Where To Start Reclaiming Our Birthright: Viewing Life As A Vision Quest
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If any nationality is followed to its roots, there will be an Earth-based society with its own form of shamanic healing. Shamanism is a spiritual-healing practice (not to be confused with religion) at the foundation of all indigenous, Earth-based, societies.

In short, shamanism mends where the laws of nature have been broken. The spiritual illness of “soul loss” is a universal shamanic concept. This spiritual or shamanic illness results whenever we disconnect from our true expression or options, thereby breaking our own natural laws. Socialization causes much of this, but trauma is also a contributor.

When we suffer trauma, we do, or circumvent doing, whatever we think is necessary in order to avoid repeating the experience. This limits mobility within our “set.”

Systematic Disconnection

As we are no longer a shamanic society, we have not had the provision for spiritual healing. The result has been repeated disconnection with no means to reconnect, so we simply change the way we operate without looking too deeply. Our lives go on in a different direction as a result of our limited mobility, rather than choice. We unwittingly end up living in reaction instead of conscious intent.

The systematic disconnect from our natural expression has gone on for generations without the benefit of reconnecting through shamanic healing, so limitations are passed down from generation to generation. We unconsciously impose these limitations on our children and view it as basic socialization.


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For instance, through modeling, children are shown: when a woman cares for the children, she is doing her job. When a man cares for the children, he is babysitting. Our realities are constructed through this messaging. Gender roles are but one example of the many limitations passed down.

Reality Has Been Evolving

In recent years, reality has been evolving and we see parents sharing equally in child rearing and acquiring income. There is also a broader view of gender roles and more acceptance of other races and religions. But in many aspects of life, the old messaging still remains. It is the bedrock of our polarized reality.

In addition to the standard-issue fragmentation that has resulted from socialization, each of us is subject to our own particular combination of disconnect. Just living in this polarized world is a bumpy ride.

As children and later as adults, we are subject to projected denials and judgments. If we are too young or already too damaged to protect ourselves, we end up letting go of our innate identity and taking on the projection. Not only do we disconnect from more of our natural expression and options, but we also take on guilt and shame, which causes us to act outside of our natural expression.

Our Personal Power Is Seemingly Offline

Inauthenticity creates more shame and guilt, leading to further denial and fragmentation. Round and round we go into a downward spiral that ends in depression, self-medication, and ever-lessening options. Who we could have been disappears into denial, projection, and the resulting defense mechanisms.

In truth, few of us have any idea who we really are or what we really want, much less what we can do. Our value becomes attached to what others think of us. Our worth is defined by social status, which in turn is dictated by the ability to acquire wealth. Many of us sadly believe we are no better than the car we drive.

In contemplating the massive amount of disconnect we have all experienced, we can begin to see how much of our natural expression, and therefore our personal power, is seemingly offline. If it were just offline, it would be one thing, but it is online somewhere. Worse, it is not where it was designed to be, doing what it was designed to do, nor is it under our conscious control.

Developing Skills To Survive?

When my mother left me at four and went overseas to live with her new husband, I lived with my father, stepmother, her son and daughter. Her son was several years older than I, and the daughter was older by six months. My poor stepmother was a damaged individual who resented me deeply. I soon discovered that if there was anything she knew I wanted or needed, including having enough to eat, she would insure I did not get it.

As a result, I developed the skill of manipulation in order to survive. For instance, I would offer to harvest peas for dinner from the large garden my father grew, eating half of what I picked. I would talk to my stepsister about her favorite lunch until she asked her mom for some so we could both eat.

I became so proficient at manipulation that it became my default setting, and, on some level, I decided the only way to get my needs met was by manipulating someone else and making it beneficial to them as well. All of this became unconscious behavior. Simply asking for what I needed was no longer an option.

This conduct carried into young adulthood when people started accusing me of being manipulative, yet I didn't know what they were talking about, since it wasn't consciously controlled. My ability to manipulate had become a defense mechanism, operating outside my consciousness and without my intent, long after the need for it became obsolete.

I hated being viewed this way, so I firmly set my intent to discover what others were talking about in order to fix it. Once my intent was set, an entire chain of events went into motion. These events included the discovery of my first shamanic teacher, and receiving soul retrieval around “deserving to get what I need” by simply asking. I was then able to dismantle the defense mechanism and take manipulation off of default.

This is a clear example not only of how different traits can be used without our knowledge, but how, through the intent to live differently, we can actually find the broken spokes on our personal wheel of possibilities. In order not to be known as manipulative, I had to find and heal my inability to directly state my needs and have them met.

Soon after my healing, this allowed me to live in a very direct way, hitting everything head on, pulling no punches. I became brutally honest in dealing with others, but I was then viewed as harsh and opinionated.

I discovered that manipulation was not a bad thing when used consciously with good intent. The skill I had spent most of my life perfecting, and then judging against, was actually a necessary component in dealing gently with others. Now, in my practice, I often manipulate situations and information to ease my clients into finding their own truth. Rather than flatly stating what information was given to me and alienating my client, I can use gentle manipulation to help them come to conclusions on their own.

It is not easy looking at what you have been doing unconsciously. Yet, in order to heal and evolve, it is a necessary part of the inside job.

A River Runs Through It

There once was a man who bought a beautiful property on which to build his house. It had lovely trees and a river running through it. He had just dug the foundation and had the bags of concrete and sand delivered in order to pour the foundation walls when an exceptionally rainy season came. It rained so much the river was leaving its banks and threatening to wash out his fresh digging.

In a panic, the man took the sand intended for the foundation concrete and sandbagged the river with it. This worked well, preventing his work from washing out. Later that year, some of the river was redirected up stream which kept his part of the river from leaving its banks in the future.

Everything dried out and construction could have easily gone forward but the house was never built. For you see, he had forgotten the sand bags were for the foundation, not to dike the river.

Wherever to Start?

Once we discover how limited we have become due to generations of uncorrected soul loss, it can look like an insurmountable challenge to heal and reclaim our birthright. It took generations to get this messed up, so it won’t all get fixed overnight. We must look at what we can do in our lifetime to heal what blocks us from the life we wish to live.

The good news is that it is not necessary, or even desirable, to heal all soul loss. A totally whole person could not relate to the rest of society, given the state of our culture. Rather than obsessing on every place we have disconnected, the first step is deciding what we want. However, what we first decide upon may be only what we think we can have, rather than what we really want. It would be better to let what we want be a moving target for now.

Once we have picked a goal, we set the intent to achieve it. This is as simple as deciding upon an action. Every broken spoke in the wheel between us and our goal suddenly becomes visible. “I can't do that, I am not smart enough.” “I had better not try to do that, it did not go well for me last time,” and so on. At this point we must decide if the effort is worth the bother. Be careful though. All our defense mechanisms will be telling us it is not.

By systematically setting our intent and healing what stands between us and our goals, we can, over time, reclaim the life we desire rather than live what is left to us.

Victim

One of the major challenges standing between us and reclaiming our options is the stance of “victim.” Most of us feel more victimized than we realize.

The view of our future as a fated continuum along which things “happen to us” is a victimized perception. As long as we believe we are subject to events, rather than proactive, we are viewing ourselves as victims of circumstance.

From this limiting set of beliefs, it never occurs to us to do things differently. We feel we have no other choices, so we never look for them. We keep doing the same thing in the same way and hoping for different results (one definition of insanity).

~ If you do not change direction,
you may just end up where you are heading. ~
                                                                — Lao Tzu

Guilt and Shame

Good ol' guilt and shame keep us in the victim stance. If we are victims of events, we can’t be blamed for them. As long as we are powerless victims of fate, we are not responsible. Avoidance of blame makes it difficult for us to come out of victimhood.

In my family of origin, and later in the work place, every time something broke or went wrong, out would come the pointing fingers with a whole lot of ducking going on. “It's not my fault, if you would have (fill in the blank), it wouldn't have happened.” This is common in polarized reality.

It's assumed there's a good guy and a bad guy, the innocent and the guilty. Much effort is spent finding someone to blame so all can agree on a scapegoat in order to project denied guilt and shame.

It's no wonder that we grow up finding ways not to be responsible for our experience. No one is anxious to be blamed and suffer the judgment of others.

Mind? What Mind? I Don't Mind

We have become a mind-based culture. In order to perceive the future with our minds, we must base the future on experiences from the past.

Instead, if we can engage our imaginations and view the future as multidimensional with many options, and the past as having been our creation, we can once again take the reins of our lives. Life can be transmuted, becoming ours to create, rather than endure.

It is no longer useful to project the events of the past onto the present, making a rerun out of the future. The alternative is to become conscious of what we intend. Through conscious intention, we can then create our dreams.

Yesterday is a distorted matrix of old belief systems, a quagmire of discontent and limitations. Too often many aspects of our lives and histories have been little more than agreed-upon myths rewritten by guilt, avoidance, and shame.

Viewing Life As A Vision Quest

As times change, old beliefs can simply fall away and transmute to greater understanding. When we come to view life as a vision quest full of metaphorical meaning rather than experience set in stone, it will evolve and transform, assisting our evolution rather than preventing it.

There are many paths we may walk, some easier than others, but none better or worse. It's entirely up to the individual to choose the pathways within their given set.

Now there is a new way emerging. Even prophecies indicate that we are approaching the time of “the new heaven and the new Earth.” This book offers you a map out of the old illusion, a map to our new way of living as we reenter the circle of life. This is our Map Home.

©2013, 2016 by Gwilda Wiyaka. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpted with the author's permission.

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So, We're Still Here. Now What?: Spiritual Evolution and Personal Empowerment in a New Era (The Map Home)
by Gwilda Wiyaka

So, We're Still Here. Now What?: Spiritual Evolution and Personal Empowerment in a New Era (The Map Home) by Gwilda WiyakaSo, We're Still Here. Now What? takes you beyond the end of the Mayan calendar and into the predicted New Era, helping you rearrange your life so you can shift more easily with the ongoing changes that lie ahead. The book delves deeply into the hidden principles behind effective shamanic practices that were used long ago to steward people through times of change, and it teaches you how to use these principles to navigate through today's disruptions. The concepts Wiyaka offers have been field-tested in her thirty years of private practice as a shamanic practitioner. The book was the First Runner Up in the COVR Visionary Awards: Alternative Science Division. This is a solid reference volume that belongs in every serious seeker's private collection. (Also available as a Kindle edition.)

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About the Author

Gwilda Wiyaka

Gwilda Wiyaka is the founder and director of Path Home Shamanic Arts School and she is the creator of online shamanic classes for children and adults, designed to support spiritual evolution and personal empowerment through understanding and applying the shamanic arts in daily life. Gwilda is also a preceptor for the University of Colorado School of Medicine, where she provides instruction to medical doctors on the modern interface between shamanism and allopathic medicine. She is the host of MISSION: EVOLUTION Radio Show, broadcast internationally through The “X” Zone Broadcasting Network, www.xzbn.net. Her past episodes can be found on www.missionevolution.org. An experienced spiritual teacher, inspirational speaker and singer/songwriter, she conducts workshops and seminars internationally. Find out more at www.gwildawiyaka.com and www.findyourpathhome.com

Video: Gwilda Wiyaka on Shamanism and Personal Empowerment

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