5 Things I Learned from a Shaman in Less than an Hour

I’m used to high stress situations but by Thursday night, I was thiiiiiiiiiis close to banging my head against the wall, literally.   I was at that point where I’d been working 12-15 days for so long…20 hours on one particular day…that I didn’t know how much longer I could keep it up, even though I felt I had to in order to get the job done.   The problem was, not only was it not enough for some people, it was all for nothing.   Futile.   No matter how hard I worked, all it took was one apathetic person to bring everything to a screeching halt and for me to fail at my job.  And it’s rarely just one apathetic person.

You’d think it’s the bureaucracy of any larger employer that grinds everything to a halt, but even in a bureaucracy, you can get things done if people care.   When the people you depend on stop caring, you’re damned.

Fortunately for me, I had my 6-month appointment due the next day, my appointment with Kelley Harrell, a shaman whose work I support on Patreon.  It could not have come at a better time.  I was fried, just fried.  And I knew that a counseling session with Kelley would help me find the right path.  My work with shamans and other spiritual teachers has always been exceptional that way–a sudden barrage of a-ha moments and spiritual understanding.  It’s like nothing else and is always a source of growth for me.  I left our Skype session feeling much calmer, understanding a few things I hadn’t before, and with five epiphanies that got me to a better place.

1. My passion cannot make up for the lack of passion in others.  For those who have the fire in them already, I can easily bring that out, but for the people who just don’t get it and never will, then they will always be roadblocks. For my own health (and this I knew), I have to find a way to channel the energy that is hitting their roadblocks, and it’s likely to be putting it back into some creative pursuit in my personal life where I can control the flow of my efforts without any idiocy other than my own.  Somehow in our session, it came up that I was trying to “make peace with the bullshit.”   Kelley made me chuckle when she said she wasn’t sure it was appropriate for me to make peace with the bullshit.   Indeed!
2. In a separate part of our session, separate and personal question, Kelley commented on seeing a woman standing in a white tower, looking out the window.  To a stranger hearing that, it would’ve sounded like a fairy tale, perhaps.   To me, it was me, and I knew it.   I am often the women in a literal white tower, looking out the window when I’m trying to figure something out (as opposed to staring at a screen).   For reasons I won’t say, this particular aspect of me was so well pinpointed that I knew exactly what she was talking about and it gave me incredible insight into a particular situation.  I was able to see myself and the situation in an entirely different for very accurate new way.
3. Kelley introduced me to a new guide and teacher, whom I was able to work with almost immediately.   That evening, I was able to do something I have not been gifted with before.  In regard to my intuition, I leveled up.
4. Speaking of leveling up, I can now see exactly where I am between the worlds.   The interesting thing about sessions with Kelley is that I can very clearly see between worlds when we talk.  As I was telling her what I was  feeling about these new discoveries I’ve made recently, I saw myself on a tall, long ladder–white against a red dirt wall that went straight up.  I struggled and reached and pulled myself up onto the next level and stepped forward a few feet to see that I was on a new plateau.  This is a new place for me to discover, but so far, it reminds me of  Ayers Rock, the sandstone formation in Australia, and a Pueblo Indian village, though that’s not quite it either.  Maybe part ziggurat.  The white ladder that is fastened to the stone is so far between levels that it’s impossible to see the lowest rung from here or to know how long I’ve been climbing…just that this climb is over and I’m on the next level.   It feels like night and open, starry skies here.   And it’s windy, but in a pleasant way.  I know there are trees, but they are not overly large, and simply shake in the currents of sweet-smelling air.  It’s very unlike the usual enchanted forests where I hang out between the worlds in meditation.  This is unlike any place I’ve been, even the Glastonbury Tor.   And it is sparse.   I don’t feel alone, but I don’t see anyone else here.   Definitely a place worth exploring, but the understanding now that I am truly at a new level of…everything…makes me a little giddy and excited.   It feels powerful here, like the one time I had a flashback to a tomb with cuneiform writing on blue-stone columns.  New level, new skills, new me.
5. All of the pain and baggage I have carried my entire life is now healed.   There is nothing big left for me to do to heal.  I’ve done it.  I’ve done the hard work, the amazing work.  It’s done.   DONE.  I had not quite understood that until near the end of our session.  The other thing I came to understand in that moment, which Kelley pointed it out, was that I have not celebrated yet that I have come through this healing and come into my own power.   Maybe I’ve thought that there was more to be done…because there’s always been more…but now, on this next level, it’s wide open and there’s no baggage at all weighing me down.

In summary, I’ve graduated.

Key Takeaway: Being honest to oneself is key to living life to the fullest.