If you feel pulled to learn more about shamanism, you have come to the right place. Shamanism is a religious practice where a practitioner accesses the spirit world by entering altered states of consciousness. It is an ancient healing tradition with a strong connection to nature where practitioners can sharpen their intuition, develop connections with spirits, and use these skills for the betterment of those around them.
What is Shamanism?
Shamanism stems beyond ancient healing ceremonies and rituals – it is a way of life. The word shaman originates from the Tungus tribe in Siberia and has circulated throughout indigenous cultures. Being a shaman often involves communicating with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness such as trance for the purpose of healing, divination, and helping mother nature in some way. Clairaudience, clairvoyance, and clairsentience are developed along the shamanic journey. Drumming and ecstatic dancing are common ways the shaman can bring the energies from the spirit world into the 3D.
Around the 20th century, this religious practice crept its way into mainstream non-indigenous Western culture with many new-age practitioners referring to themselves as shamans. The movement has been coined, “neo-shamanism” and is popular throughout the western world.
If you feel called to the shamanic way of life, know that your path will require deep devotion and will not be easy. Once you begin walking this journey, you cannot turn around. Your 7 stages of initiation may look something like the following:
1. Create Vibrant Health
This is the first step on the path to shamanism and involves grounding. You will need to learn how to be present in your body, set your intentions, and make a soul commitment to honor the process ahead, no matter how difficult it may seem at times. Grounding is essential for you to learn how to tune in to yourself and your mission.
2. Implement a Daily Self-Care Plan
This will require a lot of conscious work. Your self-care plan involves actively reflecting on your thoughts and aligning them to positive thoughts, feelings, and actions. You will need to learn how to remain playful and curious about your external reality. You can do this by honoring the Good Mother and seeing her beauty in everything.
3. Call in Your Soul Family
On your journey, you may notice a shift in your relationships where you let go of others who speak or act negatively. They may not understand the changes you are making. This is for your own betterment as you attune to frequencies that match closer to your vibration. Ask for positive energies to enter your life and actively seek out the help from your community so you can strengthen your intimate bonds with others. A common misconception is that a shaman must walk their path alone. They thrive in community environments where they are able to uplift and be uplifted by others.
4. Step Into Your Power
Your first and second stages involve deep introspection as you work on calibrating your high vibration and your third stage of initiation is where you build skills of maintaining your own vibration around others. When you have balanced your internal energies with your external energies, you have stepped into your power. This stage is particularly important as you are able to say no to things without letting it affect you – you are choosing yourself, the preservation of your own energy, over everything else because you understand that in order for you to be the best version of yourself for others is to focus on your own alignment. When you are standing in your power you radiate confidence, self-assurance, and unconditional love.
5. Manifest Your Soul Mission
Once you are in your power, you are able to manifest all your desires into reality. With your heart open, you begin to manifest your inner wealth into outer wealth and material abundance. By authentically living your heart’s truth, your beacon of light will magnetize the right people and circumstances into your life.
6. Allow Your Creative Soul to Run Free
Reconnect with your spiritual practices and open up to the flow of your life’s journey. Allow miracles to come to you by operating with no resistance, no judgment, and no attachment to the outcome. During this stage, you allow your soul to express itself creatively without any fear or control over the outcome because you understand you are the master of your own destiny.
7. Share Your Gifts
In the final stage of shamanic initiation, you experience unconditional love towards yourself and others. Radical self-love and compassion for others allows you to cultivate a healthy balance with your ego. You are able to reflect on your thoughts and actions and see yourself in others. The opinions and behaviors no longer affect you because you understand that everything is a mirror; what others see in you is a reflection on them and how they see themselves. Your gift and service to humanity is to see a loving world and share your talents for transformational change.
For more tools to help you step into your power and expand your spiritual practices, read our spiritual advice blogs featuring guides to tarot, astrology, chakras, and more.
