Distance work

Because we are all connected and because, as shamans know, time and space are human-made concepts, energy work as well as other shamanic modalities can be performed from a distance. Phone, Internet and Skype are all excellent modern “shamanic” tools for doing this work!

I have clients from around the country and the interaction between us is the same as if they were right in the room with me. We go through the very same process except that we are working remotely. Of course, my hands aren’t physically on my client’s body, however, they do tell me that it often feels as if they are. Again, intention is the key. I simply tune into who I will be working on and invite in the energy that is right and appropriate for them to come through me at that time. Through speakerphone or Skype, they hear me explain where on their body I am working and what I am doing. Sometimes the client will ask for silence while they tune into what they are sensing. Afterwards, we talk about our experiences and it is remarkable how similar they usually are.

I also work with those who call because they feel overwhelmed with life and want to find out why.

Empaths or Sensitives

Sometimes, we come into this world as an Empath, one who is super sensitive to other people’s energy fields and without knowing it take on others energies as our own. It can cause life to become so overwhelming that we just want to stop the world and jump off! We often become introverts to protect ourselves. 

Do you sometimes feel like you’ve taken on the weight of the world, or, at least that of the people around you? Those who deal with it on a daily basis usually become completely weighed down by it. They are in a state of overload and don’t know why. Many of my clients come to me for just this reason alone. I begin by asking them the following questions and they usually answer yes:

  • Do you often feel drained after spending time in crowds or with certain people?
  • Do you sometimes feel emotions that don’t seem like they belong to you or that don’t fit your experience?
  • Do you have boundary issues that cause you to over-give to others?
  • Do you feel better when you are alone and away from crowds?

If you answer yes to any or all of these particular questions, you may be an Empath. It is especially important for you to learn how to manage this tendency if you are in the healing arts since it is so easy to take on the energy that others let go of during sessions.

Certainly not always, but sadly too often, trauma or abuse is found in the history of an Empath. Trauma or abuse can actually cause a person to learn how to dissociate or leave their body at a very young age as a protective measure. Strangely, being able to leave the body is a prerequisite for shamanic work. In fact, several shamanic practitioners I know, including myself, did learn how to leave their body from some sort of traumatic event in their childhood.

Sometimes an Empath will think it’s ok to take on the energy of someone who is ill or distressed. Ego can get in the way of true healing. The best way to assist another in their healing process is to send the energy that has been released back into the universal cycle of energy, the oneness, to be transmuted into its highest good. It is important for Empaths to learn how to take care of themselves and to understand that it is not their job to take on the energies of the world. This thinking will quickly deplete their energy bank account.

Here is another personal story that explains just how we can take on that energy which belongs to another: Many years ago, I worked on a gentleman (my client’s true identity is protected) and during the energy work session, I used a rose quartz (a stone that carries the qualities of love) when working at his heart chakra. Afterwards, I gave him the stone to keep and use as a reminder of the work he had done.

A week or so later, I began to experience some emotions that didn’t seem to fit what was going on in my life. As the days went on, it got worse until by the end of the week, I was beside myself and in emotional overdrive. I just couldn’t figure it out! On the following Sunday, I learned that the gentleman I had worked on had been taken to a hospital as an emergency patient where he had remained for a week. When he returned home, he informed me that the last thing he had grabbed before he was taken was the rose quartz that I had given him and that he had held that stone in his hands almost the whole time he had been in the hospital. During that time, he was focusing so hard on me through that stone that I was subconsciously picking up on him at an outlandish energetic level!

The stone had been one that I had personally carried on me for quite a long time before I had given it to him. It held my energy and had become an electrical transformer of sorts that he had plugged into and kept open the whole time he was gone. This stone, a so-called inanimate object, became a tool that connected us to the point that I was experiencing his emotional states! Once I knew, I consciously disengaged my energy from both him and the stone.

I learned another very valuable life lesson from this experience. Clearing energy is extremely important when working with clients on every level. From this, I also became consciously aware that if I was feeling overwhelmed, it was very important for me to tune in to see if there was anything that I needed to clear. Were there any boundaries that I needed to create or define or any connections I needed to dissolve?

Empaths and boundaries

I consider myself to be an Empath and one of the greatest lessons we, or anyone for that matter, has to learn is how to create healthy personal boundaries. If our boundaries have properly increased, as we have grown up, we have been subconsciously feeling the energy of those boundaries and have adapted to what feels “right” to us. If along the way, our boundaries have been crossed or neglected, for whatever reason, our sense of “rightness” may not be there to guide us. Our subconscious sense of healthy boundaries can become blurred and we may no longer maintain a sense of  “rightness” about our personal freedom and safety, or that of others. It is at this point that we may begin to take on energy that belongs to others without even realizing it. Our energy and that of others is no longer separately sensed. We may believe that this is normal for us because we have nothing else to go by. Little by little, as we continue to take on the energy of others, we become overwhelmed. If we are lucky, we seek outside help.

When Empaths come to me for assistance, there are two things I offer them up front. Both of these tools are meant to help them recreate a sense of healthy boundaries and energetic balance in their lives.

The first is a great book I discovered that addresses how to work with being an Empath. It is Are You Really Too Sensitive written by Marcy Calhoun. I read this book many years ago and it truly helped me understand my self and what I needed to do to regain my healthy boundaries.

The second thing I offer is a tool that is often used in the shamanic community called the Blue Egg. Simply surround yourself with this transparent blue egg if you will be in an environment that causes you discomfort. Pick a shade of blue that feels right to you. As an empowerment tool, it will buffer you from those energies that belong elsewhere. It will create a space in which you have control and can feel confident rather than overwhelmed. I have used the blue egg myself and I know it works.

There are many other empowerment tools for regaining boundaries and balance in life. Once we begin to believe that we have a right to feel safe in the world and are worthy of its goodness, we can begin to feel and express joy!

The energy of joy

Joy is a form of energy. It is actually one of the highest forms of energy. Lack is the opposite of joy. When we live in lack, we often expend our energy seeking what we think we need. In joy, we use the barest of energy because we aren’t thinking about what we need. Instead, we are just naturally moving from moment to moment. Living in joy uses less energy!

Sharing our energy with others operates especially well when joy is the basis for the work. All my energy can then be involved in assisting the other in balancing their energy.

As an energy practitioner, it is highly important for me to stay out of the way. In other words, I must be in a place of non-judgment where Michael is concerned or for what I think needs to be accomplished for him in his healing process. If my attitude is that I need to heal something within him, my energy is being misdirected. I do not know what is in Michael’s best interest. My job is to remain open to that which is in his best interest beyond my personal opinion. My need to heal him would get in the way of his healing process. When this occurs, I am working out of lack. When I am simply allowing the energy to do what is needed, I am in joy. In this capacity, I am using unconditional love as the foundation of the work.

My job is to see Michael as whole, already complete, flawless, perfect. Not by my standards, but by the standards of the perfection of the source, the All That Is, or by whatever name you choose to call it. If we all come from the same source, stardust, then we are already perfect. We simply have to re-member who we are!

At this moment of writing, I am joyfully on vacation, sitting on a beautiful old fallen log on the West Fork Trail in a canyon near Sedona, Arizona. I have been tuning into the energies of my surroundings. When first lowering into the canyon by car, I began to feel a tingling in my crown chakra, my head. Riding even deeper into the canyon, I could feel a sensation in my chest area around my heart. My companion, Kathy, who is also very attuned to the energies, asked me what I thought was creating these sensations. My reasoning told me that the energy held by the massive rock mountains surrounding us was most likely being captured and held in the spaces between and that this energy is what was affecting us.

I am aware that as I consciously connect with the life around me and remember that I am made of the same stardust, I am able to feel at-one-ment with the birds singing their midday songs, the huge yellow and black butterfly that just fluttered by me, the buzzing flies, the wee ants, the sparse grasses, the pine cones, the majestic evergreens and the lightening struck log upon which I sit gazing into this sacred part of the world. These ancient stone mountains have brought me to this place of deep intention, a place of inner recognition of both how small I am and how expansive I can become when I connect with the awesome-ness of oneness! Aho!

As always, there is so much more to learn about the subjects that I share with you in these posts. Please check out other information as you wish!