As I get ready to go to a shamanic class again this Tuesday I’m reminded of the last time I attended such a class. It was years ago in the Ashvielle mountains, such a beautiful place.
The woman running the class was amazing and I had such a wonderful time going into the main journey. I held a large long crystal in my lap, wrapped in a purple felt napkin like a burrito. It was in my lap to protect me ‘just in case’, I’ve been through enough to know ‘just in case’ is always best practice in new age circles! The journey can be straight but still have its’ up and downs.
As the journey went deeper I was overwhelmed with panic, intense pain and suffering, images of blood and being suffocated. It was horrible. I did not understand what was happening. I kept myself together as much as I could calling on my ‘skills’ which I won’t go into in a blog….
We came out of the journey and went around discussing things. Sitting next to me was an older woman who started crying a little. She told her story…
She had an image so very very clear of being wrapped up like a burrito and rolled horizontally on her side…. then she relived her brutal rape from decades earlier. She sobbed the words out. It was then that I knew I was reliving it with her during the journey, that my panic and pain was from experiencing this thing with her. When she talked about being wrapped up like a burrito I knew my crystal had done its’ job of protecting me as it was wrapped up like a buritto on its’ side, in my lap ‘just in case’ (by the time I got home it had broken in two) I was so glad she shared that detail as that clued me in that she was entering my field and the crystal in my lap had held her at a safer distance.
She went on to say that she spent decades trying to heal this episode in her life and it wasn’t until now that she felt she had finally succeeded.
Was it worth it? During the experience I would say ‘no’ I never want to experience and help someone heal such a thing again but of course what’s a few moments of panic and pain to help someone else find a lifetime of freedom? That depends if you wind up taking it on in their place or not. You have to have other skills in place and helpers to call on when needed.
Most empaths do not have any skills at all and often wind up taking on way too much for others. Moving suffering from one soul to another solves nothing. Self love and boundaries are spiritual, all love starts with love of the self.
I set out to learn how to do this without having to experience it with the person… to remain a witness… to allow the universe to step in and share the experience and not try to do it all myself. In fact I really didn’t try to do anything at all and that’s what scared me. It just happened. I was expecting a nice calming journey.
I haven’t been to a class since, I’m blessed to have an awesome mentor this time, and I will do more to set the energy toward what I want and intend for the class. Perhaps I was too open to having any experience and left a vacuum. Perhaps I was meant to experience this so I’d know I did have it in me to make a difference and I needed to get some more skills and tools.
Victoria Lynn Schmidt
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