How I Became A Shaman

Answering the call and becoming a shaman has been nothing I ever expected for my life. Ten years ago, I was a far cry from the person I am today. I was seventeen, sad, lonely, and using drugs and alcohol daily to cope. I was on medication for social anxiety, depression, and panic disorders. Each day was a struggle, and honestly something I didn’t look forward to. But, fast forward to today, and all of that has changed.

In 2014, I began to look into why my mind thought so differently. I began reading “spirituality-based” articles on Elephant Journal, and eventually read The Untethered Soul – the book that truly changed my life. After my third or fourth time reading the book, and following its practices, I saw great change in my overall attitude about life, and anxiety.

I finally took back some control over the thoughts I had,
and my reactions to them.

Two years later, while working at a job I hated, but thought I would be stuck in forever, I became very ill. An undiagnosed condition on my leg that I had stopped having treatments on ten years prior flared up. My leg was icy cold, swollen up to the knee, and I could barely move my ankle and toes, or walk. An emergency ultrasound to check for blood clotting led to the doctor diagnosing me with a rare condition, which only a specialist in Colorado could provide treatments for. This led to multiple others in San Diego telling me the same thing, and to my passing in and out of consciousness and convulsing, with no answers as to why.

For more than two months, I lay bedridden, some days unable to even lift or move my head. I could hear what was going on around me, but could not respond. I could not move, and standing took too much energy on the good days.

We truly thought this would be the end of my life.

Eventually, I drew up a will, and planned for where my son would be living after I passed. I had made peace with the fact that my time on this Earth was over. I had tried my best raising my son, and felt that he would be okay.

But it seemed that wasn’t the plan for my life after all. In order to keep myself busy when I didn’t sleep the entire day away, I began to read. This was something I had loved as a child and teenager. But this time, I focused on self-help and spiritual books, like Light is the New Black and then Opening to Channel. My boyfriend (my angel, and now husband that cared for me during this time) would take me to the book store and I would ask my inner guidance to select a book for me to read. Each and every time, the book seemed to align with my current situation. And not only the book, but the chapters I would read over time.

It was as if I was being taught, by some teacher I could not see,
but could hear and feel all around me.

This is still the case today, although our connection is much stronger now. Although I loved the inner guidance, and knowledge I was being given, large parts of me began to feel clinically insane. For years I was diagnosed with multiple conditions from all different therapists I hoped would “heal” me – so maybe this was actually a psychotic break.

Although my body began to heal, my mind became worse. I tried to go back to work, but each time I would become sick again. At night, I had to sleep with the light on. I could feel a darkness watching me, and each time I closed my eyes I had awful visions and could hear things. This lasted for months, until I stumbled upon the term “kundalini awakening”, and then, my spiritual teacher.

The night before I met her, I had asked my boyfriend if he thought I should go to a mental hospital. I didn’t want to endanger my son, although I never had any thoughts of harming anyone; but the voices scared me, and made me feel as if I was going to be one of those people you hear about losing control. He told me to wait, and to see what the woman had to say the next day. And thankfully, I did.

That meeting completely changed my world. We talked for nearly five hours, which felt like only one or two. She seemed to talk in puzzles, and knew things I had only told very few people. She knew what I was going through, and gave me my first true reiki treatment – something I will never forget. I left our time together floating on air, and felt an all new power within me.

I was not insane, I was actually the opposite,
and very awake to the world around me.

Three years later and I still talk to Tree weekly. She has taught me so much on this journey, and without her and my husband, I would probably not be alive today – or I would, but in a mental hospital somewhere.

I did not choose to become the shaman that I am today,
but I was chosen.

In a way, I suppose I chose this life before I came into it. I had to endure all that I have in order to mold into this person, with this knowledge. There is so, so much more to this story, and I will tell it all as time unfolds, but for now, that is the basis of this path, and the path for so many other shamans and healers.

We do not become healers, until we have healed ourselves, and endured the pain we wish no others to endure. This provides us with the knowledge and empathy to see ourselves in all of you – no matter your past. We are all one, and we are all loved. Some of us have just lost our way. But, we can always come back. All we must do, is admit to the darkness within us, and allow it to see the light of day.