We trip over, and loop through, an internal feedback system of thought, perception, and emotion and call it our reality…. It’s quite compelling and we are often unable to see outside this thing we have created to be “me.”
Podcast:
Olivia Young interviews Christina Allen on her work.
It has been said that trauma is a thief. Whatever it was that happened, the worst of it often lies downstream. The events may have been horrific, in and of themselves, but trauma also steals from us our future and our self respect. Like interest on a maxed out credit card the effects of trauma are compounded daily. Especially when it happened early in life. As children we are usually considerably outmatched by our aggressors. The default stress response is to flee or to fight back. But when we are small this is usually not an option. Children facing violence, abuse, or violations of their boundaries and bodies have but one option: to survive it. A third stress response called Freeze takes over. Freeze is a shut down of all physical and emotional responses. It is akin to the opossum playing dead. The goal is to live. We go into shock, into paralysis, and then we dissociate, leaving our bodies to the circumstances at hand.
It all actually started for me when I fell into the fire on Summer Solstice of 2019. It’s been a long 3 years. I don’t know about you but I was taken down to zero. I fought it. I was not going to go down. I’m tenacious, I’m stubborn. But over and over again I got the message to let go. To die the shamn's death. And finally I did. I’m sure this happened to many of you over the COVID time-out.
I literally fell into a ceremonial fire, landed with my left hand on a log of burning embers and was apparently engulfed in flames, briefly. I heard this voice say "This is an intitation." Then came the unraveling. And the reformatting. And the alchemy. You see, at the core of this was the call for me to heal from a lifetime of what I call freeze. It’s one of the three states we can go into when events are too big to face. We run. We fight. Or we freeze. My go-to was to freeze.
See a live 2 hour interview with the Shaman's Directory and Christina Allen on on walking the Andean paq'o path and using the Andean Healing arts to heal trauma, especially Freeze.
Are we there yet?
A new dawn is rising at ASC... as the dust kicked up from the last two years settles we are laying down the foundations for our next incarnation. We have upgraded our teachings, deepened our practices, extended our reach, and are now leaning into holding an even more dynamic space for growth and transformation. Are you looking for a way to deepen your connection with yourself, Nature, and with the energetic world you live in...? Join us!
Psychedelic therapies are on the rise. They are being touted as healing remedies for trauma, chronic pain, and as a catalyst for for spiritual awakening. There is great hope for a sort of spiritual revolution as some of our plant allies, and even psychedelic chemical derivatives, help us to overcome our limitations and reclaim our true nature. Significant research is being done at reputable Universities such as Johns Hopkins showing the healing effects of psychedelics in trauma therapy. People are finding microdosing psilocybin more effective and with less side effects than antidepressants. Evidence suggests these plant allies have been with us since the beginning as an essential part of our healing practices. It is important to give these allies great respect, to know they are not for everyone, and it also important to understand where their job begins and where it ends.
Whew! Well that was a crazy year!We are taking this opportunity to ride the wave of chaos of 2021 and make some foundational changes and shifts in our own programs at ASC. We are going deeper into the authentic teachings of the Andean Mystics and redesigning our programs a bit to fully embrace the traditional "shamanic" magic of the Andes. And at least for this year we are going online...
Do distance healing sessions work?
Yes, they most definitely do! Energetic work is not bound by space or time. I do not have to be with you physically to pull through the healing energies, track the origins of your woundings, or blocks, or to sweetly support you as you are processing your stuff. All of that CAN be done over the phone, Skype, or Zoom with deep and profound results. You just need a quiet uninterrupted space to be for 90 mins so we can dig in. With everyone home that is the real challenge of distant work these days!
Quote from a client who reluctantly accepted that her in person session must be done over the phone now: "I cannot thank you enough for yesterday's session. It was so incredibly powerful, eye opening, healing and the list goes on... My spirit feels lighter and not so heavy."
Coherence Instead of Chaos
So... as I tire of all the blaming and finger pointing, however merited it might be, I find myself, at times, watching old movies... and just as I popped into the middle of one, Sean Connery’s character in Rising Sun says the following:
“The Japanese have a saying, ‘Fix the problem, not the blame.’ Find out what's f-ed up and fix it. Nobody gets blamed. We're always after who f-ed up.”
Yes, we in the west THIVE on blame. But it is a victim perspective, and a complete waste of energy. It doesn’t solve the problem, it just creates more angst and division.
We are all in this together! Yes, mistakes have been made. Of course they have. We are all in new territory here and the learning curve is steep. We are learning from our mistakes. That is at the core of developing wisdom. No one has all the answers. We are finding them now. We must be our own authorities now instead of hoping mommy and daddy will fix it.
The way we step out of victim is by assuming our own authority. We need to be asking ourselves how can I help instead of who is to blame. We all have our spheres of influence. Ask yourself how you can help within yours. It’s the little things even... but it’s energy put in the direction of a constructive solution.
The more we unite in solving the problems, the more the angst level goes down. Angst creates chaos. When we work together for the same cause we step into unity consciousness. Unity consciousness means we step out of digging into the egoic divisions that separate us, and give us claims to being “right,” and into the collective consciousness of serving our humanity. Our humanity. Yes! OUR humanity.
This is our humanity that is at stake here. No other life form is being shaken to the core. Each of us is an aspect of that collective consciousness. Your thoughts and your actions are all part of this collective organism. We are being asked to bring our individual awareness to what we bring to the equation. And then to act consciously, responsibly, constructively...
The virus comes to us as an outside agent, as something seemingly against us, because we have not found the way to unite from the inside. We both, the virus and humanity, come from the same mind. It is trying to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, from within... until we can.
Can we not focus on peace and Unity for once? The enemy is within. The enemy is using these brilliant minds we have been given to judge and criticize, to play the eternal victim, to negate and minimize, to stratify and dominate, instead of to solve the problems at hand. It’s about frequency, vibration, and resonance. It’s about coherence!!!
Ask yourself... what can you do today to make this a better world? ❤️❤️❤️