I’m on a journey of self discovery, healing, and elevation of consciousness! YAY!!! You may or may not know of my personal experience with “mental illness”. What we here in the west call “mental illness”, shamans, traditional healers, and spiritualists describe as “the birth of a healer”. As a person going through crisis and helping people with the same difficulties in my daily work as a Peer Recovery Specialist, I was brought to a point in my life where I was seeking direction and spiritual growth. In the course of my spiritual search I found, remarkably, that I had ancestors who were shamans/traditional healers, and that, through my own lineage, I had been called to do this GREAT service in this lifetime. What a discovery!!! It has truly changed my life and made me realize the challenges I have lived with have proven a blessing in disguise. Since that discovery I have been training as a healer in the tradition of my ancestors.
My life’s path is to assist other people like me to heal from ailments like depression, anxiety, bi-polar disorder, and schizophrenia. These ailments effect millions of people in the United States, but our communities remain in denial of these conditions. We tend to sweep them under the rug and ignore them, or, when we don’t, we face stigma and rejection, and so we suffer alone at the time that we need help the most. Many doctors still regard behaviors associated with spiritual emergence as indicative of mental illness because they only understand these spiritual expressions as signs of sickness. Many people undergoing spiritual emergency are misdiagnosed and treated with suppressive medication which further complicates things.
Through the prejudices and ignorance of modern society we’ve been deprived of insight into our selves and experiences. But I am learning to take a holistic and spiritual approach to heal the “mentally diagnosed” community. I am here to FIGHT the stigma that society has created around us, and to help empower my peers to do the same.
Shamans and traditional healers were the original doctors of humanity. I am happy to go back to the ancient ways and medicines and to use these practices to improve the state of our modern world and mindset. I’m hoping that you feel inspired to find out more about your life’s purpose and what your own ancestors have for you! Ase! Thokoza! And many Blessings - Loving you… Ekhaya