When pursuing a balanced life, building a strong personal connection to the spirit is essential to your journey. Most of us imagine shamans as being somewhat frightening — but really, shamans are people who use altered states of consciousness to access the spirit world.
In many respects, it’s a lot like what happens during very deep meditation! Many cultures throughout history have looked to Shamans as healers and spiritual guides, and shamans have been known to access and use both malevolent and benevolent spiritual energies to manifest certain outcomes in the physical world.
Your own Shamanic Journey is an evolution of communication with your spiritual guides (your higher self as well as others) — and by so doing, to lead you on a personal journey of healing and understanding.
Shamanic meditation is simple, even for beginners. It is similar to eastern meditation practices as they, too, push towards the discovery of and connection with the higher spirit in order to heal the mind and body and to gain a better understanding of the self and the world.
The difference between shamanic meditation and eastern meditation philosophies is that shamanic meditation seeks to connect with spiritual guides in order to live more fully and openly in physical reality rather than transcend physical reality, as is the general focus with eastern meditation practices.
Shamanic meditation does not concentrate on leaving behind the stresses and illnesses of daily life. Instead, it focuses on using a spiritual connection to heal these worldly concerns.
Starting On A Shamanic Journey
Below are various concepts to meditate on. Some of these concepts are harder to understand intellectually than others, which means in order to understand them, we must move beyond logic into the realm of spirit.
When you feel you are ready to begin your personal connection to your spirit to access higher levels of spiritual awareness, you are initiating your Shamanic Journey. Entering an altered state of consciousness is the next step. Traditionally, this has been accomplished through the use of repetitive drumbeats, chanting, and in some cases mind-altering substances.
The repetitive nature of drumbeats is a lot like brainwave entrainment: within minutes, you are in a deep meditative state (an altered state of consciousness). Then, the judgment of your logical mind is suspended and you can more easily access your spiritual guides.
Expressing Creativity
“Creativity is not the making of something through a quality of the mind. It is a spontaneous movement of Spirit energy within the Soul, as the revolving of the Earth around the Sun which creates night and day.” Creativity is far less of an intellectual/mental ability than it is an expression of spirit. By accessing this spirit energy and allowing it to move through us, we reach our creative potential.
Finding Determination
“Determination is the power that gives momentum to desire.” Meditate on this. Many of us are stuck in unrewarding careers and relationships; your spiritual guidance will give you clarity and courage to pursue what you want and need.
Seeking Understanding
“Everything that can be understood is already within us.” This ancient wisdom is part of all of the world’s great spiritual traditions. Every question we have is already answered; and shamanic meditation will help you uncover whatever knowledge you seek. Like an archaeologist digging for lost civilizations, dig into your spirit to find the knowledge and understanding that is hidden from your awareness.
Following The Heart
“Follow your heart, for what you feel is nearer the truth than what you think.” Thought can carry too much weight and can have the tendency to turn negative. (If you have ever talked yourself out of doing something that felt intuitively right but on the surfaced looked logically wrong — only to regret your decision later — you understand the repercussions of favoring intellect).
Sharing Happiness
“Happiness is unattainable alone for it can only be shared.” Happiness is not something to hoard, to keep for yourself. You can’t run out of it — instead, as you share your happiness with those around you, you’ll find that your own happiness expands. And there is no external force that can create happiness within. You can be happy if you choose to be happy — and so, your happiness can only be shared, not “found.”
Discovering Your Innocence
“Innocence is not that which is separate from moral wrong, for innocence is not divisive.” An innocent child lives for the moment. The past is forgotten and the future does not exist. Only the moment has importance. That is innocence; purity; peace. Meditate for the here and the now. Look to connect with what is happening to you and around you now. You cannot fix what has already happened and you cannot break that which has not yet come to pass. Focus your healing spirit energy on what is going on right now.
Appreciating The Journey
“Look to a Way that is not a route to a destination but rather the journey itself, for you cannot become what it is you aspire to unless you can be it where you are now.” Don’t try to move toward your destination. Bring the destination to yourself.
Love Your Real Self
“To love Nature is to love your Real Self, for Nature itself is an expression of the essence of what you are.” We do not see what is, we see what we are. In other words, what is within us determines our outlook.
Towards The Spirit, Out Of Ego
“Spirit is obscured when the Ego is allowed to get in the way.” Our egos make us prideful and afraid. The spirit is the essence of oneness, healing, and light. There is no fear of loss or feelings of being “less than” in the spirit.
Discovering Your Power
You alone have the power to make something of yourself simply by choosing to do so.
Shamanic meditation is not about searching for what you think you don’t have that you need. It is about discovering what was there all along.
Look to these meditations as ideas as your practice your Shamanic Journey. Choose the concepts that resonate with you most, or the ones you intuitively feel are most valuable to you; and get answers as you listen to your inner guidance!
