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GQ Article – The Strange Boom in Shamanic Healing

Read the full article here

CamApril 1, 2020

Recent Posts

Returning from the Nowhere – Article for Sacred Hoop Magazine
Hot on the healers: The best spiritual practitioners in London – Tatler Magazine
Are you having a spiritual meltdown? Best shamans in London – Evening Standard
Modern Masculinity and The Power of Shamanism – Interview with Starseeds
Article for Saiki Wellness

eddyelsey

The people have spoken! Thank you for everyone’

The people have spoken!

Thank you for everyone’s messages re. the above polls yesterday. All very interesting and apologies if I didn’t get around to replying.

My thoughts:

Should healing be free?

In an ideal world there would be an NHS type service where people access healing for free whilst the practitioners still get paid for their work. But realistically unless this happens - then no.

Healing should be available to everyone, but some sort of exchange should occur. The simplest way to do that in our culture is through money. My prices are negotiable and if someone can’t pay the full price I would never ever turn them away. I would always - ALWAYS - offer the healing for what they can pay - but not for free. I’m also open to exchanges (apart from healing work for healing work). People who get in touch and ask for a healing and are honest with what they can afford always get a session - and it’s the same for retreats. Events I have less control over because usually the final say is with the studio.

Personally I also think it’s good to have dedicated and full time healers in our culture. My practice went up a notch when I went full time and started to take it a lot more seriously and it became more than a hobby. This was only possible because I earned “some” money from it. I’m not saying part time healers aren’t as good as full time ones - there are plenty of incredible part time healers who are much better than full time ones who haven’t trained and just rip people off.

On to the second question.

It was 50/50 for the first poll, but pretty one sided for the second. This is an interesting disparity because training costs a lot of money. I’ve probably spent over £10k in my trainings and on equipment, insurance etc. IMO there needs to be some way to earn back after the financial loss incurred to become a decent practitioner. IMO training is a non negotiable to be a healer.

Ultimately - my thoughts are that if you’re a good practitioner, if you take it seriously and if you make a difference to peoples lives - there is no issue with charging for your services.

BUT - be flexible with what you offer and for how much.

Healing is for everyone.

I’m back at @indabayoga in a couple weeks time f

I’m back at @indabayoga in a couple weeks time for a day time dreaming circle.

Was fun last time, and obviously Indaba is a wonderful studio.

If you want to come and join - the ticket link is in my bio 🙂🙏🏼

(It’s also being live streamed - I get a fancy mic 💅🏽 - if you fancy doing it from home or around the world 🌎)

I’ve lost count at the amount of people in the w

I’ve lost count at the amount of people in the wellness industry that I’ve seen/heard say that you’re sick because you’re:  Distracted
Weak
Addicted
Negative

While these things don’t exactly promote health. I very, very rarely hear anybody talking about the underlying mechanisms that lead to these symptoms - which are by far the most important part.

You can think of healing as a series of loops, or cycles. The above are examples of loops - patterns we tend to fall into. A lot of people think that healing = breaking the loop. This is simplistic, and what generally happens is we break one cycle and just create another. Or we break a cycle, spend a year thinking about it and fall back into it when shit inevitably hits the fan - with a lot more shame and guilt than we had in the first place.

A lot of the time we focus too much on the cycles - which are obvious because we perform them - and less on the energy that is driving the cycles at their origin - which is less obvious because it exists behind the veil.

Lasting and transformational healing is transmuting the energy that drives the entire circuit so the loops and cycles run their course naturally and settle back into our psyche in a completely healthy way.

To be absolutely 100% honest - this is not possible for some people. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of determining factors when it comes to healing and sometimes the very best we can hope for is to transmute enough of the energy that we have enough peace in our life that we can enjoy it.

This isn’t to detract from hope - this is monumental for some people. I will most likely never have a life without some kind of destructive OCD and anxiety - but I absolutely love my life now that I’ve found a place for them in my psyche (most of the time). I’ve gone from being crippled by them daily to once a year. To me - that is monumental.

Don’t focus all your energy on your patterns and loops. Unless they are completely destructive and a danger to you or somebody else - let them play out and focus more on what created them, and what drives them on.

You may need some help with this - I did!

Conteball in full effect! 🤍💙

Conteball in full effect! 🤍💙

I don’t like the spiritual narrative of: “The

I don’t like the spiritual narrative of:

“The Universe only looks kindly on you if you feel worthy”.

It’s not very helpful, because for most people - your feelings of self worth fluctuate from day to day. It’s a complex system that takes into account many factors, and the idea that something as vast and complex as THE UNIVERSE is taking into account how good you feel about yourself before it bestows gifts upon you is straight out of the New Age “be better” playbook.

The undertone to this narrative is “bad things are happening to you because you’re just not good enough” and that if you happen to get sick then it’s because you just weren’t positive enough. It also teaches you that those who have nice things are inherently better inside - why would the universe be helping them out, and not you, otherwise? This is how a lot of spiritual “teachers” play the game. They parade their wellness around like a badge of their own self work, when really it’s mostly down to luck and good marketing.

A lot of people get caught in a loop of shame because of this idea, and when something negative happens it’s not just seen as chance, but a personal attack that has only occurred because something is wrong with them.

You have to remember that you are NOT your thoughts.

If your self worth is based on how positive your thoughts are day to day - which is often out of your control - than this is a wildly inconsistent way to judge your value.

Thoughts are often random - and have no bearing on your worth.

The universe doesn’t get to decide how worthy you are. Nothing does - because in reality, your inherent value as a human is completely immutable and remains rock solid despite any outside factors. But even this I wouldn’t spend too much time worrying about - because to put pressure on yourself to believe this is just falling into a similar trap!

The only thing I would concentrate on for self worth is joy.

Joy unlocks self worth.

Follow wherever your joy leads you - no matter what anybody says.

A very happy Beltane to you all. A gentle reminde

A very happy Beltane to you all.

A gentle reminder to not worry too much about how to celebrate a pagan festival - which perfect offerings to make or what to observe. The “correct” way to observe these festivals - which was most likely very fluid in the first place - has long since slumbered in the roots below our feet.

As we put our ears to the ground to re-tune ourselves to the old ways - a lovely thing - keep in the back of your thoughts that the early cultures probably didn’t care much about what was happening a thousand years before them. These festivals, although old - were also the present - they pulsed with modernity - and they were right in the middle of it!

So along with an offering for this wonderful, achingly beautiful earth and all that came before you - don’t be afraid to wear your new trainers, watch a little TV, eat a takeaway and have a cocktail. It’s high time we book-end the ancient with a little spritz of the now.

It’s hard to walk forwards if you’re always looking behind you 🚷

As for me - I sprinkled a few oats on the ground with a prayer this morning, and laid an apple to give thanks for all that is sweet.

Now I’m off on a pilgrimage of sorts - to sink a few crispy ones at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Works for me!

Have an incredible day ❤️

There’s a bruiser round our way that we call Big

There’s a bruiser round our way that we call Big Grey. He’s not the biggest cat, but he has an aura about him. We’ve caught him a couple of times bullying Truff - who, like her dad, is innocent and naive.

We had the fences done the other day, and they cut a hole in the bottom to give Truff access to the little woodland behind the house. This lovely idea has turned a little sour, because that hole has become a kind of cat motorway.

Big Grey has posted himself in the gap - right in the middle of the junction - as you can see - and Truff has been going out of her mind because every time she tries to get through he boops her on the head.

Enter Matteo - the black and white fella in the pic. He’s been flirting with Truff for a while now - months. They play with each other and we’ve come back to both of them inside the house before. He didn’t have a collar when we met him, and he’s outside all hours of the day and night like a little vagabond - someone must have put a blue flea collar on him recently and we were thinking of adopting him but I was suspicious that all he wanted was some food. I’ll admit - I’ve given him a tough ride. But Ruth came down to this scene and it’s really moved me. There he is, like a knight in furry armour - aiding Truff in her stand off with the legendary local beast that is Big Grey.

Maybe we should bring him into the family?

I’m posting this because there really isn’t much to do in Dudley with a bad back. And this Cat soap opera playing out before my eyes is about as good as it gets - so I’m letting all of you in on it too.

Il keep you updated if you want.

Anyone else’s events dead or just mine? Kinda a

Anyone else’s events dead or just mine?

Kinda awkward to out myself online like this - it’s quite popular in the wellness industry to exaggerate and posture.

Wellness is still seen as a luxury in our culture. It’s extra curricular - which I think is fair enough. I’m not about to tell people they should prioritise anything. Live your life however you want to live it.

But as things get more and more expensive - can we really claim to work in wellness if we don’t adjust our rates accordingly and still do our best to make healing accessible to everyone?

There is a balance - I know - and I’m definitely not somebody who things healing work should be free.

Nothing is free in our culture, and even in traditional cultures there would be bartering and some sort of exchange - whether that was livestock, textiles or food.

Receiving good training, and the time and sacrifice it takes to become a practitioner all cost money in our society - and bills need to paid with money.

But as the cost of living continues to rise I think we have to make sure that it’s not just the wealthy middle class that can afford healing. This seems hollow to me.

Western spirituality is already too stuck up as it is. I think we would be better served to make sure it doesn’t go further down this route.

So please still get in touch if you want healing but the fee is an issue. Money should never be a reason that people can’t have healing - and while it won’t be free - the price is a guideline only - this goes for workshops/retreats/one to ones/house clearings and mentoring.

It’s been a very tough year physically and menta

It’s been a very tough year physically and mentally. Really intense chest pain after the vaccine led me to have every test under the sun, and the doctors finally discovered quite a tasty curve in my spine (pain was nothing to do with the vax fortunately!)

Fast forward a year and it’s been chronic pain every day from waking until sleeping - ranging from costrochondritis, neuralgia all over my body and the maddest all day tension headaches for months at a time.

I’ve had to change the way I stand, walk, sleep, sit and lie down and it’s opened my eyes to the world of physical movement and how important posture is.

Huge, huge respect to anyone going through chronic pain, because it is absolutely brutal - it completely robbed me of my personality and the health anxiety I developed alongside being in pain all day, every day, has been a very difficult beast to work with. The psychological implications are just as bad as the physical ones imo - I’ve felt like 10% of the man I was. I’ve been a terrible partner at times, and completely void of any energy and drive.

BUT - as I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel I’m committing to creating as bulletproof a body as I can. Luckily for me the curve is functional and completely reversible if I manage it sensibly.

I’m posting this both as a shout out to anyone experiencing similar, and also a kick up my own arse to not get complacent just because the pain is starting to ease.

(Correcting my spine and posture has also made me about a cm taller so it’s a tall boy summer this year 😏)

💪🏼🦾

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eddyelsey

The people have spoken! Thank you for everyone’

The people have spoken!

Thank you for everyone’s messages re. the above polls yesterday. All very interesting and apologies if I didn’t get around to replying.

My thoughts:

Should healing be free?

In an ideal world there would be an NHS type service where people access healing for free whilst the practitioners still get paid for their work. But realistically unless this happens - then no.

Healing should be available to everyone, but some sort of exchange should occur. The simplest way to do that in our culture is through money. My prices are negotiable and if someone can’t pay the full price I would never ever turn them away. I would always - ALWAYS - offer the healing for what they can pay - but not for free. I’m also open to exchanges (apart from healing work for healing work). People who get in touch and ask for a healing and are honest with what they can afford always get a session - and it’s the same for retreats. Events I have less control over because usually the final say is with the studio.

Personally I also think it’s good to have dedicated and full time healers in our culture. My practice went up a notch when I went full time and started to take it a lot more seriously and it became more than a hobby. This was only possible because I earned “some” money from it. I’m not saying part time healers aren’t as good as full time ones - there are plenty of incredible part time healers who are much better than full time ones who haven’t trained and just rip people off.

On to the second question.

It was 50/50 for the first poll, but pretty one sided for the second. This is an interesting disparity because training costs a lot of money. I’ve probably spent over £10k in my trainings and on equipment, insurance etc. IMO there needs to be some way to earn back after the financial loss incurred to become a decent practitioner. IMO training is a non negotiable to be a healer.

Ultimately - my thoughts are that if you’re a good practitioner, if you take it seriously and if you make a difference to peoples lives - there is no issue with charging for your services.

BUT - be flexible with what you offer and for how much.

Healing is for everyone.

I’m back at @indabayoga in a couple weeks time f

I’m back at @indabayoga in a couple weeks time for a day time dreaming circle.

Was fun last time, and obviously Indaba is a wonderful studio.

If you want to come and join - the ticket link is in my bio 🙂🙏🏼

(It’s also being live streamed - I get a fancy mic 💅🏽 - if you fancy doing it from home or around the world 🌎)

I’ve lost count at the amount of people in the w

I’ve lost count at the amount of people in the wellness industry that I’ve seen/heard say that you’re sick because you’re:  Distracted
Weak
Addicted
Negative

While these things don’t exactly promote health. I very, very rarely hear anybody talking about the underlying mechanisms that lead to these symptoms - which are by far the most important part.

You can think of healing as a series of loops, or cycles. The above are examples of loops - patterns we tend to fall into. A lot of people think that healing = breaking the loop. This is simplistic, and what generally happens is we break one cycle and just create another. Or we break a cycle, spend a year thinking about it and fall back into it when shit inevitably hits the fan - with a lot more shame and guilt than we had in the first place.

A lot of the time we focus too much on the cycles - which are obvious because we perform them - and less on the energy that is driving the cycles at their origin - which is less obvious because it exists behind the veil.

Lasting and transformational healing is transmuting the energy that drives the entire circuit so the loops and cycles run their course naturally and settle back into our psyche in a completely healthy way.

To be absolutely 100% honest - this is not possible for some people. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of determining factors when it comes to healing and sometimes the very best we can hope for is to transmute enough of the energy that we have enough peace in our life that we can enjoy it.

This isn’t to detract from hope - this is monumental for some people. I will most likely never have a life without some kind of destructive OCD and anxiety - but I absolutely love my life now that I’ve found a place for them in my psyche (most of the time). I’ve gone from being crippled by them daily to once a year. To me - that is monumental.

Don’t focus all your energy on your patterns and loops. Unless they are completely destructive and a danger to you or somebody else - let them play out and focus more on what created them, and what drives them on.

You may need some help with this - I did!

Conteball in full effect! 🤍💙

Conteball in full effect! 🤍💙

I don’t like the spiritual narrative of: “The

I don’t like the spiritual narrative of:

“The Universe only looks kindly on you if you feel worthy”.

It’s not very helpful, because for most people - your feelings of self worth fluctuate from day to day. It’s a complex system that takes into account many factors, and the idea that something as vast and complex as THE UNIVERSE is taking into account how good you feel about yourself before it bestows gifts upon you is straight out of the New Age “be better” playbook.

The undertone to this narrative is “bad things are happening to you because you’re just not good enough” and that if you happen to get sick then it’s because you just weren’t positive enough. It also teaches you that those who have nice things are inherently better inside - why would the universe be helping them out, and not you, otherwise? This is how a lot of spiritual “teachers” play the game. They parade their wellness around like a badge of their own self work, when really it’s mostly down to luck and good marketing.

A lot of people get caught in a loop of shame because of this idea, and when something negative happens it’s not just seen as chance, but a personal attack that has only occurred because something is wrong with them.

You have to remember that you are NOT your thoughts.

If your self worth is based on how positive your thoughts are day to day - which is often out of your control - than this is a wildly inconsistent way to judge your value.

Thoughts are often random - and have no bearing on your worth.

The universe doesn’t get to decide how worthy you are. Nothing does - because in reality, your inherent value as a human is completely immutable and remains rock solid despite any outside factors. But even this I wouldn’t spend too much time worrying about - because to put pressure on yourself to believe this is just falling into a similar trap!

The only thing I would concentrate on for self worth is joy.

Joy unlocks self worth.

Follow wherever your joy leads you - no matter what anybody says.

A very happy Beltane to you all. A gentle reminde

A very happy Beltane to you all.

A gentle reminder to not worry too much about how to celebrate a pagan festival - which perfect offerings to make or what to observe. The “correct” way to observe these festivals - which was most likely very fluid in the first place - has long since slumbered in the roots below our feet.

As we put our ears to the ground to re-tune ourselves to the old ways - a lovely thing - keep in the back of your thoughts that the early cultures probably didn’t care much about what was happening a thousand years before them. These festivals, although old - were also the present - they pulsed with modernity - and they were right in the middle of it!

So along with an offering for this wonderful, achingly beautiful earth and all that came before you - don’t be afraid to wear your new trainers, watch a little TV, eat a takeaway and have a cocktail. It’s high time we book-end the ancient with a little spritz of the now.

It’s hard to walk forwards if you’re always looking behind you 🚷

As for me - I sprinkled a few oats on the ground with a prayer this morning, and laid an apple to give thanks for all that is sweet.

Now I’m off on a pilgrimage of sorts - to sink a few crispy ones at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Works for me!

Have an incredible day ❤️

There’s a bruiser round our way that we call Big

There’s a bruiser round our way that we call Big Grey. He’s not the biggest cat, but he has an aura about him. We’ve caught him a couple of times bullying Truff - who, like her dad, is innocent and naive.

We had the fences done the other day, and they cut a hole in the bottom to give Truff access to the little woodland behind the house. This lovely idea has turned a little sour, because that hole has become a kind of cat motorway.

Big Grey has posted himself in the gap - right in the middle of the junction - as you can see - and Truff has been going out of her mind because every time she tries to get through he boops her on the head.

Enter Matteo - the black and white fella in the pic. He’s been flirting with Truff for a while now - months. They play with each other and we’ve come back to both of them inside the house before. He didn’t have a collar when we met him, and he’s outside all hours of the day and night like a little vagabond - someone must have put a blue flea collar on him recently and we were thinking of adopting him but I was suspicious that all he wanted was some food. I’ll admit - I’ve given him a tough ride. But Ruth came down to this scene and it’s really moved me. There he is, like a knight in furry armour - aiding Truff in her stand off with the legendary local beast that is Big Grey.

Maybe we should bring him into the family?

I’m posting this because there really isn’t much to do in Dudley with a bad back. And this Cat soap opera playing out before my eyes is about as good as it gets - so I’m letting all of you in on it too.

Il keep you updated if you want.

Anyone else’s events dead or just mine? Kinda a

Anyone else’s events dead or just mine?

Kinda awkward to out myself online like this - it’s quite popular in the wellness industry to exaggerate and posture.

Wellness is still seen as a luxury in our culture. It’s extra curricular - which I think is fair enough. I’m not about to tell people they should prioritise anything. Live your life however you want to live it.

But as things get more and more expensive - can we really claim to work in wellness if we don’t adjust our rates accordingly and still do our best to make healing accessible to everyone?

There is a balance - I know - and I’m definitely not somebody who things healing work should be free.

Nothing is free in our culture, and even in traditional cultures there would be bartering and some sort of exchange - whether that was livestock, textiles or food.

Receiving good training, and the time and sacrifice it takes to become a practitioner all cost money in our society - and bills need to paid with money.

But as the cost of living continues to rise I think we have to make sure that it’s not just the wealthy middle class that can afford healing. This seems hollow to me.

Western spirituality is already too stuck up as it is. I think we would be better served to make sure it doesn’t go further down this route.

So please still get in touch if you want healing but the fee is an issue. Money should never be a reason that people can’t have healing - and while it won’t be free - the price is a guideline only - this goes for workshops/retreats/one to ones/house clearings and mentoring.

It’s been a very tough year physically and menta

It’s been a very tough year physically and mentally. Really intense chest pain after the vaccine led me to have every test under the sun, and the doctors finally discovered quite a tasty curve in my spine (pain was nothing to do with the vax fortunately!)

Fast forward a year and it’s been chronic pain every day from waking until sleeping - ranging from costrochondritis, neuralgia all over my body and the maddest all day tension headaches for months at a time.

I’ve had to change the way I stand, walk, sleep, sit and lie down and it’s opened my eyes to the world of physical movement and how important posture is.

Huge, huge respect to anyone going through chronic pain, because it is absolutely brutal - it completely robbed me of my personality and the health anxiety I developed alongside being in pain all day, every day, has been a very difficult beast to work with. The psychological implications are just as bad as the physical ones imo - I’ve felt like 10% of the man I was. I’ve been a terrible partner at times, and completely void of any energy and drive.

BUT - as I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel I’m committing to creating as bulletproof a body as I can. Luckily for me the curve is functional and completely reversible if I manage it sensibly.

I’m posting this both as a shout out to anyone experiencing similar, and also a kick up my own arse to not get complacent just because the pain is starting to ease.

(Correcting my spine and posture has also made me about a cm taller so it’s a tall boy summer this year 😏)

💪🏼🦾

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