Shamanism is a time-tested system dating back over 40, 000 years and practiced in various forms all over the world. Its powerful healing methods still continue to be relied upon in some indigenous and traditional cultures and it has lately experienced a revival within the modern Western world.
Based on the premise that the daily world we inhabit is only the one side of a two sided coin, shamanism acknowledges the non-material, spiritual (or ‘energetic’) reality behind the veil of what we can touch and what we ordinarily know.
Using various methods to enter an altered state, the shaman is enabled to ‘see’ this non-ordinary reality. It is from this place that the shaman can address issues of dis-harmony an dis-ease within a client.
It is seen within shamanism that at times of trauma, the soul can and does fragment as a method of survival. A result of this is a loss of our own personal power, or our ‘essence’. Initial signs of being lacking in personal power, (traditionally termed ‘soul loss’) can include feeling empty, numb, disconnected, anxious, depressed, and developing addictive behaviours.
Oftentimes the fragmented soul part will return quickly. In certain circumstances however, (including prolonged traumatic experience, or not knowing how to call oneself back into fullness; how to truly be ‘oneself’) the body, although it can survive without one’s full and complete essence, is left vulnerable to illness and ‘dis-ease’. Like a splinter in your finger, although there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the wood itself, it shouldn’t be there and if left there can cause pain and disruption.
From the altered state, in partnership with Spirit, the shaman works to gently remove anything that has accumulated but shouldn’t be there, and to return any soul parts that have fragmented and become lost. This is a profound and life-enhancing healing method: Where once there was something essential lacking, or dis-ease manifested so fully that it had become physical disease, there is now harmony, balance and well-being, returning you to a state from which you can be who you were born to be.
