The Shaman’s Journey

By Shaman Elder Maggie Wahls

Part Two: The Value of Emotional Control

Intent + Emotion + Knowledge = Shaman

The power of emotion is a subject that few have talked about yet it is a gift given to us of immense value. A Shaman not only realizes the value of emotion but learns to control that power to effect healing and manifestation of all good things. After all, healing is a manifestation of health. The hunter in the forest waits for his prey patiently and with emotional control. He does not shout out when he sees a deer or moan loudly when the day is rainy. He controls his emotions to manifest food for the tribe.

But what is the power of emotion? Have you ever been to a football game and you really got into it and cheered and clapped and when the game was over you think that time passed really fast? Perhaps you have felt this when you have gone to a fantastic movie. Or have you ever sat in the dentist’s chair for 20 minutes and felt like it took forever? It was your emotions that caused time to speed up or slow down. When you are excited and happy and really into something, the time has a way of speeding up and the event passes quickly. But in the dentist’s office your were worried, frustrated, didn’t want to be there, and time took forever. So positive emotions speed up time and negative emotions can slow time down. This is only one example of the power of emotions but I offer this one to start because you have all experienced this in your own lives.

Shamans watch and observe and over thousands of years have honed this manipulation of emotional power down to a science. It is called time travel or time shifting in Shamanic terms and is used to create time to prevent an accident, time to allow for necessary things to occur, time for someone to change one’s mind. The power is in the emotion. Controlling the emotions controls the power.

In the Balkans, the land of my Shamanic ancestry, when someone dies, the paid mourner ladies come into the house and wail as loudly as they can for days. Funerals are met with sadness and seem to go on for a long time. The survivors do not want to part with their family member and so they extend time with sadness to make the time seem longer before burial.

So a Shaman can intend for his own emotions to be sad, forlorn, frustrated, worried, annoyed, to make time slow down and can then get the work done that he or she needs to do.

And what about your emotions? Do you ever think that you have control over your emotions? Do you know that they are just buttons on the soda dispenser machine to choose which flavor of soda you prefer? Do you realize they are about as useful as a can of Cola? Sure they nourish you, but with empty calories and they waste your time and money!

A Shaman will tell you that the only reason for emotions is to manifest what is needed for healing! Don’t waste your time feeling jealous or hurt or angry. You will just extend the length of time of the apparent hurt. And if you want to savor a beautiful thing or spend quality time with a loved one, don’t get too excited about it or it will be over in a flash.

People today run their lives by how they feel emotionally. Every single thing that happens, they judge its goodness by asking themselves, “How does this make me feel?” If you think about it you will admit that you ask yourself that question as much as one hundred times each day. But is that any way to run your life? Perhaps today taking a bath makes you feel terrible and so you do not take a bath but then next week taking a bath will make you feel good and so you take a bath. It becomes a whimsy, a folly, a willow in the wind without any reason or rhyme to run your life on your feelings. And yet, this is really how people judge everything that comes and goes in their lives! How can any decent choices be made like this? Where did we learn this?

We learned to live based on our emotional responses when we were very little. If we wanted something we yelled and cried and carried on until we got it. We learned that expressing negative emotions would get us what we were looking for from our parents and siblings. We learned to manipulate others with our emotions to get what we thought we wanted. And what we wanted changed all the time. Every now and then we would reach a crevasse and not even know what we wanted! But it has always been, “How does this make me feel? I feel good, then I keep it and get more. I feel bad then I throw it away even if it was really good for me or even if I will probably want it tomorrow.” We let emotions rule our life and they are nothing but buttons on a soda machine.

Emotions can’t gain you success, abundance, happiness, right relationships…or can they?

A Shaman says that by controlling your emotions you gain the power of emotions to manifest healing. And it’s true! By eliminating negativity in all its forms in your life you attract goodness to yourself. Positive attracts more positive. By actively controlling your emotions and seeing that each time you think a negative thought you immediately and consciously replace it with a positive happy, uplifting thought, you can completely turn your life around from losing to winning. Many of our modern gurus have written books on this subject. Read any one of them and they are saying, control your emotions and change your life.

Get an attitude of a winner and start winning.

"The real secret of success is enthusiasm." - Walter Chrysler

"When we direct our thoughts properly, we can control our emotions..." - W. Clement Stone

Take control of your consistent emotions and begin to consciously and deliberately reshape your daily experience of life." - Tony Robbins

"A man who is swayed by negative emotions may have good enough intentions, may be truthful in word, but he will never find the Truth." - Gandhi

For a person to build a rich and rewarding life for himself, there are certain qualities and bits of knowledge that he needs to acquire. There are also things, harmful attitudes, superstitions, and emotions that he needs to chip away. A person needs to chip away everything that doesn't look like the person he or she most wants to become." - Earl Nightengale

Be in control of your emotions don’t let them be in control of you. Because if you let emotions run your life you have given up the rudder and sails and you are floundering around going no where.

It is imperative that a Shaman be in control of his or her emotions. Many forces in the universe know what “feel good babies” we are and come to play on our weakness. They tempt us and prick us with things that push our buttons to cause us to rely on our emotional selves. Why do they do this? Because they are not human and do not have the beautiful power of emotions. They are jealous and if they can’t play like us they want to watch us “play” in possibly not very nice ways. They too, know the power of emotion and they know that only some sentient beings have this power. They watch us as we throw it away frivolously instead of taking control and using the power of emotions to manifest joy and healing and abundance and beauty. Can you imagine how silly and soft we look to outsiders?

If you want to heal, think healing thoughts, get excited about healing, work yourself up into a healing mode, really put yourself into it. Shamans use drumming and chanting and power songs and dancing to bring the power of emotions into their healing ceremonies. Remember that football game? Get into your intent for abundance or healing or joy. Sing, dance, and pray out loud.

With the proper intent set in place and the proper degree of emotion as well as the knowledge of the ways to accomplish it, anything can be yours, including a complete remission from cancer. I have seen this with my own eyes.

"There are two trees, each yielding its own fruit. One of them is negative . . . it grows from lack of self-worth and its fruits are fear, anger, envy, bitterness, sorrow — and any other negative emotion. Then there is the tree of positive emotions. Its nutrients include self-forgiveness and a correct self-concept. Its fruits are love, joy, acceptance, self-esteem, faith, peace . . . and other uplifting emotions." - Author Unknown

Many philosophers and psychologists have sought to do away with emotion, so that by eliminating all emotion we can be centered in mind and body. A Shaman says, embrace the power of your gift of emotion but find the knowledge to use it with wisdom in deliberate creation of goodness. Don’t get rid of anything about you. Learn all your tools and then practice with intention and emotional control.

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This is part two of three part series on Shamanism. Part one is entitled Intent and Part three is entitled Knowledge.

I am available for public speaking engagements and have written two books and countless articles on Shamanism.