Over the years, I have explored the mystical mainly for myself and not related to my role as a physician healer. I had read stories of Edgar Cayce’s experiences, explored reincarnation through my reading, and had lived in Thailand, where I learned about Buddhism, so sensing other dimensions beyond our tangible world was acceptable to me.
In my shamanic training, during our visualizations (journeys), my classmates and I had experiences of seeing and knowing things about the others that we had no way of knowing, at least, from the literal world perspective. Often, these phenomena occurred while we were performing shamanic rituals. In that environment, we accepted the validity of the unseen world.
Expanding Beyond Western Medicine
A few years after starting my shamanic training, I gathered up the courage to start talking to my patients about things outside the scope of Western medicine. My mind was filled with worries about whether the discussions were outside of “standard of care” and whether I could talk using my spiritual paradigms in a neighborhood filled with fundamentalist Christians. Little by little, I began introducing the idea of unseen influences on health.
One time, I had a young woman come to me complaining of fatigue and exhaustion that was expressed mostly in her body as back pain. First, I did a Western medicine workup. When this workup was found to be unrevealing in Western medicine terms, I stepped into two other circles of awareness—those of energy and shamanism.
When I sensed her back pain and her overall vitality, I could sense her being burdened, often by her own doing, taking on more than her share of responsibility. I offered to her that I saw her back pain as an extra burden and wondered why she might be carrying so much.
I then wondered to myself if she were operating under what shamans call a “soul contract,” one in which she had agreed to “carry the load.” A soul contract is felt to be an agreement that the soul makes prior to incarnation, in relation to other souls, as to how to behave in the literal world. Or, as Danielle MacKinnon wrote in her book Soul Contracts:
“Born out of despair, fear, pain, or anger, a soul contract is an unconscious promise that you’ve made with yourself in the past that is now hindering your ability to move forward in life.”
I asked this young woman, “Do you always have to be the one who does everything?”
Tearfully, she said, “Yes. It’s my job.”
I responded, “Does it feel like too much to carry?”
“Yes, I am tired of doing it all.”
I then said, “Who said you have to do this?”
She answered, “It’s always been that way.”
I then proceeded to tell her that what I was about to share had no known explanation in scientific medicine, but rather came from my spiritual beliefs. I told her that I believed souls came to this earth with contracts (“rules”) from past lifetimes that influence our health and well-being.
She was listening intently, absorbing everything I said.
I continued, “Your contract to take it all on as your duty is adding to your back pain. I can show you a way to get out from under that rule.”
She nodded, crying. I then taught her a visualization to use, one in which she would go before God or her Higher Self or spirit guides and express her desire for a new contract. When I saw her back in the office a few weeks later, she had done the practice. She reported that her pain was markedly improved, she was feeling lighter and more upbeat.
I was happy because, in this case, there was no good fix in Western medicine for lower back pain when X-rays show there are no pinched nerves or deteriorated discs. Western medicine can offer pain pills, physical therapy, spinal injections, or “just live with it.” Now, however, I have something else to offer: spiritual and energetic approaches that I believe have longer-lasting benefits, with less cost and fewer side effects.
What I learned from this encounter is that when I, a Western-trained physician, began to speak from alternative perspectives (spiritual, energetic, and shamanistic), my patients responded positively. This young woman was not the only patient with whom I talked “differently.” I was able to become more and more confident in being able to offer patients a new approach to healing.
You Can Change the Rules for Your Life
Before you begin this journey, come to your sacred place and enter a relaxed state. Take a few moments to reflect on some of the rules you operate under. For example, you may always say to yourself, I always have a bad back or I am no good in relationship. Or perhaps you always go to bat for your siblings in confrontations with your parents, saying to yourself, It is my job to watch out for them.
In other words, you have assumed some rules for your life, or “contracts,” under which you are operating, and you have reached the place in your life where these rules are limiting your life experience, holding you back from choosing other ways of being.
For the most part, these rules can be changed, as you will see with this sacred visualization. Later, you can apply this practice to a particular health challenge and do this journey to shift the trajectory of that challenge, but, for now, choose something clear to you and easy to acknowledge. Look for some situation in which you say (to yourself):
I always . . . or
I should . . . or
I have to . . . or
I never . . . or
It’s my job.
Meditation: Journey to the Hall of Contracts
You may want to prerecord the journey in your own voice, making sure to leave pauses in places where you will want to spend more time visualizing. In this way, playing the recording back to yourself can be a good way to allow yourself to relax more fully into the meditation.
[Begin recording]
Prepare to journey by being in your sacred place and entering a meditative state. Use deep, slow breaths to assist you in becoming more and more relaxed. Sometimes, you can quiet yourself by breathing in a 4-4-4-4 pattern such as this: Inhale for 4 counts, hold the breath for 4 counts, exhale for 4 counts, and hold for 4 counts before inhaling again. You might want to cue yourself to move into a trancelike state the way shamans do, with a rattle or drum.
Next, move your awareness (see it, feel it, or know it) from your head slowly down to your heart space, left of center in your chest. Feel yourself sitting in this most holy place, your heart space. Continue slow, deep, relaxed breathing.
[Pause]
When you are relaxed and ready to move forward, ask for your guides or helpers to come join you in your heart space. See them, feel them, or know they are present. Thank them for coming to help.
Now see yourself gently leaving your physical body and walking out onto a big field. Feel the air around you; feel the land beneath your feet. Look around this meadow, and see a big castle in the distance. You sense something of value is waiting for you in the castle, so with your helpers by your side you begin to walk toward the castle.
See the doorway through which you enter the castle. Feel the texture of the entrance, and find yourself guided forward.
[Short pause]
Ahead of you are many rooms and passageways, but you are drawn toward a large hall in the center of the castle. This hall is big, with golden and bright white light all around. The hall is quiet, but you can feel the high vibrational energy here. This is the Hall of Contracts. Here are stored all the contracts made by all souls as they enter a new life. Feel the holy energy here, and greet any holy beings that come forward.
[Pause]
You see a long wooden table in the center of the hall. You walk to the table and take a seat. Magically, the current contract under which your soul is operating comes forward, the contract that you have chosen to shift today. Perhaps it appears as an open book, perhaps as a scroll that you then unfurl. You can read here the rules under which you currently operate, the rules that are guiding your life. This is your current contract.
[Pause]
As you reflect on the contract that exists, you are reminded that you do not want to work under these rules anymore. You say to any holy beings that are present, to your guides or helpers, and to the sacred energy of the hall that you want to change the rules. You say that this contract is weighing you down, and that it is hurting you, so you would like to adjust the terms of the contract. Wait to see if the holy beings agree to your request to amend the contract.
[Pause]
If you do not get agreement, do not get upset; instead, take a few moments to have a dialogue with the sacred hall and its beings. Ask if there is something you can do to allow a change in your contract to occur. Perhaps the beings need to see a commitment from you to operate life in a different way. Have a back-and-forth conversation or dialogue, and come to an agreement.
[Pause]
If they still do not want you to change the contract at this time, get some information as to why, and make it clear that you will be coming back another day to discuss the request.
If this time is appropriate to move forward, and your beings have agreed, now see yourself writing your new contract on a piece of paper or parchment that is on the table. Perhaps your new contract reads “I agree to do my best to [insert the specifics for yourself] while staying in healthy balance between myself and others” or “I help others without taking on more than my share”
[Pause]
Ask the beings and guardian spirits all around you to help you incorporate this new contract into your being and to fully remove the old contract. Allow time to integrate your new contract into yourself, into your energy field. See the old contract being filed away in the Inactive Section of the Great Hall. Now offer gratitude to the beings that have helped today.
You then leave the hall, exit the castle, and walk back into the meadow where you began. Find yourself returning to your body, to your heart space, and to the current time and place where you are physically present. Offer gratitude to the guides that accompanied you. And now, end your meditative journey.
[End recording]
After completing your meditation journey, write your new contract on a piece of paper. Hang up the new contract where you can see it often. For example, you might rewrite it on beautiful paper and make drawings around the words to seal in the importance of this new deal.
Copyright ©2023. All Rights Reserved.
Adapted with permission of the publisher,
Findhorn Press, an imprint of Inner Traditions Intl..
Article Source: Maximize Your Healing Power
Maximize Your Healing Power: Shamanic Healing Techniques to Overcome Your Health Challenges
by Sharon E. Martin. Foreword by Carl Greer.
For more than 20 years, Dr. Sharon E. Martin has been blending allopathic medicine with ancient shamanic knowledge to help her patients not only heal but also increase their vitality. In this practical guide to her Maximum Medicine program, Dr. Martin shows how understanding the energetics behind health imbalances and applying shamanic and energy medicine techniques can shift not only our perspective but our health, change the course of illness, and allow us to increase our life force.
Presenting a clear, stepwise approach to attaining mastery of your health through many case studies as well as simple practices and methods to gain control over illness, Dr. Martin shows how anyone can support their own healing and experience being more fully alive.
Click here for more info and/or to order this paperback book. Also available as a Kindle edition.
About the Author
Sharon E. Martin, M.D., Ph.D., graduated from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and is a board-certified physician of internal medicine with a doctorate in physiology. She is a graduate of the Healing the Light Body curriculum of the Four Winds Society and the host of two radio shows, Maximum Medicine and Sacred Magic, aired on the Transformation Talk Radio network.
Visit her website at DrSharonMartin.com
