2nd January 2023
How am I brave?
That’s an interesting question. We rarely think about how brave we are – some of us may think a lot of how fearful we are. Fearful of so many different things.
When I was a little girl, my world was turned upside down and I became very aware of how things can change so fast and so irrevocably.
I hadn’t realised that there would be strategies put into place by my unconscious mind to ‘protect’ me. This protection has kept itself intact for many years.
I would never have put the label ‘brave’ on the things I have done, chosen, become, probably due to the remarks and comments of those in authority over me: those decision makers who were only thinking of my own good… in reality it was the most accommodating for them.
There was something in my character, something I have come to call my Maverick Self, my Mother called it dumb defiance.
Although I may not have been totally sure in Primary School what I wanted to do, most of the time it was staying in the cupboard under the stairs (yes, it happened for real) reading my ‘Tell Me Why’ magazine and playing with my desk and chalkboard: I wasn’t really welcome in the bedroom I shared with my elder Sister, she being 10 years my senior. There were many reasons we didn’t get on, the most valid of which I didn’t get to hear about it until a few years ago.
I have just followed my gut to a certain extent. Though the word ‘compulsion’ does come into it somewhere.
Not sure about the consequences, not really paying attention to them, I lived in the moment more often than not. It was in my early childhood I learned the craft of dissociation. The understanding that things could happen and my consciousness would not be there was an acceptable thing.
I use it a lot for pain management these days. It also allows the process of journeying – I am used to ‘leaving’ so it was easy for me to go into a trance… at the beginning though it wasn’t so easy to figure out where I was supposed to be going; that took practice.
There have been many Caves I have been reticent to go into. It was the knowing that the answers lay within that was the push I needed to get me in there.
So many secrets, so many Caves.
In Shamanic Practice there are Guides, Spirit Animal also known as Power Animals. Each of these comes to connect with us throughout our lives, some will be known as Totem animals and they are the mainstay, others come for specific issues, adventures… Caves.
You may already know about the Wolf being a mystical, magical force and this is very true in this belief system.
Wolf is known as ‘The Pathfinder’ in the real world the Wolf travels in both night and day, they cross the ‘tween times (a very magical time and space) they are family oriented, but also can be lone nomads without Pack.
The Pathfinder will guide us to the ‘roads less travelled’ they will show us the way to the Cave we seek; and even though we may not be aware of their existance we somehow all ways know to seek the Cave.
We are all brave in different ways, we are not consciously aware of it most of the time… if we thought about it, we might not push through the challenges that are coming our way.
Due, I suppose to all the Caves I have been into when dis-ease came I mobilised my defences. Everything I had learned through travelling those Paths, all of my training in Veterinary work and in Shamanic work was brought to the fore.
I made conscious choices and took my Husband with me in those decisions.
Each day was it’s own, it would come and what came with it would be done by bedtime
I refused to identify with it – it would never be spoken or thought of as ‘my dis-ease’
I researched as much as I could on the mind / matter field and found Huna
Only the people who HAD to know about it were told and they were few and far between.
All the resources and allies I could muster were brought on board.
I got through it all, there were some lasting side effects of the medical treatment, these were helped by all that was brought during the challenges we faced, my Husband was with me throughout, supporting me by letting me do what I had to do and be the way I needed to be.
I came to realise that I had been preparing for this all of my life. All the Caves were holding the resources that came into their own at the time they were most needed.
How am I brave?
I am brave due to the belief that I have the will and the power to overcome those challenges that come my way. I am brave by using the knowledge I have gained in life or seeking out that which I do not have yet. I am brave as I know that pain passes, I understand that we are all stronger than we are taught to think we are.
I am a Pathfinder by nature. I have that energy. I will go into the Cave because I can and I know that what is in there be it Bear or other, that Cave is there for me, to teach me how to go forward in this World.
Shamanism Scotland 