Twenty years or so ago, I attempted to follow a traditional path as a healer. In this society, that means having at least a Master’s Degree and a Psychotherapy practice. I tried so hard to embrace a path that was profound and still respectable. What that meant was that I had to deny the sensitivities that would later prove to be the real gift of healing. Science was the god of the day. Odd that my practice didn’t seem to really reach into people or heal them beyond their behaviors. Wasn’t this supposed to heal hearts and touch souls?

I quit the practice and wrote a book, Soaring in Life, in an attempt to encourage people to live from Soul, to consciously evolve spiritually in the very acts of living. In an appearance for the book, I met Ross Bishop, a shaman who practiced a westernized version of shamanism that actually DID heal hearts and touch souls.

Trying his method meant that I took on my own healing. My life underwent a massive transformation as the internal shifts had to be reflected in the external dressing of my life. Nothing in my traditional education, nothing in my practice had ever touched so deeply. Slowly, as the healing continued, I began to embrace the ancient sensitivities I had spent a lifetime denying. Slowly, being different began to be ok. And I remembered an agreement I had made a long, long time ago…