On this course, you will become aware of how you and your clients, unique as you all are, have become detached from the divine and disconnected from the sacred, from nature, from your spirit and from source. Subsequently, this course will enable you and your clients to rediscover the route home to yourself once more. I say once more because we know that space, but through the wounds that we have endured throughout our lifetime, we have become separated from the soul. The unique spark that resides within us if we dare to delve within. Psychotherapy can be a powerful healing tool to achieve this aim, but it is only a partial achievement. Although we as therapists sit with our clients and prize them, there is an unspoken power dynamic between therapist and client. The client perceiving the therapist as the one in power, thus handing over their power to them (as has been done with many people in positions of power in the past) and thus relinquishing their light to others.
Shamanism in contrast is non-hierarchical. Everyone is seen as equal just as nature sees all parts of itself as equal, not favouring and shunning any aspect of itself. To paraphrase Doctor Brandon Keenan, psychotherapy is the newest of all the healing modalities yet it pays little to no attention to the wisdom of the ancient healing traditions such as shamanism, which have been practiced across the planet for centuries.
Shamanism sees life as a circle, whereas Psychotherapy sees the world from a linear lens. From cause to effect. From childhood to adulthood. It tries to prune all of the disharmony inflicted upon us across the life cycle.
The Linear World
There are two ways of living life. One is the man-made world of linear time. In this world one can get stuck in the ‘there and then’ domain of trying to hold onto or eradicate the past whilst trying to control the future. The other world is graciously afforded to us by the ‘Great Spirit’ . This is the place were nature resides. This is the domain of the here and now. This world is called the cyclical world.
In the linear world, people imagine danger everywhere. They show up as fearful and behave from a place of resistance rather than growth. They view their life from a place of worry. In this environment, people give their power away as they engage in the folly of fear and make believe.
The formula for living in this agitated linear world is a three-stage process. Firstly, people residing within this setting (unlike nature) do not meet, nor greet, nor release the difficulties that they encounter in their lives. Rather, they resist change and dishonour themselves, which results in their problems persisting. People living from this vantage point give over the ownership of their existence to other people or to abusive substances. They do this in an attempt to take a shortcut through the challenges that they face in their lives or to erase or numb the pain of their past.
A person living in this unsettled space will attempt to create a future that they believe will take care of all of their needs unreservedly. They will then get angry and hurt when all of their strenuous efforts do not give them what they want. Yet they still try to have total control of the present. This can be seen as an absurd way of living because it leads to a suffering consciousness where the person is in a continuous mindset of overthinking and feeling stressed. When we overthink, we remove ourselves from the present. Rather than accepting and being comfortable with themselves just as they are, people residing in this linear world can create problems were previously, no problem existed. In this world, fear is the primary factor.
“We don’t fear the unknown, we fear what we think about the unknown “
-Teal Swan
If you are living from this place, nature asks that you come out of this dark place, to dare to think about and see the world differently. The Shaman asks you to embark and follow a new path and to let go of anything that may have once assisted you, but which now holds you back from becoming whole.
“A miracle is a change in perception from fear to love”
-Marianne Williamson
By becoming aware, without judgement, of our feelings, our fears, our actions and the things that are out of our control, we can choose like nature not to act out of, nor succumb to, those things that are external to us.
“Life isn’t as serious as the mind makes it out to be”
-Eckhart Tolle
The Cyclical World
Like nature, the Shaman sees life within a large pattern of cycles, such as day and night, and the passing of the seasons. The seasons do not push one another along, neither do the clouds race the wind across the sky. All things happen in their own time. Everything has a time to rise and a time to fall. Whatever rises shall fall, and whatever falls shall surely rise once more. That is the principle of cycles.
In nature, there is no past, nor future. All time is now. Time is cyclical, morning following night, season following season. In the world inhabited by the land and the animals, there is a life cycle. This life cycle brings with it familiarity, predictability and it can be trusted. The circular rotation of life brings with it a time for planting, abundant reaping, shedding and resting. On this course, you will learn strategies to assist you to live more presently and effortlessly in this cyclical manner and discover what needs to be shed in your life for new growth to emerge with greater ease.
Living your life from this space will allow you to experience more freedom and face life’s challenges more courageously. It will allow you to uncover talents deep within you, which before lay dormant. Talents that can assist you to discover more meaning in your life, releasing that which you were once were tied to.
According to the Shaman, we are nature along with the plants and the animals. Nature teaches us that all of life prospers and grows when it honours itself and meets its challenges head on. Through her presence, nature teaches us to be compassionate with ourselves when the high winds of turmoil present themselves in our lives. It is here where you will find your character and the opportunity to emerge in all of your wonder, in your own time and in your own unique way.
“By honouring yourself, you put something into the world that was not there before”
-Edwin Elliott
Engaging in this course will assist you to live the truth of your being and enable you and your clients to meet yourselves and your life with greater confidence. It will provide you with deeper roots when challenges do come across your path.
The Shamanic and Psychotherapeutic Academy 