Benefits of Shamanic Journey Meditation
In summary, benefits include:
Strengthening relationships with our guides + spirit helpers
Developing our intuition + psychic skills
Building self-trust, as we see our visions come true
Basking in healing sound (from drums) + light (from spirit)
An ancient method for meditating and connecting with the spirit realm, the shamanic journey offers everyone — not just shamans and shamanic practitioners — opportunities to gain insights, guidance and healing.
Traditionally, healers use the shamanic journey to consult with helping spirits about their clients’ conditions and facilitate healings. For nonpractitioners, it can be a way to get centered and connect with guides and other helping spirits, as well as their own inner wisdom.
Learning the shamanic journey is a unique experience that can be transformative in the immediate moment and beyond. The short- and long-term benefits are truly boundless.
Here are a few benefits of shamanic journey meditation:
It’s easier for the active mind. Meditations that require you to release all thoughts can be challenging and as a result, discouraging for many people in our modern society. Alternatively, the shamanic journey asks us to shift our attention to what happens — what we see, hear, feel and otherwise sense — as our meditation unfolds like a movie scene playing out in our consciousness. In this way, the shamanic journey is more about the story or content, the information and insights.
It connects us with our true selves. In addition to helping us expand our consciousness into the spirit realm, the shamanic journey offers us a way to go deep within and find our inner voice, our own inherent wisdom. It also helps us connect with our subconscious and expose what healing needs to happen or what we need to work on to live a more fulfilled life.
It helps us develop psychic skills. The shamanic journey asks us to open and expand our consciousness beyond ourselves so that we can connect with the larger, collective consciousness. These are psychic skills, and the more we practice them, the more attuned we become. We might see the proof of this as we learn to journey on behalf of others and garner insights that are relevant to their lives.
It helps us build self-trust. As we see our visions come true, we begin to trust our intuition a whole lot more. Every alignment between what we see in our journeys and what we see manifest in the physical world reinforces this. We know we can trust ourselves, which is a such an important and powerful aspect of living an authentic and fulfilled life.
It offers support in decision-making. The shamanic journey also offers a rich resource to help you with decision-making. Not only can you get quiet and still enough to hear your own inner voice, you also can tap into the wisdom and compassion of the spirit realm, home to your guides and other helping spirits. Together, they can be like a council that you can consult about the different choices you have.
It helps us understand we are more than our physical bodies. As we practice expanding our consciousness, we also begin to realize that we are much more than our physical bodies. We are also spirit and part of the cosmos. Our physical bodies are our tools for making our way through our physical lives. They are temporary, while our soul and energy continues on.
It allows us to bask in healing from spirit. Connecting with the spirit realm, where our life force energy stems, and sitting in that power can have a profound, healing effect on us. It washes us with the unconditional love from Spirit and fills us with spiritual light. It calms us down and picks us up at the same time, making it the ultimate recharge.
Drumming offers an additional layer of healing. The percussion from drumming or rattling that we use to get into the trance state and journey provides us with sound healing. The beat feels so good because it helps regulate our nervous systems. It mimics our bodies’ natural rhythms and recalibrate us, taking us back to our natural, calm state.
Once you learn shamanic journey meditation, you can tap into all the benefits or focus on one at a time. Depending on your needs, you might choose to journey for the purpose of asking your guides for advice or simply basking in the healing light of spirit. It’s totally up to you. Shamanic journeying can serve many different purposes in your life, and you can make your practice whatever you need it to be.
If you are interested in learning and practicing the shamanic journey, TrueHeart hosts workshops and monthly Circles. Check out our Events page.