Illness from a Shamanic Perspective

Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a medical professional and this is not intended to offer any sort of diagnostic advice.

“...When 'I' is replaced by 'we,' lllness becomes Wellness." -SHANNON L. ALDER

Something I learned from Dr. Lewis Mehl-Medrona's book, The Spirit of Healing, is the value of reframing the story we tell ourselves and finding the community where we belong.

When my Spirits diagnose and recommend a healing ceremony as the "treatment" for my client, it is always a customized experience. Unlike in western medicine, where every infection gets treated with the corresponding antibiotic, we look at the patient from a very different perspective. We take into account their story, the one they tell and the one my Spirits see. If I see a dozen clients for traumatic history, they will each receive a different healing experience.

"What western medicine fails to acknowledge are the wounds we cause ourselves that are not mental or physical. All the negative self-talk is heard by your soul, who is always listening." -ASH MINER

Naturally, if the soul is wounded, the body and mind it powers will show side-effects. Medical doctors can help treat or even cure the side-effect symptoms. However, no matter how long we treat the symptoms on the body/mind levels, true healing will never be complete due to the root cause being a soul issue. This is where Spiritual healing really comes into play. Shamanism is one of many spiritual healing techniques that employ animism, reframing life out of "survival of the fittest" and into "everything is alive."

"The cure is the ceremony. The healing is the integration afterward.” -SANDRA INGERMAN

Healing and curing are 2 very different things in shamanism. My Swedish teachers, Jonathan and Zara, describe it more like curing is the removal of symptoms, where healing is improving quality of life. Sometimes, they go together. This is ideal in most people's minds. Many times, though, they don't go together. Sometimes, the next step in a healing journey is to finally meet death. Shamanism does not look at death as a defeat, but yet another threshold in life; just like becoming an adult, getting married, or having a baby.