We all experience resistance in some way. I’m not talking about the resistance of saying no to harm another being or setting good boundaries so that you are safe…. this is more about inner resistance to certain feelings arising.

Even a monk who is well-practised in meditation will experience arising states of resistance in their practice. As the Dalai Lama often says, ‘It’s not the feeling that’s the issue, it’s what we do with it that matters.’

The action we take after noticing it has arisen.

Strong resistance in my experience motions my body to shut down, shut in, close up, back away, fight off or freeze and most importantly, block the natural flow of chi (life force).

If resistance becomes a primary state of being, it can manifest into a state of physical, mental and psychic stagnation.

Depression (not the clinical kind) is a common outcome of this stagnation but it also shows up in PTSD and other states of emotional, mental and psychic imbalance.

Resistance predominantly arises in reaction to things that are uncomfortable to face or process.

Take a moment and reflect on what feelings you resist the most.

For me, looking back on my own story, I had a great deal of resistance in expressing my anger or even being ok with feeling it. I was not brought up to see anger as a natural emotion and being born a woman even more so.

My parents were from an era in which survival was a priority and emotions took a back seat to that.
As both my parents were trained in the military model and were themselves children during WWII, dealing with feelings was done by either ignoring them or suppressing them. I was under the impression that they were experts and compartmentalising. They weren’t but that’s how it appeared to me and it was something I felt I wasn’t able to do. However, as that was my learning model, I resisted showing any anger and when I did on the odd occasion let it out in pent-up reaction, I was either mocked, shut down or shamed. So I built up this inner resistance. I didn’t process it, or let it out. I shut it in and turned the lock.

I buried it as far down into my subconscious as I could and due to that it leaked out into a passive-aggressive ice queen of resentment. No, not the beautiful ones in fantasies and movies. Mine was ugly, mean and brittle to the core.

I would pull away into my ice fortress to protect myself rather than confront the situation. I imagined if I let my anger out, people wouldn’t like me, mock me or shame me, just like when I was a child, so the message I got was my anger is not welcome by others and alongside that came the belief that there is something wrong with me.

In time this suppression manifested into a lump in my breast which gave me a major wake-up call to begin to look at what I was suppressing that was now manifesting in my body.

What I found was that I was good at nurturing and loving all the people-pleaser parts of me, but the rest, what wasn’t in my view acceptable, was shoved deep down. My self-love was conditional and my anger was the enemy.

I realised my body was trying to tell me something I couldn’t hear any other way. I committed to prioritising my emotions unconditionally. Which meant that whatever I felt I was determined to befriend in some way.

After a while, the lump in its own time with no medical intervention, was no more. (This is not advocating for not getting medical attention. I did get it initially and the result was not completely conclusive so I chose no intervention but if it wasn’t shifting I would have looked into further treatment) Our bodies, our choices. My body has always responded incredibly well to Chinese medicine and that’s the main path I took along a few other safe modalities.

This began my conscious journey to see where I created resistance and for what reason. I took gentle steps. I was still frightened of confrontation but I chose to stop ignoring the anger and to do something with it.

I committed to melting the fortress as I could see that the anger was calcifying into resentment and if I didn’t befriend it, I may well end up with more cells turning into cancer. I needed to move the energy of my anger in some way and not let it fester.

Its been a journey of learning to process my anger with consciousness tools from my ever-expanding therapeutic medicine bag. And oh my goodness, it’s so much easier to move through, befriend, and release it compared to back then. I stopped resisting it as if it were an enemy. I befriended it, got to know its true intention (to protect me) and validated it so I could see what was needed to bring balance.

Am all fine with confrontation now? I still don’t like it, but the ice fortress is no more and I can hold my own space for it if need be. I allow myself to feel and move through all my feelings including resistance, nurture my inner child and face what I need to rather than avoid it.

On reflection of the most difficult confrontations I have had since that awakening, I have repeatedly had this quiet phrase arise from within me, about the same time the old flight reaction to flee pops into my head.

“Be the Buddha”

What this means to me is: Stay calm, stay present in your body, and be compassionate both to yourself and the other.

The result always comes out positive for both sides.

We can also be resistant to the good stuff, like healthy love, and success. There can be great resistance to receiving kindness, love, things being done for you, people wanting to praise you etc

So there again is an opportunity to see resistance as a signpost. For example, it might be something like feeling resistant to love because maybe you felt your heart’s energy was sore from the last experience. I know that one quite well. What I discovered was, that for me it wasn’t the fear of letting another in, it was more the fear of losing myself to the experience. So that’s what I worked on, to solidify my inner loving as a priority so any love that does come is a compliment to my already abundant state of being.

There are great tools, be they shamanic or otherwise to help you learn how to receive without resistance. A simple one is tapping for trust or a flower remedy like Willow perhaps to melt resentment so you can allow yourself to be more open to receiving love.

I know I say this a lot, and I will keep saying it because it is so very important. When we befriend something that we are ‘resisting’ be that a horrible feeling, what you think is an entity messing with you or a negative thought form, the first thing we need to do to bring it up to our conscious awareness to be able to process it and befriend it with compassion.

Befriending doesn’t mean that you let it be your master/authority etc. It means you sit down and have a cuppa with it and compassionately inquire its reason for being.

Resistance is a great signpost. Notice it, acknowledge it, and then see what it’s blocking that could do with being brought into the light so you can bring movement to it via compassionate inquiry, conscious commitment and some good medicine tools.

Blessings
Odette
(C) O. Nightsky 2024

Psychic Gardening and Walking the Sensitive Path

Blessings

Odette

Self care is not an uncommon subject in today’s times due to overwhelm, burnout and immunity issues. The quickening feels much like chasing the air we breathe for a decent gulp to keep us going. For many, the bed is the only place to get some needed rest, unless of course, you have sleep issues then it’s all the worse. Medications abound to help you speed up, slow down, sleep, regulate moods, and on it goes.

Plenty of advertising for beautiful candles to have in your bath, to soften the atmosphere, along with luxurious bath bombs. You can buy water bottles with a crystal in them, get a lux massage with all the trimmings or go to an eco self-care retreat The marketing of self-care is all about buy, buy, buy.

Women are programmed from an early age to be self-less. To serve and to give. When we resisted we were shamed and called selfish, hence the majority of us became pleasers in one way or another. Taught to sacrifice our own needs.

I feel it’s vitally important to learn to balance what we give out to others along with how we give to ourselves within.

If we could just fill our own inner cup, so we wouldn’t drain ourselves in beings of service to others, maybe we wouldn’t be so drained, grumpy and longing for bed. Very few of us were taught the importance of filling our own inner cup. For men, I cannot say but I suspect the old adage of being tough and being a man didn’t include much quality inner cup filling either.

What I find interesting is that when it comes to self-care, very few people talk about one’s own attitude towards oneself, one’s own inner dialogue. How you see yourself, and talk about yourself from within has a great deal to do with your inner self-care.

You see for me, in the past, I let the inner critic rule my mind and my confidence quite a lot. That combined with my inner pleaser was a pretty difficult combination in regards to being kind to myself. It wasn’t quite the martyr narrative, but not far off.

I have always been pretty damn good at taking time off for myself, creating a wonderful experience, I’m down pat with that. I know I deserve it. What I really needed to learn is INNER SELF CARE and that began with changing the narrative inside my thinking mind.

My self-talk was pretty crap to be honest. If someone were to record the things inside my mind regarding how I thought about myself at any given moment, it would read like a fat book of put-downs. This is what I noticed drained my life force more than any busy day of the week. My attitude towards myself.

‘Well, you didn’t do that yet did you? You said you were going to? They are way ahead of you why aren’t you there yet? What’s wrong with you…you should have.…… yeah, it is your fault because you should have known….’ You get the idea.

On the outside it looked like, yeah I know how to take care of myself. On the inside, it was a slow but deliberate takedown of someone I was supposed to be growing to unconditionally love.

The inner sanctuary was not just my safe space within the depth of my psyche, it was where I started to build my inner self-care.

Each creation within my sanctuary was for my inner child, to show her how much I cared about her. What she gets, I get automatically. It’s a kind of trickster trick in a way. What you give to the inner child, you automatically energetically benefit from. So that’s where I began. FROM THE INSIDE.

Be that spending time hugging her and telling her what I needed to hear, putting my hand on my upper chest and reassuring her that I love her no matter what and there was absolutely nothing wrong with her.… This was the path to changing my attitude towards myself.

Often clients who are parents have a bit of resistance as they are overwhelmed at the thought of caring for another child, but this is very different. It’s giving oneself a dose of self-nourishment. And you can do it in between things. You can tap in and tell your inner child something great about them while you are doing the dishes, peeling the carrots, stirring the pot, or folding the laundry. You can reassure her that she is safe within you, and she is loved as you lie down to sleep, along with softy patting your upper chest a few times (this gentle flat palm patting is akin to when a baby needs soothing).

Self-care can be done in the midst of being of service. I just stopped typing, closed my eyes, pulled my centre of awareness close to myself and down into my heart and just said to my little one, ‘Hey, beautiful, you ok?’ The instant answer is ‘Always, as long as I am with you.’ That was less than 30 seconds. Now that’s today, on other days I may get something very different. I might ask ‘Hey, little one how are you?’ And the response might be ‘Sad’. My response. ‘Oh sweetie, what do you need?’ ‘ I don’t know,’ ‘That’s ok, sometimes we don’t know what we need,’ Then I see her coming straight for me and I imagine merging with her in a hug.’

Breath

One thing I notice when I am stressed or running on adrenaline in some way is that I am out of my body with all the things that I need to do. I am running on chest air, not gut air.

In breastfeeding there is what’s called the entree (the light milk) and then the main meal (where you get the full rich nutrients). If a baby can only access the entree without the main meal the infant does not thrive.

So when we only take in the chest breath we do not feed the nervous system well enough to thrive. In Buyteko breathing, Asthmatics are taught that the breath out is the most important as when one breathes slowly out the body automatically wants to breathe deeply in from the belly. As I was chopping vegetables last night, I noticed my mind running, so I took a long deep (wind-sounding) out breath via my mouth, all the way out till there was no air left, held in the no-breath space for a little and then felt the cool deep incoming breathe again. Doing this a few times, slowed me right down to mindfully chopping the vegetables.

Centre of Awareness.

When we are running a life marathon our attention is often everywhere else except with us. Our eyes are looking outside of us, our ears are hearing noises outside of us, and we are being energetically affected by others outside of us. Our awareness is often out rather than in.

Just take a moment. Stop, close your eyes. Are you in your body? If not where is your attention? With something that happened yesterday? Or something you need to get done? Now imagine opening your arms wide (both in spirit and in form) and pulling your COA towards yourself both with your in breath and your imagination, ending with your palms crossed over your upper heart while breathing out deep into your core. Be still there for as long as you can. Remember who you are beyond the physical. You might want to repeat it a few times. What this can do is land you better within your psyche rather than being out of body all the time.

Inner Dialogue

How you talk to yourself has a lot to do with how you will manage the stresses of life. You can use affirmations if that’s your thing. I personally like Voice Dialogue. I have multiple selves within that have opinions. The inner critic is often the one that in days gone by really messed with my sense of self. Nowadays It flits through as I catch it quite quickly. I listen, write the narrative out (no editing or reading back) say thank you for sharing (not fighting it) and then do something soothing, which for me is telling my inner child, for example, that we don’t need to follow others or compare ourselves, we are on our own path and this is just a lesson for me to be stronger etc….it nips the inner critic in the bud really fast. There are others like CBT (Cognitive behaviour therapy) Narrative Therapy, mindfulness….find what resonates for you. To turn your mind into a friend rather than an enemy that you are battling or trying to keep at bay.

I can put myself into a lovely bath with candles and music etc but it doesn’t stop my mind from running a negative narrative. I can take myself on a lovely seaside break, but it won’t stop my mind from running a negative narrative. The only way I can calm the battle within is by self-caring from the inside. And as I mentioned in the beginning, the sanctuary was where I learned to be kinder to myself. It’s the safe place within my psyche where I grow in unconditional love.

May what I have shared today inspire you to better self-care within, in whatever way works for you.

May the gentle medicine of the deer teach you how to be kinder and more gentle towards yourself.

You are worth it.

Blessings

Odette

(c) O. Nightsky 2003

Doomsday prepping was pretty popular before COVID, and now it’s blooming big time. America is the biggest tribe of preppers to date with millions doing all they can to prep for a time when the system falls and we all need to fend for ourselves.

You may think they are paranoid but they do this to bring comfort to their anxiety of ‘what if’. Most think there is no ‘what if,’ it’s a given.

It’s less weird now and more and more people are going off grid and finding ways that they might survive with the minimum of supplies and resources.

I myself am not a prepper. I am very much a live-in-the-moment kind of gal, who trusts whatever my fate maybe it is to be, and as long as I remain aware and my insight is in check, whatever happens in my future is meant to.

In saying that, I am into the concept of ‘Spiritual Prepping’. Not so much stocking up for later but garnering tools right now that I can embody and when and if the time comes my inner core will be resilient enough to endure whatever happens. There is that old saying, you can take everything from me but you can’t take my soul. So to me spiritually prepping is about connecting and nourishing my spirit so the conscious link to my soul and the source will always be strong.

I feel it’s important to prepare for our personal spirituality and the wounds and worries that arise and to be aware of the collective in regards to Wetiko, the collective psychosis, and how we can be influenced by it.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Paul Levy, the author of Undreaming Wetiko (his latest book) the other day. What I found interesting was that he and I came to our path of service in a very similar way.

Both of us blew open on a psychic level. He tasted psychiatric confinement, fortunately, I did not. We both dived into a state of Spiritual Emergence and found our way home by similar paths. Jung, Shamanism and Buddhism. We both felt overcome by the collective darkness and in our own way found our way out of it to be of service to the greater whole.

I found Paul to be very authentic and open and his understanding of the collective psychosis incredibly insightful and well-researched. Wetiko reminds me of the Nothing in The Never Ending Story. It is said there is an unknown entity behind the Nothing but it never is identified as such. In regards to Wetiko, it is similarly not a being of any kind. It in my view is an unbalanced force that seeps into the psyche of humanity and blends with our own personal wounds. Paul I feel is preparing us in ways to look beyond the personal and see how we are affected by the collective madness that is currently running rife in the world as it feeds off the duality, the discord, the division and the destruction. The War outside of you is a reflection of the war within. We need to be aware of both. The conversation we had led me to this blog title. I kept thinking of how we can prepare for more changes and discord within humanity’s struggle to evolve.

The collective shifting sands can feel incredibly destabilising. And it’s important that we don’t get sucked into that on a psychic level. It’s crucial to be aware of what is ours and what is being influenced and amplified by Wetiko. I feel that all people who pass through the valley of mental health issues ( acute sensitivity) are deeply affected by the unseen Wetiko influence. I sure was until I realised I had absorbed a great deal that was not mine and was being drained at the same time from something I could not name.

So these are some of the people I recommend to learn from that you might like to add to your own Spiritual Prep kit. I don’t doubt there are others, but at the moment these are the ones that I resonate with due to my background and my interests.

Paul Levy: Writer and Tibetan Buddhist practitioner. To help you understand how to be aware and manage the collective psychosis that digs into your own personal challenges. If you are not much of a reader there are plenty of podcasts and interviews etc. However the books especially his recent ones are very helpful with case study examples and other insights that the interviewers don’t pick up on.

Bessel Van Der Kolk: Psychiatrist, author and researcher. A rarity for a psychiatrist to think outside the box, and Bessel does just that in understanding where trauma can be eased. He is great and guiding you in understanding the intricacies of how trauma plays out in life in layman’s terms and he has flung open the door to finding different modalities that suit the individual. Bessel often shares that trauma is a state of not being present. We need to be present to thrive through these changes. Personally, I feel this is the way psychiatry needs to go, to move out of the medical assessment model and branch into more helpful modalities that people can learn. Honestly, he gives me hope that the old Freudian model is finally being phased out.

Gabor Mate: Physician and author. Gabor has an incredible understanding of the cause of many ailments including addiction. He is non-judgmental in his approach and in my opinion, is one of the best wound trackers I have come across. He looks underneath all the rubble of emotions and layer by layer leads the person into their own insight.

These three men all have experienced deep trauma. Both Gabor and Bessel were deeply affected by the Nazi occupation be that from their own experiences or generational trauma. Levy, knows trauma like the back of his hand due to his brutal father. These men are pioneers for other men to be able to be allowed to express the deeper wounding that has been shut down, and for women, they give us hope in their ability to be compassionate and of genuine service to those in need.

Now for two women who have influenced me greatly.

Sandra Ingerman: Shamanic teacher and author. Sandra has such a lovely way of guiding you to find a deeper connection to the beauty of the medicine of the earth and how to embody the shamanic way in harmony with it. With Sandra, there is a deep resonance for me as she was the first medicine person who introduced me to the concept of Soul Retrieval which is a cornerstone of my path of service. She also speaks of Transmutation, by engaging the light within and emanating it, to the point she even uses the same language as I have (and I did not learn this from her) in experiencing a star from the night sky within and letting it emanate throughout your being and beyond. As a star needs no effort to shine, it just does. Doing this can connect us to our own starlight as a reflection of our spirit. And this is what I seem to be bringing my clients back to quite a lot during these times. We need to resource from within. ‘All you have to do is shine your light’ she says. ‘We don’t need to focus on healing others, more so we need to just connect to being that starlight’. When we are in this space others benefit naturally and can spontaneously heal. Sandra always feels like the type of woman if you knocked on her door she would invite you to sit on her veranda with a cool drink a smile and the scent of sage emanating from her hair. Approachable and deeply compassionate.

Edith Egar: Psychologist and author. Was discovered on a pile of bodies at Austwich barely alive. This woman and her book ‘The Gift’ blew me away. Such a small book, but what a huge impact. If anyone knows how to survive a death camp and come out the other side to want to be of service to people in trauma in such a lovely authentic way, it’s Edith. She speaks of the mind being much like a concentration camp and how we can free ourselves from our own imprisonment. This from a woman’s perspective was gold for me. I know Victor Frankel was famous for what he wrote about it, but from a woman’s perspective, I gained a different insight that I could fully relate to. I highly recommend her book ‘The Gift’ to anyone struggling.

How am I helping in regard to this Spiritual Prepping?

Several clients who have spent quite some time learning from traditional shamans, find that what I teach is more ‘personally’ empowering. They could find a shaman and the shaman would release something but they didn’t really know what or how, so when they felt confronted with another challenge, and the shaman was not around, they found themselves adrift. How are they going to work with what comes up be that an altered experience, a resurfaced wound or an unwelcome visitor from a between-world dimension?

My path of service and my books are a way of accessing one’s own spiritual and psychic inner support. Even my latest novel is a dark ride admittedly but the journey is one of reclaiming one’s inner authentic light, much like I had to when I was lost in the dark.

I am very much into personal empowerment as and as many of you know, my credo is safe practices. People these days are hugely reliant on what ordinary reality offers. So much so that we have become addicted. Addicted even to healing but not integrating much of it at all. If we really want to prep, we need to embody the healing that we are currently doing so we have a core to source from in the future.

Right now the Middle East has exploded and tragedy abounds. Innocent lives are taken in the name of ownership on both sides. No one owns the earth. No-one. We are here to be caretakers. This right here is an example. How are you managing the news? What do you do with the information coming into your psyche? How are you looking after yourself? How do you befriend your anger? How to you calm your fears? How do you nourish yourself? What do you do to connect and not feel pulled in multiple directions? How do you create a sense of safety within? These are the things we need to be working on, to prep for as it’s not going to stop. Humanity is going through a psychotic breakdown of sorts and we need to be able to handle what we get thrown and or what we absorb.
Even more so during these times we need to remember our starlight, the flow of that light and let it emanate. That and if you can find it, I would definitely recommend taking a flower remedy daily to keep your vibration above the heavy collective. I personally recommend the Bach Flower, Oak. I call it my resilience tonic. We are not trying to shut off or deny the uncomfortable we just want to be more resilient in the face of it.

Bringing medicine ways to the modern world that people can relate to and be able to actualise in themselves is paramount in these current times. Many practitioners are seeking to be of help in some way and even as practitioners, we all know that we too need to top up our own Spiritual Prep kits for the times to come.

As the flight attendant says, put the oxygen mask on before you help others.
And on that note, I am doing just that. I am taking a week off to be by myself and give myself a tune-up.

Will be back to service the following week.
Blessings on your journey within and without.
Odette

(c) Odette Nightsky 2023

I see, feel and sense dead people, entities and beings from the astral realms. This to me has always been a natural part of who I am. I’m the person in the family that will be asked if the relative who just passed away is ok. Sensitive folk in general have these kinds of abilities if tapped into.

Those natural abilities got pushed down over my teen years due to wanting to fit into the ‘normal’ collective. I always knew I had the ability, I just didn’t know how to navigate it or how it would fit into the so-called norm.

Moving through the dark night of the soul, what I had pushed down could no longer stay that way. I lost myself in the quagmire of the collective norm. I felt invaded by multiple astral beings. It felt like I was in constant battle mode to keep them out and hold onto what was left of me. When they did come too close my primary fear beyond anything was that they would overtake my essential sense of self, and yes, my soul. If they took me over, where would I go? What would happen to me? For many, it’s ending up in a psych ward. Fortunately, as fragile as it felt, my core held out.

Today, in difference, if I ever feel a sense of something attached to me or trying to possess me, I have the experience, knowledge, support, guidance and tools to dislodge it.

I am by nature an absorber as are many empaths. One of the primary things I needed to learn was how to transmute what I had absorbed.

In shamanism, the shaman’s natural way is to absorb/ingest, transform/transmute and dispel/clear in order to heal.

Oh, how I wish I had been taught that when I was younger but in hindsight I learned through the ultimate teacher, experience.

The only way I knew to help myself back then was to retreat, to get away from everyone and as much collective stimulation as I could. I became a recluse. A lot of sensitive people do because its just so very hard to hold your own in the marketplace of humanity.

Sensitives can naturally pick up on other people’s vibrations and if not careful, merge with their disowned wounding while also getting triggered by what has been absorbed. Then the psyche swirls with so much debris that is twisted together it’s hard to tell where our own stuff is in the midst of all the feelings, images and fragments that are swishing through. At times it can feel like being in a co-dependent relationship with a bunch of astral strangers who have astral debris that you don’t even want but can’t stop absorbing.

Looking back I can see how I became so entwined with the collective mismatch but at that time it didn’t occur to me that my centre of awareness wasn’t aligned within me. How can you find ground when you are being pulled in so many different directions on a multidimensional ripcord?

As I mentioned, my main protection back in the day was retreating, closing down upon myself, folding in on myself and cutting people out, which was to my detriment, however the space, the retreating part was vital so I could save myself.

Now, there is no need to close down or fold in on myself. There are no shields to put up, no battles to fight, no armour to block things out or walls that cut people off. My sense of protection comes from my core self being more solid.

I am able to pull my centre of awareness back to myself in connection with my core and then deal with whatever shows up. I am fully responsible for anchoring my core self, in my earth suit, here on Earth.

Soul retrieval has helped immensely with that. There is more of me here in this body now, unlike when I was younger and deeply fragmented. My home is within me, and within my sanctuary is my core, my inner spark. It is safe with its medicine kin, in a landscape that the ‘I am’ aspect of me looks after. The more I retrieve the fragmented parts of me back be that via soul retrieval, recapitulation, calling back my centre of awareness etc…it all helps to to align myself with my core. My core is in an aligned connection with the source.

Important to note.

We can’t expect others to understand what goes on inside us, especially family members. And we need to stop blaming them for not being able to. They are not mind readers and may not relate to how we perceive reality. They also may be sensitive but have more armour or different coping mechanisms that may seem unkind, but that’s the only way they know to manage it. For example, people with a great deal of anxiety can get very snappy and crabby. The snappy and the crabby is their protector trying to take charge due to them feeling that things are not in their control.

We all have behaviours that disguise our wounds and we all can act out in some way in an attempt to protect those wounds. These behaviours however can make it harder to connect with our essential core self, so it is important to understand the reason why they are there and befriend them a little. Im not saying enable the behaviour, but see into it a little further to the original cause.

Medicine Exercise.

Mindfully, intentionally, take your centre of awareness down from your head (where you think/imagine) to your centre. You might like to imagine walking down from your head step by step to your centre. Once there, imagine, feel sense a small but shiny golden star from the night sky. Now inline with some nice deep breathing see, feel, and a sense that it slowly starts to expand via each breath, and keeps expanding to the point that you are now at the centre of the large expanded golden star/the source and it’s beaming its warm beautiful light throughout every cell of your being as well as shining outside your body in all directions. Be there. Drink it in. Breathe it in. Beam it out.

Instead of ‘creating’ protection due to fear, lets instead upgrade our core to shine out as the ultimate empowerment of our uniqueness.

Blessings

Odette

(c) O. Nightsky

The long-awaited novel is finally here!

It’s said we all have a book to be written within, we all have a story that needs to be told. For some on the inner path, it might be a story about overcoming personal issues or a story that reflects a part of their consciousness or understanding in some way.

This story, Voices Within, my novel, was a seed I first noticed in my teens and then after many journeys and growth spurts along the way, it grew and began to tell itself to me, literally. I wanted to tell a tale of a different kind. One that blends my understandings and views on the subject of mental illness, to take it somewhere that spans more than this current reality, and to show that no matter how dark, with resilience one can indeed overcome. My other books are nonfiction based but this one, this story has been waiting many years to be told. Some parts of it are not easy to read and can be triggering so please be mindful of the warning in the front, but as we all know most human journeys are dappled in light and shadow and to ignore the shadow does not help to move through it.

About the Book

Isabo Campbell wakes up in a juvenile psych ward with no memory of how or why she is there. Her father, who also happens to be her psychiatrist, is reluctant to authorize her release. Weeks before Isabo was found in a church, full of rage, smashing the altar to pieces and screaming for justice.After her eventual release, Isabo albeit reluctantly begins to listen to her voices within. Beckoned to follow a trail of visions … she is transported back to 16th-century Scotland, the era of witch-hunts! This is a story steeped in memories from a dark time and like a puzzle needs the pieces to be found and put back together. Isabo Campbell is nothing if not courageous in the face of the unknown. This is a tale of insight, consciousness, and recovery, just not the type you are used to hearing about within the halls of psychiatric wards. Isabo courageously immerses herself in both worlds on a quest for the truth.

Voices Within is available in Paperback and Kindle Internationally

Please head to my website and the book section to purchase.

Blessings from Within

Odette

www.contemporaryshaman.net

What defines us? What shapes us?

What defines you? What experiences have defined you in one way or another?

I watched the Netflix interview with Viola Davis last night. Viola is a favourite of mine. She dives deep into her characters. As I have a kinship to the theatre industry due to half my life on the boards, I admire her exploration into every role and you can tangibly feel that she pulls from a very deep place to access her emotions in her authentic portrayal of the character.

The interview was about her book and her personal story of survival. She was raw and authentic and my goodness I admire the will and the courage she has had to never give up no matter what, considering how very little she had to begin with both on a practical level and the trauma that she experienced.

Her willpower to me is akin to a warrior, to not only survive but thrive. Playing the Woman King recently seems very apt.

There were great pearls of insight to reflect upon within the interview. How one perceives life from lenses filled with trauma and abject poverty and how one finds the light at the end of the tunnel by sheer tenacity and yes luck, but mainly a strong will to know that things could be better and that you are the one to create that.

One question that was discussed, stood out strongly for me and put me into a state of deep self-reflection.

Moments in life that defined you.

Viola spoke of her inner child running from the abusive racist schoolboys and how that was symbolic of how she felt like she was always running away from abuse. Another was when she stood up to her father, terrified beyond measure, but something in her had had enough.

These two defining moments were incredibly powerful for her and naturally led me to my own reflections, Which I am inviting you to participate in for your own growth and insight.

Reflecting back on the past doesn’t mean we live there in that story of pain. I want to make that crystal clear. We enter into the past to retrieve the aspects of self that were lost, damaged and fragmented. We do that so we can feel more whole and less disassociated. If you go into the past to look at how bad it was or use it as a reason for not moving forward, then it’s of no use and it can make you feel like you are stuck in a swamp of upset. It’s of no value.

If however you can look back as an observer of pivotal moments in life and see how they shaped you both the positive and the negative, then you can see from a less charged perspective what you may have lost or gained at that moment and then cleanse it and reclaim or purge in some way.

So, as always, I will share my experience.

Defining moments in my life

Firstly, I am ‘allowing’ a memory to surface rather than going searching for which one I think, ‘should’ be the defining moment.

The one that arises strongly as a visual memory is a powerful one.

As an army brat, we moved around a great deal and I went to all sorts of schools. Rough public schools where bullies bashed kid’s at lunch time for entertainment to the elite boarding schools where you were made to suffer via peer exclusion and humiliation.

I was at a boarding school after attending a very rough public school. Initially, I was put into the school as a day kid to then merge into a boarder when my parents were overseas. This boarding school was co-ed and felt better than the other all-girl boarding school where I begged to leave.

I adapted fairly quickly and was involved in quality theatre productions as was my way. I had returned back from work experience at a Theatre Company to my private dorm room which was modern and architecturally pleasing.

I had only just showered, leaving most of my bag to unpack in the morning as I was bone tired. As soon as it was lights out time, 11 girls without invitation filled my room.

I was trapped in my bed and bullied beyond belief. They were all accusing me of stealing and one pulled something out of the top of my bag that I know I did not put there. They were vicious and relentless, threatening to take me to the headmaster. My inner victim took it hard. I tried to speak up but was gaslit and harassed at every turn. The woman closest to me I thought was a friend, was loving it. This went on for what seemed like an eternity. Nothing was resolved. They suddenly all got up to go upstairs, clearly not caring about what they had done and even had the gaul to invite me for a cup of tea. I was so numb, so shocked, so fragmented, I actually followed and in the dim upstairs area sipped a tea watching them all chatter and smile at each other.

The defining memory is not that night, it’s what happened after.

I’m not sure if it was the next day or the one after but I vividly remember the upstairs loft area of the boarding unit near the tea area. I remember the handrails of the staircase and the large windows view of the trees being blown by the breeze.

I was standing in front of a head girl, the ringleader of the eleven girls. I recall that she was a great deal taller than me. She approached me on the landing wanting to talk.

As my body drew back, ready for another emotional assault. She said, ‘Hey sorry about last night, we knew it wasn’t you, but we needed to flush the real thief out.’ The real thief was the girl sitting the closest who I thought was my friend.‘It’s all good, we found all the stuff and she will probably be expelled.’

At that moment, the very small, insecure pleaser me, snapped and snapped hard.

My recall is raising the one thing I had, my voice. I raised it for the whole world to hear! (Directors always told others to follow my lead in voice projection as I could hit the back wall with my voice without even trying.)

‘How dare you do that to me!! Who the fuck do you think you are!’ it began and went on for a good while. I was an angry cat on a hot tin roof emotionally and my righteous need for justice was spitting out of my mouth! What I recall of her reaction was big brown eyes not blinking. She did not move a muscle. She was not expecting what I was delivering.

This moment defined many things for me upon reflection.

I have never ever let anyone treat me that way ever again after that. If I have been wronged I make my feelings perfectly clear. I have never allowed anyone to gaslight or abuse me as an adult.

My inner protector is very strong, and for a good while there, it was way too strong and pushed people away. It’s tempered much more nowadays, but it has made me a huge advocate for justice.

Why was this defining moment more relevant than any other bullying I had to endure? And believe me, there was a lot. It was because when the bullies came for me in other instances, my self worth was crap and somewhere in there I believed they were right. I was worthless and deserving of being a scapegoat for their amusement.

The framing situation however was different. Even though I bought into a lot of their cruelty towards me as a truth, I knew deep down somewhere that it wasn’t true. I wasn’t a liar or a thief.

What they did to me was completely unjust and I knew deep down I was not what they were saying I was. I knew it for a fact. I was no thief. That belt in the bag was not mine, nor did I put it there! I was not brave enough to take eleven of them on, I was a tiny framed thing and honestly, I was incredibly scared. However, on finding out that they used to me to flush someone else out, my inner victim switched over into the protector. The protector in me had already arrived but it was laying dormant, ready for when I had had enough and it burst out in righteous indignation.

I have been asked if I reported it. I didn’t. Honestly, I was in no headspace to explain it and make my life as a boarder more unbearable. Later some of them tried to be nice to me and my protector showed them the ice wall and yes that so called friend was expelled.

I have spent a great deal of time melting that ice wall and replacing it with better tools to protect myself. There are kinder more stable boundaries to looking after yourself than ice walls.

Now just to give you a taste of another defining moment, that may not sound positive but to me it really was due to what came from it, this path, my path of service.

When I went to study shamanism and I was coming from a really bad place via horrific nightmares of women being burnt, hung and drowned and voices and thoughts that were menacing me.

Fortunately, I had insight enough to be able to do journeywork. The journey took me to a time of Bedlam the insane asylum of London. That life was full of tragedy, betrayal and great loss and what I witnessed in that life, clearly defined the subject matter that I have a personal kinship with…the path of being of service to the sensitive people of this world.

That life was a massive eye opener and put everything that I felt inside me into context. Later when I researched the archives about that time and what was done to patients, I found proof that substantiated my strange physical convulsions at several points in the journey.

Other life work can be like that. It certainly changed my life and to this day it’s one of the most powerful defining moments of my life. That memory of that teen has no charge due to my work with my fragmented inner teen but by reflecting upon the memory with a little more investigative insight showed me when exactly my protector took hold and makes all my other feelings around the need for fairness and justice for those that are harmed, make sense.

Listening to Viola’s story made me reflect on mine. May part of my story help you to look back on yours, what you feel you have lost and also gained or wish to regain in regard to the defining moments that have impacted your walk.

Blessings

Odette

(c) O. Nightsky 2023

by Odette Nightsky

I grew up a lover of graveyards. These places to me were landscapes of mystery and stories told of those who were no longer in form. I also remember watching a very old version of Charles Dickens, Christmas Carol and freaked out when pushed into the dark grave, along with some article about a body being dug up only to find the fingers worn down as they tried to scratch their way out. This must have been after the times of using the bells to ring to say I’m still alive!! This was my intro into the world of death other than the loss of beloved pets which ripped me asunder.

The first time that the death of a human really hit home for me was when I was in my early 20s returning from overseas to find out that my best friend had been killed on an autobahn in Germany. I had missed the funeral and could not resonate with anyone due to being out of sync with the grieving process everyone else was in, as for me it was still a massive shock.

The strongest memory I have of that time is a friend saying to me ‘Oh but you know they are fine, they are on their way to another life.’ Honestly, I wanted to slap her at that moment. She brushed off my grief as if was something irrelevant and instead gave her own philosophy to it. This often happens when the person offering platitudes has not yet experienced the death of a loved one. Although the death happened to my friend, my dearest sweetest sister, the grief, well that was mine to carry and mine to process and it was so damn painful. In those days the waves of grief that slammed me to the ground were really hard to bear as I didn’t understand that I was on a journey of sorts too. The journey of letting my best friend go and also that there was more to this life beyond the physical.

I had no one to process it with. No one to hold space for me and no one who listened deeply because for them, the type of people I was around at that time, found it way too depressing.

I have often said that western society has a lot to answer for in relation to the natural experience of grief and how it’s processed.

I write this blog today in response to a request from a follower who would like to know more about how can we support those who are dying and also how we support ourselves in the grief of losing them. A big subject! So I am going to just roll with what comes up for me when pondering this subject and what things I know of that I have found helpful.

My mind begins swirling with….
Elizabeth Kubler Ross, on the stages of grief
Death Walkers by David Kowalewski
Tibetan book of the dead. Book and documentary
Zenith Virago (Death Walker) Ted Talk on Disrupting Death, a guide to dying well. Training Death Walkers.
Orphan Wisdom, Stephen Jenkinson,

The reason why this list comes to mind is that from these sources I learned some powerful insights regarding the path of Death Walkers. We all specialise in different areas and they are who I would recommend if you really want to dive into the subject.

My sharing as usual comes from my experience, and if you know my writings, that is where I always start from as my personal experiences have always been my greatest teachers.

As one of strong Celtic blood, have what the old world referred to as ‘The Fey’ this means I can see death.

The first time it appeared really strongly was when I was meeting with a distant relative and saw what seemed like a grey parlour shading her youthful features just above her skin. I had no idea about her health or history and within a short time I was informed that she had passed. So yes, I can often see death coming, but the most potent and sometimes confronting of my abilities is that I often see people at the moment of their death or just before when their spirit disengages from the body.

I saw the moment my best friend died. I saw her in the car, the colour of the car (which was confirmed later) I saw her just before impact, that her spirit had already disconnected and then saw her die. This flashed before my eyes the moment I was told of her death. Like a movie playing before my eyes.

I also see and sense when attending funerals or celebrations of life, the moment the spirit leaves and let’s go fully. It’s very common for the spirit to hang around till the funeral and for the loved ones ( eg: not fully adjusted to the new normal and wanting to let assure their loved ones they are ok even if the loved ones are not receptive).

I felt my father’s spirit leave when they played the last post at his funeral, I saw my friends sons face beam in gold just before being cremated, a dear one came to visit me not long after they took their life yet at that time I had no knowledge that he had done this, I didn’t realise he had come to say goodbye, yet the feeling of his presence was so strong I remember looking outside at night to see if he was there and the next day when his death was confirmed, I knew full well he was there in spirit tipping his hat so to speak.

Does seeing people in spirit who have passed over make it easier? In some ways yes it does but in other ways, no. I am always comforted to know they are ok and not stuck, and have also assisted if they are struggling to ease them into the crossover, but grief is a very human emotion and it cuts deep regardless of how ‘spiritual’ we think we are.

We have all incarnated for this human experience and we will witness the death of people we love and experience our own death walk as we journey through this life.

For those that hold space for the person transitioning towards death, it can be quite stressful especially if they are not in acceptance of the journey that that person is taking. If they lean to want to save, rescue, and control, all seemingly for the benefit of the person dying, it can feel very invasive. Often times they are subconsciously not dealing with the loss that is coming and instead of holding space for the person to let go in the way they wish they are trying to control the narrative for their own sake.

I always suggest the importance of being in step with the person who is on the death walk journey, by following their lead. Yes, you will need to use your intuition because they are not always going to be able to communicate that well. Or call you up and tell you what they want. They will move through many mixed emotions and all of them are valid and should be held space for. It’s also their choice of how they want to die, be that with medical intervention or not. Fear runs riot for many and it’s important that they do not become overwhelmed by others’ fear, pity, advice and need to take over.

Death is a journey. A journey of the spirit in the earth suit, tiring of it and moving towards release. The journey needs to be supported with a gentle, intuitive, light touch. They may need more space than normal as they may be flitting back and forth between the spirit and physical dimensions. They may be more needy and demanding than normal due to their fear of death, of the pain, it’s part of the journey of letting go.

There are people who don’t want to tell others of their death walk because of feeling overwhelmed by other people leaking feelings. If you are a loved one, you need to respect their choice for privacy, however hard you find that. If keeping their confidence is difficult, then seek out a grief counsellor or a grief group to share with.

Remember this journey of death walking is about them and you are there to support and explore what their needs might be to make their journey a gentler one if possible.

For example, if you don’t believe in something that they are choosing to do. Shut up. It’s their body, their choice, and their belief system. Yes, they may be making choices due to fear or something you may not agree with and yes you can help to keep them informed and educate them on options but ultimately it’s up to them. In all cases follow their lead and don’t get too pushy.

Be mindful that they may not respond to you at times as they may not want to talk about it or are in the midst of processing their feelings, but that doesn’t mean you stop caring. You might want to hang out with them and not bring it up, so they can have some time of being free of that ‘Are you ok? How are you?’ look.

Those that are close and walking alongside them on the journey will need a safe person to share with and extra care. They are often the ones passed over as they are the ‘capable’ ones. They too will be moving through a lot of changeable feelings. It’s really important to simply be present and hold space for them in deep listening. Laughter also is a terrific tonic. Yes, laughter and grief often find themselves to be buddies. It’s often a great release. That spark of light in the darkness.

Holding space is simply being fully in body and being fully present with them in total acceptance.

Deep Listening is allowing that person to really share without interruption while being receptive to what they are sharing.

For those who are dying, things like the smell of flowers, the touch of an animal or a child, the taste of a fruit or similar that they had in childhood, being near water, out in nature, gentle soothing music of their choice, reading to them passages from things they love, offering Reiki etc. The senses are still there so if conversation dwindles one of the senses can always be pleased.

For me, the biggest comfort in grief was my connection to spirit. I talk to the dead, I always have.

Like old couples who have been together for years, when one dies the other continues to chat with them. I find I am the same for a good while after they leave their body. I know the veil to be very thin at that time and for me, it tends to come naturally to want to connect with them on the spirit plane.

Others have complained they have not heard from a loved one and in my experience, it’s often because their grief is so deep and all-encompassing that they are blocking the ability to receive the connection.

So for those dying and for those grieving, we need to go gently in our support and follow their lead and at their pace.

Offer ideas, gestures and opportunities without invading their space.

The journey of grief and death deserves to be treated with honour, time and support by people that are fully present and receptive to where they are at and whatever they feel is part of the journey.

Most people aren’t as afraid of death as they are of the suffering leading up to it, this is why we need to honour their choices in how they get there. Grief is also a journey of suffering for those in earth suits and again it should be honoured and respected regardless of your opinion of how it ‘should’ be.

My elder said something many years back that stuck with me, ‘When someone dies they are kept occupied by all the practical things that have to be done, everyone will be offering help, food etc and then people will move on. Be the one that calls 3 months after.’

I hope what I have shared may resonate with some and possibly help others

We are spiritual being dwelling in magnificent earth suits, it’s natural that we all journey through the grieving process and walk the journey beyond this mortal coil. This is a sacred path and needs to be treated with respect be that towards yourself or another on the journey. I personally have found great sustenance and support from spirit and mindfully connected with spirit during these times as I have in spending time in nature, may you find the same.

Blessings

Odette

(c) O. Nightsky 2022

This is my experience of combining modalities. May it serve as a springboard to reflect on your own.

Years back when I had my head in researching all things to do with my sensitivity and what modalities might work best, I came across a common narrative.

In the most purist of practices, the leader/teacher/guru would often speak about the dangers of doing other alternative practices as it would dilute the strength of the original.

In one way I was in full agreement, in another I wasn’t at all, because I didn’t want to be limited to one type of modality or belong to any dogma. My astrology chart is ruled by a truckload of mutable water signs so there was no way I was going to fit into anything with a long-term inhibiting structure. Sure, structure is good but not when they become akin to the walls of a prison.

What I did come to understand over time was that one of the reasons this was important to speak of, was that it became common that people would want to join to become nothing but shallow dippers of these practices rather than diving deep and allowing themselves to be fully immersed in that particular path. They would just flip through modalities like a magazine but not read more than the first paragraph of an article, much like a workshop junkie who doesn’t dive deep enough to integrate the practice before signing up for another modality and then call themselves experts and healers of the top sea foam that they swam in.

You don’t get much if you skim the surface of things unless of course, you are a human surfer or a dolphin cutting through the big blue ocean. You also don’t need to be pulled down into the dark deep of being indoctrination into a path that is not adaptable and subtly shames you for thinking outside its philosophy.

Nature is change. More than ever in these times, we need to be adaptable and to move with those changes while holding respect for that which we value.

Spiritually, I have always been a lone diver into the sea of the unconscious and it wasn’t until I found myself journeying through the doors of madness. Through that journey of many little deaths and dark nights of the soul that I came across, the universe led me to….what really suited me.

I found a path of practice, language and understanding, that is as strong today as it was then, maybe even more so. I found a way of working through things that have been consistent, reliable, and most importantly, mutable enough to adapt to other tools that integrate well.

That path of course is Shamanism, and within that path, I discovered that the journeying aspect of shamanism fits me like a glove.

Being a journey guide comes naturally to me.

My path is not one of tradition steeped in indigenous blood ancestry, animal skin, ceremony or traditional ritual, although I have admiration and respect for all the traditional ways and those that handed down the teachings.

I am a modern woman born of Celtic blood and fae knowing who was brought up in the East. I am known as a contemporary shaman and a wound hunter of modern times who is primarily a guide, spiritual midwife and navigator and negotiator in the invisible realms.

I see myself akin to an internal gardener who tracks down thorns, weeds, pests and what lies in the underbrush of the psyche to be cleared so new shoots can be planted, and grown in order to flourish.

Along with this integral part of my service I have over the years added what I feel are authentic complimentary modalities. This is in no way a mishmash recipe of things. These are well-investigated and experienced practices that work along with my shamanic signature.
The keyword that fits in with all the other complimentary modules is JOURNEYING. They all have an element of journeying into the psyche that flavours them. There is a saying, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey. Yeah, well, I’m all about the journey.

Opening my toolbox book and looking inside just to double check, yes, all the tools actually do have a journey element to them or tools to compliment the healing of that journey.

The wholehearted healing trauma work I do is akin to journeying within the human body and cells to discover what is blocking or has been injured. Be that from the original cause, following an ancestral wounding, tracking a fragment or the loss of a peak state, I am accompanying someone who is on an inner journey of some kind and that’s what I love to do. I love all the negotiating, the navigating and the discoveries that come along with it.

When I first started training in Reiki, I did it to tune in to the flow of the universal life force, but I knew pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to become a Reiki practitioner even though I could see the healing benefits and a way to access to from the source rather than using my own life force. Little did I know I did it for another reason. Something kicked in big time when we were asked to go away and practice on people. I had a tendency to gravitate to the head first, probably because I love it when people would Reiki my own head. I was standing at the crown of the person who was lying on the table and laying my hands close or gently on their head, and after I turned on the symbols and allowed, it felt like I was on a river, journeying alongside the person psyche, seeing bits of their inner story as visuals continued to pop into my mind. I was flying along beside them and picking up on things that stuck out along their inner landscape. For my own clarification, after it kept happening, I asked if my practice clients wanted to know what I saw, they did and to my surprise what I saw was very relevant to where they were on their path. Reiki was one of the early modalities that opened me and connected me to the flow of the invisible realms.

I have always been fascinated by the human psyche and how we are all so different yet so similar. In getting to know the aspects of the self I gravitated to the teachings of Voice Dialogue. A technique born from the Jungian way of understanding our inner archetypes, our inner selves. Jung was dubbed the first modern shaman and compared to others walked through the dark night of the soul, investigated the heck out of it and came through the other side to be of service to others. Voice dialogue for me is akin to journeying deep into the psyche while exploring and engaging with the inner selves that make up who we are. Each self has a reason for existing, each self has its own story and each self goes through its own journey of development.

In shamanism I find myself accompanying people on journeys a great deal. Be that journeying within their psyche, into other lives, their inner selves, recalling lost fragments, the inner child, densities within their subtle bodies, their wounds, their strengths and their spiritual support systems. So if I do add a modality it naturally weaves itself into that way of working rather than detracts or splits from it.

Shamanism in my view is very mutable but has a strong stable core.

Just now an image comes to mind of a tree being blown by the wind, no matter how great the force blowing the branches around, the trunk is sturdy and the roots are deep and connected to the earth. That’s what shamanism feels like to me. A strong reliable core but flexible enough to adapt to the changes that come.

When I am setting up for a client and getting in tune with being of service it’s as if I have begun to journey alongside them already. When the session is finished, my journey beside them ends and I return to my own.

I would suggest if you are looking to refine your practice, look to see what comes naturally to you, what healing modalities you tend to gravitate to when in need and what actually works for you personally. What do you enjoy doing and why? If it’s because you get an ego hit from it, it’s probably not a path of service. If it’s because it comes naturally to you and its effects change, then give it more time and attention.

You see for me when things go to crap, my default, the natural fallback position is to journey within. Why? Because I get results! Tangible results. Think about what your natural fallback portion is in tough times. There is a big clue there.

Shamanism has taught me that I am more than a human form. I am energy in movement and how I work with that energy, unpack it, clear it, is primarily via journeying.

Take time and reflect on your own natural abilities, and what works for you personally, and look to develop these qualities, strengthen them, dive into them, experience them and master them within your path of service. We are all unique and have our own signatures. That signature is woven into your natural talents.

If you are going to make a recipe of modalities, make sure all your ingredients complement each other and, always leave room for adaptability and spontaneity, make sure to taste it along the way to make sure you like what you are creating.

Ps. Write the recipe down so you don’t forget it.

Blessings

Odette

(c) O. Nightsky 2022