Shamanic Practitioner Self Care:
The Shoemaker's Children
“I have been thinking a lot about this (3rd) level (of shamanic study) and here is my worry. Like so many others, I can think of some major traumatic events in my life that could have resulted in soul loss. I don't feel as though my soul is fragmented, I actually feel quite whole, especially since studying and living shamanism. But, what if a practitioner has soul loss, how can they heal others with soul loss? I feel that I needed to address this with you before I continued on. What are your thoughts?
Much Love,
Nancy"
Hi Nancy,
Very good question and one that should occur to every practitioner:
What about ourselves?
For instance, as a practitioner, where might be our own power bleed? Where might we have not incorporated and regained our full, true, powerful self? So, you ask: what about our own soul? Are all parts of our self as a practitioner present? Since soul loss is often an automatic and sudden response, easily brought about by sharp alarm such as in fright or facing a tragedy, and since life eventually brings a harsh experience to all of us, isn’t it reasonable that we too might have some soul parts that need to be retrieved? Might we not also need power that needs to be regained in order to be whole again?
Of course.
This is normal, and human. As a practitioner serving others, where our responsibility rests in shamanic healing is to make sure we are taking care of ourselves along the way. Unfortunately, there is that old adage about the shoemaker whose kids went around without shoes. When we are deeply involved in an art, trade, skill or practice, we typically focus our attention on the well-being of others, not ourselves. This is normal for a caring person, and even more normal for a person whose professional career involves serving others. This is why yours is such a very good question.
It is a good reminder to not forget our own work.
This is also why the human service professions often have anything from strong recommendations to actual requirements that students begin to work on themselves. Psychologists, for instance, I know because I experienced this myself, are routinely submitted to their own therapy or analysis as part of their professional training. This is the same as how I approach shamanic training. The first level of training, for instance, in Shamanism 101 is very much about our own work. Actually, it can’t be helped! Students invariably discover that their early work is ‘all about them’. Goodness knows, our own stuff is the very first to pop up during our early journeys of discovery and as we learn shamanic states of consciousness.
I agree that it is only alongside or preferably after an initial period of self-study which brings up and helps reduce our own ‘stuff’, that relatively new students in human services turn their focus outward to their clients and begin to step into the role of practitioners. We are, after all, working on becoming the shamanic hollow bone. It is my opinion that when training as a shamanic practitioner, we tackle our own stuff first.
Now, I happen to know that Nancy, the person who wrote the question we began with, is an advanced student. For her, the pendulum of the student's focus has begun to swing back again to remembering about her own balance and wholeness. She began with the expected self-focus that is so much a part of Level 1, and then became all enthused about the ‘other focus’ of treating others that she delved into in Level 2. Now, at Level 3, she is again focusing on her clients, however, it has become even clearer to her about our need as practitioners to never lose track of tending to ourselves! It seems to work this way: at first, we are all excited about the self-discovery and re-empowerment that comes up in our early shamanic work, then we get all excited about starting to tend more specifically to others. After a while, the initial excitement of tending to others begins to wear down to a more grounded passion. It is then that it normally occurs to us that we should not forget our own, practitioner self-care.
When talking about this aspect of practitioner life, I like to recount a story that brings this need forcibly home. A huge room full of human service professionals from all areas of care had gathered for an educational conference. After lunch, the conference speaker asked everyone to jot down on a napkin or spare piece of paper a list of the ten things that they recommended their clients or patients do for their self-care and wellbeing. When everyone finished their lists, the speaker simply asked the attendees to circle the self-care items on their list that they had done for themselves during the last month. The room became remarkably quiet, interspersed with a few twitters of uncomfortable insight, as a whole roomfull of bright, capable and experienced providers of care to other people, realized that they were not tending to themselves the same way.
Yes, this applies to shamanic practitioners as well. However, there is one other matter that factors into all of this, and that is that just because one is a practitioner of any kind of human services, this does not mean that we have to reach some kind of ‘perfection’, or even that such a thing is possible. However, this doesn’t mean we can toss ourselves around with disregard to ethics, our ability, our compassion or power. What I mean to say is that for a shamanic practitioner, being whole, powerful and capable is always a verb, not a noun. One does not become ‘capable’, but rather, one ‘capables’, minute by minute, hour by hour, adjusting and developing along the way as needed. We aim at doing the best we can, cutting ourselves some slack when necessary and tightening our reins at others.
So, with respect to Nancy's question, even when a good practitioner has a missing soul-part, this by no means necessarily affects his or her ability as a practitioner when serving others. Certainly, it might, but there is no direct relationship between the two. Using our adage about the shoemaker, the shoemaker may make wonderful, glorious, fantastic shoes… and his children still run around the house in broken-down footwear full of holes.
Try to achieve a balance. Too much of anything can lead to burnout, along with destructive and unnecessary self-criticism. A felt need for superior achievement beyond one’s reasonable capabilities can do this. Achieve, yes. I am always encouraging my students to live into their capability. That is what a teacher is for! But living into one's capability is an ongoing LifeWay. Living into capability is the action of a verb that actively works on being capable. It is not an end result, a thing, a noun. Rather, it is a verb: a way of living in the world. It is a gentle, self-coaxing into a full and fulfilling life as a practitioner, and... as a person!