Patrick Hinchcliff

Recently, I had the pleasure of recording The Power Path Training: Living the Secrets of the Inner Shaman with husband-and-wife teachers and shamanic practitioners José and Lena Stevens. In the course of our days together in the studio, I encountered a number of concepts that I found I could immediately put into practice in my own life with powerful results.

At the core of their teaching is the idea that we are part of a vast web of relationship, and that the universe is brimming with beings and powers who can serve as allies in our own unfolding. In fact, in their view, everything in our environment—not only the spirits or totems we might normally think of as power animals, but natural forces like wind and water, heavenly bodies like the sun and stars, as well as other humans past and present—can offer us support and serve as medicine to help bring us into balance. All these sources of power are available to us at every step of the journey.

But the Stevens teach that the key to accessing that power and using it wisely lies in mastering our relationship to ourselves—as bodies, as emotional and mental beings, and as pure spirit. To act from our essence—our true nature as spirit—we must identify the fears and desires of the false personality, learning to navigate the world from a place of neutrality instead of reactivity. Shifting from the reactivity of the personality to the neutrality of spirit is not a one-time choice, but rather the result of thousands of small choices.

Since the recording, I’ve tried to remember in moments of reactivity (with varying degrees of success) that my reactions have an impact in ways I can’t possibly fathom. I’ve tried to see those situations that throw me out of neutrality not as problems, but as gifts that show me where I have work to do, where my fears and desires get in the way of clear seeing.

Perhaps the most powerful practice I’ve worked to do as I move through my day is simply to pause and recognize all the allies working on my behalf all the time. It’s easy to forget the miraculous blessing of just being here—of being on this planet in the whole vast galaxy, just far enough from the nurturing sun that we can survive; of living in a place where there is food and water and a culture which allows some degree of ease; of being among other humans who love us and whom we love; of breathing this air that sustains us. I’ve found that cultivating this underlying sense of gratitude helps me maintain equilibrium when things go “wrong” and equanimity when “problems” arise.

What habitual reactions prevent you from living from your essence? And what allies are available, right now in this moment, to support you in acting in love, from your deepest nature?