Awareness Musings

Anyone interested in energy medicine and learning to heal themselves, and perhaps learning to help others, will want to read Deborah King’s Be Your Own Shaman: Heal Yourself and Others with 21st-Century Energy Medicine. Physics tells us that everything is energy, so working with energy as part of the healing process can lead to dramatic results. Even Dr. Mehmet Oz, of Oprah Show fame, has said that the future of medicine is energy medicine.

King defines a shaman, or healer, as someone who expands his or her consciousness and conducts healing energy to help others resolve problems on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. Becoming a shaman means first healing oneself: clearing away blocked and stagnant energy, releasing past traumas, connecting with spiritual guides, and listening deep within to become aligned and fulfill one’s potential.

Even if you don’t want to be a healer for others, you can become your own shaman and heal yourself. King advocates taking back your own power and making decisions that you know deep inside are right. She also stresses the importance of trusting your instincts and knowing your boundaries.

Becoming your own shaman requires expanding your consciousness so that you can access information from the energy field. King describes the human energy field as a living template for the body, and the body ultimately mirrors what’s happening in its energy field. Any imbalance or distortion in the energy field will eventually have a negative effect on your body. Thus, healing the energy field can lead to healing on physical level.

The most important step in healing your own energy field is to develop clarity, and King advocates five practices for developing clarity:

• Journaling
• Meditation
• Prayer (not necessarily in a religious context)
• Forgiveness
• Being of service

It’s also important to examine your beliefs to make sure they aren’t limiting you, You want to open yourself to expanded possibilities. Be Your Own Shaman also discusses other ways to help expand your consciousness, including lucid dreaming, past lives, dowsing with a pendulum, and locating your spirit guides. Throughout the book, King provides exercises to get you started.

On a cautionary note, King advises that you choose any healer you work with carefully. A shadow side of the healing path is developing an inflated ego that is detrimental to the healing process.

Learn more with Be Your Own Shaman or King’s workshops.