This is How it Feels to Heal
A shamanic journey through cancer, recovery, and life challenges
In life’s journey, we encounter obstacles and adversities that mold our character and bolster our confidence. Life teaches us the resilience to face any challenge or barrier. Yet, we must not ignore the setbacks and mistakes that accompany our path. It is our persistent spirit that drives us forward, turning setbacks into opportunities for personal growth.
Life, an intricate phenomenon, remains elusive, unveiling its essence through its profound impacts on us. We contemplate our adherence to beliefs, recognizing how past experiences shape our current perceptions. Often, we oversimplify the world around us, missing the opportunity to fully appreciate its unique essence.
Our existence is akin to a painting, where external perceptions influence our deepest beliefs and feelings. When pondering our identity, we might first think of our names, yet who were we before acquiring this label? If circumstances were altered, would our core essence change, or would it remain steadfast?
This story delves into a journey of self-discovery, questioning mainstream beliefs and embracing an alternative path infused with a touch of Shamanism. During the 1990s, as a high school dropout, I forged my own path, leading to success and a deeper connection with life’s essence, guided by the subtle wisdom of Shamanism. Over eight years, this path provided guidance and healing, revealing life’s precarious beauty.
This narrative is not merely an exploration of Shamanism but a personal reflection on how alternative beliefs and existential perspectives shaped my journey. It’s about perceiving the world through a unique lens, inspired by the notion that profound truths often emerge from the most unexpected places.
Embark on this journey with me, where reality and the essence of our being merge, with a hint of Shamanism and existential thought. Let’s embrace a confluence of emotions and senses, creating a symphony of harmony within. This is a tribute to individuality and authenticity, acknowledging that our true essence is sculpted in the furnace of life’s challenges and illuminated by the subtle glow of existential and shamanistic insights.
“Once in a while, you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right.”
— Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter
Introduction from the book on Amazon.comChallenges and adversity are essential in building character and confidence. Knowing from experience that you can negotiate any obstacle is key to overcoming anything. Of course, there are always setbacks, errors, and miscalculations. Still, it is one’s ability to pick themselves off and not see loss as anything less than an opportunity to learn.
Life is, and anything we add to beyond that is our opinion of it. But, like consciousness, life itself cannot be seen, and it is the effect of its presence or lack thereof that we know it exists.
Why do we believe that we believe? For the most part, what we view reflects our past, which comes out of our memory to validate what we view and subsequently identify that we already know. Even then, having looked at cars before, when another one comes into our awareness, we call it simply a car. The fine details of the car may be different, but unless otherwise needed, we simply view it as a car. We do not see it for what it is, individually, at this moment.
The same goes for most things in our lives. We were told something was this or that, and then we go through life with that label, feeling towards or believing almost everything. Take, for instance, your name. If I ask you, “Who are you,” you would likely say your name. But who were you before you had that name? Similarly, if you had been given a different name, would you be a different you or the same one you are right now?
In the following pages, you will read about how I had to unravel all that I knew because what I was told I ultimately rejected. But I disagreed with science, modern medicine, and the beliefs about me from everyone in my life as being final. I was well equipped for this moment, having never really been in mainstream society in the first place. A high school dropout, I spent the early 1990s bouncing around the United States and then began working remotely, self-employed, for about 15 years before the events of this work began. The last time I had a boss, or employer, was in 1990. So by the time 2011 rolled around, and I was flying high successfully in my created career, departing further from reality was relatively easy.
Contained in this book are many references to Shamanism, sometimes vague, but always in a way that illustrates or shows how I used this ancient spiritual practice to help me through a series of events in which my life itself was on the line. Over the eight years of this story, I traveled further and further from everyday society to a place where I found solace and, in the end, healing in Shamanism.
This is not a “how-to” book on Shamanism, nor is it intended to compare it to anyone else’s religious beliefs or otherwise. Instead, it is a story of how I used some alternative practices and thinking to see my next best choice. As Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter says, “Once in a while, you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right.” Just like that band, “The Dead,” as they were known, attracted a community of people who literally followed them around the country from show to show, me included, symbolized in those words, I needed to open my eyes to see the world in a new way.