“But Mama She, why didn’t I get that promotion, I was first in line for it?”
“Well you see, my darling, there is someone at work who is very jealous of you…she watches your every move, she wishes your downfall.”
“Amanda!! It has to be her, that bi…”
“…yes, the eye of Mama She sees her, brown hair, pale face…”
“She’s actually more of a blonde…”
“OH! Oh no, I see what she’s doing, you have to stop her.”
“What! what’s she doing to me?”
“…she’s cursing you, my love, using black magic to make you invisible…but do not worry, I will help you.
“Oh, thank you, thank you, Mama She! What would I do without you?”
“You see this powder…take a pinch of it every day and mix it in your coffee when you get to work. Be very careful, it is very powerful and very expensive, you don’t want to waste it. This will make you more visible and popular at work, people will see you more clearly.”
“Thank you, Mama She, you’re a lifesaver.”
“It will not solve the problem completely. You also need this jar of ‘permanent night.’
This…Amanda, find one of her hairs and dip it in the ink…er, ‘permanent night,’ and stick it under her chair. This will hide her from all eyes that matter, and will deflect her jealousy.”
“You truly are wise and powerful, Mama She, I’m so glad I found you.”
“I am favored by Lord Uthaca, grandson of the union between Katanka and Miriam, blessed be their names; my blessings are your blessings, my love. Now, will you be paying cash or card?”
“But wait, Mama, we haven’t discussed the other…issue.”
“And what is that, my love?”
“This…um… abscess, it’s not going away. I’ve had it for two months now. The doctors cannot cure it.”
“Ah, yes, I see...what has happened, my dear, is that you sat in a curse that was meant for someone else. Oh, my poor dear, you are so, so unlucky. But I can help you.”
“I knew you would be able to, Mama She…”
“You need to come back in three days’ time when the moon is right…”
Codswallop
Have you ever heard of the word ‘codswallop?’
What does it mean?
Well, to put it plainly, it refers to a situation where one is thought to be talking nonsense, rubbish.
It’s a very ‘English’ term. One can often hear it being used in situations where someone feels that the other person is lying, trying to swindle them, or is severely misinformed:
“Hah! old chap, that’s a right old load of codswallop if I ever did hear it.”
It can apply to statements concerning people’s thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and explanations.
I like the word ‘codswallop,’ it has a pleasant ring to it.
I just thought I’d share that little quirk of mine. Some words tend to titillate the senses.
Power
Everyone seeks power. It's an inherent human trait. Power over this, power over that, it all puts us in a position of control. This is one of the great illusions.
We can use this power to heal or harm, to give or take, build or destroy. If you don’t have a certain amount of power over your immediate situation, you wouldn't survive. You need to have a healthy degree of control over your life.
There's a common belief that the more power you have, the more important you are and the more pleasant and comfortable you can make your life. This is a common belief.
Words
Now words are powerful. Make no mistake, we all remember those playground insults or scathing remarks that have been directed towards us at some time or other. They hurt.
But words can also heal; we know that. The soothing voice of a loved one, the kind wisdom of a mentor or counselor; these can bring about great change.
Intention
For one thing, there needs to be the intention behind the words. Words that lack conviction seldom have much impact. The stronger the intention, the more power invested in the words.
Intention can be very varied, depending on the motive.
“I will help you (because I love you).”
“I will help you (because you will pay me).”
The motive behind the intention is irrelevant. If the intention is true, it has power.
Belief
Belief is very powerful as well. In fact, it's probably one of the most powerful forces in the universe. Belief, backed by true intention, is a force of change.
Now by ‘true intention,’ I don’t mean good or bad, honest or devious. That, also, is irrelevant. The intention, backed by motive, informed by need, is true intention. It's aligned with a person’s truth.
There's no universal judge out there that condemns and destroys bad intention while praising and promoting good intention. That concept is a human construct.
We all have the freedom to choose our truth, or what we think our truth is; this is another part of the illusion.
Your ‘true’ truth eventually finds you in the end, anyway.
Motive
“Sir, I can honestly say this is the most affordable, dynamic vacuum cleaner on the market. It's powerful and energy-efficient at the same time, feel that suck...there, put your hand there...strong, hey?! The Missus will love it.
And it's real quiet. Listen to that, it won’t interfere with your ‘Zoom’ meetings, she can clean while you’re doing business.
It picks up dog hair no problem, human hair, a breeze. It even has the latest rotational cyclonic technology that freshens your carpets while you vacuum. No more lingering smells from spillages.”
...and you actually believe that marketing stuff while you’re saying it! Because you want to sell it. You want to sell it so bad you believe in it. Why? Half of what you’ve said is probably codswallop!
But you have a motive, a strong one. The commission you get on every vacuum cleaner sold makes your salary livable. It allows you to have a fairly comfortable life. Who doesn’t want a comfortable life?
So the motive drives the intention, which drives the belief, making you wonder why you don’t buy the thing yourself.
It doesn’t mean he’ll buy it. But your ‘passionate’ belief, driven by a motive and intention that are true to your current situation, will certainly sway him if he’s at the right point in his decision-making.
OK, let’s get to the point
Sorry, as usual, I got a bit side-tracked. I was supposed to be discussing power.
Well actually, in a way, we were. I was telling you how words, motive, intention, and belief are the ingredients needed to gain power.
I left out ‘action,’ but I assumed it was a given that at some point between the words, motive, intention, and belief, the necessary action steps would be implemented.
Maybe that assumption was wrong, though. There’s a lot for dreamers out there.
Personal Power
The most important power is personal power, power from ourselves, over ourselves. It’s the only power that we can control. All other forms of power are illusions. We may think we're manipulating a situation only to find the situation is actually manipulating us.
External power can be taken away in an instant. We don’t have a choice. Stocks crash and your fortune’s gone. You flash an inappropriate appendage during the Zoom meeting and you go from CEO to ZeeEro.
Personal power is all we have.
All Power Comes From Within.
Finally, the sixth principle. This is the sixth principle of shamanism, ‘all power comes from within.’
This is a bit of a challenging principle to grasp, especially in a world where it seems as if we have very little power over what happens to us. It seems we have very little choice.
I’m going to take it one step further and say that everything that happens to us, we ask for…
“CODSWALLOP!!” you shout. Like I asked for that idiot in his SUV to ram me up the rear last week. Next joke please…”
OK, before we get too carried away, let’s take this from the beginning.
Nobody can curse you
Nothing, nobody on this earth or in this universe can put a curse on you.
Well, nobody except you, that is. The origin of all your ‘bad luck,’ unfair treatment, unfortunate experiences, and so on, is you. Nobody else but you.
The worst thing anybody can ever do is give away their power to someone whose intention is not backed by love. You'll more than likely be manipulated, lied to, and left to wallow in your own sorrow and disappointment.
You’ll be misled and if you’re not careful you’ll end up in a swirling cesspool of blaming, self-pity and victimhood. The Universe likes this kind of person because they’re easy. She’s had so much experience providing the necessary reality for them, she’s become a real expert.
“I saw a healer and he says somebody has put a hex on me. It's the reason why my wife left me, and I lost the house...and my kids hate me.”
So, your history of poor judgments, bad decisions, unresolved issues, cutting corners, and unwillingness to grow yourself has nothing to do with it. A witch cursed you with an evil spell and now everything is going wrong..."righty-oh, then.”
We often hand over power to people who we think have our best intentions at heart.
The One
You find ‘the one’ and a beautiful relationship ensues...for a few weeks.
Pretty soon it becomes evident that ‘the one’ has some serious issues. He's not able to face them and so is sub-consciously seeking a scapegoat to blame them on. It has become unpleasant.
And you! A person who is incapable of even loving yourself, let alone anyone else! What did you expect?
No wonder it ends in a monumental mess.
“Oh, how could he do that. I thought we had something. All those special words and close times we shared...I just can’t believe it. Maybe I’m cursed. Maybe I’m not meant to have anyone...
“You said it,” replies the Universe.
Never relinquish all your power to anyone until you’re certain their intention is love; pure love.
“Impossible!” you think. “At some point, we have to take risks, have faith, put our trust in something, and hope that it works out.”
You’re right. Life would be nothing without faith, hope, and trust. And it's fine, we all have lessons to learn; we are all on a path of growth. Faith is meant to be shattered, hope is meant to be dashed and trust is meant to be broken. How else would we recognize them?
As long as we learn from the experiences. How can we expect others to honor our trust when we don’t even trust ourselves? Or to fulfill our hopes when we are unable to do the same for ourselves.
Power comes from within. There’s nowhere else it can come from. You have to trust and have faith in yourself before anyone else can do it.
OK, so we’ve established that nobody can curse you. Yes, they can hurt you, misrepresent you, even carry out a smear campaign against you, but there are channels and mechanisms to address such wrongful actions.
Nobody can curse you but yourself.
What does it really mean, “all power comes from within?”
It's a good question. In a world as volatile and unpredictable as ours, how does this principle help us?
Let’s first look at how universal energy works.
Your thoughts, emotions, and actions attract certain energy to you and if you're unaware of this, as most of us are, you will very soon start blaming your circumstances on external factors.
“Oh, my company treated me unfairly. I was doing everybody’s work and still, they screwed me with my salary and benefits. I think my boss was jealous of me and when I complained, they slowly pushed me out by making things unbearable.
They’re evil, heartless devils! I’m a good person, how can they treat someone like that?
That Lisa, I’m sure she’s got something to do with it, I know she hangs out with those dodgy people and saw her googling ‘the curse of the black raven’ a while back.
Why do the bad things always happen to me?”
Well, let me tell you why they happen...its written all over your face:
‘Please find doormat here. Feel free to wipe your feet, I’m a sucker for punishment. ’
“!&@!#$??”
OK, no need for that kind of language. Let me explain. It’s not exactly written, like, with a permanent marker all over your physical face, but it’s ‘written’ all over your ‘spiritual’ face.
Matching
I’m going to introduce a fairly simple concept here: that of matching; pairing, if you like.
Let’s expand a little more on the concept: components fitting together that were made to fit together.
You have a bolt. Its purpose is to go through a hole to hold two things together.
So, you look for a nut. The nut is meant to screw onto the bolt so the two things are secure. Right.
You find a nut, put the two together and Bob’s your uncle, you have a bolt and nut, something that is more effective than either of the two on their own.
Let’s shift the scenario now.
The Bully
We have a bully. Now the bully has a purpose, and that is to harass seemingly vulnerable people.
The bully looks for a seemingly vulnerable person. He finds one. He commences his harassment. The bully is a lot more effective now that he has someone to bully. Imagine a bully with no one to bully...poor bully!
The thing to remember is that the bully’s energy reacts to the energy that is being put out by the person he is bullying. It's a natural attraction. There is no other way it could happen.
Everything and I mean everything, from the tiniest sub-atomic particle that scientists have so far discovered, to the most infinitely huge universe and beyond, works on the same concept. Matter seeks other matter to help it complete its purpose. Hence sex.
I like to think of it as a puzzle. There’s a certain puzzle piece that fits the piece you have just laid down. Only that piece will fit.
As above, so below
And, as above, so below. It works the same in energy/wave/spirit form.
Every thought, idea, feeling, memory, experience, is relentlessly looking for its match: that which will drive its purpose, make it more effective.
For example, if you are constantly afraid of something, it'll more than likely happen to you. The law of attraction. We’ve kind of discussed this before in some of the principles.
Back to the bully
The bully is a bully because of certain experiences. Obviously, character and personality play a role, for example, a lack of empathy, but there are more sinister things that also refine the bully:
A lack of parental attention, unhealthy role models, outright neglect during childhood, physical and/or emotional abuse, being spoiled as a child, and so on. It's probably a combination of things that creates a bully.
Now the bully is suffering in some way because their formative experiences have created anger, shame, guilt, and insecurities that they don’t know how to deal with. They're tormented. In essence, they're living in fear.
Depending on the character of the person, they'll reach out and attack the easiest target they can find.
A classic bully usually finds what they deem to be the most vulnerable person. They can smell vulnerability a mile away. Why? Because they live in the stench of it.
They see vulnerability as a weakness, which, according to popular opinion, it unfortunately is.
Wow! This is getting a bit long-winded.
In any case, what I’m trying to say is the bully is looking for his missing puzzle piece: the person who will fulfill his purpose as a bully.
He's being tormented by his shame, feelings of worthlessness, anger, guilt, and hate, and is unable to face them or seek help. So, he ‘sniffs’ them out in others and attacks the easiest target.
This is a very broad perspective on bullying and I concede that I'm by no means an expert in psychology and the related fields. I'm simply using the scenario to reinforce a point.
We get what we ask for
And that point is simple: what we ask for, we get.
If the energy I put out is full of shame, self-hate, and unworthiness, the Universe will respond with the energy that seeks to make my energy more effective i.e. enhance the shame, etc.
Hence the bully.
Here’s a concept:
Often bullies are overlooked because they don’t harass another person. They harass themselves.
How many of us have been bullies to ourselves?... The self-deprecating talk, self-neglect, constantly putting the needs of others before your own, self-hurt, the list goes on.
You're a bully...if you do these things, you're a nasty bully and you need to get help so that you can access your personal power and neutralize that bully.
If you think this could be an issue you’re dealing with, you might want to check out the book by Sherri Strohecker Leopold, “Self Bullying: What to do when the bully is YOU!”
Sometimes life gets you down
More often than not, the reactionary energy from the universe doesn't ‘hit’ you in the form of a person.
It could be an incident, for example, your car breaks down. The whole week has been a downward chaotic spiral into despair and now here you sit, helpless on the side of the road.
It's pouring with rain, it's on a busy highway, there are trucks rushing by and even if someone wanted to stop and assist you, the situation is too dangerous. And...your mobile phone battery is flat...
You ask in despair, “why is this happening to me?”
Your thoughts wander, “this is the last thing I need right now, on top of everything else. I just wish it would all end; sometimes I wonder if it's worth carrying on. Maybe it would solve everything if one of those trucks just plowed into me right now.
The Universe answers, “but I’m helping you! I’m sending energy to enhance your energy, is that not what you want?”
Be aware
What we need to do is constantly be aware and take note of the energy we're putting out there. Be PRESENT in the moment. If your thoughts and emotions are in chaos, you're probably doing one of two things:
You're either aware of it and are taking steps to restore balance to your situation, or
You're doing nothing to try and fix the situation. You’re an ignorant, helpless pawn acting in the drama you're directing.
In this latter case, you're probably in a space of fighting, non-acceptance, blaming, and victimhood.
What we fail to take into consideration is our energy. Most of the time we're not aware of the kind of energy we're putting out there. Awareness is key.
The Language of the Universe
We're obviously not asking to be bullied or have difficult experiences thrown at us. The problem is we're not speaking the Universe’s language.
As I have said before, she's very simple. She doesn't judge. Her purpose is growth, pure and simple; and she achieves this through matching like with like.
When her matching grows fear, it fulfills nothing, because ultimately fear isn't our truth. No matter, she'll continue to match regardless of the energy that is put out there.
As beings who are conscious and aware of our place in the universe, all we have to do is live our truth. Be in your integrity. And under all of the chaos and rubbish, the truth of each and every one of us is love. Try and see it.
Empowerment
Empowerment. This is the talent associated with the principle, ‘all power comes from within.’
It's our right to be the authority of our own destiny. We must be responsible for claiming our power because it is ours and ours alone to wield. Left unclaimed, it wreaks havoc.
Claiming our power means we have the choice; the choice to respond to things according to our truth.
Don’t try and fight the big men with their big money and big schemes to control the world. Let them waste their time on their tiny, pathetic games. They mean nothing to the Universe and her purpose.
Your purpose is to empower yourself to bring about change. And the most significant change you can bring about is the simplest and most excruciatingly difficult one at the same time: to change yourself.
It's the only thing that matters.
Please join me for Part 8, the final part of this article on the Seven Principles of Shamanism.
PS
Self-change is hard and involves changing your perspective and often many things that have defined you but are starting to harm you. You have to start somewhere.
Take a look at Jacqueline Kademian’s book, “Soul Therapy: A 365-day journal for self-exploration, healing, and reflection.”
Often starting a process of self-reflection and exploration allows us to start identifying the energies and behaviors that are no longer serving us.
NB! Thanks and gratitude to Serge Kahili King for sharing the principles of shamanism far and wide so we may all learn from his wisdom and love as a shaman.
This post was originally published on February 3rd, 2021, and updated on February, 28th 2022.
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