Men Are Way More Than the Problem

This insight flooded my awareness with a crystal clear message: women need awakened men to actually be able to recover from the damage and know ourselves as healthy, whole and sovereign.

It is only through men with the clarity of heart to hold the light of truth that will usher women to the other side of the devastation of abuse that has plagued our world for far too long.

Women reclaiming their personal power is just one step in moving beyond the paradigm of pain and separation so boldly illuminated as women courageously step forward in the sweep of the “Me Too” movement.

Finding a unified, healthy society built on love and mutual respect is such a tremendous leap from where we are now, which is why I am compelled to share what I have learned as a student and practitioner of shamanic healing ways - these ways that guide us into deep places though the body and energy systems that could not be seen otherwise.

Inside of us are hidden layers that when explored take us beyond the personal to a place where we can transcend time and literally bring healing to the generations that have walked before us. This is our birthright as women and men committed to the path of creating a better world.

We do this by remembering that the body is a lens for the psyche, and feelings as a voice of the soul -- a soul and a psyche that is both individual as well as a unified expression of humanity, past, present and future.

When I stepped into the office of a male healing practitioner this week, I thought it was there to help restore my body from the virus I’d struggled with the week before. Was I ever surprised to discover that there was so much more to the story of having “a cold.”

What would happen if we could just be curious about the conditions and pains in our bodies, and be open to the inquiry that there may be a bigger message for healing and transformation?

Our bodies and the energy fields that surround us are virtual libraries of past experiences, including the stories of those in our family lineage who came before us.

As this skillful male practitioner worked on my body and my energy field for the congestion I had from my “cold,” he and I witnessed a gallery of women through our psychic eyes.

I quickly identified them as my maternal ancestors, who had contained themselves in fear of what might happen if they were truly self-expressed. They lived in shame and hiding of who they were underneath it all, making agreements that were passed along through the generations about how they needed to be in order to live in safety. Of course, I inevitably became part of the web of that family constellation, which has lived inside the imprinting of my children and my sisters too.

While I have always felt that I suffered some type of sexual abuse as a child, I’ve never been able to quite identify it. Perhaps I just can’t remember, or maybe it was beyond “me,” a thread I've carried from another generation. What I can say for sure, it that I’ve always felt the repercussions of how girls and women wounded this way experience life, carrying shame, mistrust and sadness.

As I become freer inside, I witness the depth of the pain and oppression I have carried not only for myself, but for the women who walked before me.

In our culture, we talk about genetics as if it only has to do with medical issues. The truth is, the energies that get passed through the ancestry impacts health, emotions, thoughts, and the unconscious ways we move through the world. All of this is so much broader and more far reaching than our modern understanding of science can ever begin to explain.

Yes, each of us are individuals with a unique body and soul, carrying a resume of personal experiences too. AND who we are is our ancestry. Who we are is our children. Who we are is to our brothers and sisters. Who we are is who our friends are, holding a reflection of the larger community of humanity.

We are all in this together, and we can no longer separate ourselves out. If we are committed to awakening and ultimately making this a better world for our children, we must be willing to go inside and find out what lives there. There we find light and spiritual expansion, and we also find dark corners that are seeking the light of awareness.

I felt this in my own recent healing session, and so many other times I’ve taken this kind of journey inward for myself and with my brave clients along the way.

Seldom do we know what’s underneath until we are willing to investigate the persistent pain and suffering, and go beyond taking the pills and potions designed to make us feel better.

I had spent nearly a week feeling sick, forced to slow down and rest. What came out of that was a deep understanding of some of the parts of myself that needed revamping - not pretty or fun, but liberating. This led me to the next stop along the healing journey, the ancestral insight that I was able to see by being guided by a healer with sight.

There is great vision and value in introspection, prayer, meditation and contemplation. Then there are layers we can only get to through the skillful support of others to help up to see, to release and clear away that which needs to be witnessed to become free. When we do this, we heal not only ourselves, but one another.

I am humbly reminded today how important it is to always return to inner investigation and to allow myself to be witnessed by others who can help me see beyond the thoughts and emotions that can flatten me without proper support. Coaching and counseling through conversation is good, but can’t really touch what is possible through the gateway of the body and energy systems. There is a level of healing that only happens when we are willing to dive deep inside the mind-body-spirit connection as the integrated web that we truly are.

I feel blessed to be among those who have been willing to dive deep inside and get acquainted with the inconvenient truth that lives there, to feel the shadows that connect us all in the underbelly of the web of life. Oddly, by touching into these these things that don’t feel or look so good, we actually set ourselves free.

How far are we willing to go inward to find the healing of our all our relations, to return to love and mend the dark ways that have dominated the collective relationships between men and women for far too long?