For those of you who know Human Design, I am a 4/6 profile “on the roof.” That means that I am in a life-cycle where I am watching others to see what works and what doesn’t. I have a few more years of learning before I can come “off the roof”.
I’m also deeply responsible by Design. I’m a big lover of humanity and this world. Sometimes, I can just watch. But, every once and a while, I have to jump off the roof and speak up.
I’ve been accidentally dropping plates and bowls on my tile floor all week. Each time I break a dish, the sound of the glass shattering seems to be shattering my soul, waking me up and pushing me forward to speak my truth.
We are in a crucial time on this planet. We are entering an era of sustainable peace and to grow into this era, we have to grow in consciousness AND take strong, third-dimensional actions that will support us in our evolution. We have to be honest and courageous. We have to be willing to stare into the face of the things we might not want to look because sometimes we have to push against the darkness to consciously reach for the light.
Please forgive me if my tone seems harsh. It is not intended to be rough. If the energy of this blog post hits you in a way that is disturbing, I gently ask you to please see what is within yourself first that may be triggering this response. My intention is to invite us all, as Lightworkers, to check in with ourselves and be accountable for our own consciousness and actions.
I have watched the metaphysical community turn a blind eye to tragedy and trauma because it wasn’t “positive” and it created “negative” energy. I find it baffling that a community who sees their consciousness of the Divine within as Source could be so easily knocked off center by the reality of what is taking place on the planet right now.
If we believe that the projections of our own consciousness creates our reality and what is in our reality is some of the stuff we read on the CNN news page, then, by GOD, don’t we want to be darn sure that we’re constantly and consistently realigning our consciousness with Love and Source so that we can create a more abundant, more peaceful and more loving world?
I know we don’t CAUSE the bad stuff to happen but, as humans and Divine Siblings, we are responsible for taking care of each other. Hiding our heads in the sand is not going to make it go away. Shifting our consciousness and deliberately creating the possibility of something better, something MORE ABUNDANT and aligned with what we know as Source is crucial. And so is delivering food, water and creating safety and shelter for each other, (among other things).
Recently I was given the great honor to publish a very important book by Shawna Bowen about the Sedona Sweat Lodge deaths. On October 8, 2009, three people died, nineteen people were physically injured and an untold number of people were psychologically and spiritually wounded when a sweat lodge ceremony, conducted as part of a personal growth retreat hosted by best-selling author and speaker, James Arthur Ray went horribly wrong.
Shawna Bowen was a witness to the aftermath of this tragedy. In her book, Never Again, Shawna chronicles the events leading up to and following that terrible day. In this book Shawna shares her insights and unique perspectives as a both a student and a teacher in the personal growth field.
Shawna reveals the dark side of the personal growth industry and issues a call to both teachers and consumers to act with integrity, honor and to always trust your own guidance, no matter what the "experts" may be urging you to do.
By all accounts, this book is an empowering statement to all of us who are both teachers and consumers in the self-help industry. This story is not about blame, finger-pointing or anger. It is an important wake-up call to all of us to check in and make sure we are truly operating in our work, our practices and our lives with the intention to serve the highest good of all.
In spite of this powerful intention, this book is being pushed aside by some members of the metaphysical community, dodged and thrown about like the proverbial “hot potato”. While many people are saying that this message is important, we are struggling to create venues where Shawna can share her story and create a platform for open and honest dialogue about the Sedona Sweat Lodge tragedy and what we need to do in the self-help industry to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.
I agreed to publish this book because it struck a nerve for me personally. Before I was an abundance teacher, I worked for several years as a professional psychic medium. I always HATED working as a medium because my clients were always in a very vulnerable place and, being a very logical person in some ways, I wanted to see the “proof” that what I was experiencing was real. My nervousness has always made me use my language carefully, wary of presenting information in an unquestionable and indisputable way. I always saw my role more as translator, rather than messenger.
It wasn’t unusual for many of my clients to have had several readings by other psychics who had told them things that seemed “wrong” or were unsettling and they felt compelled to keep searching for answers. I have also met people who were devastated by bad readings and gave up looking for answers.
Sometimes the stories my clients would share with me about “bad” readings would make me very angry. I couldn’t understand how other psychics could take advantage of people in such obvious pain.
I like that being a psychic makes me nervous and uncomfortable. I think my nervousness keeps me honest. I have always believed that I never tell someone something they don’t already know…they just want confirmation. If a client resists me strongly, I will always encourage my client to trust their own knowingness. In fact, this is one of the primary reasons I started teaching psychic development classes. I like it much better when my clients are their own psychics!
Lightwork is not a science. It is always subject to our own interpretation and our own conditioning. How we see information is often filtered through our own experiences and beliefs. As responsible Light workers, we owe it to our clients to present information in a way that allows our clients to interpret along with us. Yes, that DOES mean that sometimes you, the psychic, have to ask a lot of questions. But I’ll take a psychic who asks a lot of questions over a psychic who makes bold, indisputable claims any day!
I eventually went on to teach abundance classes. As part of my process of growing into a teacher, I was an avid prosperity consciousness student and I attended every seminar I could. People who are desperate for money seemed even more vulnerable than grieving loved ones. Desperate people can sometimes make some desperate choices.
In countless prosperity seminars, I witnessed people on the edge of foreclosure and bankruptcy run to the back of the room with their credit cards held high, ready to plunk down up to $60,000.00 for programs that guarantee they will be wealthy in six months (or less!!). I can’t tell you how many of these people I have had as clients and students six months later.
I have watched many well-dressed, muscled men in shiny double-breasted suits talk about how making money is our responsibility as Divine Beings and that if you’re broke, it’s all your fault. I have watched people who know better than to spend $60,000.00 they don’t have, leave these workshops dejected and broken, feeling even more “less than” than when they walked in.
I certainly have had some of those feelings and experiences.
I actually attended a free James Ray seminar about five years ago. I was scheduled to have James Ray on as a guest on my radio show and, after almost up-chucking during his 90-minute presentation and sales-pitch, I canceled the interview because I could not, in good conscience, host him on my show.
I believe that the James Ray tragedy is a wake-up call to all of us. And as people on the leading-edge of consciousness, we MUST come together and dialogue about what is in front of us. The self-help industry has no real way of policing itself. There is a danger in this industry that we don’t often talk about.
I have read comment threads after news articles calling the victims of the Sedona tragedy “stupid” for following James Ray and for being willing to spend over $10,000.00 to attend his Spiritual Warrior retreat that ended so terribly.
Many of us use techniques that are designed to assist our clients to “re-wire” their neurobiology. We know subliminal and hypnotic techniques designed to trick the brain into accepting new ideas and programming. It is easy to apply these techniques and manipulate people, if you are not clear about your role as healer and if your intentions are less than honest.
Our clients trust us. They look to us for support, guidance and sometimes help with healing. With the purest of intentions to grow and make their lives better, they turn to us and, before they reach awareness of their own power, transfer their power to us to help them.
Our clients are not “stupid.” They are vulnerable and open to growth and transformation.
Sometimes the dark side can sneak up on you. The ego gets seduced and, if you aren’t clear about the role of your own ego, it’s easy to see how things can get messy and convoluted very quickly. Sometimes we are motivated by needs and beliefs we aren’t always aware of. I believe that is what happened to James Ray.
I don’t think it will ever work to regulate this industry. It evolves too quickly and, because of the difficulty of measuring parameters for validity and accountability, it’s too hard to make good rules. Many people seek help from us because a traditional, more regulated approach hasn’t worked.
That leaves it to each and every one of us, on a personal level, to agree to be our own “police”. Here are a few simple guidelines that we should consider for ourselves.
I’m going to list them below and I look forward to any others that you think should be posted here:
1. Always see your client as healed, not broken. Your job is to help them see themselves as healed.
2. Walk your talk. Be honest. Admit when you don’t know or if you are in over your head.
3. Set your intention to be of the greatest service to your client and allow the Creator to work through you. You don’t heal your clients. They heal themselves. You just give them a gentle nudge sometimes…even Jesus didn’t claim to heal people.
4. Never convince someone who doesn’t have the money to beg, borrow, steal or whatever they need to do to procure the funds if they can’t afford your workshops, services or trainings. Always offer free resources on your website that they can benefit from while they are shifting their money consciousness. Sometimes it’s just not right timing. And sometimes potential clients have to learn what they have to learn to be ready for the next level.
5. If a client isn’t a good fit, let them go and support them in finding someone who is.
6. Never judge your clients or potential clients.
7. Don’t make promises you can’t guarantee or keep.
8. Always speak to your client in terms of possibilities and probabilities. The future can shift on a dime. You want to help your client understand and master new patterns so that the probability of their outcome changes in their favor.
9. Always tend to your own evolution. You can only lift someone up to the degree to which you yourself are lifted. Stay humble and honest with yourself.
When we are faced with “negative” or “dark” things, like the deaths in Sedona or some of the many tragedies on the planet, as Lightworkers, we cannot turn away. These tragedies are here to help us define what we’d rather be experiencing on the planet instead. Use tragedy to construct a vision of what you’d rather see happened, then hold that vision, knowing that it is Truth and begin to look for evidence that it’s already starting to come into form.
Then get to work making it happen with your own two hands.
When we turn away, we judge a situation as “bad” and the denial only creates more of what we are seeking to avoid. We have to give our attention to potential solutions rather than ignoring what isn’t going away at the moment.
This is not a time for hiding or blaming, running or denying. That is what James Ray allegedly did. I wonder how the outcome might have been different if he had stood up from the very start and stated something like this:
“Wow. Something really terrible and horrifically sad has happened. I don’t know how it happened but I am committed to discovering exactly what happened so that it doesn’t happen again. And, I’m going to do a serious search of my own mindset and consciousness to see what my part of creating the energy associated with this terrible tragedy played. I am truly, truly sorry to the people who were killed and hurt and to their families. I am deeply remorseful. Please let me know what I can do to help and support you in your healing from this event. I am removing myself from a position of teacher and leader as I need to tend to my own personal growth and evolution.”
We are in an era of authenticity and integrity. Things that are out of alignment with integrity can only fall away. We need to honor those brave souls like Shawna Bowen, who have the courage to speak the truth and are willing to accept the consequences. They are helping us deepen our intention and co-create a new world.
In our dying days and in the time that follows our death, we never wonder if we made enough money, if we were famous enough or if we got enough testimonials and kudos for a job well done. Our only question as we savor our last breaths is this, “Did I love enough?”
As Lightworkers, I pray that your answer is a resounding YES! Love is the only true legacy we leave on this planet.
Love your creator, love each other, love yourselves and trust that everything is in Divine Order, even if it looks messy right now. Have the courage to take a good long look at the darkness and use it to push against to spread even MORE light!
Love,
Karen
p.s.
If you’d like to learn more about Shawna and her book, Never Again, please visit: http://www.shawnabowenbooks.com
Make sure you download the Introduction by Jim Tree-Gilmore. He shares some important insights about how this event impacted the Native American communities in Northern Arizona .
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