course as long as there is an idea of high vibrations, then inevitably there must low vibrations. You can’t have high without low and low without high. In this specific context the crucial point is that high vibrations are judged to be good, while low vibrations are bad.

All seems straightforward and obvious–we want to maintain a positive outlook, we want to feel good, and it’s a problem to stay mired in a negative outlook on life.

Simple, obvious right?

Well it may be a simple idea to grasp, it may even seem at first glance to be an obviously intelligent idea, but I’m going to argue it contains serious flaws. In particular I’ll focus on the way in which a high vibration teaching does significant damage to our ability to work with our emotions in a wise manner.

To preview the argument:

The central problem with a the notion of high vibrations is that it equates certain emotions with high vibration and therefore being positive. As a result, others emotions are seen as low vibration and therefore negative. High vibration easily elides into feeling good and low vibration easily turns out into feeling badly. That initial mistake opens the floodgates to numerous other consequential mistakes.

Here’s a classic example of this teaching from the spiritual writer David Hawkins.* Some version like this can be found throughout any number of New Age and New Thought writings. (I just find this one a really powerful and simple demonstration of the view–see image here).

You can see shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, anger are all in the negative category. Hawkins classifies these emotions as negative and of a low vibratory nature. Therefore the recommendation is to move out of such emotions into states of peace, joy, love, acceptance, and so on.

Again that all seems pretty logical–better to be joyful and peaceful than sorrowful or fearful right?

Not so fast.

Here’s what I see as fundamentally wrong about this approach–unconscious grief, shame, anger, and fear are definitely destructive. Unhealthy forms of grief, shame, anger, and fear are definitely destructive. But by qualifying these emotions with the words unconscious and unhealthy, we leave open the possibility that there is a conscious and healthy form of grief, shame, anger, and fear. In this simplistic binary system of high and low there is no ability to distinguish between different expressions of emotion–there’s no nuance or subtlety. Each emotion gets put into a good or bad category rather than seeing light and shadow sides to each emotion.

Just for the record, unhealthy and unconscious forms of happiness, peace, and acceptance are also really bad for you. For example, what if I maintain a peace at all costs attitude? What if I try to play peacemaker between two friends arguing and in so doing I actually end up hurting one of them? Am I supposed to accept prejudice? Should I be accepting of unethical behavior towards myself or others?

Hawkins’ schema is off because it categorizes emotions into positive or negative, into high or low, into good or bad. This dualism is seriously flawed and it dominates so much contemporary spirituality in more explicit forms as well as plenty of implicit ones.

This scale (intentionally or otherwise) compares the negative, unhealthy versions of one set of emotions–grief, fear, shame, anger–with the positive, healthy versions of another set–joy, love, peacefulness, etc. The game is rigged from the get go. It’s a game that ends up causing a lot well-meaning but naive spiritual seekers extraordinary amounts of unnecessary suffering.

I submit that healthy, awakened grief, fear, and anger are some of wisest teachers we have. Saying that undoes the whole simple scale of higher = better.

As compared to the terrible notion of low and high vibrations, what we want are deep and upraised vibrations. Notice the different vibration from the word deep as opposed to low. Notice the difference in saying I’m feeling deep versus I’m feeling low. One is about an absence (low) while the other is about a positive state (deep).

Deep vibration comes from integrating in a healthy way all the emotions labeled as negative by Hawkins and other New Agers. Yes it’s better to live out of peace, harmony, and joy than negative and unconscious grief, shame, desire, and fear. Much better still however is to live out of conscious integrated, awakened fear, desire, anger, shame, grief, as well as elation, peacefulness, happiness, and inspiration. To live a full-spectrum psychospiritual existence. That’s true depth.

Moreover, the word high has its own problems. It’s floaty, fleeting. You take drugs you get high but only for a short time. Inevitably you come back down (sometimes crash back down). It’s very easy to get hooked on spiritual practice or higher states of being and become a spiritual junkie.

I thought long and hard about what a better word for high would be–something that would speak to the value of inspirational experience but without the pomposity or ungrounded nature of high, I was kind of stumped, so I went to a thesaurus.

Options include: lofty (again too ungrounded), elevated (too temporary, too spiritual junkie), hovering (way too ungrounded). Another set of words emphasized more the bigness of high. Words like immense, gigantic, huge, formidable, colossal, towering, etc. These are think are again overinflated in a spiritual context.

Which left a few other potential candidates:

  • soaring (might work actually–an eagle soars but is also quite strong and in a sense “grounded”)
  • eminent (would be too confusing but has a truth to it)

And lastly upraised.

I like upraised.

Upraised seems more substantial than its cousin uplifted (again too floaty). Upraised might be a word that fits here. Instead of speaking of a high vibration one would speak of being upraised. There’s up but the raised part has a certain solidity to it (like raising a child).

Rather than talking about a high vibration, we should speak of a healthy ascent under whatever specific name you like there (upraised? soaring?). There absolutely is a place for healthy ascent in the spiritual path. There is Eros, the deep desire of life to evolve, grow, stretch, expand, and push beyond limits. There is Magic, the mysterious force of Creation. There is synchronicity. Things want to manifest into existence. There is incredible allurement to Life. The Universe winks at us constantly. Life is out to seduce us–to call us into partnership to create some beautiful. Following those winks from existence brings a kind of magical playful dimension to living.

That is all wonderfully true, but why is it the opposite of grieving well? Why is allurement the opposite of accessing our hatred to re-own parts of our shadow? Why is it I should have to choose one over the other? Why is one positive and the other negative?

Here is the motto I follow:

  • Awakened fear is the source of our intuition.
  • Awakened anger establishes healthy boundaries.
  • Awakened desire is The Creative Impulse flowing through us.
  • Awakened shame is liberated humility.
  • Awakened grief teaches us how to mourn and therefore how to live.
  • Awakened sadness is utter release.
  • Awakened guilt is proper remorse and contrition.

None of these are available to one who promotes high vibrations. The richness of incarnate human existence is lost. The wondrous fabric of the human being is torn irrevocably by high vibration New Age teaching.

In my church days I once met a person who came to the church I was working from another church. She said she that when she first started attending her old church, she was found the community really helped her in her spiritual life. She felt a deep sense of meaning there. But after a few years it all began to feel flat. I asked her why she thought her soul starting drying up there. She had this great line, she said, “It’s always a sunny day there [at that church].”

That’s a brilliant critique. When a person is in the dumps a sunny outlook seems like a ray a hope. And for a short time it really can be that. But when one comes out of the pits and readjusts eventually they will realize that it’s actually not good to only have sunny days. “It’s always a sunny day over there” was not a compliment. It was a very important insight and a kind of warning.

So it is with high vibration teaching. It can help people start to take responsibility for their lives, focus on gratitude, and put their energy to doing what brings them happiness, fulfillment, and peace. But eventually it comes to feel flat.

We need to find beauty in the rain, in the storms, in the nighttime, the grey overcast days and yes also absolutely in the sunny days. All of them. The high vibration/low vibration teaching can get some people, for a time, out of the ditch. I’ve seen it. But then it creates a new and far subtler obstacle to further depth and growth. It’s easy to see how letting toxic shame destroy our lives is bad. It’s much harder (but nonetheless true) to notice the ways in which being drawn to high vibration is preventing our full conscious expressions as human beings.

Better to be deep than low. Better to be upraised than high. Best to integrate the best of both.

—

* My criticism of the high/low vibration scheme from David Hawkins’ is not a criticism of his spiritual experience (which I think is quite real and powerful). It’s a criticism of this aspect of his interpretation and teaching around spiritual experience.

16 Jul 2014 3 comments / READ MORE

Without Shame Is the Same as Shameless

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Healing Arts

Recently I wrote a piece arguing that we should befriend and welcome shame. I described the insights of wise teachers–those who teach us that there is such a thing as healthy shame and that weirdly healthy shame is being negatively shamed nearly out of existence. The basic argument was that there’s a lack of differentiation and understanding of healthy versus unhealthy shame–how to welcome the first into our lives and not enact the latter. I talked in particular about the gifts healthy shame has brought to my life of late–in particularly feelings I’ve been having of shame around trying to build my business and not being very good at certain key portions of it.

Since writing that piece, my ears are much more attuned to language around shame. In particular, I’m more cognizant to sensitive language around shame in relation to personal development, politics, and spirituality, the areas of my interest.

In particular, I’ve been noticing a whole lot of teachings describing themselves as promoting X Without Shame. X there could be Sex, Wealth, Happiness, Authentic Power, whatever.

Once we take the distinction between healthy and unhealthy shame into account, we can see why, for example, the push for having X Without Shame is so very problematic (if you need to learn what that distinction is, read this piece).

This “without shame” trend is really dominant right now. Shame has become the new pariah. Of course this push towards no shame can of course engender a lot of (negative) shame in someone for having or feeling shame. They’d be made to feel inferior for having shame (the very definition of negative shame btw). Maybe even healthy shame, which they should rightly have (e.g. feelings of proper remorse).

When someone says they are teaching say Owning Your Power Without Shame what they (hopefully) mean is they are teaching how to release negative shame in relationship to accessing and expressing our inherent capacities and gifts. But if they don’t hold the distinction between healthy and unhealthy shame in clear view, they may well be pushing down the very real need we all for healthy shame.

Since healthy shame is so closely connected to (healthy) remorse, empathy, and moral conscience, sending all forms of shame into the abyss–both healthy and unhealthy–leaves the door wide open to serious unethical behavior. As an example, consider a teaching about Owning Wealth Without Shame (there are plenty of these out there whether they use that exact wording or not). Let’s imagine in this not-entirely-hypothetical teaching there isn’t clarity between healthy and unhealthy shame. In such a case, we should not be surprised that the teaching would led to a view that we should all become ridiculously wealthy (in explicitly financial terms) and have no shame about it. And that any potential critiques of such a view would immediately be shamed be being labeled “Poverty Consciousness.”

Continuing with the wealth example, healthy shame might say that yes it’s very valid to let go of all kinds of negative shame. Speaking about money is a taboo in our society and there is all kinds of destructive, negative shame that results from never talking about money in a conscious, intentional way. Healthy shame might also suggest however that there are proper limits, that we should be as equally concerned about personal wealth/abundance as we should be about social and collective health and justice.

Or consider sex.

Healthy shame would certainly recognize the deep pain and destruction that has been caused by negative shame around sex: pervasive sexual abuse and rape, slut shaming (there’s that word again), closeted unhealthy sexuality, people being unable to led healthy, joyous sexual lives, the list goes on and on. Obviously we want to work against all those forms of death and destruction. They are legion, nearly infinite in nature.

But I think healthy shame would advocate as well for proper ethical containers of safety, trust, and exploration. Perhaps having large-scale events where strangers touch each other’s genitals, for example, wouldn’t be the best context for such exploration. At least not for everybody. (And yes that does exist).

Part of what’s behind all this, I think, is far too much naivete about shame and its relationship to repression. I’m talking about English-speaking North America here now. There’s a very simplistic notion that I think essentially equates shame with repression. Therefore to be liberated we have to overcome repression, which means overcoming shame. We take the lid off repression and whatever flows out of that eruption is inherently liberated. Michel Foucault knew better. He knew that many of the so-called forms of liberated sexuality were actually subtler forms of repression–harder to realize as such since they were officially so aimed at liberation and de-repression.

To put it most bluntly, we could easily turn the language of X Without Shame into an equivalent linguistic form–shameless. Without shame and shameless are the same thing right?

So, here’s a question: Would anyone market a class on Shameless Wealth? Shameless Sex? Shameless Power?

Probably not because the word shameless still hits a warning in our conscience (at least I feel it should). We still realize somewhere deep down shameless is wrong but somehow without shame sounds better. But really are they all that different? For example, shameless is usually followed by exploitation (“shameless exploitation”) or manipulation (“shameless manipulation”). Maybe we should take more seriously what those linguistic terms are pointing to–maybe advocating being totally without shame is actually heading down a potential road of exploitation and dehumanization?

The most interesting example I can think is when someone prefaces a work of self-promotion by saying, “Here’s a piece of shameless self-promotion.” By doing that, they are actually incorporating healthy shame. It’s in fact not shameless because they are in a good-natured way teasing themselves, showing a sense of humility and self-perspective (i.e. healthy shame).

Conversely, if a person was ok with a notion of titling something they are doing as Shameless X (Power, Sex, Money) I would raise a flag. (Unless again they were doing it as a joke or self-parody). Shameless is not a good way to go. Neither is being without shame. Being without loads of negative, destructive shame yes. Being without shame altogether no. This distinction is really not that difficult and yet it’s radically missing and profoundly needed nowadays.

15 Dec 2013 1 comment / READ MORE

Why (Healthy) Shame is Good For Us

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Healing Arts, Mystics, The Soul

“Shame may be our most hidden or submerged emotion; it may also be the one we shun the most.” (Robert Masters, Emotional Intimacy p.109)

Shame gets a bad rap. A really bad rap. And for good reason. It can be an absolute killer. For so many people shame is like a virus that infects them at an early age and stays with them for life. Shame can be crippling.

“You’re not good enough.”
“You’ll never be good enough.”
“You really f#@!ed that one up, didn’t ya?”
“You’re a failure.”

This is the voice of shame. This is what we think of as the voice of shame anyway. But I want to suggest that’s the voice of negative and unhealthy shame. The negative and unhealthy there is very important because it suggests that not all shame is necessarily negative or unhealthy. Though it might seem counterintuitive, I’m going to argue that recognizing and embracing healthy shame is a wonderful process in our lives. I feel we should welcome healthy shame.

“Shame is the painfully self-conscious sense of our behavior–or self–being exposed as defective, with the immediate result that we are halted in our tracks, for better or worse. The felt sense of shame is that of public condemnation, even if our only audience is our inner critic.” (Emotional Intimacy, emphasis in original p.109).

There’s two pieces in that definition: painfully self-conscious sense of our behavior or self being exposed as defective. Since shame is about being exposed, there’s no better way I guess to advocate for healthy shame then to share what (healthy) shame has taught me. I’ll start with the painfully self-conscious sense of my behavior being defective and then move to the thornier dimension of self-shame.

Healthy Shame and Behavior

The behavior part of shame is a bit more straightforward it seems to me. I want to separate my actions from my beingness. I, like everyone else, am a fallible human being. I make mistakes, sadly sometimes ones that hurt others, even hurt myself.  When I commit actions that hurt people close to me, people who I love dearly, it’s very painful.

So I need to be able to feel remorse, genuine contrition, for those actions, without feeling that something is inherently wrong with me as a human (that’s negative shame). Falling into the cycle of destructive self-recrimination hurts me but it also doesn’t actually address what I did wrong nor give me the energy to heal broken relationships. Without genuine contrition, I will most probably make the same mistake. Healthy shame, when it comes to my beahvior, is about genuine remorse not guilt. Guilt isn’t really a feeling I don’t think. It’s more a state of affairs. Masters describes guilt as something we do with shame (shame mixed with fear).

When I reflection on times I’ve said “I feel guilty”, what I think I was really feeling deeper down was remorse. The painful recognition that I did something that hurt another or possibly myself. I feel really sorry; I feel the wrongness of that action and genuinely seek, where possible, to make amends and connect to a deep desire to live and act differently going forward.

lasalette

This was not an easy process for me to come to. Being raised in a very traditional Roman Catholic family I had plenty of guilt and plenty of negative shame heaped on me. There were theological variations of negative shame–as in the teaching that I was born a sinner and Christ had to die to save me from my sins. There were ways that such theologizing was used as a social instrument of control. In third grade, I had an old battle ax named Sr. Marian (she was an actual religious sister). Sr. Marian had a crucifix with the image of the vision of La Salette. There was a hammer on one side of the crucifix and a pairs of tongs or pincers on the other. Sr. Marian told me that when I was good, I took the pincers and pulled Jesus’ nails out, relieving his pain. And when I was bad, I was taking the hammer and driving his nails in even further.

My bad actions–which intriguingly happen to include not following her orders about how a classroom should be organized–caused wounds to my Savior. (This is a true story–I’m not making that up, that honestly happened. It’s too messed up not to be real). You’ll see the hammer in the picture above which I apparently used as a very naughty 9 year old to wound sweet Christ Jesus. It didn’t help that I was going through a very difficult period with my childhood asthma so I was on medications that were making me hyper (I’m normally quite calm and chill all the time, even as a boy). This is what got me into trouble with Sr. Marian and got me to believe that I was a cause of pain to Jesus, whom I loved dearly as a boy (and still do actually).*

Anyway, while that is a bit of an extreme example, I think most folks have the experience through childhood–either in family or school or among peers–that something is really fundamentally wrong with them as a human being and they should be ashamed about it. Also they should never show nor feel ashamed about it because that would be weakness, which is even more shameful.

For the record, I was able eventually to realize that Sr. Marian was wrong and that I’m not an evil being. I also was able eventually to work through my anger, feelings for revenge, and hatred of Sr. Marian to eventually come to forgive her. (This took years, long since she had died).

Healthy Shame and self

The second part is harder. How to feel a proper sense of healthy shame that has to do with our self. Here’s Masters again:

“When shame shows up, it can crush us, and it can also serve us, as when it makes us less immune to remorse or less full of ourselves. In the latter case, shame is not an enemy but an ally.” (Emotional Intimacy, p.114)

I’ve talked about my experience of the former (remorse), what about the latter? What about a healthy response that makes me less full of myself?

That one is quite current in my life right now. In the last two months I’ve moved from being a full-time priest in a pastoral charge to working to establish a full-time private practice in intuitive readings, energy healing, and spiritual coaching. It’s a complex process. It’s quite tricky and I’m inevitably making mistakes as I go. I surely will continue to make mistakes going forward. Not ethical mistakes, not things I should feel healthy remorse about. More goals and actions I set for myself that I didn’t follow through on necessarily in the timeline I set out for myself.

I’ve had days where I’ve wanted to pull the covers over my head and hide. I feel the embarrassment, the humiliation, the shame in saying that. In Masters’ language, I’m exposed now.

I mentioned this experience of wanting to hide to someone the other day and they responded by talking about vulnerability. It’s not a vulnerable feeling. Vulnerability isn’t something I struggle so much in accepting. I was very sick as a boy and nearly died a couple of times. I’ve been with people through illness, crises, and in the process of dying and death. So I would never say I’m perfectly at peace with my vulnerability (I don’t even know if that’s possible) but I’m to some significant degree at peace with it.

It’s not vulnerability. No, I’m talking about a sense of potential failure, that I might not be able to cut it. That is a far scarier thought to me than the thought of dying. In comparison, death feels like an inviting release. Swing low, sweet chariot, come take me home any day of the week compared to public failure. As the ancient traditions understood, loss of face is death. Better to die and be actually dead then to die publicly and still be alive and have to live with your demise as a zombie.

So given the challenge of what I’ve embarked upon, it’s not surprising I’ve had moments when I’ve let negative shame take over–those moments of pulling the covers over my head and seeking to hide. It can be a real mind toilet. Negative shame hits the handle and down the shit drain I go mentally and emotionally.

Fortunately there haven’t been too too many of those moments so far.

The way I’ve found to deal with them, however, is to actually call on healthy shame in those moments. I’m definitely not following a ‘just push through it’ mentality. Maybe that works for others, but it doesn’t work for me.

When I call on healthy shame, I accept that I’m starting out and there’s simply too many variables and skills that have to be developed. Inevitably I’m not going to be very good at this in a short span of time. When I accept that…and that’s a big when because it’s hard to do, really hard to do and doesn’t always happen admittedly…but when I do I deeply relax. The hard part is getting to accepting the healthy shame. It’s so challenging in no small part because I’m really big into being an expert. I don’t like to learn on the job or learn by mistakes. I’m not one of those kind of people. I like being able to do things well and when I’m not very good at something I really struggle. Hence this is a difficult time in my life (it’s also a very creative one and overall I’m far more at ease than I was in my previous work).

It’s been a great learning the value of healthy shame in relation to self. It’s something more than simply humility. Humiliation is probably be closer to the mark. Amazingly, I accept the healthy shame of self and there’s a moment of deep pausing (Masters says that shame is about stopping us in our tracks). And then, rather incredibly, I actually find energy to take a step and recommit to the process. In those moments of healthy shame it’s far easier for me to ask for help from others–something that again is very hard for me.

I experience healthy shame as a cleansing feeling. It feels like I’ve just come out of some kind of sweat lodge. I’m a little woozy but purged, purified. It’s not a pleasant feeling certainly but it’s a solid one. There’s a grace in it that I don’t recall having felt or understood so clearly before.

I thank Brother Shame for what he’s teaching me.

sweatlodge

—

* (Afterthought: I have to say that a part of me really admires the pure sinister genius of Sr. Marian’s view. I mean that’s way better mind control than telling me that some large-bellied bearded Northerner who visits annually has a system of worldwide surveillance to decipher if I’m in the good or bad child category and won’t give me presents if I’m in the latter. Boo hoo, no presents. I mean that’s nothing compared to hammering the nails into poor innocent Jesus.)

22 Oct 2013 1 comment / READ MORE

Introduction to Shamanic Journeying

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Healing Arts, Shamanism, The Imaginal, The Soul

HEALING TRAVELS IN THE LOWER WORLD, FALL 2013 JOURNEYING COURSE

Shamanism is the most ancient form of human spiritual exploration. Journeying is a primary form of practice within shamanic traditions. In a journey, an individual enters into a light trance state where they become open to nonordinary experience.

In this course we will be taking a series of journeys to the Lower World–a realm of healing and integration. In addition we will learn the ethics of journeying safely and how journeying fits into a larger spiritual path and purpose. Each evening will include both a discussion and a group journey.

This course will be well-timed to nature’s season. Fall is a time where old patterns begin to change and release, creating room for something new to emerge. These journeys to the Lower World will heal of us of old wounds and patterns so that we might give birth to healthier and wiser forms of being.

Time: 7-9:30pm
Dates: Tuesdays, Oct 15 – Nov 5th
Cost: $200. Payment due by end of first class. Payment can be made by etransfer or cash.
Location: Westcoast Reiki Centre, 4424 Main St. (Main and 28th).

The Journeys:
Oct 15th: Discovering Our Soul Contracts
Oct 22nd: Calling Home Our Soul Fragments
Oct 29th: Meeting Our Power Animal
Nov 5th: Locating Our Medicine Gift

Solo Journeying: Included in the cost of the course is an opportunity for each participant to meet with the instructor in a one-on-one setting to facilitate a separate healing best done in a private setting.

Space Limited:  There are only 10 spots available for this course.

Questions or To RSVP: Contact Me

Please Note: For individuals who have experienced severe traumas please contact me first. Journeying is very safe and gentle but any form of consciousness state change can cause some difficulties or potential triggering for those with challenges like PTSD, etc.

23 Sep 2013 no comments / READ MORE

Spiritual Bypassing of The Soul

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Healing Arts, Shamanism, The Imaginal, The Soul

In 2010 Robert Masters wrote an excellent book entitled Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us From What Really Matters.* The book explores how we use “spiritual practices or beliefs to avoid dealing with painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs.”

Masters’ approach is, to use some jargon, psychospiritual in nature. It blends the spiritual with the human psyche–it merges spirituality in particular with the body, relationships, and emotions (see his latest book entitled Emotional Intimacy).

The spiritual bypassing critique–in the context of emotions, body, relationships–is very important. It’s real. It’s all over the place. And Dr. Masters insightfully diagnoses the disease and offers practical remedies.

I, however, see another form of spiritual bypassing and that is spiritual teaching that bypass our souls. I’m not claiming I’m the first to realize or make this argument but it’s been on my mind frequently of late. It’s this other form of spiritual bypassing that I’d like to explore a bit in this piece.

A few years back now I wrote a 3 part series that explored different identities we have as humans and how we might learn to bring them into greater harmony with each other. I wrote a piece each on the ego, Spirit, and The Soul.

Ego I defined as our human personality. Spirit I defined as The Ultimate, a recognition one essential nature shared in common by all, entirely free and full–what’s traditionally called Enlightenment, God Realization, or The Natural State. And I defined The Soul as our True Self, aka The Flavor of our Awakening. Each of us has a distinct expression of the awakened state and talking about The Soul as The Flavor of our Awakening is a way of giving voice to that part of ourself. As many mystics have said we are like unique rays (Souls) flowing out of the same Sun (Spirit).

That way of viewing The Soul (capital S) is a crucial one. It’s ignored or obscured in many of our contemporary Spirit-ual teachings. Nevertheless it’s an incomplete view of The Soul…or maybe I should say the soul (lowercase s).

By soul (as opposed to Soul) I mean a subtler dimension of our experience–one that is quite attuned energetically and empathetically to our environment and relationships. It’s a deeper layer of our being, a subterranean wisdom. And importantly, the soul, little s, is able to be wounded. Soul, Capital S, sometimes called The Oversoul, is not wound-able.

Little s soul is the realm of mythology. It speaks in the language of dreams, archetypes, and visionary experience. Often, it’s a quieter part of ourselves, one that therefore is easily drowned out by other voices and agendas.

To make it a little clearer why I mean by soul, here’s a list of the kinds of conditions we see that are unique to the soul (little s).

Auras–energetic and subtle emotional boundaries around ourselves. Boundaries that can be strengthened or depleted through intention and practice. Boundaries that can, under stress or trauma be pierced, leaving long lasting energetic marks.

Karma–aka Stories of Ancestral/Humanity’s Past Living Within Us. These are tendencies, conditions, and stories of personal, familial, and collective human consciousness that are still playing themselves out unconsciously in our lives. The soul is a realm of deep memory.

The World Soul–known traditionally as the Anima Mundi. Nature herself is conscious as are all beings. We can commune with these beings in non-ordinary states of reality. This is the realm of shamanism–the realm of power animals, nature mysticism, journeying, plant medicine, dreaming, and inspiration.

soul wounding/illness–there are many potential forms of wounding at the soul level. Shamans and healers throughout history have developed an intricate classification system as well as treatment modalities for these various afflictions. Ailments like soul loss and fragmentation; cords, hooks, darts, and other energetic enmeshments; attachments of all kinds. (See a list of such treatment modalities here.)

The Otherworld–this is the traditional Celtic term for the spirit world. The Otherworld is home of angels, departed loved ones, and guides. Our soul is the one who is connected to these domains and the various characters who populate them.

Astrology–not only are we in a psychic relationship with Earth, we share a connection with other planetary and cosmic realities. We are, after all, made of star dust. Hence we are intrinsically in communion with these forces and the ability to read those influences upon us is where astrology (done well) comes into play. That influence and mutual relationship occurs at the soul level (not at the personality nor at The Spirit level).

That list is by no means exhaustive but it’s intended to be representative. I hope you get the idea of the overall kinds of things I mean by referring to soul.

Most of these experiences (and the kinds of teachings that relate to them) would in our day be labeled New Age. I think of them as primarily shamanic and quiet ancient in pedigree. But in our contemporary spiritual environment, these kinds of processes and domains are dealt with by New Age teachings, if anywhere.

And this segregation is problematic. Because by and large New Age teachings can be guilty of the various kinds of spiritual bypassing at the human physical, bodily, and emotional level that Robert Masters warns about. New Age teachings tend to emphasize ascending energies and currents. New Agers often call themselves “lightworkers” (as opposed to one who embraces the darkness). They typically interpret states like Peace, Love, Joy as “higher” than ones like fear, anger, or sorrow, leading to a strong bias to maintain a “high vibration.” (This over-emphasis or bias towards ascending energy is not found in the shamanic traditions).

New Age teachings also typically don’t include teachings like Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Zen, Advaita, Inquiry, and the like which are about Spirit Awakening. In turn, those traditions of Spirit Awakening typically deny these soul-level teachings.

Many of The Spirit teachings of Awakening are spiritually bypassing our bodies and emotions. Some aren’t. But all of them are essentially bypassing our souls. Conversely our soul teachings aren’t often recognizing our Spirit teachings. And neither is doing a very good job with our emotional, bodily selves.

This disconnection is one of the primary reasons why spirituality is in a such a poor state currently.

In his book on Spiritual Bypassing, Masters vividly portrays the kinds of problems that continually manifest when spirituality acts to numb us emotionally or disconnect us from pain. It shows what happens when our spirituality breaks our connection to ourselves as emotional, incarnate beings.

The spiritual bypassing of the soul similarly leaves spiritual aspirants with missing pieces of themselves (though they’re often different pieces than the ones Masters focuses on). Spiritual teachings that bypass the soul leave us in a state I often refer to as “energetically skinny”. There’s a certain kind of energetic emaciation that results from teachings that deny our souls. Power and artistry come form the soul realm. Teachings that don’t include the soul often lack power, a basic umph.

The soul is true. It’s a substratum of us, a finer form of resiliency, like a spider-web. Regardless of many of the very real problems of the packaging of soul teachings in our day through New Ageism, this part of us is genuinely alive. It’s significant. It seeks to be honored, heard, respected, incorporated as part of our daily lives.

I referred earlier to the word psychospiritual. I said those were teachings that included both spirit and our psychological selves. By psychological I meant there things like our emotional patterns, personality, and ego. But the original meaning of the word psyche means soul. It could be understood to include both what we typically think of as human egoic personalities and these subtler dimensions of our being…things like soul illness, karma, ancestors connections, The World Soul, and so on.

That fuller psychospiritual teaching is still waiting to be discovered, taught, and embodied. Until then we are left cobbling together bits and pieces here and there.

—

* The term spiritual bypassing was coined by John Welwood, another wonderful psychospiritual author and teacher.

07 Sep 2013 1 comment / READ MORE

Welcome: A Spiritual Practice

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Healing Arts, Mystics, Shamanism

Welcome to this site. Welcome to this place. Above all welcome to this work.

Welcome is a crucially important element necessary to live a human life. It’s one that I think is so often overlooked in the contemporary Western world. It’s an art we’ve lost, though it’s definitely still a finely honed art in many places around the globe. Hospitality is the fancy more ancient word of what we’re talking about here.

Welcome is not only a metaphor but a practice. It’s a way of being.

In my own practice and in my work with folks, welcome is immensely valuable.  Welcome is more than worth it’s weight in gold. Fr. Thomas Keating once said that we should have “a jolly attitude to even the most horrid of thoughts.” That jolly attitude he speaks of is a welcoming posture.

A woman comes in struggling with anger. Her family taught her that ‘good girls don’t get angry.’ She’s shown anger–maybe healthy, maybe not so healthy–in her adolescence and someone labeled her a bitch. That someone who called her that name was very possibly another girl or woman, probably herself struggling with anger.

This hurts her…badly. Not surprisingly, she doesn’t try to show anger anymore. She tries not to show, not even to feel, anger. This approach doesn’t work so well. She finds herself grouchy, ill-tempered, even worried she is in fact becoming the ‘b’ she was called.

A man comes in real suffering. His five year relationship with his sweetheart has just ended. He’s wracked with pain, guilt, grief, and sadness, among other feelings. But he can’t show or express these feelings to his friends. They’re all too busy trying to fix him up with someone new to able to listen attentively and compassionately to his pain. They sincerely mean to console him, reminding him of all the fish in the sea. He’s supposed to get “back up on that horse” (why eligible women are horses in this analogy I’m not quite sure, but that’s a story for a different day I guess). His mother is not so secretly pleased with the situation because she never really got along with his ex anyway: “She wasn’t marriage material”. He feels really alone even though he’s being swarmed by people trying to help him. He finds their help, well, the opposite of help.

He can’t show vulnerability and pain. He’s supposed to be a real man (whatever the hell that is). He’s afraid he’ll be called unmanly if he cries or has to admit defeat. Meanwhile his body is sending him signal after signal that he’s not well and needs to take a break. He doesn’t listen. He’s afraid to face these feelings alone. He feels unequipped to handle them.

First off, what they both need is welcome. They need to create a space–perhaps with someone skilled in facilitating such a space–where they can welcome these feelings. These feelings are harbingers of healing. These feelings are helpers, teachers, and friends for them, intimates who actually know how to deal with the challenges these two people are facing.

When the beautiful mystic St. Francis of Assisi was in his final days and hours, he asked to be taken outside. He wanted to die in the arms of Mother Earth. His friends were around crying. But Francis said, “Let us welcome Sister Death.” 

Similarly, let us welcome Brother Anger, Sister Grief, Grandmother Sadness, Grandfather Guilt, Mother Fear, and Father Vulnerability.

Our sister begins to embrace her anger and finds she can set much clearer boundaries. She has more energy. She actually feels happier. Contrary to her fears, she’s not angry all the time. She’s not bitchy. Her expressions of anger are becoming cleaner and cleaner. She finds, amazingly, she can express love at the same time she can express anger. And she now knows if she needs to go away for a little bit and just have a rant in private to exorcize some deep frustration, she can do that. She’s going to be responsible for she what she does. She’s not going blast somebody and hurt them because she knows what the pain of unhealthy and unwelcome anger did to her. She doesn’t want to inflict that on anyone else.

Our brother, after a number of false starts perhaps, with grace, begins to welcome his pain, his loss, his tenderness. He finds in them a deep strength. Not an all-powerful, all-conquering kind of strength, but a genuine source of help in time of need. It takes him some time, more time than his friends and our culture tell him he is “supposed to need”–though interestingly he notices that none of them seem all that content in life (weird huh?)–but he feels that a dawn is starting to shine after a long dark night. He comes to learn skills that serve him and a future beloved better in his next relationship. He forgives his ex and asks for forgiveness from her in return. He finds he’s more patient with others, slower to jump in with advice for them in their struggles, and more willing to listen and simply offer attention and care. Quite incredibly, increasing numbers of his friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances start sharing their pains and their hurts with him.

Both our sister and our brother find moments, sometimes only fleeting in duration, when they sense a peace, a deep reservoir of something they can’t exactly name. It feels like an undertow pulling them in. They find themselves both fearful but also strangely attracted to this pull. They don’t really know what to call it, though spiritual comes to mind. Except they’re not really sure they feel comfortable with that word. Spiritual. It seems too heavy, too cold and formal. But never mind, somehow when they relax their thinking they simply return to this sense of….whatever it is. This ‘thing’ they like, this ‘thing’ that draws them in. They welcome this feeling, this experience as well.

This whatever-it-is feels somehow different than yet connected to the moments of welcomed anger, grief, sadness, and pain. They are really unsure how to talk about this experience with others. They’re concerned they’ll be branded weird or be misunderstood. Yet this feeling is one of coming home and they can’t ignore that truth.

They are learning to welcome the moments of clarity as well as confusion.

21 Aug 2013 no comments / READ MORE

Establishing a Sacred Container

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Healing Arts, Shamanism, The Imaginal

How we create sacred containers for prayer, meditation, or energy work. 

A long time ago there was a Jewish mystic named Honi, known as the Circle Drawer. In one story about him, there is a drought in the land and Honi draws a circle in the sand and tells God that he will not leave the circle until it starts raining. (By the way Honi called God ‘Abba’, which is the same term Jesus used. It’s a term that indicates deep intimacy and closeness).

Honi drew a circle around himself and then set an intention. He felt a deep, intimate connection with the Source.

In a similar manner, The Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree seeking enlightenment. He placed two fingers from his right hand on the ground. His fingers indicated that he was calling the Earth to witness to his enlightenment in the face of temptation and fear.

Both Honi and The Buddha combined physical posture along with intention in their prayer or meditation practice. I’d like for a few moments to explore this use of physical posture to establish space in meditation or prayer practice.

Drawing a circle around oneself is a spiritual practice seen in many different traditions around the world–not only in ancient Judaism but in aboriginal spiritual traditions of The Americas for example.

What is very important is that the circle is actually drawn–whether literally drawn in the ground like Honi did or visualized around oneself. I use this practice myself. I will typically trace the outline of a circle around my body with my index finger as I sit down to pray or meditate.

The circle has no beginning and no end and therefore represents the Infinite. The circle is whole, a representation of healing. Every point on the circle is equidistant from the center of the circle, representing the ultimate oneness and equality of all things.

The circle does however create a boundary and arguably this is the circle’s most important function. First it offers psychic protection. You may choose who or what is able to enter into the circle and conversely what is to remain outside the circle.

By drawing the circle we place ourselves in a spiritual container, in a sacred space. The circle inscribes a space of holiness.

Try it for yourself. Sit down and relax yourself and begin to meditate. Do this for a few minutes…

What do you notice? 

Now, sit down but before beginning to meditate, draw a circle around yourself. If you are a very visual person you may visualize this circle being drawn but I find it is helpful to have some physical gesture to instil the act in your bodily being.

Draw the circle around yourself, sit for a moment in the circle and notice what arises for you.

Now begin to meditate for a few minutes.

Notice if there is a qualitative difference between these two mini-meditation experiences. 

In my experience in the second version I most often feel a much deeper sense of connection and peace.

Further Variations/Additions:

–Orienting to the Directions

I’ve been very influenced by the traditions of shamanism, which is where I learned this practice. Some folks will actually stand and face the various directions often opening the hands to the direction as a sign of reception. They may even call out to the directions, invoke a prayer or chant or beat a drum or shake a rattle. For those who are more extroverted or kinaesthetic I encourage trying that process. I’m generally more introverted so I prefer simply to sit within the drawn circle and to bring my intention in turn to each direction, offering thanks and asking for support. I often point a finger or move a hand towards each direction rather than my whole body. I’ll share the method I follow (taught to me by Alberto Villoldo), but of course I encourage individuals to develop them as they need to in their own creative ways.

The order of the directions I follow:

1) South. South is typically associated with the season of summer, with the element Fire. Here I ask for heat that might burn away that which needs to be released.

2) West. Associated with the season of autumn and the element Water. The West is where the sun sets and is traditionally associated with dying. Here I ask that whatever needs to die within me may do so.

3) North. Season of winter and the element Earth. This is the realm of journeying. I often imagine a vast, dark, snowy landscape and see myself walking out in this land, into the dreamy darkness.

4) East. Season of spring and the element Air. Spring is associated with the rising of the sun and therefore new life. I sometimes imagine flying with the perspective of an eagle, soaring in the clouds with a panoramic view and diving with precision into life. This dimension is about creation.

5) Earth. This realm nurtures us, sustains us, and gives life. I connect here for a sense of grounding and healing.

6) Heavens. Not simply the airs, the rains, and the stars (those it includes those), but by heavens I also connect to a sense of the transcendent and the spirit world. This connects to me a long line of wisdom figures. I feel the sense of inspiration and grace. I feel myself opening to that which is far greater than me.

7) Self. Lastly I bring attention to myself as one being within this vast array. I feel joined to all these dimensions, offer gratitude for the gifts of all of these dimensions, and seek to serve with love and kindness.

–Buddha pointing to the ground

I employ this posture whenever if I ever feel beset by potentially overwhelming thoughts or emotions arising. If I experience deep movements of fear or anxiety (which happens from time to time), then I place my two fingers on the ground and feel the Earth offering her strength to me. I also use this posture when I feel that I’m not paying attention particularly well during prayer or meditation. Immediately I notice a more focused quality once I place those fingers on the ground.

23 Dec 2012 no comments / READ MORE

Shamanic Modalities

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Healing Arts, Shamanism

A shaman is something of a doctor of the soul. Like a doctor, a shaman can make a number of different diagnoses. Also, the shaman has a number of tools at her disposal.

Below are the various modalities I offer in my work as a a shamanic practicioner.

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Opening and Closing Sacred Space

At the heart of shamanism lies the ability to orient oneself to The Universe and to the forces within it. In this practice, a person will learn a way to open a sacred container for a time of prayer or meditation (of whatever style). This practice deepens any meditation or spiritual practice a person already undertakes.

Journeying for Healing, Wisdom, and Insight

Journeying is a foundational practice of shamanism. A person learns to journey to various locations (e.g. into the earth) for healing, to gain wisdom, and to commune with the spirit world. Journeying involves being guided into a light trance state. The state is very similar to the state between dreaming and fully waking up. It is not hypnotism. A client is perfectly safe in this state. The client’s conventional rational mind is still conscious and the client always has choice about how to proceed in the process. The typical first journey a person makes is to the lower world to experience a place of rest and healing to which they can always return to be spiritually resourced.

Locating Guides

The shamanic traditions teach that there are guides to help us along our journeys. In this process we learn to locate and establish a connection with these guides. This connection is established through journeying.

Chakra Healings

When a person suffers a wounding that goes unhealed, these wounds leave marks in the energy field of a person. Those marks often manifest themselves through one of the charkas. In this process we work on establishing whether a wound has been left in the energy field and if so which chakra it is connected to. We then open that chakra up and remove the negative energy affecting a deep cleansing. Afterwards, we use energy to mend and strengthen the energy field.

Extractions

There are times when wounds leave what feel like objects or at times foreign energies. The Extraction process exists to remove these objects or energies, accelerating physical and emotional healing.

Decording

Shamans throughout history have sensed cords: energetic ties that bind us to each other. Normally these cords are healthy and a source of loving connection between us and others. But when we find ourselves in unhealthy patterns or relationships we can form negative cords that weaken us and drain energy from us. In this process we locate some of these negative cords and cut them.

Soul Retrieval

The shamanic tradition our souls (or personal essences) are thought to consist of parts. Certain traumatic events, it is believed, can cause these soul parts to fragment and go into hiding. This results in soul loss which in turn causes increased anxiety, loss of energy, and so on. In a soul retrieval the shaman undertakes a journey seeking to retrieve any lost soul parts that desire to return to the person. The shaman then brings these soul parts back and blows them into the person’s energy field (usually their heart and/or head). The individual then has work to do to welcome this returned part of themselves home. If they do so, they will experience greater trust in life, healing, courage, and strength as a result.

Creating Protective, Healthy Boundaries

We live in a fast-moving, often chaotic world. We are bombarded daily by electronic messages, advertisements, and commercials. We also are highly influenced by the energies of those we interact with–friend or stranger. This practice teaches the person how to create energetic safety for themselves, to take responsibility for what they are putting out in the world energetically, and to defend themselves against forms of negative energy that they interact with (whether intentionally or unintentionally communicated).

Death Rites

The traditions also offer practices to prepare for the end of one’s life. This proces involves more than just simply what occurs after death. In other words, this process is best begun while a person is still lucid. Please contact me about this offering. For more information on what is involved, please see here.

04 Dec 2012 no comments / READ MORE
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