What Gets Lost in Translation?
I remember reading that, in the 1970s, mainstream doctors were hesitant to use the word meditation. They worried that if they did, both they and the practice would be dismissed as “woo-woo.”
I rolled my eyes.
Even twenty years ago, meditation and yoga were still making their way into the mainstream. And most people didn’t believe you could make a living doing“woo-woo”.
Now, many of those same mind-body practices are evidence-based.
Go figure.
I find myself in a similar place now.
Although, to be fair, I am not rolling my eyes.
At least not outwardly.
My journey into Shamanic Practices began in the late summer of 2024. I didn't see it coming.
My soul did.
As usual, it simply took my higher-order-thinking brain a little longer to catch up.
I began studying and practicing. I lit candles, worked with energy, memorized Reiki symbols, opened chakras, and imagined light moving through my body.
And I began to notice something.
I was changing.
I was finding my way back to parts of myself I had somehow misplaced.
I started making noise again.
Shaking rattles.
Playing drums.
Singing.
And, honestly, shaking a rattle is really fun.
Even when life felt hard—perimenopause, anyone?—I noticed that I felt better after these practices.
I continued studying, traveled to Scotland, and eventually began integrating Shamanic Practices with the work I had already studied and practiced for more than two decades as a psychotherapist.
Then I put my offerings out into the great unknown.
The World Wide Web.
Not much happened.
So, naturally, I questioned everything.
Maybe the challenge is partly language.
In the 1970s, meditation was sometimes described as “deep breathing” because that was easier for the Western medical world to understand.
And I wonder if we do something similar today.
Is guided meditation really so different from Yoga Nidra?
Is hypnosis so different from guided meditation?
Is daydreaming really so different from journeying?
The words are different.
The experiences may not be as different as we think.
Perhaps we already do many of these things. We simply call them something else.
Intuition.
Gut feelings.
Emotional messages.
Visualization.
Imagination.
Maybe some of what we call Shamanic Practice is not as unfamiliar as it first appears. Maybe it is simply a different way of understanding experiences many of us already have.
I am not suggesting that everything is the same.
It isn't.
But I do think something gets lost in translation.
So, perhaps my invitation is simply this:
Be curious.
Pay attention to the feeling you can't explain.
Listen to the emotion that keeps trying to tell you something.
Leave a little room for mystery.
For magic.
For the possibility that our experience of being human is larger than what we can currently measure.
And perhaps, one day, some of the things we currently dismiss as “woo-woo” will become better understood.
Until then, I'll be over here, studying, practicing, asking questions—and shaking my rattle.
Probably with a great deal of enthusiasm.
Want to learn more or set up a consultation?