Energy Healing with Nicole Doherty

Healing Benefits of Shamanic Journeying

I’ve been studying shamanic journeying since 2011, really since I began my medicine path with Ayahuasca in 2009.  When I was participating in ceremonies in the jungles of Peru, I began to understand the various worlds that we navigate and how powerful it is to part the veils between the seen and unseen worlds to heal and access information that can help us reclaim our power and bring us back into wholeness.

You definitely don’t have to take plant medicines to practice Shamanic journeying and benefit from it, it just happened to enter my reality around the same time as Ayahuasca almost as continuing education for the plant medicine work.  The plant medicines opened up some visualization portals for me and now the journeying that I do personally and with Clients either uses the drum or a rattle only.

Around the same time I began working with Reiki energy healing, also awakened through the medicines.  Reiki and Shamanic Journeying pair very well together to access spiritual energies and realms that can heal aspects of your illness, retrieve lost parts of your soul, help you download information and awaken to your gifts.  These days, I’ve even added medicine songs, sound baths and breathwork as part of the experiences to deepen them to the level of the medicine work.

Through these practices you can learn how to communicate not only with your Higher Self,  but with the Spirits of ancestors, your inner child, the animal and plant kingdom and really anything that has the basic elements of which we and the Earth are comprised, since we are a part of Nature.  This is a way to commune with messages that your supportive forces are offering you daily if you are listening.

Another benefit of working with Shamanic journeying for healing is being able to re-write the narratives that you have about certain people, events or circumstances so that you can see with a new perspective.

For example, when you visualize an traumatic event you bring up not only the visual, but all the senses that are associated with it, including the tension that the body experienced.  Our bodies trap the associated tensions, creating blocks in our system that remain there until re-visited and healed.  This leads to illness both spiritually, energetically, emotionally and physically.

If you can visualize the event and bring all this up again, you have an opportunity in that moment to choose a new action, ending or event that can change the whole emotional experience and remove the blocks. Sometimes literally one session could change the whole pattern.

For example, a lover shouts profanities at you, slams the door and takes off. Your body is tense and the event feels unfinished so the mind has not completed the action that it would like to take to be in its power.  You hold on to that event as unresolved and swallow it, which diminishes your power.

Now, you hold this in your body and its slowly eats away at you until you can re-visit this not only through talking about it, but letting your body re-enact the event and complete it in your visualization. Maybe you stomp your feet, maybe you throw a pillow, maybe you say something back that brings you to a place of resolution.  The body needs the somatic experiencing paired with the visualization to work the energy through its body. I also find that the voice is critical in this as well.  So much is healed through hearing the power of our own voice.

Another important benefit, especially today with over 80% of women being sexually abused in their lifetime, is using this practice to find safety within yourself.  To imagine a place of safety, warmth, support, compassion and ultimate love.  Usually this place (I like to call the Secret Garden) is an imagined or a place in Nature you have been before that you absolutely find to be your happy place of peace.  When we are in this place, All Is Well. We are connected to ourselves and Source.

As you start to practice Shamanic Journeying, visualization, and being in this place of safety, you reclaim your intuition and internal power.   This helps you more deeply connect with your spiritual allies in crystal, plant, animal, and teacher form.  When you have this connection you can restore balance in your life because you are receiving the help you need to make the changes that you need to make.

If you are new to the practice of journeying, reach out and experience some energy work, guided imagery and Shamanic Journeying please feel free to reach out. I have some additional information on my website.

When you first start a practice generally you will be brought into the Lower realm to speak to what’s considered a power animal spirit.  However, if you know that you wish to connect with an ancestor or a specific experience that needs healing now, you can certainly be guided to do that right away and create the change that you are seeking.

Blessings,
Nicole

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ganesh_1

Overcoming Obstacles – Finding Gratitude Through Deep Stillness

Whenever we are faced with obstacles on our journey, they are actually amazing opportunities in disguise to create stillness, to go within and to find gratitude for all things.

With every obstacle that arises we have a chance to see the shadowy parts of ourselves that lay hidden beneath the surface.  The fluctuations of the mind, the ego, and external forces create a landmine of distractions that can keep us from going deep within to listen to our soul.  We all know how easy it is, when faced with obstacles to judge and to move outside of our alignment toward self-destructive, punishing behaviors and thoughts of our wrongdoing. Or we can distract ourselves outwardly by socializing, searching for people to rally around our ‘being right’, or help those who are troubled so that we can forget about our own issues.

As described by the ancient philosophies, the truth is that the way to harness our power is to create stillness. 

In stillness we magnify our power by listening to silence. Silence gives us a glimpse of the free, unconditionally loving spirit within. It strengthens our intuition, which is our ability to see the inner world, in contrast to using our eyes to interpret the ever-changing outer world. Creating stillness is what most of us need and what most of us despise.  Stillness can be perceived as uncomfortable, frightful, lazy and lonely.

Let’s not forget that we are spiritual beings living in a human body and not the other way around.  The love for others and ourselves originates from our connection to Source energy.

“You are not a troubled guest on this Earth, you are not an accident amidst other accidents, you were invited from another and greater night than the one from which you have just emerged.” ~David Whyte

In the Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali, (1.14) it is written, “control over the mind’s fluctuations comes from persevering practice and non-attachment”.

These two guiding concepts of Abhyasa (consistent practice) and Vairagya (non-attachment) help us to find meditation. Although they seem like opposites, effort and surrender, they work as compliments to find this peace within. Peace does not come without practice.

For me, the most effective way to design a practice is to create a sacred space right next to my bed. 

This way before I start my day, or before I go to bed, I have no excuse, but to stop at my altar.  I have adorned my altar with many representations of beauty, people, deities, rocks, stones, crystals, scents and elements of nature. I now have a meditation cushion to curb my excuses that it’s just not comfortable.

I also have slowed down significantly to find prayers of gratitude before my daily rituals like eating, yoga, or healing sessions to tap into my Source energy for guidance and love.

If the mind is heavily distracted I learned through the Law of Attraction to acknowledge all of the things that I am grateful for through stream of consciousness. This will turn my attention away from negative thought patterns and will line me up with Source energy. From Source, I can more easily drop into meditation.

For my meditations, especially if I am restless, I turn to wise meditation teachers to steer my silence through their guided meditations. 

Some of my favorite teachers are Deepak Chopra, Rod Stryker, Richard Freeman and Jeddah Mali.

On a final note about those feelings of discomfort, I want to share an analogy that I love from a Shaman I trained with in Peru.

Imagine for the first time you have just stepped onto an airplane.  Bad weather appears outside. The plane gets bumpy and is jolted. Major fear arises. You think are going to die. You reach for the barf bag in the seat in front of you and get sick.  The second time you get on the plane, you feel the jolt and you know what is causing it and the feeling of sickness may have dissipated.  After several plane rides you know the territory and you feel more safe.  Now, you can fall asleep on the plane with no effort. You completely trust and surrender that you are in good hands. 

The next time you sit down, remember that everything that’s new has its obstacles and that’s what provides the biggest growth. Sit with your fear and send it love.

This year has been one of the most challenging years of my life, with the biggest obstacles AND it has also the most expansive on all levels of my being.  Finding my meditation practice has transformed my life.

In pure love, light and joy.  May you find peace this Thanksgiving season and find meditation in all your days to come.

Blessings,

Nicole

Free Meditation Download: Lower Chakra Clearing to Love

Get your free meditation by Nicole Doherty!

[button link=”http://nicoledohertyyoga.bandcamp.com/track/lower-chakra-clearning-to-love?action=download&from=embed” target=”blank” round=”yes” size=”normal” color=”blue” flat=”no” ]Click Here To Download![/button]

The purpose of this guided meditation is to help you transform energies of the lower three chakras and link up to Divine Source energy at your heart’s center.

Chakras are the wheels or vortexes of energy that store our memories, feelings, beliefs, emotional patterns and karma. The health of our chakras determines our mental, emotional and physical well-being.

We store much unwanted emotional stagnation and patterns from our childhood and past relationships in our first three chakras, so it’s important to clear these three chakras to open more freely to our hearts and the Divine Source energy of Love.

Release date: August 11, 2013
Meditation led by Nicole Doherty
Audio Production, Music & Sound Design by Owen Green

yoga-meditation-relaxation-music-download

Total Body Relaxations Meditation Music

Digital Album – by David Procyshyn

Immediate download of 5-track album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire. And unlike iTunes, Bandcamp doesn’t take anything from the sale of the artist’s music! Isn’t that sweet?!

  1.  
[button link=”http://doyogawithme.bandcamp.com/album/total-body-relaxations” target=”blank” round=”yes” size=”normal” color=”blue” flat=”no” ]Download Audio ‘Total Body Relaxations’ Here![/button]