How I’m Overcoming Fear and Imposter Syndrome as a Shamanic Healer

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Why am I scared to talk about my work as a Shamanic Healer???

This is a question I struggled with for quite a while, and it was a big reason I delayed starting my business. The truth is, I carried a deep, lingering fear of being the odd kid in town. It’s hard for me to pinpoint exactly when this need to fit in originated, because honestly, it feels like it’s always been there. I remember, even as a young child, cleaning my room without being asked just to gain the approval of the adults around me. In early grade school, I wanted so badly to join the other kids playing make-believe, but instead, I stayed on the swing with another girl because she thought pretending was “dumb,” and I didn’t want her to think the same of me.

For many years, this became my pattern: closing off my heart’s calling so I could blend in. But when we stifle our heart’s calling, we also suppress our inner light.

Where did our light go?

There’s a type of healing in Shamanic practice called Soul Retrieval. In both small moments and big traumatic ones, pieces of our light, our Spirit, can break away and stay safely hidden until we are ready to call them back home within us. This is called soul loss, and it happens when an experience feels too overwhelming to hold, so a part of us steps aside for safety.

A Soul Retrieval is the Shamanic technique used to call these pieces back, but this only happens when the receiver is truly ready. You wouldn’t call back a soul piece before it’s time, just like you wouldn’t plant a seed in soil that hasn’t been tended to first. The ground needs to be properly prepared, weeds removed, compost added, and the season must be right, or the seed won’t take root. In the same way, our Spirit needs care and support in order for that part of us to return and stay.

But who would go watch a movie or read a book with an uneventful plot? Every story needs a beginning, a middle, and an end, and every hero faces challenges that lead to growth. Your life is that story, and you are the hero of your own unique, sacred journey. The moments of soul loss you’ve experienced are part of your plot, written perfectly for your Spirit’s growth, and each step on your healing path helps you face these challenges and reclaim your inner light.

To me, living a life here on Earth is a funny thing. Many people in the spiritual community agree that we come here with a plan and a purpose, but we also agree to forget about that plan and purpose so that we can find our way back to it. I have a very clear memory from when I was in kindergarten, walking alone down the hall to the bathroom. I remember a moment while I was sitting on the toilet and suddenly thinking, What am I doing here? Not in the sense of what am I doing sitting on this toilet, but in my life. How did I get here, and what’s my purpose of being here? Needless to say, I did not get an answer at that moment. The time was not right, and I was not ready to fulfill my destiny at the ripe old age of five.

Stepping onto a Shamanic path was the part in my own story where I began to call back my light. It marked the start of a deep healing process, and little by little, I began to retrieve the parts of my soul that had flown away. All of those times I dimmed my light around others were the very pieces I started to reclaim. This did not happen for me until later in my life, in my late 30’s. There’s a part of me that wishes I could go back and shake my younger self and tell her “Get yourself together!” But in my heart, I know that the soil was not prepped and ready yet.

The Fear that Steers Us

This now brings me to the very title of this blog post: Why am I scared to talk about my work as a Shamanic Healer? It turns out, I am probably not alone in this. This is something that many other healers, spiritual entrepreneurs, and creatives experience, especially when in the realm of things that one can’t tangibly see or hold with their hands.

This fear is often called imposter syndrome. It is the voice inside your head telling you that you’re not good enough, not qualified enough, making you wonder who in the world would even seek out your services. This is a heavy burden to bear, and the fear causes us to close off our hearts. Fear is an emotion, and emotions are here for a reason. They always guide us to the places calling for our healing. We have two choices: do we stifle, ignore, or suppress them? Or do we embrace the fear and move forward on the path together?

As I began speaking up about this new path I was walking, all of this fear came knocking on my door to remind me that it was still there, waiting for me to face it. Me…I chose the avoidance option at first!

When people asked about my Shamanic healing, I could instantly feel my stomach clench, my heart rate increase, my breath grow shallow, and heat rise to my head. My first reaction was avoidance. I would breeze past the topic, change the conversation, or suddenly find something I just had to do right that second so I could retreat without fully feeling what was coming up. Classic avoidance.

Conversations would usually go a little something like this:

Other: “What kind of business are you starting?”

Me: “I’m a Shamanic Healer. I provide energy healing and intuitive guidance to help support people with their healing and spiritual growth.”

Other: “How do you do that?”

Me: “Well, I work with Spirit Guides from the non-physical realm and bridge through energetic healing.”

Other: “Interesting…”

In other words, invisible work with invisible helpers from non-physical reality. Sounds a little crazy, right?

Avoidance has its limits, and I eventually began to realize that this was certainly no way to live. I would never meet my goal of changing my career and life direction if I kept up with the same avoidance tactic. Fear was simply trying to get my attention, and I was ignoring it over and over again. When we don’t face our emotions, we dishonor them, and we miss the sacred guidance and message they offer. And how could I dishonor something I truly love and believe in by continuing to avoid it? The truth is, it wasn’t really about what I was doing. It was about me, and the internal fears I still hadn’t faced.

Selling the Invisible

Not long ago, I went to dinner with a friend who asked me to explain my work, what it is that I do, and how I knew I was meant to do this. We talked about my path, the intuitive nudges along the way, the healing I had done, and the ways I now support others through their own transformation.

At one point in the conversation, she remarked how it all seemed very abstract and so different from selling something physical, like an item you can hold in your hand or see with your eyes. What’s funny is, this was something I had often said to my husband. Life would be easier if I was just selling ice cream! You know what you’re buying, you can experience it in the moment, and most people are familiar with the product.

So why would my path lead me here, to a place where I’m offering something that can’t be packaged, displayed, or even easily explained? Something seemingly invisible at first glance?

Life is fleeting. And the deeper truth is that we take nothing with us when we pass on. None of our belongings, none of the plants or animals around us, not even the food. What remains and carries with us when we leave this Earth is our Spirit. So in reality, the service I offer is the most real and tangible of all. Our Spirit is eternal, so tending to our soul’s evolution and truly remembering our own light becomes the most sacred, long-lasting gift we can give ourselves. Every piece of our light we call back, every moment of soul retrieval, brings us closer to that remembrance.

The work I do might be invisible to the eye, but not to the Spirit. When a piece of our soul returns, it may not be something we can hold in our hands like ice cream, but we feel it deeply, and it changes us in ways that can be hard to describe with words. Over time, the effects of that inner change begin to show outwardly. Life starts to feel different, and we start to feel different as we move through our day to day. We begin to navigate life with more clarity, ease, and naturalness.

The work I do brings people back to themselves, to their own light, to the parts they thought were lost or broken or forgotten. And that is more real than anything I could ever sell on a shelf.

Walking With Fear on Our Hero’s Journey

I didn’t get over my fear of talking about my work overnight. In fact, there are still moments in conversation where I feel the fear rising again. I’m still playing out my own hero’s journey, and I imagine likewise you are too.

But we don’t get to fast-forward to the final chapter. Moving through fear is the sacred middle part of the story, where the burden can feel immense, and our healing and growth can be challenging and uncomfortable at times. Yet as we move forward, despite the fear, we begin to gain a clearer view of the land ahead. This is the next part of our journey, where we walk through life with greater ease and begin to serve others with our healing gifts. Change happens within us first, and from there it emanates outward through the gifts we offer in service to the world. This is also the true meaning of stepping into our purpose: reclaiming our light, finding our voice, and remembering our Spirit Within.

Remember, all great stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The story that is you is a truly unique and special one. Never before has there been someone exactly like you, and there never will be again. While we may have the same fear or the same struggle, how you move through them will guide others in ways only you can.

So let’s walk hand in hand with fear, not as a foe, but as a friend on the path to remembering our Spirit Within. May we all find the courage to share our light with the world.

 

Blessings on your journey,

P.S. If this post resonated with you, I’d love to stay in touch.

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A Personal Story of Learning to Walk with Fear

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This month, I have found myself reminiscing about life and contemplating my evolution from my early twenties to where I am now. At times, it feels like I’ve become a completely different person, yet I know that we are truly one and the same. Because the truth is, the version of me that exists today would not be here without all of the challenges, struggles, pain, learning, love, joy, adventure, that came before. 

So much has changed between then and now. Some of those changes were incredibly hard, while others came a little easier. But truthfully, change has never been easy for me. Why is it that, in the moment, change can feel like the end of the world, like life or death? And yet, somewhere deep inside, we know something has to shift. We reach a breaking point where the pain of staying with the old becomes greater than the fear of changing.

And this is what I want to share with you all today. A story from my own life, during a time when the fear in my life felt the most thick and heavy. I had spent so much time and energy throughout my life pushing it down, suppressing it. The crossroad moment for me came through the avenue of a relationship in my life. The fear was no longer a quiet whisper. It had become a loud shout from within, and the pain had grown so great, that it finally outweighed the fear of moving on. 

The Relationship that Changed Everything

The year was 2007. I had just graduated from nursing school and made the decision to relocate to my grandparents’ house. At the same time, there was a guy in my life. Looking back through my eyes of today, I wouldn’t really give him the title of a true boyfriend, because he always conveniently kept that title fluid. Girlfriend when he needed something from me. Just a friend when others were around who he might benefit from. But I was so in love with that man.

He had been trying to convince me to move to New York City, but my family had encouraged me to move to upstate New York to be near them. I think deep down I knew that his intention for asking me to move was not for love, but for his own financial benefit. Fate intervened and the call from my family won out. Something about moving to a big city just didn’t feel right. And looking back now, with a different set of eyes, I can see that this was my inner Spirit calling me in a more aligned direction.

So what drew me into this relationship?

This man had many good qualities. He had a unique spark about him. He was well spoken, social, had a distinct sense of style, and marched to the beat of his own drum. I deeply admired his bravery for being who he was. At this point in my life, I was terribly shy and had a hard time making friends. Being myself felt like the most unnatural thing in the world. And somehow, under all that confusion, it felt like he could see the real me. He made me feel special and gave me the attention I so deeply craved at the time.

But this relationship came with a price. To stay emotionally invested in it, I had to keep giving away parts of myself, which included my money, time, attention, and what little self-respect I could muster. Little by little, I was emptying my own cup to pour into his. And then, the compliments began to shift. One of his favorite things to say when we would argue was: “You’re a waste of space.”

A waste of space…

How can someone be in love with a person who saw her as not even worth taking up space in this world? 

The picture I chose for this blog was actually taken by this very man. He and I had made an impromptu trip to Vermont one crisp fall morning to admire the foliage. This was before the days of smartphones, and I had brought along my camera loaded with black-and-white film.

We found an abandoned house in town, part of which looked like it had been damaged by fire. He suggested the idea to go inside and take some pictures. In one of the rooms, he found a little corner in complete shambles and directed me to crouch and stare sadly off into the distance. What I also remember about this day was quietly following his photography directives, too afraid to voice my own photo ideas.

Looking back now, I see that this photo perfectly captured my life at the time. The broken-down structure around me mirrored the parts of myself I couldn’t yet face. I was too scared to look around, too scared to acknowledge what was falling apart, so I just pretended it wasn’t there.

Up until this point in my life, I felt like a broken compass that no longer knew which direction was North. I went wherever others directed me. I liked the things others liked so I could fit in. It seemed like the right and safe thing to do at the time. I had no direction, so I relied on others to create it for me. I had no sense of self, so I leaned on the identity others created for me.

This man made me feel like he saw the very thing I was missing: my sense of self. So if he saw me, and I let him go, then wouldn’t that mean I’d be lost all over again? Who would ever see the real me? Would I ever find someone who loves me? Would I ever be happy? These were the thoughts that circled in my mind.

Thinking about this now, I have deep compassion for the young woman I was, locked into that false illusion. So lost and wandering wherever the wind took her. So muddled in murky water that she couldn’t see her own light calling to her from within the darkness.

But the choice I made to not move to New York City was a turning point for me. And it was a brave step. I knew I had to cut ties with him. Yet at the same time, I so desperately wanted to call him again. But I had made a promise to myself: I would get through this. I just had to let myself feel everything and take it one day at a time. For many nights, I lay sobbing in my bed with a deep aching pain in my chest. I kept constantly checking my phone for messages, secretly hoping he was missing me as much as I was missing him. But the man who had once been the center of my world had now disappeared into silence. And I felt the cold sting of loneliness and abandonment.

The Light Within the Dark

I don’t share this story to garner sympathy or receive pity for my past. Often our worst moments are our greatest teachers. There were many lessons learned within that relationship, and that man was the catalyst to help point me in the direction towards myself, and for that I am forever grateful. If I hadn’t felt the depth of being lost, how would I know what it’s like to be found? I learned, very acutely, what it feels like in my body to not be on my path. I have so much love, awe, and compassion for the person I was back then. No matter how bad I felt at that time, how dark my world seemed around me, I was still able to find that piece of me that knew I was worth taking up space in this world.

So why am I sharing this story with all of you?

I share this story because we all carry fear in our lives in some shape or form. Sometimes it’s hard to see clearly through it or find our way through the other side. But I want you to know that it is possible to move through trying times even with fear present. Sometimes, like with my story here, we’re forced into changing when the pain of staying becomes greater than the fear of leaving. But what if we didn’t have to wait for the breaking point? What if we could become conscious participants in our own lives, walking hand in hand with fear as we face what scares us?

This is the heart of what I will be sharing in my new series, The Fear Diaries, on my YouTube channel, @wisdombycandlelight. I’ll be reflecting on how I’ve navigated fear throughout different seasons of my life, and how I continue to do so today.

Right now, I’m in the middle of a new chapter. This year, I am choosing to step away from my career as an Oncology Nurse to give my full time and energy to my Shamanic Healing practice. It’s a big shift, and it brings its own kind of fear. I’ll also be sharing about that journey there as well as it unfolds.

Our lives are a series of steps leading us to recognize, embrace, and embody the unique light that we are. If you’re standing at your own crossroads, wondering if the pain of staying is greater than the fear of leaving, know that the light within you is strong enough to lead the way.

Let us honor every part of our story, and walk with fear hand in hand… together.

With love and courage,

P.S. If this story resonated with you, I’d love for you to subscribe to my YouTube channel, @wisdombycandlelight, where I’ll be sharing more personal reflections in my new series, The Fear Diaries.

And if you’re navigating your own crossroads and feel called to receive one-on-one support, you can explore my healing services here. I’d be honored to walk alongside you.

 

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Procrastination Drawing

The Stories We Tell Ourselves: Exploring Procrastination, Fear, and Inner Truth

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Procrastination is a frequent visitor for me.

Even as I sat down to write this blog post, my mind began offering up a checklist of “urgent” things I just had to do first. And yes — I listened. Off I went to the grocery store.

But somewhere between the parking lot and the checkout line, a quiet truth settled in:
This wasn’t about groceries. It was avoidance.

Maybe for you, procrastination shows up differently. Perhaps it looks like scrolling endlessly on your phone. Or getting pulled into an episode of your favorite show.

Procrastination wears many masks. But underneath them all, there’s often a shared root:

Fear.Procrastination Drawing

Sometimes we begin something — even something meaningful to us — and then lose momentum, shift focus, or make excuses. And no matter how much we try to push ourselves forward, the resistance is there.

So what’s really happening in those moments?

What are we protecting ourselves from?

And how can we begin to meet that discomfort with honesty and compassion?

What Are These Inner Stories?

On the surface, these moments might look like busyness, overthinking, or irritability. But often, they’re fueled by the narratives running quietly in the background of our minds:

“I have too much to do.”
“Why does everyone keep interrupting me?”
“If I don’t do it, no one else will.”
“I’m just going to get this done first, and then I’ll start.”

These are more than passing thoughts. They’re stories — well-rehearsed ones — shaped by our past experiences and beliefs. And more often than not, they’re rooted in fear and self-protection.

Procrastination, in this light, isn’t laziness.
It’s fear wrapped in disguise.

Why We Create These Stories

These unconscious responses were created to protect us. At some point in our lives, we learned that it wasn’t safe to feel certain emotions.  Maybe we were taught to hide our feelings, or punished for expressing vulnerability.

So instead of moving through uncomfortable emotions, we learned to avoid them. We create these stories to help ourselves feel safe.

And while those stories may have served a purpose in the past, they can now hold us back in the present moment and prevent us from fully engaging with life.

An Invitation to Honest Awareness

Is it easier to see through muddy water or clear water?

Our inner world works in much the same way. When emotions are left unprocessed or avoided, they stir up the “sediment,” making it hard to see what’s true for us.

When we don’t pause to explore what’s really going on beneath the surface, it’s like navigating through muddy water. Our thoughts are cloudy, our decisions unclear, our path foggy.

To move forward with clarity, we must begin to settle the sediment — to clear the internal waters so that the truth can gently rise to the surface.

Some of us have no problem getting started — we even build good momentum — but then something shifts. We stop. We retreat. We avoid.

The first step in shifting this pattern is being radically honest with ourselves.

I could have continued to tell myself I needed those groceries. That the trip to the store was justified. But the truth? My kitchen had more than enough to get us through the week. That errand was a comfortable distraction.

When I admitted that, I opened a doorway back to myself — and my truth.

How We Can Begin to Work Through This

Healing begins with awareness.

When you notice yourself procrastinating, take a moment to pause. Bring your attention inward. Ask yourself gently:

  • What am I feeling?
  • Where is it in my body?
  • What does it feel like?

For me, procrastination often shows up as a heaviness in my shoulders — like I’m wearing invisible lead shoulder pads. I also feel a tug in my chest, like a string is pulling me toward the distraction, away from the discomfort.

By tuning into these subtle cues, we soften the edges of whatever pain is hiding underneath. We begin to create space — not to force ourselves into action, but to meet ourselves with presence and compassion.

That’s where healing begins, not through force, but through gentleness.

If you find yourself stuck in old patterns, unsure why you can’t move forward, know this:
You’re not broken. You’re human. And healing is possible.

When we learn to listen — truly listen — to the stories we tell ourselves, we begin to write new ones.

Stories rooted in honesty and self-compassion.

 

 

 

Ready to explore your inner stories?

If these words are landing with you — if you feel that quiet call beneath the surface — know you’re not alone.

Healing is a journey we don’t have to walk in isolation. Sometimes, the bravest step is simply saying, I’m ready to see what’s beneath this fear and resistance.

If you’re struggling with blind spots in your life, a one-to-one healing session can be a helpful guide — like a signpost on your healing journey. I invite you to explore my website, resources, and services, and if it feels right, reach out when you’re ready. 

For more insights and inspiration, feel free to connect with me on YouTube and TikTok—where I share healing tips, shamanic wisdom, and stories to support your journey.

I would be honored to walk beside you as you transform fear and old wounds into wholeness, self-love, and a deeper connection with your Spirit Within.

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