My Journey From Yoga to Spiritual Mentoring

I was 20 years old when I attended my first yoga class. I had recently experienced a miscarriage, gained quite a bit of weight, and was looking for a way to lose it. A friend mentioned hot yoga and how much she enjoyed it, so I decided to give it a try. I went because I'd heard it could help me lose weight. That was it. What I didn't expect was to become completely obsessed after my first class.

Growing up, I was made fun of for not being flexible or graceful. I wasn't athletic, hated working out, and could never stick with any kind of exercise. I also thought yoga was just sitting around, stretching, and breathing. What amazed me during that first class was realizing what my body could actually do. My legs could be doing one thing while my arms were doing something completely different. I was becoming aware of my body in space in a way I never had before. And for the first time, I found a calm within myself that I hadn't really known existed.

I started taking every yoga class I could get my hands on. Eventually, I completed my yoga teacher training and began teaching. What started as an attempt to lose weight became something I genuinely loved, and it eventually led me into a world I knew absolutely nothing about.

From Yoga Nidra to Reiki and Meditation

At the yoga studio I attended, there were also Yoga Nidra classes. Yoga Nidra is a form of guided meditation that involves deep relaxation and awareness. I'd never experienced anything quite like it before. I remember falling asleep a little during my first session, but I was also fascinated by the space I found myself in. I didn't have the language for it at the time, but I knew I wanted to explore it further.

Meditation itself, however, was another story. I hated it when I first started. I remember sitting there with my mala bracelet, trying to count my breaths, feeling frustrated because I couldn't seem to get the hang of it. I thought meditation was supposed to be this peaceful experience, and for me, it was anything but. It wasn't until my yoga teacher training, when I began practicing more regularly, that I eventually found a style that worked for me. I became particularly drawn to visual meditation and exploring different states of consciousness.

Around this time, I was gifted an intuitive healing session with a practitioner named Lily Nagy. I had never worked with someone like her before, and to this day, it remains one of the most mind-blowing experiences I've had. During our session, she mentioned someone named Michael who she felt was around me. Michael had been one of my best friends from church when I was growing up. He died from a brain tumor when I was in sixth grade, and I had sung at his funeral. I had never told her about him, let alone his name. I remember sitting there wondering how the hell she could possibly know that. Whatever had just happened, I wanted to understand it. I began wondering whether there were things I could sense or experience that I simply hadn't explored yet.

I was working at a yoga studio at the time, and several of my fellow teachers were practicing Reiki. One of them needed someone to practice on, and I volunteered. I remember feeling incredibly calm afterward. Something about it resonated with me, and I eventually pursued Reiki certification myself while pregnant with my second child. As I began practicing, I noticed that I had a natural, intuitive way of working. Instead of following the specific hand positions I'd been taught, my hands would sometimes move naturally, almost as if they knew where they needed to go. I was sensing and feeling things that I hadn't necessarily been trained to recognize. I didn't know what to make of all of it, but I was curious, and that curiosity kept leading me into different practices.

Discovering Shamanic Journeying

I've always enjoyed visual meditation, and one day I came across a shamanic journeying video on YouTube. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what shamanic journeying actually meant. I followed the guided meditation and found myself in what I experienced as a treehouse. There was a tall ladder that led to a door underneath it, and when I climbed inside, I entered a room with a round table surrounded by figures I understood to be spiritual allies and ancestors. I remember feeling like I wasn't alone.

I continued practicing this meditation and eventually realized I could travel beyond the prompts. I could explore, interact, and have experiences that weren't part of the guided recording. During subsequent journeys, I encountered figures I understood as ancestors, including my great-grandfather, whom I'd never met. I continued journeying regularly for several months. I had no formal training in any of this, and looking back, I was exploring something I understood very little about.

In 2015, my family and I sold our house and belongings, bought an RV, and decided to travel across the country with our two children. That December, while meditating, I experienced what I understood to be a message that I was supposed to be a shaman. Interestingly, I hadn't connected the word shaman to the journeying I'd already been practicing. But something clicked for me. I remember feeling like I was home. I also had absolutely no idea what the fuck it meant.

Spiritual Awakening, Psychosis, and Finding My Way Forward

As my spiritual practices deepened, I began having experiences that I struggled to understand. There were synchronicities, vivid dreams, and experiences that felt deeply meaningful. At the time, I felt an overwhelming connection to the world around me, to nature, and to what I understood as spiritual guidance. In the beginning, much of it was beautiful. I felt confident, connected, and was working through some of my childhood trauma in ways I hadn't been able to before. For a while, I felt freer than I ever had.

But things eventually changed. My experiences became increasingly overwhelming, and somewhere along the way, I began losing touch with reality. What had initially felt beautiful and meaningful became frightening. I experienced psychosis and was involuntarily hospitalized. Coming through that experience required stabilization and time. I was left trying to understand what had happened to me, and I didn't have many answers.

I still consider that period an important part of my spiritual awakening. I also recognize that I experienced psychosis, that it was serious, and that I needed medical care. I think it's important to be able to talk about both without trying to explain one away through the other. Over the years, my understanding of what happened has changed considerably. There are still things I cannot explain, and there may always be. I've learned to be okay with that, although it took me a long time to get there.

Finding a Teacher & Learning What it Means to be Grounded

After everything that happened, I was lost. I had so many questions, and I was trying to make sense of experiences that I didn't even know how to talk about. I had enrolled in a two-year shamanic practitioner training program with someone in Seattle, but after about three months, I knew something wasn't right for me. The teachings didn't resonate, and I began questioning whether the person teaching me actually had the depth of experience I was looking for. I left the program, but I still wanted to learn. I just needed to find someone who knew what the hell they were talking about.

I eventually came across a podcast called Why Shamanism Now?, where Mary Shutan was a guest discussing her book. I remember listening to her and realizing that she was talking about things I had personally experienced. And I don't mean the usual spiritual conversations about love and light, raising your vibration, or how everything happens for a reason. She was talking about the darker aspects of spiritual experiences, shadow work, and things that people in spiritual communities often seem unwilling to acknowledge. She wasn't trying to make everything sound beautiful or safe. She was practical, direct, and didn't shy away from subjects that made people uncomfortable.

I remember thinking that maybe this woman had actually experienced some of what she was talking about. And maybe, just maybe, there was something to what I'd experienced, too.

I purchased her book, The Spiritual Awakening Guide, and began reading. I cannot adequately explain how much that book helped me at the time. Here I was, trying to understand what had happened to me, carrying an enormous amount of shame, and suddenly there were words for some of the experiences I'd been having. It didn't answer every question, but it gave me somewhere to begin. I wasn't reading another book telling me how wonderful spiritual awakening was supposed to be. Mary was discussing the difficult parts, too, and I needed that.

One concept that particularly resonated with me was what Mary describes as a top-down awakening. Within her framework, I began recognizing how much of my experience had been concentrated in consciousness and spiritual exploration while I had very little connection to what was happening in my body. I eventually began working with Mary directly, and she has now been my spiritual teacher and mentor for almost 11 years.

I'll never forget our first session.

Mary was quite stern with me. She told me that I needed to get grounded. And I mean really grounded. She told me to stop focusing on spiritual work for a while and put my attention toward grounding instead. Here I was, wanting answers, wanting to understand what had happened, wanting to learn more about shamanism, and she was essentially telling me to stop doing all of that.

And she was right.

Grounding Wasn't What I Thought it Was

For approximately six months, I stopped my spiritual practices and focused almost entirely on grounding. I had been teaching yoga for years at this point, and I thought I understood what grounding meant. I'd heard the word hundreds of times. I had probably used it hundreds of times while teaching. But I didn't actually know what it felt like to be grounded, and that was a pretty significant realization.

Most of what I'd learned about grounding through yoga involved visualization. Imagine roots extending from your feet into the earth. Picture yourself sitting beside a tree. Imagine yourself connected to the ground. And while visualization can certainly be useful, Mary's approach was different. She taught me to actually develop a connection with the earth, to connect my own roots with the earth's roots, and to learn how to recognize what was happening within my body. I learned about cycling energy, mindfulness, and becoming aware of my internal landscape. Most importantly, I began learning how to recognize when I was grounded and when I wasn't.

And what I discovered was that I was ungrounded a lot.

One of the most surprising things I realized was that teaching yoga was actually a place where I frequently became ungrounded. Sometimes I would have to reground myself several times within a single hour of teaching. Think about that for a moment. I was teaching other people a practice that emphasized awareness and connection to the body, and I was having to constantly remind myself to come back into my own.

It took work. A lot of work. In the beginning, I was constantly checking in with myself, paying attention to what was happening internally, and recognizing when I'd lost that connection. I started thinking of it as developing my grounding muscle. The more I practiced, the stronger it became. Eventually, grounding required less conscious effort. I knew what it felt like, what caused me to lose it, and how to find my way back. I wasn't just imagining myself being grounded anymore. I was learning to recognize and experience it.

This changed the way I approached spiritual practice. I'd spent so much time exploring altered states of consciousness, spiritual experiences, and everything that seemed to exist beyond the ordinary world. And here I was, being taught to come back to my body and pay attention to what was happening right in front of me.

Mary also told me something during those early sessions that has stayed with me ever since: the larger a spiritual experience is, the more time it may take to understand it. And there may be parts of an experience that we never understand. At the time, I wanted answers to everything. I wanted to know what had happened, why it happened, what it meant, and what I was supposed to do with it. Learning that I might never have all those answers was difficult. But it was also a relief.

I've come to understand my experiences very differently over the years. I believe that what happened changed the trajectory of my life in ways that have ultimately been good for me, even though parts of it were incredibly difficult. It also taught me something I desperately needed to learn: humility. Having an experience that feels profound doesn't mean we automatically understand it, and it certainly doesn't mean we know more than everyone else.

From Student to Shamanic Practitioner

I continued working with Mary through individual sessions and courses over the years. What I appreciated most about her teaching was that it was rooted in actual practice and experience. She wasn't interested in telling me what I wanted to hear. She challenged me, and there were times when what she had to say probably wasn't what I wanted to hear. But I trusted her because she was practical, grounded, and willing to acknowledge the parts of spirituality that other teachers seemed to avoid.

I began learning discernment, divination, cleansing, and other aspects of spiritual practice that helped me become clearer in my own experiences. After working with her for a year or two, I saw that she was offering a two-year shamanic practitioner training program. I almost didn't sign up because I was afraid. After everything I'd experienced and the difficulties I'd had finding appropriate guidance, committing to another extensive training program was a big decision. But I signed up, and I'm incredibly glad I did.

The training was comprehensive. We studied animism, shamanic journeying, ritual, candle work, mirror magic, psychopomp work, and a wide range of other practices. It wasn't simply about learning techniques or developing spiritual abilities. There was a significant emphasis on discernment, understanding what we were engaging with, and learning when something was appropriate to work with and when it wasn't. I needed that kind of education, especially considering how I'd first entered spiritual practice.

We also explored Body Deva work, although it wasn't the primary focus of the training. I'd already been receiving Body Deva sessions with Mary during the early days of her developing this work, before she published her book. I knew how effective those sessions had been for me personally, and I was fascinated by the depth of what could arise through the body. When The Body Deva was published, I purchased it and began working through the practices myself.

Here was something that made sense to me. I'd spent years exploring consciousness and spiritual experiences, and now I was getting to know myself through my body. Through somatic inquiry, I could begin exploring what was happening internally without needing to leave my body or enter some extraordinary state of consciousness. I found the work incredibly effective. To be frank, the Body Deva approach worked so well for me that I didn't feel much need to go searching for something else. I eventually completed Mary's separate Body Deva certification training, and it remains an important part of how I approach my work today.

What Does a Spiritual Teacher Actually Do?

When I think about what I do today, I consider myself a bridge between this world and the next. I also understand that what I do is a service. That understanding has changed a lot over the years.

I think there's a tendency in spiritual communities to put teachers on pedestals. We act as though spiritual teachers are somehow more evolved, that they've figured everything out, or that they have access to knowledge the rest of us couldn't possibly understand. I've never liked that. Spiritual teachers are human beings. We make mistakes. We have our own shit to work through. We have limitations, preferences, and things we're still learning. Having spiritual experiences or abilities doesn't somehow exempt someone from being human.

I've also had to learn that just because I can do something doesn't mean I have to do it. Psychopomp work, for example, is something that has come naturally to me, but that doesn't mean I need to engage in it simply because I have the ability. I used to think I needed to be able to do everything, or at least everything I was particularly good at. I don't feel that way anymore. Part of becoming a more experienced practitioner has been learning when to engage, when to step away, and when something simply isn't mine to address.

This is where discernment becomes so important. Without discernment, we don't have clarity, and without clarity, how are we supposed to recognize what guidance is actually useful? How do we know whether we're responding to something we're genuinely experiencing, something we're projecting, or something we simply don't understand yet? These are questions I think anyone exploring spirituality needs to spend time with. Discernment isn't something you develop overnight, either. It takes practice, experience, and a willingness to acknowledge when you might be wrong.

When someone comes to me for spiritual mentoring, we usually begin by discussing their previous experiences. What has been happening? What have they noticed? What are they struggling to understand? Some people have had spiritual experiences for years and have never had anyone to talk to about them. Others are highly sensitive, struggle with boundaries, or find themselves overwhelmed by what they believe they're sensing around them. Many are exploring their gifts but haven't had the training or opportunity to develop the skills to work with them.

We begin by trying to make sense of what we can and learning to let go of what we can't. Sometimes that means discussing an experience someone has carried with them for years. Sometimes it means learning how to ground, developing discernment, or exploring divination. There are teaching moments, practical exercises, and yes, homework. I often recommend books by Mary Shutan because I want my clients to have tools they can use for themselves. I don't want them to need to book another session with me every time something happens that they don't understand.

I want the people I work with to develop their own discernment, their own relationship with divination, and eventually, their own way of practicing. Just because someone has a natural ability doesn't mean they automatically have the skills to work with it. There is a difference between experiencing something and understanding how to engage with it responsibly. That's a significant part of what spiritual mentoring involves for me.

What I Think People Get Wrong About Spirituality

There are quite a few things about the spiritual teaching world that bother me, and one of the biggest is the assumption that we're all doing the same thing. We're not. I don't personally use tarot. I know plenty of practitioners who do, and that's fine, but it isn't part of my practice. The same goes for astrology and any number of other modalities. Not every spiritual practitioner uses the same tools, has the same abilities, or approaches their work in the same way. I think people sometimes forget how individual this work can be.

I'm also particular about the distinction between a shaman and a shamanic practitioner. These words are often used interchangeably, especially in Western spiritual communities, and I don't think they should be. The word shaman has specific cultural and historical origins, and there are traditions in which that role carries responsibilities and recognition that go far beyond completing a training program. Personally, I'm cautious when I see people in the United States calling themselves shamans, particularly when the title seems to be something they've simply decided to give themselves. I've completed extensive shamanic practitioner training, and I use the term shamanic practitioner intentionally.

Another thing that bothers me is the constant insistence that everything in the spiritual world is love and light. That every spiritual being is benevolent, that every experience is happening for our highest good, or that all we need to do is raise our vibration and everything will work itself out.

No.

That has never been my understanding or experience of spirituality. Within my spiritual worldview, there is shadow. There is darkness. There are beings and energies that I do not understand as benevolent, and some that I associate with chaos or destruction. I don't believe that everything someone encounters spiritually is necessarily there to help them. And I think approaching spiritual exploration with the assumption that everything is safe or loving can leave people unprepared for experiences they don't know how to handle.

This doesn't mean I want people to be afraid of spirituality. I do, however, think there needs to be more conversation about the realities and responsibilities of spiritual practice, including the importance of appropriate training. There is a difference between being curious about something and knowing how to work with it. I learned that the hard way.

I also think we need to be willing to recognize when something may have a psychological or medical explanation. I know firsthand how difficult it can be to distinguish between an experience that feels spiritually meaningful and one that may also involve mental health concerns. I experienced psychosis, and I needed professional care. I don't believe spiritual teachers should attempt to explain away serious symptoms or discourage people from seeking help. There is a place for spiritual mentoring, and there are circumstances that require other forms of support. Knowing the difference matters.

Spiritual Teaching as a Practice of Service

My understanding of spiritual teaching has changed considerably over the years. There was a time when I thought I needed answers to everything, or that developing spiritual abilities meant I should be using all of them. I don't approach my work that way anymore. Sometimes I know exactly how I want to approach a situation, and other times I need to sit with it. Sometimes the most appropriate thing I can say is that I don't know.

I've learned an enormous amount through my own experiences and through almost 11 years of studying with Mary. I've also learned through making mistakes, questioning what I thought I understood, and having to reconsider things I once felt absolutely certain about. I don't think that process ever really ends, and I don't particularly want it to.

What matters to me now is helping people become more skilled in their own practices. I want them to understand their experiences as much as they reasonably can, develop their own discernment, and find ways of working that make sense for them. I want them to have resources they can return to without needing someone else to interpret everything.

I know what it's like to have experiences you can't explain. I know what it's like to feel lost, to want answers, and to have no idea where to begin. I also know how much it can matter to find a teacher who understands what you're describing and is willing to tell you when you need to slow down.

That's a large part of why I do this work.

If you're exploring your own spiritual experiences and looking for guidance, you can learn more about my spiritual mentoring and Body Deva work here on my website.