Am I Really A Healer?by Maggie Wahls

Student: I am afraid to embrace my power. Why? Because I do believe that I am powerful and will draw attention to myself and I am afraid of any negative backlash. I know I possess great abilities in many things, which I could be using right now to help people and earn money, but mostly I'm afraid to use them.

Shaman Elder Maggie: Well, here we have another piece of truth. When you finally see your mission on this earth and you decide to stand up and do it, to shine your light, there will always be those who hate your light and who will try to put it out. Guaranteed.

I teach you Shamanism using the allegory of the hunter in the forest. He knows his skills, he uses his power, his awareness, his balance, his good aim, his heightened senses, his patience, his knowledge of game, all his skills to achieve his mission which is to feed his people. And he knows that there is danger in the forest. He knows that if he does not remain aware and balanced he could fall out of the tree and be killed by a bear or moose. the danger is there for all of us. But it is not so dangerous that a skilled and practiced hunter should withhold food from his people because he is afraid of the bear!

The bear is as natural to the forest as the hunter. They both belong in the forest and they both are a danger to each other. Everything has danger. It is dangerous to breathe, all the pollution in the air but more dangerous not to breathe, methinks!

You saw your mission and agreed to it before you ever set foot on this planet. You saw that you would have all the abilities and tools and opportunities to accomplish this mission. In fact you saw that if you just be impeccable as a human being you have already accomplished this mission, fete accompli! So being born into this mission is like being put into a tree stand in the forest. Be impeccable and you will not fail.

I think that is the truth behind fear.

Fear is an emotion you know. Emotions are sensory devices to give us input about outside things, just like eyes give us input and ears and noses. We take in all this input and use it to gain knowledge and make good decisions. But we don't necessarily make decisions just based on one kind of sensory input. That would be like, oh it is dark so I cannot see. But if you wait a moment you can see the stars that you would not have seen if you had just gone with your sensory input that it is dark. We use our sensory input along with our thoughts and memories and knowledge gained.

Our senses do not control us. They are just antennas, feelers. Fear should not control us. it is just a sensation. Weigh it out against other input you have, what you know, and use it as the antenna it is, not the final decision maker in your life!

Emotions do have another purpose. They are the gas behind our intentions. And you have given a perfect example of not using emotion correctly here. Lets take another example. Lets say a man wants to get a job that is being offered to manage a restaurant. He knows he is a good manager and has experience and can do this job. But there is another offer to drive a cab that he has been given. He knows he should manage the restaurant as that is his career, but driving the cab seems so easy.

So he goes to the interview for the restaurant job. Then he goes to the interview for the cab driving job. He fails the restaurant interview and passes the cab driver interview and ends up with something that does not really work for him financially or career wise and that in the end was a poor decision on his part. But what happened?

At the restaurant job he was polite and knowledgeable, answered all their questions and was checking out the restaurant for cleanliness and asking about time off and hours.

At the cab driver interview he was animated, excited, interested in this new field of endeavor, absorbed in learning how to do this job. If he had shown as much enthusiasm at the restaurant interview he would have gotten that job.

See how his emotions played for his intent. He had made up his mind that he wanted the cab job. He displayed emotionally his desire with enthusiasm and gusto at the interview and got the job.

It is OK to look at things like this. It is not about judgment but rather introspection, why did I do what I did. What was my motive, what was I intending, what do I want to intend, how do I feel about that intention, how can I express what I feel about my intention. Questions I ask myself all the time. Keeps me in tune with what I am trying to do and keeping me doing it the best way I can.

Aho! ( I speak my truth!)

Copyright © 2005 Shaman Elder Maggie Wahls. All rights reserved.
Shaman Elder Maggie Wahls is one of America's most loved elder teachers of Traditional Shamanism for today's modern society. She is the creator and instructor of the course Shaman Apprenticeship 101. Learn more about Shaman Maggie and this course now by visiting www.shamanelder.com.