A shamanic path for healing emotional wounds, fears, and trauma

Many people come to spiritual work believing something is “wrong” with them. They feel broken, overwhelmed, anxious, or stuck in repeating emotional patterns that seem to come from nowhere. From a shamanic perspective, this is not a personal failure—it is a sign that the soul is carrying unprocessed energy, memories, or wounds that are asking to be seen, honored, and healed.

In the Andean lineage teachings I carry, we do not approach healing by endlessly reliving the story or reopening the pain. Instead, we work with medicine—the energetic wisdom that helps us gain perspective, release what no longer belongs to us, and return power back to the self.

Healing does not mean erasing the past.

It means changing your relationship to it.

Seeing Emotional Wounds Through a Shamanic Lens

Emotional wounds can come from many places: childhood experiences, relationships, ancestral patterns, collective trauma, or energy absorbed from others. Over time, these experiences lodge themselves in the energy body. When left unaddressed, they can manifest as fear, grief, anxiety, anger, people-pleasing, emotional shutdown, or a deep sense of disconnection from joy and purpose.

Shamanic teachings remind us that energy wants to move. When it does not, it becomes heavy. Healing begins the moment we stop judging ourselves for what we feel and instead ask a different question:

What is this experience here to teach me?

What medicine is trying to emerge?

Step One: Witnessing Without Becoming the Wound

One of the most important foundations of healing is learning to observe your emotions without identifying as them. In the medicine wheel teachings, this wisdom is carried by the Serpent—the keeper of release and shedding old skins.

A simple daily practice:

• Sit quietly and place one hand on your heart.

• Name what you feel without analysis: fear, sadness, anger, grief.

• Gently say inwardly: “I am witnessing this feeling. I am not this feeling.”

This practice begins to separate your soul from the wound. Awareness alone creates space—and space allows healing to begin.

Step Two: Allowing Death and Transformation

True healing requires letting something end. This may be an old story, a belief about yourself, or the need to stay loyal to pain because it once protected you. In shamanic work, we honor death and transformation as sacred forces—not something to fear, but something that clears the way for truth.

You may gently ask yourself:

• What pattern am I ready to release?

• What fear no longer serves my growth?

• What part of my identity has been built around survival?

Write it down. Speak it aloud. Offer it to breath, fire, or intention. Transformation occurs when honesty is met with compassion.

Step Three: Calling Power Back Into the Heart

Many emotional wounds form when we give away parts of ourselves—our voice, boundaries, trust, or sense of worth. Healing is not about becoming hardened; it is about becoming whole again.

A heart-centered practice:

• Breathe slowly into your chest.

• Imagine a warm, golden light filling your heart space.

• With each exhale, call your energy back from past situations, relationships, and expectations.

• Silently affirm: “I reclaim my power with love.”

This restores sovereignty without closing the heart.

Step Four: Grounding Into the Earth

Shamanic healing is never only emotional—it is embodied. Pachamama, the Earth Mother, teaches us how to release excess emotion and find stability within ourselves.

A grounding practice:

• Stand or sit with your feet connected to the floor or earth.

• Visualize roots growing from your body deep into the ground.

• Release fear, heaviness, or overwhelm down through the roots.

• Receive steadiness, support, and nourishment back into your body.

Grounding creates safety. Safety allows healing to continue gently and naturally.

Step Five: Walking Forward With New Medicine

Healing does not mean you will never feel pain again. It means pain no longer controls you. Over time, wounds soften and transform into medicine—wisdom you carry with humility, compassion, and strength.

As this integration unfolds, many people notice:

• Greater emotional clarity

• Less reactivity

• Stronger boundaries

• Deeper self-trust

• A renewed sense of purpose

Healing is not rushed. It unfolds in layers, guided by readiness rather than force.

A Final Reflection

You are not broken. You are responding exactly as a sensitive, intuitive soul would in a world that has not always felt safe. Shamanic healing invites you to remember who you were before the wounds—and to integrate everything you have lived through into wisdom, strength, and heart-centered power.

Healing is not about becoming someone new.

It is about returning to yourself.

If you feel called to explore this work more deeply, know that this is the heart of what we offer at The Chacana Spiritual Center. Healing emotional wounds through shamanic medicine, grounded practices, and compassionate guidance is our specialty. It would be my honor to walk beside you, support your healing, and assist you in reconnecting with your own inner wisdom—at a pace that feels safe, respectful, and true for you.

— Shannon Davis

Apu Mamma Aku

The Chacana Spiritual Center