Building a Container for Abundance and Prosperity

Many people who are called to the shamanic path have a deep desire to be of service. It seems natural to believe that once you have cultivated your skills and are living your life in service to Spirit, the doors of abundance and prosperity will open to you. Sometimes this does happen.

But I also encounter healers who carry incredible medicine and aren’t attracting the clients, the audience, or the abundance they want in order to really support their vision of service. In part 1 and part 2 of this series I talked about how in some cases the root of this problem could be due to having not yet connected to the greater purpose of your work, the specific themes or issues you are best suited to address, and who specifically you are here to serve.

But what if, with all of these questions answered, you announce your beautifully designed shamanic practice, and the prosperity and abundance you desire still do not materialize? It can be very tempting to descend into the rabbit hole of marketing strategy, trying to solve the problem with the intellect, and searching for the secret ingredient that will change everything.

Before you do that, I’d invite you to consider that the secret ingredient you’re looking for could be YOU. Just as you have to allow your services to be shaped by your deepest calling, you also have to allow yourself to be shaped by it. You have to do the brave work of becoming the person who is capable of embodying your vision.

The Wisdom in the Road Blocks

Years ago I was on a long walkabout with a group up in the Rocky Mountains. We climbed for what felt like hours until we reached a magical mossy oasis, hidden in the trees just beyond an enormous rushing waterfall. It was so beautiful we decided this was the place to have our ceremony.

But by the time we got there I was exhausted. And when the plant medicine we were working with came on, it laid me out flat. I was embarrassed because the plan was that I was going to be supporting the lead facilitators by offering healings to people in our group. But instead I was the one who needed healing.

Fortunately a good friend and mentor pulled me aside and did some feather work on me. He told me that I needed to learn how to receive and let myself be completely filled up with light, and that until I was able to do that I wouldn’t have enough energy to show up in the capacity I wanted to.

I felt much better after the healing, but also humbled and aware of the vulnerable truth he had shown me. As we headed back down the mountain, I found myself mesmerized by a glowing aspen tree on the trail. Gazing at it I realized it was a shaman tree. It had a huge dark lightning scar running from its roots all the way up one side of its trunk as far as I could see into its branches.

I felt an almost magnetic draw towards it, and with permission placed my hand on its trunk. I asked it how it was able to survive a lightning strike when most other trees get destroyed. Instantly my mind was filled with an image of pure light being channeled from the sky above, down through its trunk, and into the ground below.

It told me that in order to wield great power, you have to become a vessel for it. You can’t try to grasp at it, or control it. You have to empty yourself and allow it to move through you. And if you welcome too much of it before you’re ready, it will blast you out and burn you alive.

I walked away a bit stunned and intimidated. But as I integrated the experience I saw that as long as I am willing to listen, my spirit guides and allies are there to protect and guide me so that I don’t step into this kind of power before I am ready.

Since then it’s become my view that the road blocks that show up on a healer’s path to service are actually there to help. They are the work of Spirit, showing up benevolently and with love, to help us see our energy leaks and blind spots. They show up to protect us and help us uncover the places where our past hurts and fear patterns are unconsciously weakening our container. They help us continue our own healing and guide us into our true power, so we can become more and more of the empty vessels we’re capable of being.

Does this mean that you have to be a perfectly healed person in order to serve? Of course not. Otherwise none of us would ever serve! There’s so much you can offer as you are being shaped into your potential.

Rather, I see it that Spirit gives you only as much power as you can handle. So, if you want to reach more people and have a greater impact, you might consider how the current road blocks in your life are calling you deeper into your inner work and personal healing journey. Here are a few examples of how that might show up:

Fear of Persecution

Fear of persecution is a very widespread fear among healers. It might show up as a fear of public humiliation, ridicule, abandonment, imprisonment, or even death. Most often these fears live in the throat chakra and interfere with you embodying your true expression. They are often rooted in childhood or even past life trauma.

Especially because our deepest wounds and true power seem to be so closely connected, the closer you move to your power, the surer you are to encounter the fears that have until this moment kept it at bay. You might consider some past life healing work, soul retrieval, or other trauma work to support you in releasing and integrating your past experiences.

Whatever you do, it is important to get to the root of your fear because the vibration of your true voice is one of the primary vehicles by which other souls recognize you as someone who can help them. As long as the fears of persecution are running the show, your ability to truly express yourself, and thus attract and serve your ideal clients, are both inhibited.

Lack Consciousness 

Fear of not having enough or not being enough can manifest itself in many ways—fear of not having enough money, enough love, enough time, enough skill, and so on. All of these are essential to root out. Otherwise, the ego might subconsciously co-opt your sacred work as a means to fill the perceived lack and unmet needs in your life.

One of the easiest ways to explore where lack consciousness might be sneaking into your work is to honestly look at your underlying motivation for greater prosperity and abundance. For example, why do you want more clients or a bigger audience? Inevitably in this exploration you will find a deep and heartfelt truth in your desire to serve Spirit. But you might also be surprised to find some other subconscious energies there:

• Are you looking to validate your worth through your work? Do you think you need to achieve some level of success and impact in order to be enough?
• Are you seeking an audience because you want attention, you want to feel loved, seen and appreciated?
• Do you think that if you had more money you would finally be able to relax, feel safe, and be able to do all the things you really want to do?

As you know there is nothing wrong with wanting to feel worthy, receive love, be seen and appreciated, or feel safe and secure. These basic desires are rooted in essential human needs that we all have. The key is to recognize how these needs are or aren’t being met, and to be proactive about coming into right relationship with them so they don’t have you creating from a place of lack, and thus interfere with your capacity to serve.

Most feelings of lack are rooted in old wounds and supported by well-established thought patterns in the brain. Making real change requires first seeing the fears for what they are, and then consciously shifting your energy away from them and towards new thoughts that are rooted in wholeness and abundance.

A gratitude practice and a daily mantra are two of the best ways to recognize prosperity and abundance in your life. Practice loving yourself, believing you are enough, knowing that you have medicine and value, and appreciating all the ways you are already supported by Spirit.  Come to your work and your creative endeavors from an already abundant and prosperous place, and see what unfolds from there.

Attachment to Outcomes

True service is an act of getting out of the way, and none of us can really know what our path of service will look like. But the ego loves to create stories, imagine its future, and craft a plan to get there. This is one of the primary ways in which a healer can actually interfere or get in their own way of prosperity and abundance.

In my own life, it’s the times when I get fixated on a certain outcome that I create the most suffering for myself. These are also the times when I experience the least flow and synchronicity. I waste so much energy and prevent myself from recognizing the miracles Spirit has already lined up for me.

On the other hand, when I let go of my attachments to a timeline or specific outcomes, and allow the big picture to unfold in its own way, I’m regularly blown away and in awe of how Spirit  orchestrates my life.

It’s no small task to successfully release attachments and trust in the process. You could even think of it as a lifelong (or many lifetimes long) practice. But actually doing it is not complicated. You just let go. Surrender. Call on your guides for help. And build your unconditional trust in Spirit.

Like the gratitude practice, building trust can be reinforced by simply recognizing all the ways Spirit supports you, and becoming aware of how little you actually have to do when you allow Spirit to lead the way. After all, trusting Spirit and getting out of the way is a healer’s true source of power.

Aligning with Your Values

Now that I’ve shared a few examples, I want to close by offering you an exercise that has had a profound impact on my life. The idea behind it is that your innate magnetism and ability to attract abundance gets amplified when you are living in alignment with the deepest values. The exercise is designed to help you first identify your values, and then help you become aware of where in your life you are in or out of alignment with them.

1. Write out a list of 3 to 7 core values that are most essential to your business or path of service. Start with brainstorming. What principles is your vision founded upon? What do you already stand for? Why are people drawn to your products or services? What take-away experience do you strive to offer your customers? What values do you need to embrace in order to generate more prosperity for your vision?
2. Once you’ve selected your top 3 to 7 values, write at least a paragraph on each one to really explore the depth of what they mean to you. If you’d like to see an example, you can find my values here (scroll about halfway down the page).
3. Sit with each value and ask yourself, “How am I living in alignment with this value? Is there anywhere I am out of alignment?” Be sure to scan your entire life, not just your business life. Look at everything. In my experience it’s all connected.
4. Choose what to do with the information you’ve discovered about yourself. If you’d like to, you can do the work of coming into alignment with your truth and opening to the miracles that might unfold from there.

The journey into a path of service is so unique to each one of us. My hope is that this series of articles has given you some good threads to follow as you continue on yours, and that in some way it helps you to honor and love yourself for the courageous work you are doing, and trust that everything is happening in perfect time. Thank you so much for reading, and may you experience great prosperity and many blessings on your mysterious magical journey.