self acceptance

Light and Dark

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

Sunlight and shadow reveal and conceal. You can hide in the shadows, draw forward into the light, recede into the shifting patterns of sunlight and shadow on the forest floor.

Sun dappled tree

You cannot hold light and dark in your hands and possess them. Where does one end and the other begin? Would we know what light is without dark, or dark without light?

Without night we would not know the moon and stars. Without day we would not know cooling shade on a hot summer afternoon, or the shape of things.

Get to know the dark in you, the light in you, where they intersect. Do you try to suppress the shadows you fear in yourself and spend your time in perpetual light?

Do you stay in the shadows of life at the margins, fearing the clarity light will bring? Do you feel unequal to sharing your talents and gifts under the spotlight of divine grace?

Do you conceal what you perceive as flaws and hide them in the shadows, or conceal your gifts and powers, keeping them hidden from the light?

For in accepting the light and dark of you, you learn to accept yourself unconditionally, to love yourself fully.

Trust yourself

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

Did your parents, teachers, aunts & uncles, grandparents ever encourage you to trust yourself? To trust the knowings of your heart, the inner hopes and dreams for your life, your intuitions, and instincts about other people, your certainty about what activities you wanted to pursue, what your inborn interests and talents were?

Grandmother Cottonwood

Or, were you told to be nice, to smile when you didn’t want to, to fit in and not rock the boat, to worry about what the neighbors might think, to suck it up and get along?

Dear ones, if so, you were betrayed! Now it is time for you to reclaim and regain your own power, your trust in yourself and your intuitions, preferences, your inner knowings, your autonomy, your mastery of your life.

Begin little by little to tune into your inner voice, your wise and loving spirit, your indestructible soul and the wisdom and power of your heart.

You will find your truth within your heart, not outside yourself with any teacher, guru, mentor, parental figure.

Yes, parents teachers and mentors are needed at certain times in life, to help mirror the best in you, to help you learn skills and boundaries, to learn love, to keep you safe. The best of them assist you in learning to trust the innate wisdom of your heart and soul and tap into your inner power and riches.

Look within and know that you can trust the knowings of your heart mind and soul.

Trusting yourself is loving yourself.

Expectations

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

What expectations do you have for your life? Do they correspond to reality?

Are you living with expectations that will never be, that leave you constantly disappointed, that taint your life with grudges, unhappiness and continual anxiety?

Autumn maple leaf

It is time for a reality check, a truth telling session with yourself so you can stop expending energy on fixing and rescuing others who cannot or don’t want to be rescued.

Perhaps you will find in your truth telling session that you have been striving to keep up false appearances, that life is not turning out the way you had planned or expected.

Perhaps you realize you have been on the trail of expected rewards for many years only to find they are not so rewarding once you achieve them.

Ask your heart for the truth in all areas of your life. Do not lie to yourself or let the ego or the icy grip of fear take over.

This truth telling session with yourself will take courage, stamina and integrity and most of all, self compassion and understanding.

Jack in the Pulpit berries

Begin your truth telling session in your heart. Then you can reinvent your life on a foundation of wise and realistic expectations and the true desires of your spirit.

Cycles rhythms and seasons

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

I sleep in the dark winter months after letting go of my cloak of golden autumn leaves, waking as my sap rises in spring and my buds unroll to soak in the sunlight…. It is my yearly cycle of life, death and life again. This is who I am! I am at peace.

Observe the age-old cycles of the moon, from full brilliant light to complete darkness, then back gradually to full light again. Each phase of the moon is necessary to the next, an integral part of the whole pattern.

She teaches patience, timing, renewal, shining brightly, allowing herself to rest in darkness, then rising and shining again.

Almost full moon

Do you as a woman resist the time of blood each month, call it a curse? Do you fear the change of life, fear that you will be finished, washed up, that you will be invisible, a dried up husk?

Do you as a man fear the time of life when your physical strength diminishes, when you slow down?

We are all creatures of Earth’s rhythms and cosmic cycles, each species with its own patterns and timing. You too have your seasons of growth, death of the old, rebirth, and regeneration.

Your ever present breath, like waves on a beach; your constant heartbeat, your rhythmic footsteps; your patterns of waking and sleeping accompany you all your days and nights on this earth.

Let your rhythms soothe you, let the breath and heartbeat carry you to sleep at night. Let them calm you when you are anxious.

Let your footfalls and the easy swing of your arms grace your day as you move about your business. Can you slow down and pay attention to these subtle movements within you?

Dear one, this season you find yourself in is your reality now! You are precious as you are! You are as you are meant to be!

When you know this, you will learn to live in harmony with the cycles and seasons of your life, large and small.

Emotional Healing 2

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

Does fear reside in your body? Where do you feel it? It is in your gut, heart heart… do you feel it in your throat?

Are there other emotions that live in your body?

Can you sit with this and notice what happens as you tune into the feeling? What happens in your body? What happens to the feeling as you sit quietly noticing it in your heart, your stomach, your jaw…?

Take the time, make space In your life to truly love yourself. Feel your feelings with compassion, without judging or trying to control anything.

It is safe to feel! If it frightens you, ask for help on your healing path. Do this in private or with a trusted friend, healer or counselor.

No frowning adult will punish or make fun of you for crying sobbing, or feeling your true feelings as someone might have done when you were a child…

To live at your full capacity, it is vital to feel what is moving through you, to allow the energy of emotion to pass through your body like ocean waves. All waves start small, build and build, finally peak, then release and dissolve into the water around them.

When you learn to accept and feel your emotions, you are learning self love!

Inner/Outer

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

Dear ones, it is an immutable law of the universe – Your inner world – what you feel inside, the emotions you allow into your consciousness and those you suppress are all reflected in your outer world. Look to the people in your life, the environment, the weather, your neighborhood, your job…everything – as mirrors to the inner you.

Do you dislike what you see around you? Do you want a change? Go inward first. Are you surrounded by unpleasant people? Go inside and befriend the unpleasant part of you – or shall I say the part you think is unpleasant. The part you’ve hidden under layers of “nice”.

2013-01-01 00.00.00-220 (480x640)

Cave entrance

Shine the light of love on that rejected part of you. You cannot find true peace unless you embrace your entire being – the spectrum of emotions, the light and shadow. You are whole and complete only when you embrace the parts of you that you worry are not nice, ugly, frustrated, without courage, weak, hurt, sad….

Make friends, true, deep and abiding friends with yourself. Treat yourself as you would a dear beloved  companion. Do this by witnessing your flaws, your full spectrum of feelings, shining the light of love in the dark places, accepting them as part of you.

Your survival no longer depends on your being “good” or “nice” or “perfect”. It depends on your being real.

You can weather any storm

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

Cut through the clutter and chatter; penetrate the clouds and debris of your life, physical, mental, emotional for your health and well-being.

dscn3412-640x480

Sunshine through thick clouds

Just as your home and surroundings benefit from a clearing and cleaning, so does your energy atmosphere. It might seem impossible to let go of stale old emotions left over from the past, holding you prisoner. You can release them and move forward with new lightness of being.

To do this takes courage self compassion and commitment to your well-being. Get help if you need it as you access, feel and give compassionate attention to the feelings that arise in you.

These feelings are energy.   You will feel them in your body,  feel them moving. Some of them may feel overpowering, like a thunder storm rolling through. Do not fear, dear ones every storm passes in time. Gather your courage and stay with it. Persevere.

Stay with the emotion, become a compassionate observer as it rises, floods, crests and dissipates. Feel its presence in your body without judgment. Allow it to be as it is and in time it will shift and change and lighten as you cease resistance. After a storm all the earth is cleansed, refreshed and ready to grow!

Know this! You are strong, powerful, capable. You can weather any storm. You can heal.

Book learning and heart wisdom

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

As you have gained in book learning, – “the 3 Rs” science, and technology, you have forgotten and minimized the ancient and powerful wisdom of your heart.

What good is your technical knowledge if you are seething with anger and rage? Who cares if you can recite a speech, a pledge, an epic poem if you have no empathy and compassion for your fellow earth inhabitants? Who cares that you have statistical “proof” that all is well when you feel unhappy, heartsick and physically ill?

2016-05-29 10.45.20 (480x640)

Grandmother Cottonwood

Emotional wisdom is far more important to your survival as a species than book learning. Feel the emotion in your body, name it, put your awareness on it. Breathe and feel.

It won’t bite. I might make you feel uncomfortable. Can you live with uncomfortable? Do you want to numb the discomfort? Try to stay with it. If you can’t, find someone who can help you through this.

Be your own best friend! Accept the feelings as they come and go. If you reject an emotion you reject yourself. Love and accept yourselves and allow your feelings to be what they are. Learn from them.

True riches, the infinite fountain of abundance are only to be found by those who look inward with compassion and courage.

It takes your so called guts to live a beautiful life here on this planet where uncertainty reigns, where nothing is guaranteed, where life is exquisitely beautiful, where death is a given.

You and your gifts

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / 1 Comment

GCW speaks of celebrating you and the gifts you bring

2015-12-12 10.58.31

A cardinal in winter

Celebrate your existence here on this planet at this time in this place! You are here in this body against all odds – a billion to one, perhaps!

What is your soul’s purpose here? Why the sweat, blood and tears of this life? Why were you born? Why did your spirit choose this life?

You are first and foremost meant to be here. You need do nothing to prove yourself worthy of existence, of the fruits of this life. Your very presence here is all the proof needed. Your job is to be exactly who you are, sharing your gifts without apology, without embarrassment, without a second thought!

Allow yourself to shine forth in all your glory, for the earth has been waiting for you and your gifts, and is richly blessed by your participation in this life. Know this deep within the core of your being. If others tell you a different story, they lie!

Claim your birthright, the power and light that you are! You have the capability to expand and grow. Develop and practice your gifts and skills and talents. No one else can replicate you, or the amazing gifts you bring to the earth and the web of all existence.

Dear ones, beloved ones, you are magnificent and your gifts are needed now!