Like a Mistuned Car

Years ago, my boyfriend got tired of spending more money than he wanted to on maintenance that always proved ineffective for his used car. The car would run, but it knocked and pinged, and gas mileage was too low. So he decided to learn how to perform the tune-ups himself. He purchased the equipment, parts, and owner’s manual; studied; and performed his first tune-up. However, the car would not start. “Click, click” was all we heard when he turned the key in the ignition. After tinkering around, he finally got it started and made it to the dealer, where he learned that the apparent long-standing problem was that the distributor wires had been routed incorrectly to the plugs. Not understanding this, other mechanics had rotated the distributor cap to compensate, and the end result was a car that ran, but never very well. After 35 years of Western medicine’s allopathic approaches to my chronic and severe skin eczema and hay fever, my body had begun to run like my boyfriend’s mistuned car.

My skin eczema first showed up when I was an infant. Western medicine considers it an unsolvable, genetic condition and recommends merely treating the symptoms using cortisone-based products. For my severe hay fever, developed when I was ten years old, the only medicine that managed the symptoms reliably and without constantly being drowsy was a nasal steroid spray. Unfortunately, because they addressed only the symptoms, I needed to use the cortisone and steroid products constantly. With my chronic conditions, my body began to show the side effects of their prolonged use. After 35 years, I had a cascade of conditions that contributed to overall ill health: an overstressed immune system; allergies to over a hundred foods, furs, and feathers; sensitivities to environmental chemicals, products, and toxins; and digestion/colon problems – plus I still had eczema and hay fever, which returned with discontinued use of the masking product. Like my boyfriend’s car, Western medicine approaches had kept my body running, but not efficiently.

Healer, Heal Thyself

In 1993, when I was returning from another appointment with yet another MD about these conditions, a voice in my head said, “It doesn’t have to be this way.” Unfamiliar with this voice, I nevertheless recognized it as my body speaking, telling me that “rotating the distributor cap” wasn’t going to work any more. Instead I felt urged to learn how to perform my own “tune-ups”. Thus began my search for alternatives to heal my body – a quest that has turned into a journey for health, wholeness, and environmental harmony: to understand what it means to bring balance and harmony to my personal life and world – thereby healing them both.

As I've learning by doing in my shamanic healing journey, in healing, all relationships are brought into harmony; true healing is the result of one’s lifestyle, which involves healing relationships with one’s spouse, children, parents, relatives, community, environment, and earth. Plus I've changed my cosmology to allow room for healthy skin rather than masking symptoms, to allow for my healing to be assisted by non-ordinary beings, and to allow for extraordinary healing to occur outside of time and space. As a result of energetic changes, my body followed the same course of action and has made a healthy response. Today I no longer suffer from the same skin and hay fever conditions as I once did.

Then Help Others Heal

Peruvian shamans believe that “one can never be fully healed until one becomes a healer oneself, helping the sick and the needy and helping to create a more peaceful and ecologically sound earth” (Healing States: A Journey into the World of Spiritual Healing and Shamanism by Alberto Villoldo and Stanley Krippner. 1987, pp 24, 25). 

Today I help others achieve healing in their lives using the shamanic practices that have been so helpful, and continue to be helpful, in my own journey. In addition, I  teach classes so others can learn how to apply these shamanic techniques to help them bring balance and harmony to their daily life. I write articles to help others learn how Inca shamanic techniques can help you achieve the kind of destiny you want. Consider scheduling an appointment today. 

Rev. Laurie Anderson, Ph.D.
Shaman, teacher, writer