Grandfather sky, the wind spirits, the bird people, father sun called out to me. (In shamanism, we refer to all of nature as all our relations and we call them by addressing them as people. Such as tree people, mountain people, rock people, flower people and so on).
Source: Pinterest
I needed to be in the open to experience the vastness of the sky, the gentle soothing morning breeze on my face, sun and his heat to warm my empty broken spirit and the lightness of the birds – flying overhead, making eye contact and chirping.
Although my knees were hurting, I made an endeavour to climb the staircase to reach the terrace of my building.
Grandfather sky welcomed me with a broad smile. I felt alive. It was as if a protective guardian/Elder was watching over me. The early morning breeze caressed my cheeks and that began my communion with nature.
I walked back and forth, prayed to the sun, watched the birds and suddenly a wave of grief engulfed me.
My body was enjoying the experience and yet I couldn’t understand why grief came upon me.
Source: Pinterest
I walked a couple of rounds on the terrace. It reminded me of the good old days when I have sat on this terrace, did my shamanic work, prayed for my depression and have been showered with many a guidance while I navigate through multiple shamanic initiations in my current journey.
This terrace has beautifully held me, enveloped me with its love, been a container of all my emotions and illnesses. It has been a witness to my twin flame journey when we both went to witness sunrise and prayed for my twin’s hernia surgery.
We have sat there in mild winter sunlight and we have drummed quite a bit as well.
The terrace with the vastness of the sky above it always reminds me and helps me re-member my vastness, grandeur and flight whenever I seem to forget that in the scheme of mundane chores and challenges.
During covid, when I had no one to talk to (Paul was in the US at the time) or after Paul’s passing in 2021, the terrace has been my single most loyal companion.
It has listened to my cries and screams, celebrated my drumming, welcomed my prayers when I sat on the staircase to help departed souls transition with ease during covid. It has been in full partnership with me. I have received from this terrace like I have not received from a human friend.
It has reminded me over and over again that I am not alone and that the whole universe is working with me and for me and is there for me.
So today, as I prayed for divine grace to bring ease to my spiritual journey, I cried and at the same time, felt so much gratitude for this space.
In, shamanism, we believe that EVERYTHING IS ALIVE and everything is connected to everything else. We believe that the entire universe is in partnership with us and co creating with us and for us.
I feel deep gratitude for the terrace holding space for me, co creating with me, present to me and embracing me without judgement or gyaan.
Perhaps it is this unconditional love that brought tears to my eyes.
They were tears of gratitude. And with this gratitude I returned back home to resume my day.
Foundation of Shamanism workshop is returning on April 27-28 2024. To learn more: ✉️ neelamnanwani@yahoo.in 📞 9979901933 🌐 shamanic-vision.net
Healing doesn’t happen by avoiding what we are feeling.
Healing doesn’t happen by desperately trying to release what we are feeling.
Healing doesn’t happen by pushing away vehemently what we are feeling.
Healing doesn’t happen by smartly numbing or conveniently suppressing what we are feeling.
Healing doesn’t happen by unconsciously masking what we are feeling.
Healing doesn’t happen by braving that feeling.
Healing doesn’t happen by smiling through that feeling.
Healing doesn’t happen by shopping, eating or drinking through that feeling.
Healing doesn’t happen by working and making oneself busy while feeling what you are feeling.
These FALSE paradigms of work through it, push through it, rise through it, eat through it, forget about it, learn through it, seek through it, move away from it – all these have eaten us away from inside.
All our UNDIGESTED pain and sorrow is what IS the “sum total” of what we today see as the violence, abuse, insecurities, jealousy, competition, greed, control, mental illnesses, physical illnesses, etc.
We want society ills to end. But we continue violating our own self, we continue abusing our own self, we are continually either numbing pain or escaping pain and if there is someone who shows courage to live their pain, then we are continually shaming and judging their pain or journey. OR we perpetually advise them to brave their pain or work and forget about their pain.
Introspect an area of your life when you might have unconsciously done this to yourself.
Has it resulted in illness, despair, complaints, victimhood, mental breakdown later?
Has it led to stagnation?
Has it made you feel like a piece of shit within while the world continues to glorify its outward glamour while feeling empty and full of ruckus inside?
Has it made you question your existence?
Have you felt fulfilled by brushing it inside the carpet?
Has your seeking ended?
If not, then PAUSE.
Today, BEFRIEND your pain.
PS: Befriending our pain takes more courage than avoiding our pain. This is why the feminine teachings are not for the faint of heart. There is a reason Durga Rides the tiger.
Foundation of Shamanism workshop is returning on April 27-28 2024. To learn more: ✉️ neelamnanwani@yahoo.in 📞 9979901933 🌐 shamanic-vision.net
Whenever someone in distress reaches out to you, what is your innate natural tendency? How do you respond or react?
Through the journey of my grief and loss, I have observed that more often than not, many begin to unconsciously bypass how the other is feeling in the given moment. We either start correcting them or are propelled to give some solution or advise or we donot know how to respond so we stay quiet or we unconsciously start identifying with that person by saying, “yaa this happened to me too and I did this or that.
The worst thing I have heard is, “Oh.. for you, its been only a year of pain..you don’t know how many years I suffered and remained in pain.”
It made me angry. It made me feel, my pain is not being witnessed and is invalid. Or is not great enough as your pain to be acknowledged. I felt not seen.
Our pain has also become competitive. Oh..my pain is bigger than your pain..so why are you wining?
I have been fortunate enough to be held by my online community of students in my journey of grief and loss and yet I have realised how ill equipped we all are when someone expresses their pain and angst.
We don’t even know what to say, let alone being in pure embodied Presence.
This has led me to write this article.
Something you might consider saying to a person in distress :-
I acknowledge how you feel.
More often than not, we always rush to correct the person who is feeling a certain emotion or give advise or ask them to fix it or release it.
Be brave, move on, how can you feel this way, stop being a victim, brushing aside what someone is feeling, keep yourself busy ..these are some of the ways we address someone’s emotions / pain.
More so, we in the healing fraternity have learnt jargons about releasing, healing, moving on, being positive.
We there by give a signal to the person’s psyche that whatever he/she is feeling IS not ok.
We indirectly bring shame to their experience.
How about re wiring it to say, “I may not fully understand what you are going through, but it is ok to feel what you are feeling”. (This too shall pass). Everything is going to be ok. You are going to be ok. You ARE ok. I hear you fully. Please share/ vent whatever is flowing within you fully. Please don’t keep it inside. I am fully present.
All that a person in sorrow or pain needs is a fully present container.
We all have the ability to find solutions based on our individual understanding provided our sense of self is intact. Having a fully present container creates a safe space within the person to be held without judgement n shame to his / her experience. When this container is available, the person’s sense of Self returns faster. It is then that the person might be receptive for suggestions or possible solutions.
However, the first step is to Not Discard how they feel but acknowledge how they feel.
When a person is in pain or distress, their sense of Self is greatly diminished. By invalidating their experience and pain, we are further shaking their foundation and sense of self.
A person might start internalising, ” something is wrong with me. I am unable to get through this.”
The pain has already broken the person from inside. Invalidating one’s experience can further damage sense of self and self worth.
Every emotion is also a cycle. Just the way one cannot jump from sunrise directly to the night time, one has to go through mid day sun and sunset, similarly our emotions have to go through a cycle of feeling them fully before they fade.
Let’s build our vocabulary to, ” I may not fully understand how you feel, I acknowledge what you are saying. I hear you.”
It goes a long way dear ones in building bridges, bringing a person home from the deep trenches of his/her dark tunnels.
We ask people, “how are you?”, but are we really prepared to RECEIVE the answer fully?
This does not mean our intention about asking about their well being isn’t genuine. However, equally true is the fact that most of us feel befuddled and don’t know what to do or say when a person genuinely shares what he / she is going through (challenges / pain/ feelings/ situations). The part within us that deeply wants to support and help, feels lost. What can I do? How can I help? And we sort of realise that there might really be no way to help and that brings helplessness and a deep sense of inadequacy or feeling of unworthiness within.
This is a very difficult space to BE in and feel that unworthiness within the self, to be intimate with that innate sense of helplessness that creeps in during these situations.
Our human brain or mind works very fast. It wants to so deeply help and support in order for the person’s pain to go away that it starts conjuring solutions or statements. It starts giving ideas , suggestions, plans of action -say this, tell them to do this, do that, da da da da da ……and this inner programming is so quick that before we start realising, our mouth has opened or our hand has typed suggestions, solutions, or indulged in situations where we start doing or saying something that we feel might help or support the person.
This addresses our concern that we might be feeling. It helps with our own helplessness or deep rooted sense of unworthiness. But, what about the person at the receiving end? Did we check what he / she might need?
Is he / she just sharing ? Is he/ she just venting or ranting? Does the person need solution or does the person just wants to feel needed, validated or acknowledged in that moment? Or simply witnessed and held?
Agreed that online spaces make this process immensely difficult. But simple statements like “I am listening”, “I am present”, “I see you” while controlling our own inner impulse to advise or suggest solutions without asking if the person needs any suggestions can go a long way in not invalidating the other persons pain and experience.
Allowing ourselves to BREATHE through our own innate discomfort and helplessness of not being able to do much, learning daily about BEing rather than slipping into Doing, these are the things which would, in my opinion go a long way – for ourself and the person that we desire to support or be there for.
We want to take away the pain of others and support them. We desperately do what we know best. We are indeed coming from a place of support and love.
However, in that moment, what does the person really need??
Can we ask, “How can I support you today?” Can we simply listen from our body and not just the mind?”
Can we breathe through our own unconscious helplessness that keeps coming up when we really aren’t able to do much ?
And yet can we realise that pure presence IS everything?
Holding space IS everything. Gentle nudges ARE everything.
Listening IS everything.
Do we realise that the other person’s sharing might also bring up “our own pain & helplessness” and it is our own inability to feel our pain that provokes us to offer solutions or suggestions that haven’t been sought yet?
Do we realise that simply sitting with that person may make ALL the difference in their field??
What bigger need do we humans have than being witnessed for who we are and what we might be going through? This doesn’t mean encouraging victimhood. This simply means, for now, being present to them fully and may be when the wave has settled, ask “Do you need a suggestion or advise?”
Do we realise that pain, loss, trauma and grief is such a roller coaster that the person going through it may start feeling “I am not important, and that during the grieving or traumatic period, their sense of self is HIGHLY diminished. They already are questioning their existence and their state of being; they are already feeling that something is inherently wrong with them for them to feel what they are feeling or what they are going through.
By giving our solutions or healing suggestions, don’t you feel, we might not only be diminishing what they are feeling but also indirectly conveying a message, that they might not doing enough??
And that is the least that we want them to feel, isn’t it??
Do we realise that they might feel that the whole world is going on enjoying life while all they feel is pain ? Is something wrong with them or about them that they have manifested so much pain in their life?
And when we advise, we further might enable this state.
Do know, that solutions are welcome too. But it depends how actively engaged you have been in their healing journey. If you are just a passer by or have been a mere spectator, then please check if your suggestions would be welcome or is it the need of that moment.
More so, is it YOUR need or THEIR need?
No one can lessen the pain that the person might be going through. All we can do is to walk, may be a few steps with them without invalidating their experience and pain and there by not denying (but aceepting) our own pain.
What we honor, honors us back.
This is the biggest act of kindness, in my opinion, to the other and to your own self.
