Practical Shamanism

How do we face frightening news about someone we love without losing our footing? And how do we make peace with the vulnerability of being human when even our best efforts can't guarantee that life will go the way we hope? In this personal episode, I share reflections prompted by a dear friend's unexpected medical news. I explore how we can be a caring ally while staying grounded in our own lives—and how our desire to feel safe can lead us to search for explanations that inadvertently blame people for their suffering. Healthy habits, emotional healing, and spiritual practices can support us deeply. But they don't give us certainty or exempt us from hard experiences. There is room to care for ourselves, invest in our future well-being, and meet the unknown with compassion. In this episode, I explore: Supporting someone you love without slipping into codependency. Finding support for your own feelings when someone close to you is struggling. Recognizing when the stories we tell to feel safe become victim blaming. Offering empathy and respecting the difference between invited feedback and unsolicited advice. Noticing when fear of future loss takes us away from the life we're living now. Building trust in your future self to meet whatever comes. If you or someone you love is going through something difficult, I hope these reflections offer companionship, perspective, and room to breathe. Want to support my work and be supported by my team of guides?  Check out my membership offer: https://www.patreon.com/practicalshamanism Want more audio content from me? Check out my online academy at https://academy.handsoverheart.com/  Sound editing by Kev Young.  You can reach them at [email protected] DISCLAIMER: The suggestions and information provided here are intended for personal growth and exploration. The content of this podcast is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice or psychological treatment. Please seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health condition.   To learn more about me and my work, please visit my website at https://handsoverheart.com

Sometimes the thing that helps us heal, grow, or change isn't perfect. The teacher may be messy. The book may contain ideas we strongly disagree with. The therapist may be competent rather than extraordinary. The program may not be the ideal one. And yet, when we are genuinely committed to transformation, we can sometimes find exactly the piece of wisdom we need. In this episode, I explore the surprising power of imperfect tools, including the unlikely example of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, a book that has plenty to critique and yet played a meaningful role in helping my parents repair their marriage. I also share some of my own experiences learning valuable things from deeply imperfect people, and look at the ways our search for the "perfect" practitioner, program, therapist, diet, or path can sometimes become its own obstacle to moving forward. We'll explore: Why imperfect resources can still contain powerful medicine The difference between wanting change and having your will truly engaged in creating it How searching for the perfect solution can keep us stuck What my parents' marriage taught me about learning new relationship skills Overfunctioning, underfunctioning, and the importance of learning to fill your own cup Why expensive or prestigious support doesn't guarantee transformation How intention can help us recognize and harvest the wisdom that is actually useful to us Why this idea has important limits, particularly with addiction, severe trauma, or suicidal ideation There is real value in finding excellent teachers, practitioners, and resources. But sometimes we don't need the perfect tool in order to begin. Sometimes we need something good enough to work with, a genuine commitment to change, and the willingness to learn, adjust, and keep moving. Want to support my work and be supported by my team of guides?  Check out my membership offer: https://www.patreon.com/practicalshamanism Want more audio content from me? Check out my online academy at https://academy.handsoverheart.com/  Sound editing by Kev Young.  You can reach them at [email protected] DISCLAIMER: The suggestions and information provided here are intended for personal growth and exploration. The content of this podcast is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice or psychological treatment. Please seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health condition.   To learn more about me and my work, please visit my website at https://handsoverheart.com

Are you psychic? In this episode, Katie explores why that may be the wrong question. Rather than treating psychic ability as a rare gift reserved for a chosen few, she offers a grounded perspective: energetic sensitivity and psychic perception are part of the human toolkit, although they show up differently from person to person and can be developed to very different levels. Katie looks at the many ways psychic information can appear, from images, sounds, and bodily sensations to intuition, energetic awareness, and the subtle information we constantly take in without consciously realizing it. She also explores an often-overlooked part of psychic development: learning how to turn your sensitivity down, filter information, maintain energetic boundaries, and recognize that being highly psychic does not automatically make someone accurate, wise, trustworthy, or spiritually evolved. In this episode: Why psychic ability may be more like musical ability than a rare spiritual calling Different ways psychic information can show up Why untrained psychic openness can become overwhelming The importance of energetic filters, psychic protection, and discernment Why emotional activation and noisy environments can affect psychic accuracy The difference between having strong psychic ability and interpreting information reliably Why guidance from spirit should remain information rather than authority The risks of equating psychic gifts with being special, chosen, or spiritually superior How psychic awareness can quietly support you even when it never becomes a dramatic conscious experience Why basic psychic and energetic literacy can be valuable even if you have no desire to become a healer or professional intuitive Ultimately, Katie suggests replacing "Am I psychic?" with a more useful set of questions: How is my psychic ability already helping or affecting me? How would I like to work with it? And what skills would help me use it in a way that supports a grounded, functional, thriving life? Want to support my work and be supported by my team of guides?  Check out my membership offer: https://www.patreon.com/practicalshamanism Want more audio content from me? Check out my online academy at https://academy.handsoverheart.com/  Sound editing by Kev Young.  You can reach them at [email protected] DISCLAIMER: The suggestions and information provided here are intended for personal growth and exploration. The content of this podcast is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice or psychological treatment. Please seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health condition.   To learn more about me and my work, please visit my website at https://handsoverheart.com

Decluttering can look simple from the outside: sort the stuff, make decisions, let things go, and enjoy the clean space. But for energetically sensitive people, it is often much more layered than that. In this episode, I'm talking about the energetic side of decluttering, space clearing, and what it means to have your belongings be a contemporary fit for who you are now. Our things carry memories, meanings, old identities, hopes, regrets, and energetic signatures. Sometimes they bring beauty, connection, and support. Other times, they quietly take up life force. I share my own recent experience of going through a major round of decluttering and space clearing, including the parts that felt inspiring, the parts that felt like a slog, and the surprising amount of energy that opened up on the other side. This is not a minimalist manifesto. It is an invitation to get curious about what actually works for you. In this episode, I explore: Why decluttering can feel especially heavy for energetically sensitive people The difference between aligned belongings and accumulated inertia How sunk cost bias can keep us holding on to things we are already complete with Why your home may start to feel energetically crowded before it looks objectively "bad" The importance of letting your space reflect who you are now How old belongings can hold dormant emotional and psychic energy Why physical decluttering and energetic space clearing work so well together Simple energetic hygiene supports for moving through the process Giving yourself permission to release things imperfectly Why the payoff can be especially powerful for sensitive people When we clear out what no longer belongs, we are not just making space on shelves or in closets. We are often freeing life force, creativity, motivation, and a more current relationship with ourselves. May this episode support you in creating a home and energetic field that feel clear, nourishing, and truly aligned with the person you are becoming. Want to support my work and be supported by my team of guides?  Check out my membership offer: https://www.patreon.com/practicalshamanism Want more audio content from me? Check out my online academy at https://academy.handsoverheart.com/  Sound editing by Kev Young.  You can reach them at [email protected] DISCLAIMER: The suggestions and information provided here are intended for personal growth and exploration. The content of this podcast is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice or psychological treatment. Please seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health condition.   To learn more about me and my work, please visit my website at https://handsoverheart.com

What if the thing you criticize in yourself is connected to one of your deepest gifts? In this episode, I explore the way our strengths and shadows often share the same root. The qualities that make us powerful, sensitive, insightful, effective, creative, or deeply attuned can also come with costs, limitations, and places where we may not function as easily. Inspired by the idea of "impossible opposites" in online dating profiles, this episode looks at the ways we may ask other people, and ourselves, to be contradictory things all at once. We may expect ourselves to be sensitive and tough, spontaneous and focused, deeply relational and endlessly productive, magical and practical, strong and never difficult. But human beings tend to have internal congruence. Our gifts live in relationship with our limits. The same sensitivity that allows you to read energy may make chaotic environments harder on your nervous system. The same problem-solving ability that helps people create real change may not always translate into pure emotional witnessing. The same depth that makes you wonderful in meaningful conversation may not make you the person holding court at every party. This episode is an invitation to soften the pressure to be all things, all at once. Instead of seeing every difficult edge as a flaw, we can begin to ask: What gift lives near this shadow? What strength is connected to this limitation? What would it feel like to honor the actual shape of who I am? We can still build skills where they support our lives. But we do not have to treat ourselves as defective because we are not an impossible collection of every admirable quality. Want to support my work and be supported by my team of guides?  Check out my membership offer: https://www.patreon.com/practicalshamanism Want more audio content from me? Check out my online academy at https://academy.handsoverheart.com/  Sound editing by Kev Young.  You can reach them at [email protected] DISCLAIMER: The suggestions and information provided here are intended for personal growth and exploration. The content of this podcast is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice or psychological treatment. Please seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health condition.   To learn more about me and my work, please visit my website at https://handsoverheart.com

In this episode of Practical Shamanism, I explore a different kind of pep talk: one rooted not in false confidence or forcing yourself forward, but in remembering the strength, luck, resilience, and resourcefulness woven into your body through your ancestral line. Every one of us comes from an unbroken line of people who survived. They lived through hunger, illness, war, uncertainty, difficult births, harsh environments, bad odds, and all manner of human complexity. Not perfectly. Not always elegantly. But well enough for life to continue through them, generation after generation. That legacy lives in you. This episode is an invitation to breathe into the strength of your ancestral inheritance without dismissing the real challenges of modern life. Yes, being human is complicated. Yes, our instincts can sometimes pull us toward choices that are not especially kind to future us. And yes, modern life brings its own forms of stress, decision fatigue, disconnection, and overwhelm. But beneath that, there is also something steady: the deep biological and spiritual truth that you come from people who found a way. We'll explore how to connect with that legacy as a source of grounded encouragement, how to give your brain the "essay assignment" of showing you where you have already been resilient and resourceful, and how to let your ancestors stand behind you as allies in moving forward with more steadiness, discernment, and grace. Want to support my work and be supported by my team of guides?  Check out my membership offer: https://www.patreon.com/practicalshamanism Want more audio content from me? Check out my online academy at https://academy.handsoverheart.com/  Sound editing by Kev Young.  You can reach them at [email protected] DISCLAIMER: The suggestions and information provided here are intended for personal growth and exploration. The content of this podcast is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice or psychological treatment. Please seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health condition.   To learn more about me and my work, please visit my website at https://handsoverheart.com

What if healing does not require you to forgive the people who hurt you? In this episode, I share why I do not believe forgiveness is always the goal, especially when it becomes a kind of spiritual bypass or pressure to feel something that is not actually true yet. Instead, I talk about the value of working toward neutrality: a place where the charge is gone, the rumination settles, and the past no longer has the same grip on your body, mind, and energy. I explore the difference between emotional processing and rumination, why the brain can get stuck replaying painful experiences, and how self-trust, discernment, and nervous system support can help you move forward without pretending something was okay when it was not. I also touch on practices that can help loosen old patterns, including fire ceremony, transmutation breath, and bringing your attention back to what is alive and meaningful in the present. In this episode, I discuss: why forgiveness is not always necessary for healing the difference between feeling your emotions and getting stuck in rumination how grudges and old hurt can become reinforced in the brain why neutrality can be a healthier goal than sending "love and light" the role of self-trust, discernment, and emotional processing in real recovery practical ways to begin shifting old emotional charge Want to support my work and be supported by my team of guides?  Check out my membership offer: https://www.patreon.com/practicalshamanism Want more audio content from me? Check out my online academy at https://academy.handsoverheart.com/  Sound editing by Kev Young.  You can reach them at [email protected] DISCLAIMER: The suggestions and information provided here are intended for personal growth and exploration. The content of this podcast is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice or psychological treatment. Please seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health condition.   To learn more about me and my work, please visit my website at https://handsoverheart.com

Fear is often framed as something we should push through or conquer. But in practice, the relationship with fear is usually more nuanced. In this episode, I share reflections from a solo trip through southern Utah, including a memorable night of stargazing under the Milky Way at Cedar Breaks National Monument. The experience brought up an interesting tension between awe and instinctive caution. From that moment, I explore a broader question: how do we grow without overwhelming ourselves? Rather than ignoring fear or letting it run the show, there is a middle path where we can listen to our instincts, stretch beyond our comfort zone, and still maintain self-trust. This approach allows for meaningful expansion without creating the backlash that often comes from pushing too far. In this episode: • A stargazing experience that sparked reflections on fear • Why unfamiliar environments activate our survival instincts • The difference between healthy expansion and overwhelm • Why pushing through fear isn't always the best strategy • How to grow while maintaining self-trust and inner balance Want to support my work and be supported by my team of guides?  Check out my membership offer: https://www.patreon.com/practicalshamanism Want more audio content from me? Check out my online academy at https://academy.handsoverheart.com/  Sound editing by Kev Young.  You can reach them at [email protected] DISCLAIMER: The suggestions and information provided here are intended for personal growth and exploration. The content of this podcast is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice or psychological treatment. Please seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health condition.   To learn more about me and my work, please visit my website at https://handsoverheart.com

AKA- Sacred Gardens and Echo Chambers: What We're Building With Our Attention We're living in a time our ancestors couldn't have imagined—urban density, the internet, constant information, and a level of psychic "noisiness" that can leave even grounded people feeling subtly stressed, reactive, or strangely disoriented. In this episode, I reflect on what's universal across lifetimes and ancestry… and what's truly unprecedented about modern life. We explore how our brains are wired for threat and drama, how echo chambers and information overload can shape our inner world, and why so many people are walking around with low-level activation that quietly impacts health, emotions, and decision-making. I also share a shamanic lens on energetic hygiene for the modern era—less about "hostile forces" and more about protecting yourself from ambient overstimulation and other people's untrained, messy energy. If you're sensitive, empathic, or simply tired of feeling amped up by the world, this episode offers a grounded map for coming back to center. In this episode: Universal human themes vs. modern experiences our ancestors didn't face Why root chakra recalibration matters when you've lived in many places (or continents) The gift and challenge of "choose-your-own-adventure" modern life How information overload + confirmation bias can distort reality Echo chambers, polarization, and the energetic cost of contempt and outrage "Head-blindness" and the disorienting feeling of not being able to orient psychically Parasocial connection, loneliness, and the difference between real nourishment and "receptor hits" Why energetic protection today is often about filtering ambient noise, not fighting enemies Practical reminders: calm the instincts, soothe the nervous system, and tend your energetic boundaries Want to support my work and be supported by my team of guides?  Check out my membership offer: https://www.patreon.com/practicalshamanism Want more audio content from me? Check out my online academy at https://academy.handsoverheart.com/  Sound editing by Kev Young.  You can reach them at [email protected] DISCLAIMER: The suggestions and information provided here are intended for personal growth and exploration. The content of this podcast is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice or psychological treatment. Please seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health condition.   To learn more about me and my work, please visit my website at https://handsoverheart.com

After 25 years in practice, I've noticed something consistent: when I do soul retrieval work, the most common place to find entanglement is with parents. Sometimes it's literal soul part holding. Sometimes it's outdated maps, control, codependent resourcing, or an adult child who is still being related to as if they're 12. In this episode, I offer a different way of looking at the parent story, especially if you've already done plenty of processing and you can feel yourself looping. I'm not here to tell your heart what to do, or to insist you forgive, reconcile, or maintain contact. I'm interested in one thing: helping you relate to your parents inside your own mind in a way that stops the energy leak and returns you to your center. We'll talk about the cultural storytelling that shaped modern expectations of mothers and fathers, how the nuclear family model intensified pressure on two imperfect humans to be everything, and why rumination can feel like it's helping while quietly keeping you on a hamster wheel. I share pragmatic reframes my guides often suggest. And I'll offer a metaphor that can be surprisingly liberating: if a well doesn't reliably give clean water, you're allowed to stop hauling your bucket there, and build connection with people who can actually meet you now. Want to support my work and be supported by my team of guides?  Check out my membership offer: https://www.patreon.com/practicalshamanism Want more audio content from me? Check out my online academy at https://academy.handsoverheart.com/  Sound editing by Kev Young.  You can reach them at [email protected] DISCLAIMER: The suggestions and information provided here are intended for personal growth and exploration. The content of this podcast is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice or psychological treatment. Please seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health condition.   To learn more about me and my work, please visit my website at https://handsoverheart.com