Hello! My last couple of blog posts have been in response to a number of people who are feeling called to be in service as a healing practitioner. There are common threads that weave their way through the beginning of that calling... humility, reverence and gratitude being the core practices. This last piece is for those people who are ready to jump in right now. 

So What Do I Do Now?

When you first start awakening to Spirit, it's very, very exciting. You probably want to practice, go out and heal everyone, get started, get going, be in service, even start a business about it. Just do it! Right? It's exciting! It's also very easy to become so focused on helping other people that you stop working on yourself. Being able to offer effective therapy or energy healing doesn't mean you are done with your own human evolution!

I once participated in a training that had a prerequisite of ten private sessions with a therapist who practiced the methods we would be learning. Most of the participants didn't do it - they never personally experienced the methods we were learning. They were learning the techniques during the training, but they weren't pursuing personal growth... and it showed in their work. Eventually several of them did seek support for their own healing, and their service improved tenfold. There are successful counselors whose personal relationships are muddled. There are energy workers who have no boundaries, or who don't respect others' boundaries. There are bodyworkers who don't take care of their physical health. There are gurus who use their status to attract devotees in order to feel loved, wanted and powerful. With a muddled inner channel, the service isn't as pure as it could be; the support offered is tainted by the ego's drive to meet its needs in lieu of its own healing.

The most important thing you can possibly do to encourage your development as a helper is to be proactive about your own healing and evolution.

Be honest with yourself. Witness your habits, your fears, the way you are in relationship with others - and pursue healing for any wounding you are carrying. Get help. See a healing practitioner. Be in therapy (I'm completely biased... preferably mindfulness-based, somatic, experiential therapy). Meditate. Participate in healing ceremonies. Talk to each other. Practice vulnerability. Invite freedom. Invite Love. Become the open channel you wish to be by being active in your own evolutionary process.

Imagine the difference between pushing your hands through a mud-filled tunnel with sticks and rocks in it... and sliding easily through a smooth, open channel to what's on the other side. Get it?

Besides that, listen to your heart and follow your nose. What you are truly and naturally attracted to in this work is where your gifts lie. As my mentor says, if it makes you wag your tail, it's the right thing.

You will know what to do when the time is right.

My sweet friends, blessings on your amazing journey. May you know peace and clarity as your calling unfolds.

With Love and admiration,
Aowyn

I continue to see clients and others who are feeling called to be in service. It's becoming easier for Spirit to be seen, felt, heard, and interacted with. There are commonalities to each person's experience during this time of awakening - commonalities that thread their way through the personalities of counselors, healing practitioners, channels, yoga teachers, and so many others. Last week I posted a blog that talked about everyone having the ability to experience spirit, and the importance of each person's unique offering. Here are a couple more pieces that I hope will be useful to you as you open to your own relationship with Spirit, your abilities and service. I trust in right timing... some of this may resonate for you, and some of it may not, and all of that is perfect. 

You Don't Need to Know Anything
(In fact, it's usually better if you don't.)

You may find that you're having revelations or "downloads," or that thematic symbols keep popping up all around you. You may suddenly perceive someone's energetic body, or receive direction from someone you can't see with your physical eyes. You may learn things about your past lives that feel crystal-clear and familiar.

It's incredibly tempting to try to make meaning of things. To connect the dots between your experiences. To answer the unanswerable questions. To take immediate and sometimes dramatic action based on recent revelations. To declare yourself to "Be Something" (see below - Dissolve Your Identity).

It's best now to just breathe. Allow the questions to inform your life, without needing to know the answers. There is a difference between harnessing the mind's brilliance in service to Spirit, and letting the mind steer the ship. Best to just breathe for now, and trust that you'll know when it's time to do something.

When you encounter Spirit or when Spirit shares information with you, let yourself be filled with gratitude, without expectation and with openness. Gratitude is the best gift you can offer, and a valuable tool for staying in relationship with Spirit - simply sitting with gratitude in the presence of the Great Mystery. And continuing to listen - without grasping for more. Allowing the questions to be, without expectation. Holding it all humbly, with gratitude and reverence. 

Dissolve Your Identity

It's also tempting to decide who you are - to label yourself or assume a new identity - based on an encounter with Spirit. It's a journey many people take - something like: I've had these magical experiences, and I want to pin it down and make it permanent. I want people to think of me in this way.

Attaching to a title or living an identity can put ego firmly in the driver's seat. It can put the focus on the title and how the world perceives you, rather than just being who you are.

If you take a look at the people you consider your teachers in life, you will find that while some of them are truly teaching, giving or serving, some of them are doing their work with the goal of achieving status, being the only one who does what they do, or being looked up to. This is an unfortunate turn, and it has led many people into a life of fame, fortune and fakery. Once an identity takes hold - whether it's Counselor, Therapist, Professor, Lawyer, Doctor, Shaman, Healer - it's a slippery slope to believing that you know more than others, or that you know their inner workings and the only proper solution to their struggles. From there, it's another slippery slope to missing the guidance that comes from Spirit in favor of the ego's direction. True curiosity and allowing healing or change to occur get lost behind the belief that you know better than the other person. The belief that you know better is a great misuse of your power, whether it's outwardly expressed or held energetically, as it falsely empowers you while disempowering the person you're working with. To believe that you know more or better than your client/partner/boyfriend/parent is to disrespect their innate wisdom and personal healing abilities.

Rather than clinging to an identity,
try standing in this field:

I am in service.
I live joyfully.
I move when I am called.
I trust in the natural unfolding
of all things.
With joy and gratitude, I allow.



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This is an amazing life we're living. Many blessings to you as you continue your process of awakening, acceptance and connection. Blessings of Love for your beautiful heart. May your relationship with Spirit be felt, and may it be a source of Love and joy for you.

Part three of this train of thought is on its way... looking at the question So What Do I Do Now?

Love,
Aowyn

In the past year, I've had the great honor of watching clients and friends realize that they are feeling called to be in service. There are commonalities to each person's experience - commonalities that thread their way through the personalities of counselors, healing practitioners, channels, yoga teachers, and so many others. I'd like to share some of this with you because so many people are starting their relationship with Spirit... and since you are reading this, it's likely that you may be experiencing some of these things. I hope it's useful to you.


We All Have These Abilities

When we start to open to the spirit realm (through clairvoyance, clairaudience, claircognizance, actual healings taking place, or any other Spirit-guided experience) it can feel extremely potent and unique. And we feel really special, which we are... but no more special than anyone else. It's important to know that and to live with humility, knowing that it is a gift to be opening in this way at this time, and that everyone has this ability. Over time, more and more people wake up to the existence of Spirit. Perhaps it's happening to you right now. Perhaps it's happening to your neighbor, too. 

The ability to experience Spirit gets covered up over time by the material world, learned beliefs, environmental factors, personal woundings, the media, societal influences, addictions, etc. Life is a process of peeling back the layers until all that's left is Truth. Connecting with Spirit is innate to us. We are Spirits living in human bodies! Somewhere along the way, you may find that you are ready to experience this truth of who you are, and to connect with the Spirit that exists in everything.

Let yourself feel gratitude for where you've been. Gratitude for where you are now, and for where you will be. Offer gratitude for the waking of your friends and families. Offer gratitude for those who are asleep. Make prayers for the awakening of all Beings.

Your Way is Unique

Many people will try to learn methods and techniques, rituals and ceremonies, words and ways that have been used by others. It is wonderful and useful to have a variety of tools in your toolbox, but the best way you can possibly be of service is to find your own way. Find your own connection to Spirit. Follow the guidance that you receive. Trust it. There is no need to copy someone else's way of doing things. It is the fact of your blessed uniqueness - all the things that come together to make you YOU - that creates the medicine that only YOU can be. Your unique medicine is needed. It is what is being called forth. To emulate others is to turn your back on the unique gifts you have to give.

And... because each person's relationship with Spirit is different, different wisdom will be brought forth through each person. Please don't admonish one another for doing things "incorrectly" or in a way that is out of line with what you have learned. We must make space for each others' truths. Rituals and beliefs vary widely from tribe to tribe and culture to culture. A symbol may mean one thing at one time or place, and another thing at another time or place. A ceremonial tool may be used one way by one person, and another way by another person. A song that heals one person may be completely neutral for another person. There are many, many guides at work - the ascended masters, interdimensional beings, ancestors, animals, plants, elementals, archangels, the many aspects of the Divine Mother, and so many more - and they may share different things with different people. Certain spirit guides will work with some people and not others. This is because we each have a different job to do, just like them.

The most important thing for each of you is to listen closely to your own experience. Hold your precious truth with love and gentleness. Behold the variety of gifts that Spirit brings through different people. Allow gratitude for these many ways, these many blessings... in you, exactly the way you are; and in others, exactly the way they are.

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I hope this has been useful for you. I send you Love and support while you discover your path and find your way.

Soon to come in Parts 2 and 3... you don't need to know anything. Just be who you are. Listen to your heart. That's really all you need to do. 

Love,
Aowyn