7 Ways to Heal Your Spirit

Do you have spirit sickness? What would a modern day shaman recommend?

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If you were to go to your doctor and complain that you were living an uninspired life and couldn’t seem to get your spark back, what would your doctor do? Ask medical history? Run tests? Offer prescriptions? Western medicine is amazing for its scientific discoveries over the last few hundred years allowing us to outlive many deadly viruses and life-threatening illness. But what happens when our spirit falls ill?

Back in tribal cultures the medicine man or the shaman would ask you some deceptively simple questions. When was the last time you danced? When was the last time you sang? When was the last time you told your story?

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I’m not a shaman by any means but I do see this thing I would call a sickness or an illness of spirit. Heartsick. Spirt-sick. And it’s spreading.

How do you know if you’ve caught it?

• You might feel uninspired, flat, like you just don’t care about things they way you once did.
• You might feel disillusioned, or as if the dreams are gone, and it would take too much energy to even consider creating new ones. 
• You might feel slightly lost, or without a purpose. You might ask, “What is it all for? Why am I here?”
• Or you might feel disheartened like all those things in life that let you down left a mark you can’t heal. Old heartbreaks that festered into closed wounds. 
• You’ve lost hope.
• You might not feel excited about much anymore, or you might not feel like trying to figure out what it would take to get excited about life.
• You might have felt sick or exhausted for many years and after so many visits to doctors to check out “what’s wrong” they tell you “it’s all in your head.”
• You might feel like giving up, and I’m not just talking about suicide, but that is a major epidemic.
• You might believe the negativity that has become commonplace in our culture; complaints and cynicism are de rigueur if you watch news outlets or even the average Facebook feed; add to it the current hate-speak and fear-mongering tactics that are at play in modern politics that are polarizing people into “right and wrong” camps.
• You might feel righteous anger a lot. We get applauded for standing up and being angry when we’re “right” and telling others off; and you just might find yourself being “right” more often than you are connecting with other people.

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All these things take a toll on our spirits!

Millions each year are diagnosed with clinical depression or generalized anxiety, PTSD, and millions more are on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication for stress related issues; my heart goes out to all of those who have given up on their dreams even while taking the medications.

I’m talking about becoming a living member of the Walking Dead. A zombie of sorts. An Apathetic. Numb. Disconnected from our own spirits. 

And while brain chemistry plays a huge role in many of these clinical issues, I think there’s something underlying that the meds aren’t addressing.

I believe we have another crisis, I believe we have an epidemic of spirit sickness.

The old shamans and African tribal medicine men would ask those 3 questions of the sick or ill to find out if spirit sickness was a factor in a physical manifestation.

When I had a “near life experience” in 2014, I came back with a brain injury and perceive everything and everyone differently. When I say “near life” I mean I was still alive when it happened, yet I took a journey to “the place in-between” to hang out with an incredibly compassionate being who told me it wasn’t my time. Right before my car slammed into a brick wall during the accident. 

I’m still getting used to it, this heightened intuition, as well as not blurting out exactly what I’m sensing the moment I see it (lack of filtering). It can be very disconcerting to the people around me. (I can still picture the very surprised face of my scientific and skeptical neurologist when I shared some detailed positive intuitive insight into a situation he’d been struggling with!)

When I say I “see” this sickness or illness of spirit, I feel this fog over some people, like an extra large overcoat or huge umbrella. It’s not negative or bad, it’s as if they seem to have lost their shine. I know, I know, it sounds weird to me when I say it too. I’m not here to convince anyone that intuition is real, but I’ve worked with enough sensitive children who felt different, “felt or knew things” to know that this is something we need to be able to talk about freely.

And as much as I’d like to run up to each of these people and say, “Hey excuse me, you don’t know me but you seem to have this kind of fog around you that makes you feel kind of flat and low in energy to me. Can I show you how to shake it off? May I show you how to get your shine back?” I don’t have that drive anymore, to help people that haven’t asked. So instead I’m writing this article and hope that whomever needs to see it will see it.

Please know that I get it. I understand, as I also have anxiety, PTSD, depression, and other not-so-fun stuff from the brain injury, so I’m working on making sure my spirit is happy and healthy (along with taking anti-depressants/anti-seizure meds to help with brain chemistry). I do everything on this list, many of them because it helps me heal my brain AND my spirit at the same time.

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Back to the shaman’s questions. Here are my modern day equivalents:

When did you last feel joy? When did you last give of yourself? When were you last grateful? When did you last laugh?

In lieu of the dancing and the singing (which are outstanding ideas, but when you’re depressed it’s tough enough to get out a monotone “yay”); here are some tips that might help you shake off that fog:

1. Do something nice for someone else. When we complete a kind act, we activate a pleasure center part of our brains that responds with a biochemical reaction. There is also a spirit-based reaction, which is why when others see someone doing something kind, their brains experience a similar cascade of positive neurochemicals. Doing requires an action. And it also gets us out of our own heads. This is what “paying it forward” is about. I love social media icon Joel Comm’s campaign: #DoGoodStuff, which was created from this exact concept to do something kind and be a positive influence for others. Joel created a line of tee shirts and encourages the wearers to take pictures of themselves doing good stuff and share them. 
2. Be around people doing nice things for others. There is something energizing and healing about a positive community that is doing or creating something good in the world. When we are around other hearts who have a commitment to service (serving others and making a difference) it can heal our psyche. I love working with Durga Tree and Made By Survivors for that very reason: others committed to creating a real difference.
3. Find something uplifting. For many people that can be a spiritual community or church that is focused in positive values and goodness. It could be dancing and singing. Read books that stir your soul. Find gratitude in the simple things. Watch movies that inspire. Play with animals. Be around uplifting energetic people. Laugh. Watch kids play. Try to get in touch with your inner kid.
4. Get out in nature. There is something healing to our souls about watching birds fly, leaves dance in the wind, sunsets, rain, snow, or waves in the ocean. If you’re a gardener, you know the power of placing your hands in the soil. The rhythm of nature is like a balm to our tech-saturated lives. Look at how much kids love playing with rocks and mud. What’s the deal with dirt? Apparently it’s a great deal of fun.
5. Use your imagination. We often use our imaginations to create possible negative scenarios (worry), so get into the positive part of your mind. Get outside the box you’ve created. Draw, paint, write, create, build, invent, cook, renovate, daydream, imagine. What if our imaginations are directly connected to our spirits? What if that’s one of the fastest ways to heal?
6. Let it out—whatever ‘it’ is inside of you, that wants expressed. Tell your story. Tell a story. Take those drawings you imagined and put them into reality. Create that thing you imagined. Express yourself. If you have some residual anger inside, find a healthy way to let it go. Forgive. Exercise. Move your body. Breathe. Find your expression, the thing that only you can do. Do it.
7. Learn about boundaries and stop letting others or things drain you. When the negativity around you becomes too much, stop. When you feel exhausted, overwhelmed, drained, or tired you need to say “no” to something or someone so you can say “yes” to yourself. I know it sounds trite but this little tidbit could save your spirit.

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These are only a few of the ways you can connect to your spirit. However you do it, may you dance, may you sing, and may you tell wonderful stories that will delight us for ages!

Photo—Kapa65/Pixabay

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