Day 68 Stuffing Emotions or Using Emotions

There is a difference between stuffing your emotions and controlling your emotions. Stuffing means not recognizing them, not allowing yourself to express how you feel emotionally, feeling that by showing your emotions you are doing something wrong. I think that stuffing is not balance.

Emotions are tools like screwdrivers. The best use for them is to bring happiness joy and love to those around us and thereby attain these things for ourselves and also to propel your intentions forward into manifestation. Now if you hide all your screwdrivers, how can you use them to build that patio? So it is good to see your screwdrivers, to learn what they are, how they work, what they are for and how to use them properly. It takes a bit of practice to learn how to use a screwdriver properly. Sure you can throw it at a wall but that won't do much good. And that is what we do with our emotions. We throw them around and even at each other without realizing that they are actually tools!

Too many people walk through life these days with one driving thought, "how does this make me feel?" They let how they emotionally feel make all their decisions and judgments for them. That is like a baby crying for its bottle! We have so many other ways to determine our decisions and judgments for us. We have life experience, our own beliefs, our own goals and goodness to choose with. Emotions are just screwdrivers. It would be like saying, "what does my screwdriver tell me to do now". ! LOL!

If I gave a screwdriver to every person walking around being led by their emotions we would see everyone talking to a screwdriver constantly! LOL!

So yes, emotions are valuable, as tools! We should learn about them, experience them, learn to use them wisely. Emotions are also part of our sensory equipment. I use my emotions to alert me to negative or positive energetic fields. I have stood in "places of emergence" and just felt what I felt just to feel it. It taught me something more about that place than if I had stuffed my emotions and not used them in that place.

Emotions are tools. We can easily use them for our own good and the good of others. Why didn't anyone teach you this? Good question!

Aho  ( “I speak my truth”)

Shaman Elder Maggie

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Day 56 Choosing Your Beliefs

You are accountable ultimately for your beliefs so it is important to know what you believe and why. And if you have some belief that doesn't work for you, that may have been given to you by someone else, especially childhood beliefs, this course is a good time to get rid of what doesn't work and get something that makes you feel whole, that is yours, that you do really believe in. This is the process of becoming an authentic person. This is what I offer you in this course at www.shamanelder.com.  A Shaman is authentic with him or herself first and foremost. In 50 years of examining my belief system, believe me, I know where my human frailties lie, I know my strengths and weaknesses, I know which beliefs are authentic to me and which ones are still held over from other people's belief systems that I still have to come to grips with. It is a process. And I accept myself as fully human, fully alive. I love life! I love being human! I have found the joy and happiness, the peace by creating a more authentic life for myself by examining my belief system and making it my own!

But with each belief you examine, whether you choose to keep it or replace it with something that does work for you, you will feel this coming home to yourself, this growing in your own self, this sense of freedom to be who you really are.

Its up to you!

Aho

Shaman Elder Maggie

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Day 18: How to Use Emotional Energy

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. Let’s take an example. Let’s 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. This practice keeps me in tune with what I am trying to do and keeps me doing it the best way I can. Back to being impeccable: If you can't be impeccable with yourself, who can you be impeccable with.

Shaman Elder Maggie

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Day 16: Detours

I have had my share of detours.

Sometimes we get "tested". We get asked by Spirit to make a choice. We find ourselves in a very uncomfortable place we do not like and we have to make some choice. Often we do not even know what the choices are! But I have learned that when you commit yourself to a certain path, every now and then along the way you meet a path crossing yours, a detour, a sidetrack, a u turn, and we all reach these places. If you are not committed fully to your path, then you run into conflict when you encounter these places. You start to feel unwell, dragged down, unsure, restless, unhappy because you are being asked to once again confirm your commitment. You may have already found your path as a healer. You understand the power and the holiness of this path. And then you met a crossroads and you faltered, you hesitated, but now you have chosen your path as a healer once again and are practicing and the crossroads is over and you can continue to walk stronger than before!

It is painful only when we do hesitate, only when we are not sure about what we believe. One's own unsureness about one's healing path caused this offer of a crossroads. We actually place these u turns in front of our own selves. So by believing strongly in whatever you believe and being committed to whatever you believe you will not see too many u turns or sidetracks in your life. And when you do see them you will recognize them as sidetracks and u turns and just ignore them or better yet realize that you are trying to fool yourself. How do we fool ourselves? We say we do not have time for our healing gifts. We say they don't really work. We say we can't do it. We say we are too lazy to do it. But the truth is your healing gifts do work and you know it. Everyone has healing gifts and skills. You do have time for your healing path every day all day long, It does not interfere with time for other things. You will have to judge yourself to see if other reasons have come up and if they are true or not. It is all about being true to yourself, being authentic.

Aho ( Yaqui language meaning “I speak my truth”)

Shaman Elder Maggie

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Day 14 My Shaman Grandmother

I come from a long lineage in this lifetime as my grandmother immigrated to America from her Ukrainian clan to evade persecution as a young girl. Imagine her mother and father trying to scrape up the money needed to buy her a ticket on an ocean liner ( in the lowest part of the boat) so they could send her away to a place they had never been and never see her again. That is how much they loved their daughter. That is how badly my people were being persecuted. Imagine this young girl spending 4 weeks huddled with sick strangers going somewhere she knew nothing about. She clung to her knowledge and heritage of traditional Shamanism. It became hugely important to her life and to her well being. Even there on the ship she used her skills to bring healing to the other passengers who spoke many foreign languages and came from many other countries.

I watched my Grandmother practice traditional shamanism all my life. I heard the knock on the door from those who needed her help and the freshly prepared meal that would come with it. My grandmother always gave her healing away. She never charged anyone and would only graciously accept whatever offerings grateful patients would donate. She was not rich but she was never left in need.

She always was laughing. Everything was such a joy to her and her grandchildren were her precious jewels. She would spend hours twirling my long hair into beautiful curls. As she twined her hands through my locks she would tell me the stories, the metaphors that were the key to understanding the ways of the Shaman. She taught me traditional Shamanism as I practice it and teach it today.

Later she would let me observe her work with her clients and help her in preparation. I watched her keen sense of observation as she would look at a person not just with physical eyes but with her "other" eyes that could see beyond the words being spoken into the heart of the truth. I remember listening to the plights of her patients and watching my grandmother take a totally different kind of healing path that seemed unrelated to what the patient said. My grandmother explained to me that what we think we want on the outside may be a long way from what our spirit needs.

Later as I studied with my friends who are Native Americans I learned that the totem animals of the medicine wheel also show a hidden spiritual quest behind the conscious wish. In my studies I found many things that my grandmother taught me were actually identical to the Shamanic practices of other cultures throughout time. The Celtic Shaman, The Native American Medicine, the Gypsy Shaman, the Inuit Shaman, the Japanese Shaman, the Incan Shaman all have the same core truths! I find that amazing considering the separation of time and distance.

My grandmother put my feet firmly on the path of Traditional Shamanism and I have spent the last 50 plus years studying and teaching this path. I have travelled around the world and sat at the feet of some of the most important Shamanic healers of our day. I have learned that nothing is ours without knowledge, intent and emotional control. This is what I teach. This is what my Shaman Grandmother taught me. She was a wise and incredibly loving woman. And I think the most precious thing she taught me was where love fits into Shamanism. Love is the key to Shamanic healing in any culture.

You are welcome to take the online course that I offer.

 Just go to www.shamanelder.com  to read about it and to start today.

Aho

Shaman Elder Maggie

Day 12: Gaining Confidence

Obviously your spiritual self, your soul, your spirit has more confidence in you than you do consciously! Isn't that something to think about! That there is a part of you, that eternal part of you that knows you can accomplish what you were sent here to do! And if that is true, is not that path worth finding and nurturing? Would you not like to walk the path that you chose for yourself, that you know you can walk, that is unique to you and that will heal and bless the world? I found a lot of encouragement in this awareness. To know that there is a part of me that knows I can do this! That wants me to do this, for the benefit of myself and the entire world.

Think about that. You are connected to this part of yourself. Give this greater part of yourself a welcome and let him or her walk with you. You do not have to do this alone. That greater part of you knows where to go and how to get there. He or She is represented by your totem animals, your guides and elders, teachers, Spirit. Welcome this Higher Self in all its many faces and let it guide you safely every step of the way.

Shaman Elder Maggie

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Day 11: Impeccability

There is no one out there living your life. So there is no one out there that you should hold up as a measurement of how you are doing. You know in your heart of hearts if you are doing your best. And your best is all you can do each day.

Doing the best you can do each day in every way is impeccability. Am I saying to become a rocket scientist in order to be impeccable? No! We are human and we all have our foibles and faults. We are never going to be perfect so impeccability is not about being perfect. It is about doing the very best we can every minute of every day.

Do I still struggle with impeccability? I don't struggle with it but I am conscious of it. I know when I have been less than impeccable. I choose to be less than impeccable when I am feeling lazy or tired sometimes. Sure. I recognize it is a conscious decision to be impeccable or not. It is my choice and no one will judge me for it. I am the only one who will judge me for doing my best or less than my best. I don't fret over it but I do try to be impeccable as best I can. And as you become impeccable with the big things, you become aware of smaller places where you can be more impeccable, and smaller places and smaller places and you get down into your thoughts and feelings and you try to be impeccable there as well. And this is where impeccability can cause your thoughts of love to manifest immediately. This is where what you think has an impact on what you manifest almost instantly, be it good or bad. Energy doesn't know good or bad. That is a judgment you make. Whatever you think becomes reality, is made manifest. So, then I have to become impeccable with my thoughts.

 But it is not a struggle. It is more of an awareness. I give myself room to screw up because I know I am human. It is OK to screw up. But I am responsible for what I think and I will have the consequences of what I think, be it good or bad and probably have those consequences a bit faster than you will only because I have been aware of my own impeccability much longer than you have. So I am saying it is not a judgment game; it is an awareness. And the main cause of impeccability is knowing that what you do and say and think will manifest itself into your reality. If you want abundance, think abundance.

I want to manifest joy, and happiness, and abundance, and freedom and independence and healing into my life. These are my reasons for trying to be impeccable. It is not hard, but it is a minute to minute awareness. And for a healer, the more impeccable is the healer, the more complete is the healing. A healer is only as good as his own life. A drunk healer would not heal as well as a sober healer. A person who has studied herbs will heal with herbs better than a person who only read a book about herbs. So true!

Shaman Elder Maggie

I teach an online course in Traditional Shamanism here. www.shamanelder.com and youcan also find lots of free articles and gifts.