Healing in Therapeutic Shamanism happens in a body that is grounded and present, not in a mind floating free of it. Grounding is the bedrock of shamanic practice, and the body is our anchor; it is also where feelings move and where the truth is held. Paul Francis’s books do not teach about the nervous system as such, but they describe safety, feeling and embodiment as the conditions that let healing happen.
What do embodiment and grounding mean? #
Being present in our bodies and with our feet firmly in everyday reality. “Healthy shamanic practice involves having a foot in both worlds”, and “It is vitally important in doing shamanic work to maintain a good, strong, grounded connection with ordinary, day-to-day surface reality”.1 The first of the qualities of an Adult is that they are “grounded, present, and embodied.”2 Many of us are not: “most people today live very much in their heads, disconnected from their bodies.”
Why does grounding matter for healing? #
Because it keeps shamanic work safe and real. For anyone who has psychotic episodes, grounding practices come before any journeying. “Grounding is the bedrock of shamanic practice (and should be the bedrock of any spiritual practice really)”, and it is “the difference between healthy shamanism and psychosis.”3 The body anchors us: at the end of a journey, “you do not need to retrace your steps back to the physical middle-worldMiddle-world. Ordinary physical reality together with its energetic layers: the realm of individuality, separation and mixed intentions, and the only realm where harm is possible. “If there is a hell, then it is the middle-world.” Read the full answer, as your physical body is your anchor and is already there.”4 Losing our grounding is a cost, not a gift: amongst the costs of spiritual bypassing is “An unhealthy degree of ungroundedness and detachment.”5
What does Therapeutic Shamanism say about the nervous system? #
Very little in the books, which speak rather of the body, safety and feeling. Paul’s books set out no theory of it. The one mention comes in Finding Your Deep Soul, drawing on Louis Tinnin and Linda Gantt, two researchers in trauma treatment: the right hemisphere of the brain, which holds our earliest memories, “does maintain a strong connection with the rest of the physical body, though, including things like the digestive, immune, endocrine and autonomic nervous systems.”6 Those memories are “locked into the body”. This is why journeying can help heal them, “given that it is largely non-verbal, and can be very somatic, visceral and embodied.”7 See What is body armouring and what does Reichian work contribute?
Once people reach the real Lower-WorldLower-World. The realm of Mother Earth: pure, unspoilt, wild nature, with no technology and no agriculture. Home of the Peoples and of our own Soul, and completely safe: feeling threatened in a journey is a reliable sign of not having reached it. Read the full answer, its safety helps the nervous system. The Lower-World is safe, deeply and profoundly so, whereas the middle-world is “a mixed bag”. Experiencing that Lower-World safety, and knowing we have access to it at will, calms and regulates our nervous system, and grounds and centres us.
What is the relationship between embodiment and safety? #
They go together from early childhood. Drawing on the paediatrician Donald Winnicott, children held too loosely by their mothers “never really arrive and take their place in the world or their body. Instead, they feel anxious and ungrounded, with little sense of belonging.”8 The Lower-World offers a safety the everyday world cannot: “Remember that the Lower-World is a place of absolute safety and healing. It always feels deeply safe, safer then here ever feels.”9
The middle-world is different: “Nobody is ‘perfectly safe’! That is just not the nature of the middle-world.”10 See Is shamanic journeying safe?
What is the relationship between embodiment and truth? #
The body holds the truth that the head tries to avoid. “The body, however, is incapable of making up stories. It is always authentic and is always trying to tell us the truth.” When the head is in charge, “a gap opens between what we think the truth is”. What heals us is facing things as they are, not pretending that they are something else. Carl Rogers understood this too.11
What does embodiment have to do with anger, grief and fear? #
Feelings live in the body and need to move through it. “There are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ feelings. Feelings are just feelings. They need to be brought into awareness, acknowledged without judgement, and allowed to move through the body (actually felt, in other words).”12 Trying to skip them does harm: one of the costs of spiritual bypassing is “A phobia of anger.”13 Healthy hunter-gatherers “were able to laugh heartily and grieve deeply, and be fully embodied and present in their bodies and experience.”
What does breath have to do with embodiment? #
Breath is one of the ways we come back into the body. Noticing the breath brings our attention back into the body, and the practices use it to settle and return, as at the end of a journey: “Take a few deep breaths, and be aware of your body moving as you breathe.”14 The books describe these practices rather than explain breath in depth, and the fuller teaching on breath and feeling is for students.
How does the Power Animal help embodiment? #
It keeps us safe: “Your Power AnimalPower Animal. The Oversoul of a wild species, met as a single Lower-World being and bonded with in a deep, committed, usually lifelong soul-bond of unconditional love. The practitioner’s first and foremost Guide: Panther, not “my panther”. Read the full answer, if you pay close attention to it, has your back. It is there to protect you and keep you safe as much as it can.”15 The books go no further than this. See How does Power Animal heal and support us?
How is shamanic healing different from counselling? #
Talking therapies work mainly through words; in shamanic healing the GuidesGuides. The Lower-World and Upper-World beings a practitioner works with and learns from, of whom the Power Animal is the first and foremost. True Guides are ethical to their core; the shaman’s power comes from the depth of these bonds, not from the shaman. More about this do the healing. Shamanic healing “is categorically not about getting messages, advice or guidance, or predictions about the future. It is simply about doing the healing.”16 Psychotherapy “is good at creating healthy souls, but rarely will it help us find our Soul.”17 And journeying can reach wounds that words cannot. See What can psychotherapy and shamanism offer each other, and where should they remain different?
What makes shamanic healing therapeutic? #
Respect for the person and their pace, learnt from psychotherapy. People “have to face particular issues at their own pace, and in their own time”, and “Resistance needs to be respected and honoured. It is there for a reason, after all.”18 Healing is done with the person, not to them, in a way that empowers them. See What does it mean to work therapeutically with process, parts and resistance?
