Healer, Heal Thyself
So what is it exactly that I'm so afraid of? What is it that keeps me from being my best and most authentic self?
I could provide a long list of insignificant things that really are just mini phobias manifested from traumatic experiences as a child, and that is where I believe this one is rooted as well. In a way.
I have known things I could not possibly have had prior knowledge of for as long as I can recall.
Native Americans believe that it is through death and rebirth or near death experiences that shamans are born. I was born grey and unmoving, not breathing, with my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. The doctor snipped the cord free, and rubbed at my chest and my back, but could not inspire me to take my first breath.
As mom tells it, he wrapped his hand around my ankles and held me upside down while he smacked the bottom of my feet.
Mom insists that as I opened my mouth, the burst of pink came first from the center of my chest to the tips of my little limbs, and that my wail was the sweetest sound she'd ever heard.
If this transition into life was through death first, then perhaps these gifts indicate I am a Shaman. According to my DNA test results, I'm not Native American as we previously thought, so if it is my DNA that is in question I would be more inclined to state that I'm a psychic, a medium, and a healer.
I am afraid that if I share this truth openly that it will not be well received. That my credibility in any field I venture into will be harshly judged by others or that they may affix to me any associations with the negative stigma that often accompanies people who so bravely and openly practice their gifts in the metaphysical community. Naturopathic or holistic practices with their "New Age-y, hippie ideals", come along with "airy-fairy" beliefs that are hard to pinpoint as science... as evidence based, but are instead experience based and ridiculed.
I have been inspired to discover a fundamental truth. It really doesn't matter what you think of me, or of what I believe. Of course I want you to love me. I'm totally lovable, and I've got a huge heart so there's lots to go around. I'm a good turn taker, I'll love you back.
But more important than really caring what anyone thinks about me, is what I think about myself, what makes me who I am, and where I come from.
My father was an Eagle Scout as a boy. He owned a rollerskating rink at one point in his life, and was an incredible sketch artist. He was a businessman, and a salesman, and he was so charismatic; people were drawn to him. He was also psychic. My father performed feats of "automatic writing" where he would go into a trance-like state and channel information into his hand to the page to deliver messages from those who had passed. Sometimes the message appeared in a different language, written with his non-dominant hand or in the form of symbols.
He could also read playing cards the way that many read Tarot. Mom insists that he first had the knowledge of how to do these things, and then later studied to confirm that he was correctly utilizing these tools.
My father could transmute his own energy. He and my oldest brother Danny were able to light an unattached light bulb in the center of a table, as well as recharge a 12 volt battery using only the energy of their bodies; or maybe it was the energy of their minds. In either case, these things were very mysterious to my mother. She had been raised in a Christian household and these "gifts" somewhat challenged her existing beliefs. My father was both spiritual and religious and he prayed often. He had been LDS most of his life and later converted to Christianity, yet he and my grandfather George attended many private group meetings and spiritualist gatherings to discover more about their divine gifts.
My father also had visions. He knew things as well, and my mother insists that he predicted his own death. He claimed that he'd had a vision of the possible death of one of his uncles, but that he could not determine which, so he insisted they take a road trip that summer to visit everyone back home in Kansas. It was on this trip that I was conceived.
I was never able to ask him any questions about these things, because he passed away shortly after my mom discovered she was pregnant with me. I know little more about him than I've shared with you here.
Why is this significant?
Because I had always known where my father was; he was with me. I was sad to not be able to hear, understand, or see him, but I knew that he was there. Clearly he had passed away, but his physical form had been cremated and his ashes spread over the Superstition mountains at his request, but his presence, never left my side.
My mother didn't really ever speak about him unless I asked, and I had never needed to ask where he was or how he had died. It seemed I had always known, and she never found this odd.
Mom just accepted that I took after my father and perhaps inherited some of his gifts. I think she was aware that I had a need to explore this part of myself, but didn't really endorse it until I grew a bit older when I started to realize that I was a little different from the other kids.
She took me to my first new age bookstore when I was 13, and bought me my first Tarot deck. I read all the books I could get my hands on and studied everything I could get my hands on about each of the cards and the different Tarot spreads and their mysterious origins.
I learned about channeling and experimented with this, along with using a Ouija board (without my mother's knowledge,) on a regular basis, asking questions like it was some sort of cosmic cash machine.
I read about the crystals and their properties, and I read about astrology and learned the signs of the Zodiac and its origins as well as palmistry, and learning more about the different types of clairs - Clairvoyance, Clair-audience, Clair-sentience, Clair-Tangency etc.
I had always been fascinated by scary stories so reading up on true life haunting wasn't so unusual for me.
However, over time, the ghost-y experiences got a little scary for me. I started to see more people who had passed, and at first this was fun. I'd entertain my friends and "play" Bloody Mary, trying to invoke the spirit in my downstairs powder room with my closest friends, sometimes with actual results. It wasn't long before the ghosts we were trying to produce discovered that I could see them, just as they could see me, they came to visit more frequently and en masse. This was only the beginning.
I did eventually stop using the Ouija board, since I'd scared myself from watching too many horror films, and I had several visitors coming to see me nightly, so I didn't want to risk it.
All this being said, there weren't really many resources for a kid with "gifts," but one unspoken rule resonated loudly and often, we don't talk about that. They were gifts, and they were mine, but I felt I had to treat them as a dirty little secret. People might think I was a witch, or a satanist, or that I suffered from mental illness in some capacity.
My sister was deeply into religion, and into her time with the church during high school. She made sure to remind me on a regular basis that I would be going to hell because of the use of my gifts. Which served as a reminder that, the bible spoke against divination, and other forms of psychic development which could be considered witchcraft, not to mention speaking with, seeing, hearing or sensing the souls of the departed. If what she said was true, I was damned.
I felt that religion was lost to me, but somehow, despite all of this, I still managed to have a relationship with God. I prayed harder than ever that I be led to do what was right for me, what I was "supposed" to do. I thought this would remove my gifts and I would be divinely healed from whatever was broken in me to make me this way, but it didn't. I just developed depression instead.
I don't remember some of this period in my life. I do remember hating myself and wishing I could just disappear. That everyone would be much better off without me. I was self destructive and did all sorts of ridiculous things to inflict self harm, but somehow, I managed to make it through. I like to think it was divine intervention. Proof that I was on the right path or that I had a greater purpose.
Despite this inner knowing, I still faced many situations that challenged me. One friend in particular discovered that I read Tarot cards and called me a bruja. He cursed me out and refused to speak to me again. I hated that I'd lost a friend over something he didn't understand. That loss stung me deeply.
In another situation, years later, I did a reading for a dear friend of mine and wasn't able to give her all of the information in front of me. Within the week, two of her brothers were in a car accident and one was killed. The surviving brother suffered greatly, but lived through the accident and in time, he recovered. I wondered why I was even able to read for others if I couldn't give them information enough to prepare them for what was to come? I decided I would quit reading. For a while or for forever, I didn't know... it didn't matter if I wasn't able to help.
In the quiet of those dark days that followed I received an answer. I had given her the information she needed after all. The most important message she needed to receive, was that what was to come would shake her deeply, and she had the potential to lose everything she'd worked so hard for in her drinking her grief, and her problems away. The point was that I'd helped her, and that is what I'd intended to do. Our friendship was never the same, but she went on to live her life, and overcome the difficulty, so ultimately, that is what is most important.
I don't want to be perceived as anything but my most authentic self but there is such a strong resistance to accepting things that we don't quite understand. I suppose it's our nature. I suppose it is part of what makes us flawed and human and fully immersed in the ego, or in the "My God can beat up your God." mentality when in truth, it is the singular person's relationship with the divine that we express in our daily lives that matters.
So to the loving, ever present and ever existent divine presence that I believe has loved me, kept me, guided me, and healed me, I am truly, deeply and eternally grateful for my gifts and I will continue to use them for the betterment of my soul's evolution, and the service to others. I will bravely embrace the gift of ascension and evolution of my human experience until I move on to the next task you have for me. I really have too much to do for me to worry about how much faith other people have in my abilities.
I could provide a long list of insignificant things that really are just mini phobias manifested from traumatic experiences as a child, and that is where I believe this one is rooted as well. In a way.
I have known things I could not possibly have had prior knowledge of for as long as I can recall.
Native Americans believe that it is through death and rebirth or near death experiences that shamans are born. I was born grey and unmoving, not breathing, with my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. The doctor snipped the cord free, and rubbed at my chest and my back, but could not inspire me to take my first breath.
As mom tells it, he wrapped his hand around my ankles and held me upside down while he smacked the bottom of my feet.
Mom insists that as I opened my mouth, the burst of pink came first from the center of my chest to the tips of my little limbs, and that my wail was the sweetest sound she'd ever heard.
If this transition into life was through death first, then perhaps these gifts indicate I am a Shaman. According to my DNA test results, I'm not Native American as we previously thought, so if it is my DNA that is in question I would be more inclined to state that I'm a psychic, a medium, and a healer.
I am afraid that if I share this truth openly that it will not be well received. That my credibility in any field I venture into will be harshly judged by others or that they may affix to me any associations with the negative stigma that often accompanies people who so bravely and openly practice their gifts in the metaphysical community. Naturopathic or holistic practices with their "New Age-y, hippie ideals", come along with "airy-fairy" beliefs that are hard to pinpoint as science... as evidence based, but are instead experience based and ridiculed.
I have been inspired to discover a fundamental truth. It really doesn't matter what you think of me, or of what I believe. Of course I want you to love me. I'm totally lovable, and I've got a huge heart so there's lots to go around. I'm a good turn taker, I'll love you back.
But more important than really caring what anyone thinks about me, is what I think about myself, what makes me who I am, and where I come from.
My father was an Eagle Scout as a boy. He owned a rollerskating rink at one point in his life, and was an incredible sketch artist. He was a businessman, and a salesman, and he was so charismatic; people were drawn to him. He was also psychic. My father performed feats of "automatic writing" where he would go into a trance-like state and channel information into his hand to the page to deliver messages from those who had passed. Sometimes the message appeared in a different language, written with his non-dominant hand or in the form of symbols.
He could also read playing cards the way that many read Tarot. Mom insists that he first had the knowledge of how to do these things, and then later studied to confirm that he was correctly utilizing these tools.
My father could transmute his own energy. He and my oldest brother Danny were able to light an unattached light bulb in the center of a table, as well as recharge a 12 volt battery using only the energy of their bodies; or maybe it was the energy of their minds. In either case, these things were very mysterious to my mother. She had been raised in a Christian household and these "gifts" somewhat challenged her existing beliefs. My father was both spiritual and religious and he prayed often. He had been LDS most of his life and later converted to Christianity, yet he and my grandfather George attended many private group meetings and spiritualist gatherings to discover more about their divine gifts.
My father also had visions. He knew things as well, and my mother insists that he predicted his own death. He claimed that he'd had a vision of the possible death of one of his uncles, but that he could not determine which, so he insisted they take a road trip that summer to visit everyone back home in Kansas. It was on this trip that I was conceived.
I was never able to ask him any questions about these things, because he passed away shortly after my mom discovered she was pregnant with me. I know little more about him than I've shared with you here.
Why is this significant?
Because I had always known where my father was; he was with me. I was sad to not be able to hear, understand, or see him, but I knew that he was there. Clearly he had passed away, but his physical form had been cremated and his ashes spread over the Superstition mountains at his request, but his presence, never left my side.
My mother didn't really ever speak about him unless I asked, and I had never needed to ask where he was or how he had died. It seemed I had always known, and she never found this odd.
Mom just accepted that I took after my father and perhaps inherited some of his gifts. I think she was aware that I had a need to explore this part of myself, but didn't really endorse it until I grew a bit older when I started to realize that I was a little different from the other kids.
She took me to my first new age bookstore when I was 13, and bought me my first Tarot deck. I read all the books I could get my hands on and studied everything I could get my hands on about each of the cards and the different Tarot spreads and their mysterious origins.
I learned about channeling and experimented with this, along with using a Ouija board (without my mother's knowledge,) on a regular basis, asking questions like it was some sort of cosmic cash machine.
I read about the crystals and their properties, and I read about astrology and learned the signs of the Zodiac and its origins as well as palmistry, and learning more about the different types of clairs - Clairvoyance, Clair-audience, Clair-sentience, Clair-Tangency etc.
I had always been fascinated by scary stories so reading up on true life haunting wasn't so unusual for me.
However, over time, the ghost-y experiences got a little scary for me. I started to see more people who had passed, and at first this was fun. I'd entertain my friends and "play" Bloody Mary, trying to invoke the spirit in my downstairs powder room with my closest friends, sometimes with actual results. It wasn't long before the ghosts we were trying to produce discovered that I could see them, just as they could see me, they came to visit more frequently and en masse. This was only the beginning.
I did eventually stop using the Ouija board, since I'd scared myself from watching too many horror films, and I had several visitors coming to see me nightly, so I didn't want to risk it.
All this being said, there weren't really many resources for a kid with "gifts," but one unspoken rule resonated loudly and often, we don't talk about that. They were gifts, and they were mine, but I felt I had to treat them as a dirty little secret. People might think I was a witch, or a satanist, or that I suffered from mental illness in some capacity.
My sister was deeply into religion, and into her time with the church during high school. She made sure to remind me on a regular basis that I would be going to hell because of the use of my gifts. Which served as a reminder that, the bible spoke against divination, and other forms of psychic development which could be considered witchcraft, not to mention speaking with, seeing, hearing or sensing the souls of the departed. If what she said was true, I was damned.
I felt that religion was lost to me, but somehow, despite all of this, I still managed to have a relationship with God. I prayed harder than ever that I be led to do what was right for me, what I was "supposed" to do. I thought this would remove my gifts and I would be divinely healed from whatever was broken in me to make me this way, but it didn't. I just developed depression instead.
I don't remember some of this period in my life. I do remember hating myself and wishing I could just disappear. That everyone would be much better off without me. I was self destructive and did all sorts of ridiculous things to inflict self harm, but somehow, I managed to make it through. I like to think it was divine intervention. Proof that I was on the right path or that I had a greater purpose.
Despite this inner knowing, I still faced many situations that challenged me. One friend in particular discovered that I read Tarot cards and called me a bruja. He cursed me out and refused to speak to me again. I hated that I'd lost a friend over something he didn't understand. That loss stung me deeply.
In another situation, years later, I did a reading for a dear friend of mine and wasn't able to give her all of the information in front of me. Within the week, two of her brothers were in a car accident and one was killed. The surviving brother suffered greatly, but lived through the accident and in time, he recovered. I wondered why I was even able to read for others if I couldn't give them information enough to prepare them for what was to come? I decided I would quit reading. For a while or for forever, I didn't know... it didn't matter if I wasn't able to help.
In the quiet of those dark days that followed I received an answer. I had given her the information she needed after all. The most important message she needed to receive, was that what was to come would shake her deeply, and she had the potential to lose everything she'd worked so hard for in her drinking her grief, and her problems away. The point was that I'd helped her, and that is what I'd intended to do. Our friendship was never the same, but she went on to live her life, and overcome the difficulty, so ultimately, that is what is most important.
I don't want to be perceived as anything but my most authentic self but there is such a strong resistance to accepting things that we don't quite understand. I suppose it's our nature. I suppose it is part of what makes us flawed and human and fully immersed in the ego, or in the "My God can beat up your God." mentality when in truth, it is the singular person's relationship with the divine that we express in our daily lives that matters.
So to the loving, ever present and ever existent divine presence that I believe has loved me, kept me, guided me, and healed me, I am truly, deeply and eternally grateful for my gifts and I will continue to use them for the betterment of my soul's evolution, and the service to others. I will bravely embrace the gift of ascension and evolution of my human experience until I move on to the next task you have for me. I really have too much to do for me to worry about how much faith other people have in my abilities.
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