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Thursday, 21 August 2008

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Inner Gardening: Change your Garden, Change your Life

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Written by by Jill Raiguel, MFT

...inner gardening,
can be a powerful
tool for healing
and personal
transformation.

Like so many teachers, my position was cut back at school, so I decided to do some “inner gardening”. I pulled some weeds in my inner garden; next I planted poppy seeds to represent “seeding” new work. In a few minutes I could see red, orange, yellow and white poppies blooming. That was on a Wednesday. Monday the phone range with two new clients; Tuesday I had an interview for an opening at another University.

Even more dramatic, Dr. Hank Wesselman, author of Journey to the Sacred Garden and teacher of shamanism, talks about a cancer patient who vigorously cleaned out her inner garden and cleared up her cancer.

A former client of mine saw a shipwreck in her inner garden that she knew represented her divorce. She began removing and dismantling the wreck over the next months, and watched her stormy relationship with her ex-husband smooth out.

To be an effective inner gardener you need to set a strong intension to have something positive happen in your life; then set aside some quiet, uninterrupted time to journey into a deep shamanic visualization. Ask to see something in your garden that represents a block or problem you are having. Ask what has been the lesson and what has been the gift this problem has taught you? Then ask an angel, guide or spirit ally to remove it. Plant or create something in your garden that represents your new, healed and vital life. Observe your outer life for the next little while. Of course, there are no guarantees, but inner gardening, as well as other shamanic techniques, can be powerful tools for healing and personal transformation.

Inner Gardening is just a small part of shamanism––an ancient set of techniques that most traditional peoples practiced for thousands of years and indeed many still practice today. It involves accessing what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious by deep vision work or journeying. Dr. Wesselman believes we are all “hard-wired” to vision, it is in our DNA. With a little training, everyone can learn to journey, create an inner garden, work with plant spirits, connect with a spiritual ally, remove blocks and call back missing parts of ourselves––what traditional peoples call soul retrieval.

In my own case, shamanism has transformed, reorganized, revitalized and healed me. After a severe car accident, I had a herniated disc and lost the use of my hands and arms for three years. UC Irvine Medical School said I had permanent nerve damage in my arms and hands, and I would never have the full use of them again. A few months later my mom and dad both died. Needless to say, I was in emotional and physical pain and very depressed. None of my usual therapy techniques were working.

A friend said you’ve had a soul loss, so I tried a session of soul retrieval. I didn’t think much happened. However, over the next months I began to feel joy, sing in the shower, wanting to work again, and the other treatments I was doing began working. Now, I am completely healed.

I don’t think shamanism regrew my damaged nerves, but it did remove emotional barriers and bring back parts that had dissociated from shock and loss, so my body could heal itself.

After this experience, I trained to be a shamanic practitioner myself. Over the last seven years, working with hundreds of people, I have found shamanism is powerful and fast, and can clear up issues that have been stuck for years––often in one or two sessions. Several thousand shamanic practitioners practice in the US, and they have found depression, abuse, trauma, loss, chronic failure, procrastination and other issues that are stuck, seem to respond well when treated with shamanic techniques. Our professional association, the Society for Shamanic Practitioners, has a list of trained people on their website, www.shamansociety.org.

Jill Raiguel has been a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Reiki practitioner for over 30 years, and is currently an adjunct professor at Cal Poly Pomona. Author of four books she has a private soul retrieval practice and teaches shamanism nationwide.

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