Rising Love
Interview with Rachel Francis by Reena Wolf
RW: Okay. Tell me about where you came up with the name Rising Love.
So Rising Love was a transmission I received during a shamanic ceremony along with my manifesto. This activation occurred when I was working with shamans from different lineages around the world doing deep internal healing work, and learning how to integrate these lessons into a practice. Healing is not a specific problem to fix, but a continuous practice. It’s essentially reclaiming lost soul essence and then ceremoniously acknowledging our wholeness. One South American shaman doing this work for over thirty years explained that most of the world’s problems stem from man’s inability to love himself. It seemed like an oversimplified explanation of the violence in the world, but the more I work with others doing this sacred healing work I find so much truth in his statement.
During that time, I was going through my third “spiritual awakening” in the second year of Dark Night of the Soul going through a divorce from an eleven-year marriage. I was experiencing a health crisis that required major surgery and I was in the process of changing careers and moving back home to live with my parents after having lived in London for 15 years. I felt lost, overwhelmed, and scared to start over at thirty-seven years old.
Everything in the universe is energy. Shamanism taught me how to experience energy in spiritual form bringing me back to the Divine after a ten-year agnostic phase. I learned how to ground my energy and transform pain into power. You become the mystic having a direct connection with God/Spirit. I Developed my inner Gnosis (Greek for knowing) as referred to in ancient Greece.
The most profound revelation was that the opposite of love is not hate like we are taught, but fear. The antidote to disarm fear is not with only courage but through curiosity, exposure, acceptance, and compassion.
This transmission came during a full moon ceremony in June during the Pink Full Moon. I was meditating before the ceremony when I saw a huge, beautiful moth called the Sphinx Moth. Some indigenous American tribes believe moths mediate the spirit world, between the living and the dead. The moth symbolizes death, rebirth, the moon, and psychic awareness.
It was at this ceremony that I realized I was called to serve. All the details revealed where to start, and who to contact, so I immediately went into action. I knew one of my highest purposes was to be a source of love and kindness, to serve humanity.
This led me to think about our responsibility when it comes to love. How does one define love? We are a society addicted and obsessed with “falling in love” but no one talks about “rising in love” and how beautiful that is. Love is a choice. It’s primarily an action-based practice that results in the feeling. People fear what they don’t understand, and destroy what they fear. This fear creates polarization in neighborhoods, communities, families, and romantic relationships.
This was the beginning of a new way of being. I was called back to my roots, initiated through a dark and challenging time, to clear out everything I had known myself to be for me. For years I had been called to step onto the shamanic path which I kept avoiding. After several initiations, people suddenly began referring to me as a shaman. At first, I tried to correct them. Then the confirmations got to where I couldn’t ignore them. I finally surrendered and stepped onto the path. At first, I was embarrassed and struggled with impostor syndrome. I was worried about what others would say and I was even verbally attacked by an older white woman who was one of my spiritual teachers who turned out to be a spiritual narcissist. She said how dare I, as a white woman, and that I had no right to be a shaman or medicine woman. My Sámi shamanic ancestors from Europe got upset over this disrespect.
Feeling ashamed and confused about what to do I didn’t mention it again to anyone for six months. I began to get spiritual messages from prophetic Seers and Indigenous women who were healers in my community about my ancestors wanting to connect with me. It was confirmed by oracles in my community that specific ancestors were trying to communicate with me. A cousin I hadn’t spoken to in decades got in touch saying she found out we had several generations of Indigenous Chickasaw women in our lineage starting with our great-grandmother. I was shocked as this had not shown up in the Ancestry DNA test or any family records. None of our family knew this, yet it’s the only Native American Reservation we have visited. My family had bought land in Oklahoma close to where they were buried even though they had come originally from a reservation in Tennessee. Searching in family records for their pictures, and learning words and phrases in Chickasaw, their presence came at a crucial time on my shamanic journey when I needed the support of my ancestors. Then I remembered over the years the many intuitive women with the gift of sight said I had three Native American women always around me. Shortly after, Ancestry.com updated my DNA matches confirming the Indigenous DNA. So this revelation was first confirmed in the Spirit World before here in the Middle World.
This discovery about my lineage helped give me the courage with my ancestors behind me to take those first wobbly steps towards a life of “love integrity.”
That sounds cool. What is love integrity?
It’s creating a life you love, one in alignment with your highest values for soul growth.
How did you find that?
Through my healing journey. A process that began nearly twenty years ago. I have had many revelations, but one that had the most impact was how our greatest love is often on the other side of our greatest fear. Love and fear are part of the same energy field, just opposites/complimentary frequencies on the scale of frequencies. Fear is located on the lower end of the scale while love is a higher frequency.
During a meditation, The Divine illustrated this idea by instructing me to imagine myself falling backward into a pit of snakes. Now being terrified of snakes since I was a girl I was disgusted at the idea, but so far I had never been led astray on my spiritual healing journey. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and visualized falling back into the dark pit of snakes which immediately transformed into a beautiful bed of flowers, beaming with light, unconditional love, and pure bliss.
By blocking fear, we block our ability to experience true love. The same goes for joy, we can’t experience joy without pain. Through these teachings I learned how small acts of kindness go a long way, creating a bond of trust, harmony, and well-being. We all have the choice to be kind. We can be a source of love through compassionate action. These small acts of love and kindness can heal even the coldest, reluctant hearts, healing communities. I’m inspired by the sun. The sun shines and gives, without ceasing. To be brave, courageous in love, to stay open-hearted even when the ego is experiencing perceived pain and wants to hide, run, or shut down in self-preservation.
Science has shown every living thing benefits from the frequency of unconditional love, even plants and water. Love is a transformational power, yet for many of us, our emotional block is learning how to receive love. Many of us are comfortable giving help or love but have fear when it comes to receiving it. Many have created an internalized false belief or story about why they did not get the love, care, and support they needed because they were “bad” or defective in some way. This is of course not true. We are all born innocent and deserve love. This false belief can create an unconscious belief we are not worthy to receive love and abundance so we unconsciously self-sabotage or reject love by pushing it away.
One of my big lessons was learning how to receive love. During a ceremony in the middle of the night, in a tiny hut, I was sitting by a fire in the Amazon jungle when the shaman had to ask me to open my hands. He asked me, “Sister, are you ready to receive the blessings the Divine is trying to give you?” He had to ask me three times. I realized I was terrified to say yes. It took so much courage to say a simple “yes.” I had said this word a million times, but this time it felt different. It created a shift in my consciousness. I had been led to Peru by a “medicine dream” To work with a shaman in Machu Picchu. This shaman scanned my energy saying there was an imbalance due to overgiving, as well as my diet because at that time I was a strict vegan and was having digestive issues and hormonal issues. He was right, this emotional block created problems in my relationships, manifesting as health issues in my body. There was a block to loving and trusting myself, which created a low sense of self-worth. This belief caused me to attract jobs, friends, and partners who reflected this back to me. I had to face my deep fear of inadequacy and unworthiness to begin the inner work to polish the mirror of the heart.
So healing and transformation seem central to your work.
Yes, the idea of transformation and initiation. In the past, I was part of several ancient mystery schools or organizations that taught initiations and degrees. My Higher Self in the end always urged me to leave after a certain level when my autonomy was threatened or it started getting too cultish. I can appreciate the structure of these experiences. In Robert Moore’s book Archetype of Initiation: Sacred Space, Ritual Process and Personal Transformation: Lectures and Essays he discusses how initiation is a framework and spiritual container responsible for the transitions of maturity such as child, adolescent, adult, and old age. His book urges contemporary healers to study and utilize pre-modern tribal principles of sacred space and ritual processes we often consider lost or inaccessible to modern culture. These ideas are mostly problematic in the US and parts of Europe where there is concern of cultural appropriation or gatekeeping of information unless you can prove your blood percentage. A friend from the Black Foot Tribe in Montana remarked once, “There are two things in America where you are made to prove authenticity by blood percentages…horses and Indigenous peoples.” This statement struck me. As a white privileged person, there are so many situations where I lack awareness due to never being able to experience such things. I’ve always strived for awareness of Indigenous and people of color’s experiences around systematic and institutional racism.
Spiritual initiations were historically used for rites of passage, emotional maturity, and soul evolution. We’ve lost that structure to guide us through life with the importance of ceremony to make something sacred. In my way, I am creating a framework to initiate, activate, and empower people when they feel stuck in a liminal state.
I’ve been called many things….a shaman, a natural psychologist, a psychopomp, a priestess, even a prophet. The soul is eternal and doesn’t care about labels or masks. Many of us are born the way of the shaman, but it’s socialized out of us. I was a mystical child of nature who was a vivid dreamer and storyteller. I talked with animals and rocks. I climbed trees and walked barefoot in the streams. In my truest essence, I am a Divine rebel with a philosophical soul and the heart of a poet. I am here to disrupt old oppressive systems using my heart as my weapon. The poet’s job is to remind the world of all its beauty. To free others where they feel stuck and need support on their spiritual healing journey. Sound therapy is listening and attuning to sounds and healing frequencies of nature. Our brain becomes entrained to the healing vibrations of nature, nature does not entrain to us. It’s about finding balance in the cyclical wisdom of the seasons, or even the daily cycles of the Sun and the Moon.
So you have a concept and a connection with the Sun and the Moon. This is reflected in the name of Rising Love. Can you explain the Sun aspect?
Nature is our best teacher. On my first trip to Egypt, I was taught some of the mysteries associated with solar and lunar eclipses symbolizing the death/rebirth cycles of consciousness that the ego wants to avoid. Just as the sun rises every day, things come in cycles. The Sun symbolizes our internal masculine energy, taking action, our life force energy, and our ability to give love. It’s our positive ego potential. The Moon represents emotions, shadows, being-ness, the unconscious, and our receptivity. Our shadow is the key to our power and inner richness, so it should not be ignored. We need both to create balance. The moon is not visible without the sun.
So the moon would not even be visible without the sun?
During a ceremony, I asked the Moon, “Who are you?” She replied in a loving, motherly tone. “I am a reflection.” This blew my mind. At that moment I was fully conscious that she was a reflection of my inner consciousness and a physical reflection of the sun’s rays. All of the ancient symbols representing duality in religious iconography suddenly made sense.
The Moon’s medicine teaches about energy through the dualistic mirror of reflection. The paradox is that we can only see our shadow clearly through reflection in another which sounds absurd. This reflection is an invitation to go deeper within, to witness hidden fears and emotions that want to rise to the surface. It’s finding the courage to go there, to feel our deepest, most painful emotions and darkest fears. Duality can teach us to embrace and balance the contradictions in life to create harmony.
Yes, it’s challenging to be fully aware of our shadow. The shadow is where we hide all of our rejected and self-abandoned parts. Relationships aid our growth by reflecting the areas to accept and integrate to expand our conscious awareness. It takes emotional maturity to become grounded in the present moment and tune into what we feel, instead of unconsciously projecting those negative feelings on others so we don’t feel them. We also have to learn new ways of communicating and relating. We inherited language that has served rulers and kings and most often is designed to give away our power, or used to control and manipulate others. This is the central idea behind Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication NVC is learning to listen for hidden needs and respond with what he called “first aid empathy” which is a way of communicating without blame, guilt, and shame. It’s a way to de-escalate conflict and instead offer empathy and support.
All of these tools can be used to find wholeness. We do this by celebrating things like love about ourselves, and our loving qualities. This is accepting the parts of what we have deemed ugly or bad, seeing the hidden wisdom, and then integrating this knowledge into our lives. This can be a hard process in a lot of cultures where religions teach us to deny our desires by labeling them evil, using shame and guilt, on the devil instead of taking accountability. From a young age, we are taught to abandon our emotional needs and desires for the sake of God’s love, protection, approval, and affection which sends these parts deep into the shadows. They stay hidden there until we have the maturity and strength to reclaim those lost soul parts. This path helps us to reach a higher level of consciousness. To experience a soul richness. Part of the mantra I wrote is about our shadow and accepting the parts of ourselves that we don’t like. Otherwise, those repressed desires become envy and we project judgment onto others living in a carefree way we wish we dared to do. This type of self-awareness is a great tool for identifying our insecurities or what we perceive as shortcomings, failures, and imperfections.
I love this idea of mirroring. Can you expand on this?
Mirroring is a fundamental human need. A mother mirrors her infant with facial expressions to match her baby, signaling she understands the infant, that they are safe to feel their emotions, and will still be cared for. We seek out these types of connections where we feel understood or recreate old trauma patterns of being misunderstood because it’s familiar. When we become each other’s mirror, we reflect on the parts of ourselves to heal and deepen a relationship whether friendship, family, or spouse. We often have our core wounds reflected at us so it can be gage to see where we have some inner awareness and processing we need to do. The key is practicing self-love and meeting our shadow parts without shame or self-punishment. If we can honor our core wounds and meet ourselves in that place we can transform the story or false love belief around that pain. Trauma is often over-identifying and stuck in the story around a traumatic event. Through this work, I have helped myself and others to rewrite their story to empower one another to shift from victim to victor. Many are shocked to discover that the wound is often called the “scared wound” meaning it’s connected to our highest purpose.
I love that. I’m looking at that masculine/feminine balance with the sun in your logo. You have the shadow and the light. The sun is more of an action-oriented thing. The sun gives.
Absolutely. The sun is constant and continuously gives, like unconditional love.
The sun is always in a state of creation, expansion, and enlightenment. It reminds me of the poem by Persian Sufi Poet Hafez, “Even After All this time, The Sun never says to the Earth ‘You owe me.’ Look what happens with a love like that, it lights the whole sky.”
The Moon represents duality, feminine energy, passivity, receptivity, illusions, secrets, deception, and the unconscious. The Moon represents the subconscious. The word subconscious comes from the words “beneath” + “ knowing”, meaning it’s hidden from our awareness. It’s about going inwards exploring your shadows, feel your deepest, painful emotions and darkest fears. It’s living in a state of more awareness and creating balance.
So how does that action orientation apply to your organization Rising Love in terms of what you do?
Humans need to feel they belong to a land or a group. To fit in is to imitate others, but to belong is to contribute your unique gifts. To fit in is a primal survival technique we use to fit in for social acceptance. Alternatively, the courage to offer your unique gifts and to be appreciated for your contribution is belonging. Feeling safe, and valued for your role in your community and and acceptance of who you are is important in most cultures. People globally are fighting for their right to belong or to exist. No one should ever be forced to conform to one identity. Societies tend to choose to identify with the seemingly dominant culture versus celebrating them all. I remember an interview with ballet choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui who was born to a Flemish mother and Moroccan father, discussing his struggle with identity and how liberating it was when he finally gave himself permission to celebrate and embrace both his heritages, without the pressure to choose to perfect in just one.
It’s just as crucial for our mental health to validate our authentic selves, to accept ourselves, and to appreciate who we are, and the gifts we offer our community. Kind and considerate actions are what build safe and trusting relationships and communities. Consistent action is a love language that makes people feel safe and loved. It’s empowering to be an example of love and to create change instead of complaining all the time spreading negativity and expecting others such as your neighbor, family, partner, government, or politicians to address various issues. Serving in areas of the community that need support has been far more effective and made me so much happier simply by focusing my energy on the social issues where my help is requested, and appreciated, issues that are close to my heart. Balance in a community starts with ourselves, then it slowly trickles out and transforms to create harmony in circles.
Yeah. So it’s the actions. Are you creating a movement of people doing these actions? This loving action.
Yes, this is the core idea, to inspire people to be the kindness you want to see in the world or to give the love you want to receive. It’s easy to blame others when you can just take accountability for yourself. And once you start doing that, you are an example that inspires others to create in their communities. The idea for me has always been to be the advocate, to lift the voices in the community that get silenced, or ignored, or to lift community leaders with support who go unnoticed and are doing amazing without being appreciated or acknowledged. It’s important to lift others, give them a voice, and celebrate them. We inspire more people to do the same within their communities no matter how seemingly small that action.
Be prepared to ignore the critics. You will get a lot of negative, unsupportive comments like “That’s a great idea, but that will never work here.” “That’s all we need is another white woman telling us to love each other.” My advice is to stay in your lane and keep going. The Divine blessed me with a stubborn heart. When I have a vision, I keep at it until it manifests. So maybe it takes six months, a year, or three years, but I always reach my goal. I stay aligned with my values and walk in truth while holding my vision. Let your Soul direct you. You will be tested many times and might go on a temporary detour and that’s fine, but don’t let anything pull you off your path for too long. Permit yourself to rest when you need to. It’s worth it when you have created a life of authenticity. When you create something positive and put the frequency of love and kindness is healing and a big reward. So that’s the idea.
Can you expand more on the idea of taking loving action? I’m listing this out to reiterate. So to be clear it’s about taking action. It’s about inspiring people to take action themselves. And then it’s about lifting others that are taking action.
I would say Rising Love is what the Sufi mystic Rumi or Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī / Jalal ad-Din meant when he said, “And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?”
Once we remember who we are at a soul level and understand our gifts, we can travel to communities around the world where there is a need and appreciation for the service of our gifts.
While taking action is key, it’s equally important to know when solitude and slowing down benefit our healing and creative process. It’s normal to feel grief when we have a big transition. Grieving the old us while integrating new habits and information. It can be overwhelming. Just like a snake that outgrows its skin, it becomes irritable and even blind right before the breakthrough of the new skin, and it goes into a dark place to shed the old and stays there until its new skin has become less sensitive. Be kind and gentle to yourself during these times.
Forgive yourself and forgive others. I love reciting the healing Ho’oponopono Prayer:
I am sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.
Some people get addicted to being busy and fill their time with endless talk or distractions to avoid their feelings. Slowing down and tuning into the present moment to what you are feeling is healing and grounding. Self-compassion is going within to listen to what those core wounds are trying to tell us. The Rising Love Mantra inspires us to accept our imperfections and befriend our shadows so we fully understand our needs and desires. The experience of sensuality is being pleased or fulfilling our 21 senses. One of the most profound statements I came across on sensuality: “Until we learn to experience the outer world completely we cannot hope to transcend it. Therefore, the first step to enlightenment is sensuality. Only through passion, can we sense from deep inside rather than through intellectual argument, the Spirit that fills all existence.” – Author Rachel Pollack 78 Degrees of Wisdom.
Hmmm. All this talk about shadow, it’s like the Moon is still part of Rising Love. Yeah, it’s there but in the shadows. You inspire people to go inside their shadows or the dark void and then take action.
There is a fantastic book called Romancing the Shadow: A Guide for Soul Work for a Vital Authentic Life by Connie Zweig Ph.D and Steve Wolf Ph.D. This book was revolutionary for me so I contacted both authors and even did some shadow work with Steve Wolf to practice some of the ideas in their book. The book is about cultivating deeper self-knowledge and authenticity. We have three shadows: cultural/societal, family, and personal shadow. As we mature, we cultivate family soul. We untangle romantic projections and construct the “third soul”, an energy imprint or soul of the relationship. In midlife, we meet the shadow to reclaim the unlived life of the soul. That when we retrieve our lost vitality and creative fertility- there is gold in our dark side that can be mined, and nurtured for the hungry soul. Shadow work is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to explore and a way to navigate our spiritual life. It connects us to the rich depths of our imagination.
So how are you creating that space for reflection for the people who taking action? Creating space for things like your mantra or the doctrine of your group. I mean how? What does that look like? I want to pull out the purpose of all the different aspects you offer.
Healers and facilitators are only creating a sacred space for people to show up to do their inner healing work. The Divine/God is the one doing the energy healing. As a Sound Therapist, I was trained at an amazing institute in the Bay Area of California called The Globe Institute. I was taught by doctors, scientists, healers, musicians, singers, and artists…. and it was very unique hands-on training. They taught us that everything is vibration and how to use our senses, the body, voice, and instruments to scan another’s energy body or energy field for blocks and imbalances. It sounds crazy, but so far it’s been accurate and helpful in pinpointing imbalances and blocked energy in the body. My practice is my unique blend of all my training and gifts. When I was a young girl growing up in a small town in Texas I received three prophetic “words” or messages at different churches while in public in front of hundreds of people. They were all similar like I was loved and supported and one day by removing the limitations I set on myself I would do great work in service and helping to heal others. I was told by many I would heal with my hands. I was a shy, insecure child so this was exciting and terrifying at the same time. I always felt I had some great destiny to fulfill in the world.
But what does this work look like? I mostly work with healing circles organizing events. Our ancestors have been holding healing circles since humanity began. Circles are good because everyone can be seen, heard, and participate. We are called to witness one another’s pain, grief, dreams, hopes, joy, and blessings. I incorporate meditation, yoga, and sound baths. Spirituality is often misunderstood. Most people think of it as a “new age” or like a religion but it’s the evolutionary growth of the soul. And it’s a reality that existed ever since we existed.
I also offer one-to-one healing sessions, coaching sessions, and oracle readings which are great tools for understanding the soul’s journey and the subconscious. This is ideal for those who want to go deeper into the work to understand themselves, their purpose, their gifts, and how to create a life of authenticity. I am not a licensed therapist but I always encourage clients during difficult times to work with trauma therapists that they like and feel comfortable with. They often report back to me their therapist is happy with the work saying they are seeing a much bigger improvement with their clients. I did years of therapy and each has strategies for managing stress that I still use today. Psychoanalysis, Jungian Theory, Psychodynamic, Transpersonal, Internal Family Systems, and CBT were helpful and positive experiences. I studied and read psychology books extensively, attending lectures and seminars when possible while living in London.
As much as I love psychology, shamanism was the game changer for me. I read about shamanism in psychology books. Jung wrote about it calling the shaman the early psychologists. When I did my first session of soul retrieval with a Tibetan Shaman it was so deeply healing at a soul level, I thought if one day I could ever have the knowledge and courage to offer something so powerful to help someone I would.
I also facilitate wellness and creative workshops. The opposite of depression is expression. Creative expression and body movement can help get our soul unstuck and moving forward again on its journey. I collaborate with people globally to cultivate interesting workshops with creative writing, art, music, singing, philosophy, health, nutrition, environmental cleanup, and environmental sustainability.
Learn skills and practices to calm the mind with meditation. Reading strengthens your concentration, calms the mind, and expands your knowledge. Attend lectures and participate in sharing circles. There are so many affordable resources if people want to evolve. You just have to be willing to show up for yourself and step outside your comfort zone to learn something new. We live in an age where everyone is scared to feel lonely so they would rather hang with toxic people, binge-watch Netflix, or play video games to distract themselves. Instead, focus on the soul-nourishing activities available by carving out time for ourselves. You need a little routine to start making time for these activities.
And you also mentioned something about retreats.
Retreats are an effective way for people to disconnect from the stress of their daily lives and connect with nature. It creates the stillness they need to meet themselves fully and authentically. I love collaborating with other healing and wellness practitioners to create unique experiences for people.
Okay, so the start of their journey begins with reflection. What you facilitate helps to initiate their inner healing and then they’re going out into the world and taking this action.
Yes, effective teachers are reflectors. We are reflecting on the things their soul knows but simply forgets. This process is a remembering. The key is to find the stillness. To go within and illuminate that which is hidden. To make the invisible visible. To listen patiently to the whispers of the heart. The ego shouts, but the heart whispers. When you need to make important decisions such as who to marry, where to live, and what career to follow it’s important to shift your frequency to your heart.
It is in this stillness and peace that we hear the call. We all receive that call at one point in our life. We all have free will. Maturity is the ability or willingness to remove distractions and quiet the mind long enough to listen deep within and then the courage to take necessary action.
Oh, so you’re helping people discover their method of action, their purposeful action?
I think so. From a young age, I was able to inspire others with my words and actions. I was fearless as a child which got me into trouble sometimes, but it has served me well as an adult. It’s about having a vision and seeing it to completion. Fate is what we are born into, destiny is what we create.
That speaks to a deep need, a pain point overlooked in the pyramid of social needs.
Psychology is a young science that is heavily ethnocentric (white American and European) with unreliable data, especially when it comes to people of color or women’s health. Maslow’s Hierarchy Pyramid of Needs can be a tool for creating awareness around two sets of needs: deficiency needs and growth needs with spiritual, creative, and self-fulfillment needs at the top of the pyramid, psychological needs in the middle, and basic survival needs of safety at the bottom.
Doing healing work around the world has been my biggest education. I have learned from listening to others share their hopes, dreams, pain, and struggles. We all share the same universal needs to belong, to love and be loved, to feel safe, the right to bodily autonomy, an economy and jobs that allow us to provide for our families, freedom to practice our religion in peace, to celebrate our culture and traditions, and to speak our mother languages without the threat of violence.
The hierarchy needs the base at the base that’s like survival, food, water, whatever. And the middle is more like recognition for safety now and the top is like self-actualization. I like to look at the pyramid in reverse since the basic survival needs are your surface needs. As you get deeper and deeper into that pyramid you get to the core of what motivates people.
Yeah, that is an interesting perspective that is also true. When you are on the healing journey you are peeling back those layers in shadow work which means working with subconscious fears and insecurities.
Through records from anthropology, ancient civilizations, and sacred texts, we see our ancestors have been doing this soul work for centuries through meditation, fasting, and plant medicines to reach altered states of consciousness. Even though it has become popular in mainstream pop culture and the healing communities, these practices are essential for the human spirit.
Okay, so we find your purpose by tapping into those core needs? What action you take is a demonstration of your love. This action illuminates our deep pain points, then we share that with others drawing the right people to your circle to your organization.
This can be one method. Each client’s needs are different so I work intuitively based on their needs, family history, childhood traumas, and relationship history.
I have two more questions for you. Can you tell me more about your struggle in these organizations, what didn’t work, and why you’re establishing your own space?
This is a great question and thank you for asking. Growing up I was always visiting different types of churches looking for a place I could serve and feel at home. Unfortunately, you got the feeling you were never good enough and there was always something “wrong” with you that needed prayer and intense Bible studies, people imposing their condemning religious ideals which as a young person crippled me with anxiety, self-doubt, and shame. Many of the church’s male leaders gave off abusive, unsafe feelings. So I went from religious institution to institution looking for a safe place, one with meaning and purpose but all I found was disappointment, judgment, and shame.
When I moved to Europe, I visited mosques and temples which emitted much more of that peaceful feeling I was searching for, but many restrictions from participating unless I converted. I felt one should know the religion better before having to convert. A series of tragic events happened in my family leaving me angry and questioning everything for ten years ‘wandering in the wilderness’.
I got into politics during this time in both the US and UK until I was faced with the uncomfortable truth that it was draining my life force energy, making me feel angry and helpless, and we were not doing anything helpful in the groups beyond complaining and arguing. I felt more disconnected from myself and even more disconnected from the communities I was trying to serve. I wanted to be part of a space where people could be seen and heard; to share about their struggles. There is a lot of fear in the West about political correctness that separates and makes us fearful of one another. We don’t trust ourselves or one another. I noticed people being silenced, or intimidated which causes many in the groups to get trapped in cycles of fear, pain, and anger that never gets resolved. I ended up leaving these groups due to the negative atmosphere.
I tried a couple of therapists which gave me some valuable insight. But I didn’t feel any different emotionally or spiritually. I became interested in philosophy and psychology. This led me to work with a Tibetan Shaman. The shaman sang ancient songs with her rattle which seemed to cut right through to my wounded heart that had been locked away. It was a strange, yet profound healing experience. It felt both primal and mystical. I reconnected with the lost and abandoned part of myself without my ego getting in the way. I temporarily set aside my rational mind and allowed symbols to rise from my subconscious to heal my body and spirit at a soul level. For the first time in over a decade, I wept, signaling the unlocking of a deep layer in my healing journey.
This experience created a profound shift in my life. My night terrors, sleep paralysis, and sleepwalking ended overnight, and I began to dream epic, vivid dreams as I had as a child. My mother Deborah (The name of one of the female prophets in the Bible) had always been a prolific dreamer but never took her dreams seriously.
During this time I began to volunteer with various institutions and organizations. I did extensive training, background checks, and interviews, but again I was always faced with issues of forced religion or politics on the people who needed help. They were forced to be preached to or treated like criminals in exchange for aid which felt ethically wrong. There were so many rules in place that it made it hard to connect with the people you were trying to serve. I wanted to serve and make meaningful connections but there must be a better way than these organizations that had their agendas, making money.
One of the most challenging things as a volunteer is how you are treated in these institutions. They want your free labor or help, but you are still treated as an outsider, as a number, and disposable. It forces you to deal with your ego, sense of unworthiness, and ancestral guilt. People often judge themselves by saying their trauma wasn’t that bad in comparison, or because they haven’t struggled with a particle issue that they are not qualified to help. But one of the purposes of volunteering is to educate yourself and creating awareness. It’s important to know your heritage. To do your inner healing work with ancestral traumas and crimes against humanity. Yes, it’s heavy work, but it’s necessary when showing up consciously, authentically, and compassionately in any communities that are not your own that have suffered collective traumas.
My mother was big on teaching us about integrity and those who risked their lives to help others such as the abolitionists and the underground railroad and those who hid the Jewish people big on teaching us about the Holocaust with The Diary of Anne Frank and The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. As an adult, I read things like Silent Night and visited Auschwitz Camp in Poland. I broke down in the airport on the way home and the energy of the place caused me to become violently ill after. I thought how could this have happened, only to experience it now in our generation? This evil act on humanity is a collective trauma that we will never forget. May all beings be free.
We also judge ourselves by thinking we don’t have the right education or that we should be an “expert” before we can serve. My mother chose to homeschool us, to shelter us from the world. I was embarrassed about my grade schooling until I met an Ivy league educated Scientist who when I told him my homeschool background he replied “No wonder you’re so intelligent. It’s scientifically proven that these types of learning environments where kids are allowed to slow down, get bored, create and problem solve are what creates geniuses.” Perspective is everything. I came to appreciate my mother’s ideas on self-education which benefited my creativity, curiosity, and independence.
Another obstacle I had to overcome was the fear of commitment. I had grown up in a paranoid family that if you weren’t careful everyone would take advantage of you and your kindness, and that the world was not a safe place. Part of my healing process was learning how to have strong boundaries. Something that didn’t exist in my family.
It became clear that serving fulfilled several needs: connection, contribution, and collaboration. Working alongside others to help those in need gave me such joy. I just needed to find a way to serve without religion or politics getting in the way, to allow for travel, and to support myself while doing the things I love.
After working with the shaman my intuition became stronger and I just followed the signs in my dreams which led me to various sacred sites around the world: Machu Picchu in Peru, Beijing in China, Teotihuacan in Mexico, Ancient Mesopotamia in Iraq, The Pyramids of Giza in Egypt to name a few. I was led to various spiritual teachers, soul friends, and sacred places for activations on my healing and spiritual journey.
When I discovered the power of healing circles it felt like a neutral, non-judgmental place for people to do the deeper emotional healing work. It has changed my life for the better and I’ve witnessed many others transforming their lives into more authentic and happy ones. The issue with the healing community is toxic positivity and lots of spiritual bypassing. They want to take indigenous wisdom such as drumming and plant medicine but haven’t done the deep shadow work, and they don’t speak up for say indigenous people who are being occupied and consciously support countries and politicians committing war crimes. We are only free until we are all free. We have a responsibility when we are free, that we use our freedom to free others.
Through the participation and practice of Shamanism, I was gifted with sight. It enables me to see through the many deceptions of society. I began decolonizing my faith, bookshelf, and mind, but consciously and compassionately.
Many of the shamans were called by Spirit to travel far away, to learn, and then bring the “medicine” back to their communities. This was the wisdom passed down to me, to teach what I have learned this way. To keep the wisdom alive. This can be a big trigger for egos, stirring fear, insecurity, and inadequacy in others. People who don’t know who they are or what their purpose is. People fear what they don’t understand, and destroy what they fear.
People on this path are often criticized or misunderstood living on the fringes of society. The problem is now we won’t have a social structure to accommodate the important social role of the shaman so automatically you are labeled schizophrenic or a fraud.
From my experience of living in four different countries, people loved it when I mirrored or adapted to their culture. Adopting local customs, habits, and clothing is often a sign of respect and makes locals feel proud. But it can trigger a person who has identity issues and never feels safe, welcomed, or a sense of belonging in their community.
The West is where you will get accused of cultural appropriation. The definition of “cultural appropriation” is when another culture dominates, steals, and exploits aspects from another culture for its benefit without showing understanding or showing respect.
I learned to follow my heart and stop worrying about the opinions of others. Instead, follow the philosophy of the late poet Maya Angelou “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.”
Initially, there can be fear when different cultures or communities come together until trust is established. Trust is created by honesty, transparency, and kind actions. Building bridges is important for safe and peaceful communities and we can do this by celebrating art and multicultural events.
I’ve witnessed some beautiful cultural events where feuding communities temporarily put down their pain, judgment, and anger to come together, to attempt to understand the struggles and experiences of the other. This is to discount another person’s pain but show great empathy, humility, and compassion. Each human has struggles, so it’s not dismissive to acknowledge this in another. It’s a way to share our humanity. We can still honor one another and know that we don’t have the same beliefs or experiences for someone’s experience to be valid. To witness one another pain and struggle is to show kindness and respect with the message that you’re not alone, that we are all in this together, walking each other home.
This is a beautiful journey that I’m seeing with you. I remember in the beginning you experienced pain from your side of feeling excluded, feeling like you didn’t have a voice or service wasn’t appreciated in these groups. Then you went to the spiritual community and found a lot of spiritual bypassing. Sounds like there’s progress being made internally but it’s not being integrated in the community. I see it as an imbalance on both sides. On the activist’s side, there is action but no awareness or inner work for transformation, and in the spiritual community, it’s all about inner transformation but not as much action. And so it’s like you are creating an organization with the best aspects from both groups.
Exactly. If something is needed in the community that doesn’t exist I will create it. And just as a shaman lives in multiple dimensions, I also live comfortably in various social circles and cultures. Shamanism calls it shapeshifting but transformational life coaches refer to it as the skill of wearing multiple personas when we want to access our full potential and serve our highest calling.
Yes, it’s a beautiful transformation. Now you feel like this is complete. You know what you’re doing and what your life purposes are.
Yes, I do. This gives me peace of mind, it still is challenging when we have all the evil going on in the world. Many of us are living with survivor’s guilt having lost people we love in genocide. I’ve had a man in the US once say “Great all we need is another white woman tell us to love each other.” This is not my message at all, but the opposite. I’m not “telling” oppressed colonized people to be “peace” and just love each other. My message is service through loving action. Yes, I need to acknowledge I was born in America which is a colonial settler system that I benefit from. While I do have indigenous American grandmothers in my lineage, most of my family was white European and I benefit from that system. Therefore it’s my responsibility to become more aware, to educate, and actively resist participating in oppressive colonial, racist systems. I had to give up the ghost of politics as it kept me angry, divided, and stuck. I’ve been far more focusing my time and energy effectively but not participating in a racist, rigged two-party system that no matter who you vote for is still evil. Local elections are important and one of the only places Americans can make a difference by voting.
I know politics is so polarizing. This is fodder for your social content because you could be helping people who may feel excluded. This type of person feels no one understands them or accepts them so an organization to guide them to take positive action where they can use their gifts might save lives. So I’m not saying that’s the only mission of this organization but you are creating a safe space for people to activate their gifts and higher purpose.
Humans are by nature very contradictory. It’s absurd that we feel compelled to classify ourselves as any one thing because we have an array of beliefs. It’s the wound of abandonment that we crave belonging, to join a club or cling to an identity that can cause separation in families or communities. The problem is when we project saying those people over there are the “bad” ones and we are the “chosen ones” or “good” people. Labeling is our attempt to understand something, but it can also control the actions or reality of another so it can be damaging. All our needs are pretty universal.
But it can also help deepen a friendship because you’re like ‘Wow you’re different from me in this way’.
Yes, absolutely. Difference creates attraction. My partner and my friends are from different cultures than me. I value growth, learning, and difference more attractive than similarity.
It’s becoming clear to me that this whole idea of bringing all these pieces together to create a whole because they’re not complete by themselves. I am inspired by this. So yeah thank you so much, I’m excited.
My pleasure, I am excited too. Thank you again for this discussion and it’s an honor and blessing to work with you.
