Katharine Bainbridge

Shamanism and the Importance of Direct Revelation In Times of Collective Crisis

August 8, 2016 by Katharine

lotus

(photo by Katharine Bainbridge)

It would be very difficult to not know what is going on politically unless you have been living under a rock.

I bring up politics because for the first time we have a reality television star running for President of the United States. We also have the very first women candidate nominated by a major party who could be President of the United States.

The media is fast paced, maddening and confusing at times. We are constantly tossed between hope and fear. Not only do we have the election happening, but also, other issues that continue to push their way into the collective consciousness: the continuing ecological crisis, Black Lives Matter, terrorism, the Zika virus, the refugee crisis and more.

These are not uneventful times. These are very, very potent times. And, speaking for myself, these times can be quite overwhelming especially to the Highly Sensitive among us.

Trying to maintain mental/physical/spiritual balance, self care and courage is a daily practice for me. I do mean daily. Limiting how much time I spend on social media has been very important.

I have chosen to read more this summer. One of the books that I am currently reading is The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine. While written back in 1794-1795, Thomas Jefferson encouraged Paine not to publish his work fearing the possible reprisal and retaliation against him. So it was finally published in 1802.

I encourage you to read it. In the most simplistic terms, Paine is a critical thinker challenging religion. You could say, “Don’t always believe what you read, even if it is the Bible itself.”

One reason I am rereading this book is that I feel that critical thinking has largely gone by the wayside this election year in particular. It is as if we have lost our minds. When we are frightened, we look outside of ourselves for some kind of authority to tell us what to do. When we are frightened, we can be highly reactive instead of aware and insightful.

From a Shamanic point of view, this relinquishing of our personal understanding and power to an outside authority is very dangerous. To subjugate one’s own autonomy and authority to someone outside leaves you very vulnerable. When we subjugate our autonomy we forfeit our own experience. Experience is necessary for growth. What is the best way forward in life for YOU?

I am currently offering a new service in my practice. It is Shamanic Counseling. Shamanic Counseling is very different from psychotherapy. Shamanic Counseling is a method of experience a direct revelation or insight into a problem.

It is a spiritual method that follows the ancient principles of shamanism. It has as its goal “life-enlightenment.” It is a problem solving system for discovering one’s own spiritual power and the wisdom to deal successfully with daily life.

The Counseling takes place over a series of 5 weeks where the client is trained in this method themselves and has the opportunity to overcome inhibitory fears and gain self confidence while acquiring heart-felt wisdom.

This work is vastly different in its method from Analysis as well as the Energy Healing work that I do.

This work helps heal and restore personal autonomy. It is a way of experience direct revelation for oneself. What could be more empowering?

This method may be good for you for the following reasons:

Do you have some important questions about your life that feel unanswered and you continue to look outside of yourself for answers?

Do you wish to feel empowered or regain some important autonomy that at some point you may have given away to someone else?

Have you been diagnosed with a terminal illness and wish to understand more about your own illness as well as the death and dying process? Or have you had an ongoing illness that you would like to understand better?

Do you wish to feel connected to a Universe that is much greater than you are but don’t know how to access that kind of power?

Are you wanting deeper insight into an issue in your life that confuses you?

Do the current events in the world have you distressed and you wonder how you might actually be a part of helping or healing it in a very practical way?

This method provides the opportunity to to realize one’s own personal spiritual power: and the discovery of one’s ability to obtain extraordinary, very practical, spiritual wisdom and answers to important personal questions.

In these distressing times, it is important for all of us to remain balanced, centered and as Shamans say “filled with spiritual power.”

Katharine

SaveSave

Opening Up To The Heat, Power & Transformation Of The Third Chakra

June 22, 2016 by Katharine

It’s HOT here in Southern California. Two days ago it was nearly 112 degrees! Summer is most definitively upon us.

Do you feel the heat? The energy? The increased activity?

Did you know that summer is a natural yang season? Yang energy is attributed to the masculine principle. This makes great seasonal sense since the masculine principle is, as an archetype, associated with the sun. Yesterday the sun was at the Solstice- the longest time of sunshine in the year. It is said that people actually experience fewer viruses, such as the flu, in the summertime because the “father principle” is so present. Some believe that it is this feeling of “safety” that the sun provides that allows our immune systems to be more robust.

In Chinese medicine, summer belongs to the element of fire. Once again, fire is symbolic of maximum activity or greatest yang, which means this is the time of heat and moving outward in nature and we, naturally, move outward into the world.

This brings me to the importance of the third chakra and why healing and balancing it is necessary in our lives.

The third chakra is located in our solar (sun) plexus. It is associated with our ego identity and the color of this chakra is yellow. The purpose of this chakra is transformation. The basic rights that are attached to the third chakra are those rights that are connected to being able to act and be an individual. As Joseph Campbell said, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” This is a third chakra statement.

Basic issues of the third chakra are linked to issues surrounding:
Energy
Activity
Autonomy
Authority
Individuation
Will
Self-Esteem
Shame
Our ability to be proactive
and most definitely our POWER!

Remember back when you were a kid. Remember how incredibly independent you felt in the summer time? School was out and it felt that the days lasted forever. Back in the day when children were allowed to roam free in neighborhoods, we played outside until dinner time. Summer was a time of freedom and endless possibility to experience confidence and autonomy.

The developmental formation of the third chakra is the age of 18 months to 4 years old. In this stage of development we are developing autonomy, language, impulse control, mastery of holding on and letting go, toilet training and defining who we feel that we are.

Children at this stage need appropriate discipline, but they also need support in their autonomy. They especially need confidence and encouragement as well as loads of time to PLAY.

When and if we experience trauma in this stage of development we wonder what happened to our power? The theme of “lost power” seems to follow us around. We spend a lot of time wondering how to get our power back. It is natural and healthy to use our life force energy to move forward in our lives. This inclination to use our power in the world is a natural outgrowth of thriving. It is NOT instinctual to curtail our own expansion, even if we are naturally introverted. It is, however, instinctual to protect ourselves if we fear harm. Blockages and damages to this energy center can create situations where we are constantly blocking ourselves from harm when there might not actually be any harm.

If there is a trauma at this stage we may fear authority figures, we may also find the need to punish ourselves when we make even the simplest of mistakes. The third chakra is the chakra when it is blocked or not balanced that easily experiences shame. Shame creates a wedge of fear that blocks us from our own natural expression in the world. If this is true, we may be afraid to venture outward. Afraid of making any mistakes, we won’t venture outward. If we keep ourselves small and limited we never experience the self esteem that comes with the adventure of going “outward” in the world. If there was severe abuse we may even feel as if our will is actually broken. Our self esteem may feel beyond repair. When we feel balanced in this chakra, life is a class room. We never really make a mistake, we only try and fail and learn to try again.

A damaged third chakra shames us for not being perfect- this prevents us from even trying yet again.

When the third chakra is open, it is focused and directed. It the energy becomes excessive we can become dominating or obsessive.

When this chakra is deficient, we may feel weak and aimless.

Sometimes we feel that some of these negative attributes are just “who we are.” This is so far from the truth! You may have some healing to do. In healing this chakra, the energy of fire must be built up slowly. This is possible, fortunately, through exercise and keeping commitment to being in our bodies and sweating-the natural byproduct of producing heat. By tending to the fires of our own desires and goal we stoke the fire of self esteem and mastery. Knowing what to hold and what to let go of allows us to feel powerful. Like toilet training, it is a big deal to let something go and not hold on. This is knowing what to accept and what to reject. We instinctually know, in our gut, what is right and what is wrong. The solar plexus is a network of nerves in our gut. It truly is our second brain.

If we need to stick to plan or routine that increases our feelings of power and control and boosts our self confidence.

A longer piece of therapeutic work may be to confront the debilitating demon of shame.

In any case, summertime is a wonderful time to focus on healing this area in our lives.

I would LOVE to help you heal. Come on in and see me. I am around all summer long. I will be stoking the fires of my own creative self will and finding new and creative ways to exert my power and play in the world! JOIN ME!

You Deserve To Be Right Here….

July 21, 2015 by Katharine

One of the issues that I see most often when working with sensitive men, women and children is the energetic issue of feeling safe enough to inhabit their own bodies. It is also true that they do not feel that they deserve to be here on earth. In other words, they aren’t entirely living here.

How this imbalance often shows up is in the emotional body as anxiety and a general feeling of being ungrounded.

The first chakra in our bodies is located at the base of the spine. This chakra is our “root” chakra. The sanskrit name is Muladhara and it’s central issue is related to survival.

Our chakras, or energy centers in the body (I work with a 12 chakra system), have certain inalienable rights that are linked with them. We often think of this first chakra as being connected to stability, grounding, physical health, prosperity and trust, but it also says something essential in our development- “I deserve to be here.”

The developmental stage connected with first chakra issues are linked to being in the womb to about 1 year old. This is the chakra of earth and the physical body. When we are in the womb, our physical body is forming. We are becoming a form. In utero, we are entirely dependent on our mother’s bodies- her form. If, for whatever reason, our mothers were anxious about being pregnant, anxious about our birth, or not particularly interested in being pregnant we can be deeply influenced as we develop. We may feel ambivalent about what is occurring on a cellular level. When this chakra is unbalanced, meaning developmentally there has been trauma from before one is born or from birth into one’s first year of life, issues manifest and centralize around the basic need of self preservation.

How this might look psychologically is being overly focused on our physical body and material world. The story of Goldilocks comes to mind: “Is is too warm or too hot?” “Is this too cold?” “I am always hungry or never hungry”, “I am afraid that I will never have enough money (read security).” One might also appear to be restless, spacy, perhaps underweight or have issues of anorexia. On the other hand, this chakra may show this kind of imbalance in the opposite direction of showing excessive characteristics such as heaviness, sluggishness, obesity, issues around hoarding, an overly focused energy around materialism, and even greed.

When I contemplate this expressions of an imbalanced 1st chakra, I do not need to just think of who might consult me for healing work. I think of our culture as a whole.

This disconnect from a healthy feeling of “I deserve to be here” might create the reality that we find ourselves in as a collective. If I don’t feel that I truly deserve to be here, I might not care about how I treat my environment. I might not see earth as a living, breathing body like my own. I might mistreat her or disregard her. I might not even trust her. I might not know what or when is enough. I don’t feel safe enough to be content with that I already have. I need more to feel safe. Landfills are full of things that we don’t need and probably never did. We might over fish our oceans until there is nothing left. We might see the financial bottom line as being more important than leaving our children an earth that they can inhabit.

When this first chakra is balanced, we can begin to feel safe being in our bodies and on Earth as our home- our natural Mother. We can also recognize when we are simply hungry and just fill that need, or find a sweater when we are cold.

What I notice in those whom I do healing work with is that their anxiety is decreased immediately. People often report feeling less disconnected from themselves. One woman whom I did healing sessions with stopped having the impulse to compulsively shop for things that she did not need for herself or her son. Another woman decided that she actually hoarded her money. Although she was always in fear of not having enough, she decided that it was time to start spending money to enjoy her life and not just hide it under her mattress for a “rainy day.”

I see the chakras as a kind of spiritual staircase. We have to start at the beginning. We cannot climb the spiritual ladder unless we have a solid ground underneath our feet. Without this trust in our bodies and our being here on the earth- spiritual development might even become dangerous. If we skip this basic step of “I deserve to be here” then spiritual practices can become a means of escaping earth. This isn’t the point of a spiritual life at all.

At some point, even when you reach the highest spiritual high, you need to come back down to earth and live your life. If one is not trusting of this life more anxiety occurs. As I always say, our symptoms are all gifts. They alert us to where we are no longer balanced and where healing is pointed to. Are we ever finished healing? No, I don’t think so. I believe that this why we are all here in the first place- to heal and then to help others heal in whatever ways we can.

The Archetype of the Clown

August 11, 2014 by Katharine

I was going to post a blog on the archetype of the clown and today Robin Williams, one of the greatest and most sensitive of clowns is dead.

Last week, after watching quite a bit of stand up comedy of Louis C.K., I wanted to write about the importance of the clown, the jester, or in the Hopi tradition the Koshare.

What I wanted to discuss last week was how one of the functions of the clown was to show us our shadow- the dark, rejected and unconscious side of our personalities. The part of our personalities that are incompatible with our socially accepted “persona.”

In myths and fairy tales it is the court jester, the fool, the clown, the idiot who is able to be the closest to the King. In fact, it is only the fool/clown who can get away with pointing out the King’s own backside. The King, often goes to the fool for advice. Why is this? The fool always tells the truth. It may not be a truth that is always palatable, but it is the truth.

In the Hopi tradition the Koshare (clown) Pueblo Clowns (sometimes called Sacred Clowns) are a kind of jester or trickster in the Kachina religion practiced by the Pueblo Indians of the southwestern USA. These sacred clowns perform during the fertility rites during the spring and summer months. I remember learning about these Sacred Clowns during a course that I took at N.Y.U. on Native American Art. I can remember enjoying hearing about how these clowns often did the exact opposite of what was considered to be “proper” in the culture. The Koshare clowns would often fornicate in public, eat their own feces and drink their own urine. They might walk backwards, on their hands, or do things that shocked, horrified or humored the community. I love how the Koshares wear the black and white stripes to me indicating something of consciousness of the opposites in us. We are not just light and we are not just dark- we are a combination of the two. Here in this image the Koshare is handing over a stinky skunk in one hand while offering flowers in the other. What a brilliant depiction of the comedian! We don’t know whether to turn away or to thank them!

To me, the modern day comedian holds the sacred position much as the Koshare does. The comic is the funniest when he can point to shadow in our society whether that be personal, political or collective. When Louis C.K. talks talks about his eating gallons of ice cream then passing out, masterbating and shitting, he is embodying the Koshare. Why do we laugh? Because the clown, like the court jester in the fairy tales and myths, can show the King his backside. We laugh because we know that it is safe to see aspects of ourselves that we assume we alone experience. The clown exposes our “privacy” and puts it all out there- and we find ourselves laughing, not only alone, but often with a room full of people who are also laughing.

This collective encounter with our shadow through the humor of the clown functions as a healing for a society. When we identify with the light side of ourselves only we are out of balance. The sacred clown invites us to move beyond our taboo thinking. It says, “HEY! I am going to show YOU to YOURSELF so that you can move past your shame.. in fact I am going to invite you to actually LAUGH at what you try to hide.” Our being given permission to be a whole person, not just a half is an enormous gift. The ability to laugh at ourselves is essential for our sanity. Bringing our shadow out into the open is something that connects us to others- it does not isolate us.

This brings me back to thinking about Robin Williams. It is not a mystery why many clowns are so funny. They often suffer more than most of us to. In order to actually SEE and or live out the shadow is a horrible burden to carry. There is a reason why comedians stand up on stage- alone.

Robin Williams is someone who made fun of both himself and society. He largely pointed the finger at the insanity that mushrooms out of control when one is fated with an addiction problem. By making fun of himself, Robin Williams is pointing out the excess in all of us and how very little control we truly have.

For whatever was joyful and outrageous in his humor, he also suffered with horrible depression and addiction. He shows us that no matter how much money or fame we might or might not have, none of us are immune to the monsters that plague us inside. Perhaps the final piece of wisdom that this brilliant clown shared with the King is that contentment cannot be found in people, places or things. But most importantly that depression kills. Depression kills and that is not funny.

His death reminds me to be kind to those who laugh the loudest. While offering us the medicine of inviting us all to laugh at ourselves, the clown may be the one who truly does, at the end of the day, stand all alone. As an archetype, we may each carry a bit of this Koshare inside of us. The trickster who does not expose his or her secret pains, who anguishes and feels alone in the darkness of our own minds. In a world full of Facebook “Likes” there is another more private world in all of us that we rarely share with others although these parts of ourselves are not funny and perhaps not even “socially acceptable.” Today, these secret sufferings of mental illness may be the final taboo to bring out more and more into public acceptance, compassion and caring.

I am deeply saddened by the loss of this Sacred Clown. I will miss his showing me, in whatever ways that he could, my own backside.

What Do My Ancestors Have To Do With My Psychological Problems Today??

June 29, 2014 by Katharine

We are funny here in our Western society. Our relationships to family, let alone ancestors, is weakening. We often do not see or recognize that we come from a LONG line of people and relationships that have their own patterns. We like to think in the West that we are “independent” and that our psychological problems are “unique” and “independent” of what may have come LONG before we were even a thought.

For some, troubles in the ancestral line come from the affects of drug and alcohol abuse. For others, it may be cultural and/or religious genocide. For others it may be mental illness, early abandonment, forced labor, child loss and death. I know of an instance where the family line lead back to a murder that took place within the family. This particular incident lead to generations of unspoken shame and fear.

I had a fascinating experience of witnessing a very powerful Nepalese Shaman work with a room full of Zen Buddhists who had various illnesses that they wanted to understand a spiritual basis for. This Shaman did not speak English and her translator was clear and precise in what she commented on.

She did not know people’s family of origin circumstances before she diagnosed certain problems. One man, in particular, spoke of suffering debilitating anxiety since he was a small child. He had been practicing Zen Buddhism for many, many years and while the practice of meditation helped him to stay present with this anxiety- it was not a remedy.

Aama, the Shaman, was very clear that his ancestors had not been acknowledged by him. She described how they had been killed and never had a proper burial service. She went on to explain that they were not happy that this man did not practice their religion. The man was told to perform a ceremony with is extended family, saying the names out loud of those who had been murdered. They were to light a candle for each one. Next, he was told that he needed to perform ONE act of acknowledging his ancestors religious practices weekly. Then, he was told, that he must tell his ancestors that they must finally leave him alone.

Often in my office I hear the focus of our discussion based upon one’s immediate family. The personal father and mother. What is often neglected is continuing on down the family line… finding ultimately the great trauma that has haunted further generations. In this sense, yes, ghosts are haunting us. Most of the time, a ritual of acknowledgment and letting the ancestor know that the individual is entitled to see life differently, through their own eyes can be very effective in healing and separating from a long line of belief systems going back generations.

As Jung says in The Red Book, the dead want to be acknowledged.

Shamanic work can be an important part of inquiry regarding the ancestral line. It is without judgement that we can look into the heart of our families and see the links to our ancestors’ traumas. We do not need to carry these issues. We can not only free ourselves, but also future generations by being willing to shake down the family tree and see where the trauma drops. We may even be amazed that we are somehow carrying a psychological condition that was never solely ours in the first place. We can place this burden down and pick up our own lives with fresh eyes and calm spirit. We can do things differently, we just need to trace back the roots of the family “dis- EASE.”