Onward into 2018

As we move into the new year, I want to share some growth edges I have experienced in the areas of staying positive in trying times and digging deeper emotionally. I also want to discuss the positive aspects of a shamanic healing practice and follow up on my last blog related to pain.

One of my great growth edges for this past year has been staying in a forward state of mind. I have often asked myself these questions: How do I stay positive? How do I set an example for myself and my spiritual community, given what I consider to be the destruction of many of the good things about our government, our social services and our preservation of the environment?

I know many of you have pondered these questions too. How do we get through this together and come out stronger and more focused on creating a better world for ourselves and future generations?

I recognize that we all react to fear and challenges in many different ways. What I feel works best for me personally is what I share with my clients, students, and in my book, The Co-Creation Handbook. I have gotten very positive feedback. Some have even shared that they were able to divert themselves from taking their own lives!

We all have to do our personal work as well as our spiritual work. Yet I realized I had not undertaken any deep personal work for some time so I took four fabulous trainings through Wings Seminars on personal effectiveness and communications. I delved deeply and peeled back many layers of what I now call thinking errors. It was hard work but incredibly helpful. It is so important to have many tools in our tool bag; so gather what tools you can! Do not do a spiritual bypass—ignoring our emotional work by over focus on the spiritual. Our ability to connect to others and be in healthy relationships is an important foundation for a successful and happy life.

And as I continue to offer my shamanic work to others, I have grown more humble. I have seen miraculous shifts in people and they have grown in amazing ways and in turn inspired me. From this I know for a certainty that the way forward is through community, finding ways to support one another, finding ways to bridge with communications to create stronger connections to weather the coming storms.

Here at BirchGrove Hearth we continue to offer our Healing Circles monthly. This is our 26th year and we have wonderful shamanic healers and supporters who show up each month to offer themselves and call forth their fully compassionate spirits to assist those who request healing.

I continue to hold the vision that we will keep building a strong foundation of shamanic healers for our local communities. I especially am grateful as people step forward who want to train in soul retrieval. It is so vital that we help to restore wholeness if we are to solve the many problems we face both personally and collectively. I am offering a soul retrieval training in February and offering a discount to those who register and pay by January 15th. See here for details.

For the coming year, my goals are to teach online, to travel more, and to slow down my healing practice. I am looking for younger people who want to focus on shamanic healing as a career who can take the baton and run with it.

My last blog was about "Pain as an Informer." I was experiencing disabling back pain and not coming up with many answers. Since then I have learned a great deal. To anyone with back pain I recommend this book Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery by Cathryn Jakobson Ramin. I found my copy in the library and devoured it in 24 hours. As a results I was able to take an entirely different path to healing. I am now pain free! And happily engaged in lots of aerobics, weight lifting and hiking. Our bodies are such incredible gifts and taking care of them is one of our sacred responsibilities. May you find new ways to care for yours!

As I look ahead to 2018, here is what I wish for you: choose happiness and do everything you can to create sustainable supportive friendships and communities. Do not procrastinate on what brings you joy. Live each moment!

I leave you with this thought from Mohandas Gandhi (edited for gender neutrality):

"We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As we change our own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards us. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do."