Storytelling- Creating our work

After studying social inclusion and community work, I became disenchanted by the continuous restrictive frameworks in the world of academia. Fast forward 10 years and the researcher within me reignited during my training for Feather Stone Energy Work and before long I had developed a four-month project working with case study participants to identify ways Shamanic techniques could support individuals in recognising their own imbalances.

I approached friends from my fitness group and work colleagues at the time, all of whom had never meditated or even heard of the word Shamanism. Meeting each month as a group, I combined the theory courses I was currently teaching, focusing on themes of identity, heritage acquisition and positionality, and self-narrative. I would then use meditation practices and Shamanic tools for the practical sessions.

 Exploring these themes as a community I would invite the participants to look at the ways their heritage and positionality had shaped part of their self-narratives. Using worksheets, I would provide resources such as an image of a tree and ask them to identify their positionality as their fixed roots before adding some of their more flexible roots, as per their acquired heritage and individual experience. Discussing how their experiences had been influenced by their positionality and shaped by their heritage, we began to look at ways this had influenced their belief systems, the creation of their identities and shaped their self-narrative.

Each time we met, I would take them back to the image of the tree. How did they feel about the roots they had discovered at the beginning of the month? and what thoughts did they have about them at the end?

During the session the participants would do short meditations where I would guide them through the same exploration they had done with their worksheets. Now working in the subconscious world, we would journey down to the roots of the tree, and we do some gardening, exploring the roots, maintaining the roots, removing old roots to make way for new growth. Asking them to complete short surveys pre and post sessions they would identify their level of imbalance; what they felt prior to the session and any changes they experienced when they competed the same survey afterwards.

By the time we were halfway through the project the participants began to question what they were discovering about themselves. Whilst each person was open to exploration of shamanic meditation and energy work, they were not experienced, nor had deep connections, values or beliefs about any source.

 Each month the participants would gather; and I would use the opportunity to encourage them to discuss their findings with one another observing them as they slowly started to change their self-narrative.  Throughout the first three months of working together I would also have a 1 to 1 session, each month, where the client experienced feather stone energy healing.

I listened to the clients making clear statements about the imbalances within themselves. The statements became clearer indications of the connections forming with the inner self, the intuitive mind now able to communicate with the logical mind, finally allowing each participant to accept a part of themselves.

 The discovery of self-beliefs which they had carried for years became apparent, and soon enough the clients were beyond questioning them.

They started to identify where they acquired them and whether they were their beliefs, or the beliefs or the generations which had gone before.  

Author: Anna Pedder2024©   

Read More…A Sceptical Researcher