Using the words “power animal” and “business” in the same sentence might sound a little bit off. Probably because there’s this myth that the sacred and the profane (and in the profane category I’m including things that help us to grow our businesses) are not to be mixed in any way. The sacred should be kept to ceremonies and our morning meditations, right? Not mixed into normal, everyday life.
For sure, ceremonies should be imbued with that sense of the sacred, with the sense that we are doing something deep and powerful.
And at the same time, my helping spirits are so fond of telling me we need to bring more of the sacred into our “real world” life. Our helping spirits are here to help us to enliven our entire lives, and to live from a place of authenticity, truth, and power…and not just during those times that we’ve set aside for ceremony.
I believe (from the guidance given to me by my helping spirits and my studies of indigenous peoples) that there used to be a lot less separation between the sacred and the profane; our ancestors existed in a sort of continual sense of grace, thankfulness, and connection to the world around them, with much less of a separation between the seen and unseen.
I also believe that we are here to welcome in the light. And that as we bridge these worlds between the seen and unseen, any methods and any tools that we can utilize in order to create that bridge, in order to help other people to step into their light, are not only okay to utilize, but also incredibly necessary for a world that seems to have forgotten its way.
And that includes working with our helping spirits to obtain wisdom, guidance, insight, and healing both for ourselves and our clients, as well as tuning in to this wisdom to help us to step more into our own light…and growing our businesses is part of that.
From my personal experience, it has been so amazing to really be able to tune in on a consistent basis to my helping spirits and get help in my business. The answers are not necessarily things that I like hearing; the answers are sometimes like “tune in to yourself, tune in to your heart” instead of hard and fast answers, but it is a very supportive part of my business and my success in my business and I want to be able to share that.
How to connect with your helping spirits:
Understand that this is a partnership amongst sovereign beings (you and your helping spirit or power animal):
Any time we enter into a dance with our power animals, with our helping spirits, with our guides, with our allies, we come to this from a place of equality and a place of sovereignty and a place of saying “this is who I am, in my own body, in my own energy body, in my own soul”. And as we are connecting. But as we start connecting with these power animals and helping spirits that we know ourselves to be sovereign beings, which means regardless of what they tell us or what they show us, we still get to make our own choices.
Not operating as supplicants in the journey:
When we go to ask our helping spirits, we are not asking for help from the Christian mindset of servant and master that so many of us (including myself) were raised with. We’re not asking, “oh God, please tell me what to do.”
Again, we’re equals. And regardless of the being that shows up, regardless if it’s a Goddess, a God, a very ancient being, an incredibly powerful being with incredible knowledge to share with us, even then…we’re still operating in partnership.
We still get to make our own choices:
Whatever information, wisdom, and knowledge we bring back from this helping spirit or guide, we still get to make choices. And those may be wrong choices, (whatever that means). We mght still choose to still go out and use or smoke or drink or shop or numb ourselves. We might still make those choices and we are still allowed to, and those are still part of our path.
So regardless of what our helping spirits show us, in business, in life, otherwise, , it’s still okay to make your own choices. Not only is it okay, it’s necessary. It’s necessary for you to own that power, even in your relationship with your helping spirits and your guides and your power animals.
In a recent Facebook Live, I talked about the ways in which we can posit questions to our helping spirits and power animals, and if you haven’t checked that one out in terms of asking questions and why we don’t use the word should, please do before you do any journeying to connect with your power animal.
Set your intention before journeying:
You’ll want to set a very clear intention for what you’re doing here and what you hope to get out of this conversation with your new helping spirit.
But how do I actually do this?
If you have never journeyed before, no worries. This can be your first journey if you’d like it to be. You may also want to experiment with just finding your main power animal as your first journey.
But if you’ve done some Shamanic meditations, or some deeper meditations that connect you in with guides, then definitely feel free to jump into this from this starting place.
General journeying tips:
1. This might not look like a movie.
Journeying may take a lot of different forms, it might not be very verbal, it might not be very visual, it might not be like a movie. Your journey might be sort of drops of knowledge that just sort of come to you from the gray murkiness. It might be olfactory, you might smell things, you might sense things. So any way that you’re shown information is totally cool and totally valid.
2. Know that you it’s okay to ask: “Is this real?”
Especially if this is one of your initial journeys, you will question whether you’re imagining this. You will question whether this is real. You will question, “am I doing this right? Am I seeing this, is this true?” So just be accepting of those questions, and at the same time, you can still allow the journey to unfold.
3. Find a fave drum beat:
Journeying consists of entering into an altered trance state with the beat of a drum. There are other ways to do this, of course, there are definitely medicinal and herbal ways to help speed you along.
In the manner that I practice shamanic journeying, I don’t use and don’t feel the necessity for psychotropics. And it’s very comforting to me because we are able to come back at any moment, and I find that to be a very safe thing to not only experience for myself but to teach others too.
So you need a drum beat. Here are some of my favorites:
A lot of the shamanic drumming that’s on YouTube introduces animal sounds and rain sounds. And if those float your boat, cool, use them. I prefer just a straight drum beat.
Need more tips before you get started?
Shamanic Journeying Tips for Beginners (Download)
Your first journey to meet your HSOB (Helping Spirit of Business):
In order to get in touch with those power animals for your business, find your place of departure, just like for any other shamanic journey and then journey into the lower world.
Then ask for a helping spirit to help you with your business.
And that’s it. Then you just wait.
What If I can’t tell if this is my power animal?
Your helping spirit or power animal may not show up in its full entirety that first time. You may be shown or given the sense of wings, feathers, claws, talons, paws, or eyes.
It is totally okay to ask if this is the power animal that is here to help support you and grow your business or to help you with questions around your business.
It is totally okay to ask many, many questions of this power animal initially, but know that just like any relationship they’re getting to know you, you’re getting to know them.
So there may be a little bit of grayness there, there may be a bit of fogginess there. There may be a bit of, “I don’t really know if this is the power animal I’m supposed to be talking to or not”, so again, just be with that, sit with that question, sit with that not-knowingness during this process.
And on that first journey, I would recommend that you don’t get into specifics around your business,, that you really just get to know your power animal.
Your next conversation with them can be a little deeper, and then you can start to ask some of those questions around your business that you’re really struggling with.
Initial Questions you might like to explore with your HSOB:
- what medicine do you have for me?
- what gifts do you bring?
- Why are you here for me?
- How can I deepen our relationship?
- Is it timely and appropriate to have an attunement to you and your medicine?
- Is there a ritual, ceremony, etc. that I can perform in order to connect with you?
(And if you haven’t yet heard me talk about how to ask questions of your power animals, check out my tips for asking the right questions here.) Yes, you’ll need to join the group first.
Future journeys to HSOB:
- What am I missing here? What am I not seeing in this situation? Please help me to see another way of seeing this.
- In terms of new offering and programs, you could ask: What else do they need to know? What else would be really enlivening and enrichening for my ideal clients to experience or learn?
- What are my unique gifts in my business?
- How can I incorporate my spiritual gifts into my business?
Establish a relationship with your power animal based on what you learn in your journeys (not from a book):
If you do encounter a power animal, please don’t immediately go and look it up on the internet or in one of those books. They’re all awesome, they’re all helpful and supportive, but your relationship with your power animal and what that power animal is bringing to you specifically is different (or can be very different) than what he or she brings to someone else.
For instance, fox is one of my power animals, and he or she brings very specific gifts in terms of the work I do with others, a very specific piece of mending work, and that’s something that a book would not have shown me about fox.
Allow for dialogue:
Also, know that you can dialogue with your helping spirits. You can ask of questions and ask for clarification of something you don’t understand. If your helping spirits show you something fuzzy, that’s the time when you get to say “can you show me this in a more clear way, because I’m not getting it?”
It’s just like you would have a conversation with a friend; you want to be able to understand all facets of what they’re showing you.
Happy journeying! Let us know how it goes in the comments.
