Unlocking Spiritual Empowerment: Healing Trauma through Shamanic Healing
Updated: Apr 3
I was recently asked why I work with Spirit and do spiritual healings.
Well, the truth is, it wasn’t my first career’s choice, not by far. My calling found me in a war zone on a Wednesday. Like for many others, Spirit chose to work with me because of my ability to communicate with them and how I transmute pain into power.It roughly translates to: I survived a great deal of fucked up shit through which I developed an arsenal of skills to deal very efficiently resolve the same pain for others.
That Wednesday Spirit gave me a choice: either step into service to finally claim the spiritual gifts that had been dormant in both my family lineage for over six generations, or continue running and eventually die in a conflict that wasn’t mine or by my own hands. At the time, I lived a life as far away from art and spirituality as you can imagine. I worked in the field, specializing in analysing conflict dynamics. My alleged dream job. But in reality, my life was falling apart fast. The toxic workspace, my abusive relationship was just the catalyst. Two decades of repressed trauma, cycles of depression and unable to really make my spiritual gifts work for me were finally catching-up with me. Can’t run forever. To say I was ripe for a solution greater than the one I came up with would be an understatement.
That was an easy choice. I quit my career, joined the so-called spiritual community and began my Shamanic training. That was going to be my ticket out of the pain. But life doesn’t work that way. You don’t get to choose for what or how you get initiated, which probably works for the best.
Instead of finding “my tribe”, I got a front row seat to retreat leaders and teachers abusing their (spiritual) power for their person gains. From a Shaman taking advantage of me or rather my desperation to learn and heal, to retreat leaders airing personal politics post-Ayahuasca sessions, to teachers running toxic cult-like groups and cutting spirit deals in the ethical grey-area, you name it, I’ve been there. In a grand finale, I was cursed by a mentally unstable group member who had taken it upon herself to trail me for things she heard about me, after I quiet exited the teaching group. As one of my current teachers likes to say: “cults are easy to join but hard to leave”.
These experiences were like a nuclear bomb to my spiritual practice and identity. I hit a breaking point. For years, I drowning in shame, self-blame and the overwhelming feeling of powerlessness. Every piece of work was an excruciating inner fight, always scared random keyboard cowboys would come out of the woodwork telling me I am not cut out of this. It took me years to deal because no one and nothing seemed to work. You’d be shocked to see how ill-equipped we are as a “community” to deal with spiritual abuse when it’s so common among us. The shadow of empowerment is abuse, but more about that another time. I negotiated with spirits a good few times to have this gift pass on to someone more capable than I thought I was. But that’s not how it works. Being a healer is not the certificate on the wall or the title at the end of an email, it’s who you become through your experience and what you do about it. As a Peruvian Shaman explained to me a few years ago after experiencing my own death in an Ayahuasca ceremony: Shamans face multiple death trials (or ego death trials) through which they confront their own mortality and limitations, in order to truly understand what this pain feels like, and develop true compassion for those they guide out of this pain.
I had to experience abuse of (spiritual) power to understand its dynamic. I had to hit rock bottom to claw my way out of it, to recover my own power, to know who I really am. You can’t deal with darkness if you’ve never experienced it. That’s why Spirit calls me Silver Light – the light in the darkness. It’s a very specific initiation that gives me the ability to identify the patterns and heal them in others. So that’s what I do.
I initiate people into their next level of self-awareness so they can recover their true self, and discover how powerful they are and always were. That's the definition of spiritual empowerment.
I go about it in two ways. An intimate 1-1 Shamanic healing sessions to locate and resolve the core wound (trauma) that’s causing you this pain. We want to get a hold of it so it doesn’t continue to repeat itself. Next step is to remind you how powerful you are and always were. You can only lose power when you already had it. I teach you how to recover your power animal and how to work with it. Trust me, if you get a taste of your own power, you’ll never confuse someone else’s for desirable again. Once we are there, there are more ways to let you step into your potential with art and drums, but we talk about that another time.
It’s normal to feel powerless after trauma, that no matter what you do nothing helps and it always comes back. It’s normal to blame yourself and God for creating you. It’s okay. Your pain is valid. In fact, it makes perfect sense that you feel the way you do. But just because life feels is fucked-up now, doesn’t mean you have to feel this way for the rest of your life. There is a solution for every problem in this universe.
This took me years of trials and errors, time and money to get there. There are more direct ways to get to the core of your pain and do something about it.
You don’t need to complete a full Shamanic training to have tools to face your darkness. You got this, you always did. You just need a sign pointing you to right direction and teachings strong enough to deal with it. As my teacher says: “we are always moving forward, never backwards.”
We can start right here with three questions that give you a pretty clear insight into where you are stuck right now, and take it from there.
What are you not telling other people?
What are you terrified someone found out about you?
And why would that be a worst-case scenario?
Was this helpful or nah? Email me. I’d love to hear from you.
Listen honey, the beauty about hitting rock bottom is that once you climb your way out of it you are unfuckingwithable! Let’s figure out the best way for you out of this loop. Just send me an email. I am always open to chat: hannahjgauss@gmail.com
Also, if this interests you but like me you forget where you found stuff, sign-up for the newsletter and I drop it into your inbox.
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