Shamanica Institute

10/06/2025

We will continue to explore healing through both the Jungian and the Shamanic lens.

In each, symptoms are seen as messages pointing toward what has been forgotten or split off. Healing arises through integration and reconnection — to the Self (Jung) or to Spirit and community (Shamanic). Both approaches invite participation and responsibility from the seeker: the courage to face what was exiled, and the discipline and commitment to embody new insights in daily life.

From a Jungian perspective, healing means bringing unconscious material into consciousness — reclaiming projections, integrating and cleaning the shadow, and living more from the Self than from the ego. This is the movement toward psychological wholeness and individuation.

From a Shamanic perspective, illness is seen as a loss of connection or purpose. Each of us carries a unique role, embedded in our heart and DNA. When life drifts away from this calling, symptoms arise as healthy reactions to unhealthy situations. The imbalance between what we are meant to be and what we think we should be creates disharmony and disease. Through practices of reconnection, cleaning up, soul-retrieval and grounded integration, we restore our original vitality and path.

Both traditions invite us to listen to the quiet voice of the soul and to bring its wisdom into everyday action and service.

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09/27/2025

09/27/2025

What is healing?

We will look at healing from the shamanic perspective - how shamans see disease and what is the shamanic approach to illness.

In shamanism healing is about fulfilling our life purpose. Each of us has a specific purpose that only we can fulfill. Our purpose is already within us it’s the quite voice of our soul and is deeply embedded in our hearts and DNA. Symptoms are healthy reactions to unhealthy situations. In other words, we are often in situations that don’t honor our hearts and our true role in life. The unbalance between the Heart and the Mind, between what we are meant to be and what we think we should be, creates disharmony and disease. Only when the Heart's longing and the Mind's vision fully overlap our life force is returned. Healing is about learning to listen to our hearts, and learning to trust the longing in our hearts.

The healing process is the -often- uncomfortable transition time between that place of familiarity we all come from, and that new better place, which is still not familiar enough to be comfortable. It means becoming comfortable in a place that is uncomfortable. This is why the healing process is also called a healing crisis. There is no healing without change. Once we are healed, there is no turning back and no suffering through the same symptoms again. The healing process does not need to be painful, but will always contain an amount of confusion where the old patterns, the old self, need to be discarded. The old self needs to die in order for the new self to be born.

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09/22/2025

This week we will journey into the topic of addictions — exploring the pain, the patterns, and the path back to wholeness.

Addiction is not just about the substance or behavior — it is an attempt to fill an inner void or numb a pain we cannot face. Many of these wounds go back to early attachment injuries: growing up without consistent love, acceptance, or attunement. When we carry insecure attachment (avoidant, anxious, or disorganized), we often turn to substances, unhealthy habits or toxic relationships to feel whole, or in control.

Healing addictions is a process that cannot be bypassed. It begins with creating safety, stabilizing the body and nervous system, and slowly uncovering the root pain we’ve been numbing. Plant medicine and therapy can bring these wounds to the surface so they can finally be felt, processed, and integrated.

But here is a crucial point: many addicts initially approach plant medicine in the same way they approached drugs or alcohol — as a way to escape, find intensity, or quickly relieve pain. Without grounding, guidance, and integration, this can become just another way of circling the void.

Another key to recovery is environment — creating a supportive, healthy space that nurtures change. Staying connected to the people, places, and habits of addiction can easily pull us back into old patterns. Healing requires a shift in surroundings, supportive relationships, and a community that holds us accountable with compassion.

We will explore an 8-stage framework for addiction healing — from creating safety and illuminating root causes, to shadow work, grounding, building secure attachment, and integrating insights into daily life.

https://www.facebook.com/events/3312095048944500/

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09/16/2025

This week we will explore two key psychological dynamics that emerge when the psyche is out of balance: projection and ego inflation. Both are natural functions of the mind — but when left unconscious, they can become signs of deeper fragmentation, even the roots of psychological suffering and pathology.

Projection occurs when we unconsciously place disowned parts of ourselves onto other people or the world around us. At the heart of projection lies a split in the psyche: the persona (who we think we are) and the shadow. This split keeps us from living from wholeness.

When left unconscious, projections can create:
Conflict and judgment — we criticize in others what we cannot face in ourselves
Distorted perceptions — we see the world through the filter of our inner wounds
Victimhood and resentment — we lose our power by blaming the outside world

Becoming aware of projection calls us to take responsibility for our inner life and our actions, and see others and reality with greater clarity.

Ego inflation happens when the ego identifies with energies, archetypes, or insights that are too big for it to hold. This can occur after powerful experiences — spiritual openings, psychedelic journeys, deep psychological breakthroughs — or as a defense mechanism to mask vulnerability.

Both projection and ego inflation point to a split within the psyche and, if left unintegrated, can lead to psychological imbalance or even breakdown.

Sacred plants and psychedelics can accelerate healing and self-knowing, but they can also amplify our projections and inflate the ego if not approached with grounding and integration.

https://www.facebook.com/events/24586626547685233/

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09/08/2025

The theme for this week is Grounding, the psychological integration after entheogenic experiences

When working with entheogens, the experience itself is only the beginning. What truly determines whether these expanded states become transformative is the process of grounding — anchoring insights into the body, the nervous system, and daily life. Without this grounding, even the most powerful revelations can remain fragmented, overwhelming, or disconnected from lasting change.

In psychological terms, grounding means integration: the merging of the unconscious and conscious parts of the psyche. This includes the deep work of individuation and shadow integration — learning to hold, process, and include or let go the parts of ourselves that surface in these altered states. Entheogens often reveal hidden dimensions of the psyche; grounding ensures they are not dismissed or bypassed, but instead integrated into personal growth and wholeness.

Grounding is therefore not simply about "coming back to Earth." Grounding involves cultivating both an inner center and a stable inner framework. The inner center is the felt sense of stability within — the anchor that keeps us connected to ourselves through intensity and change. The framework is the orientation around that center: our moral compass, guiding principles, and set of values that help us interpret experiences and embody them responsibly. When this framework is missing, people may repeat old patterns or mistake visionary experiences for completion, rather than seeing them as invitations into deeper integration.

Without this center and framework, we risk being swept away by visions or mistaking intensity for transformation. With them, insights from entheogens become embodied, coherent, and life-changing.

We will explore how grounding restores presence, and supports the resolution of trauma.

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09/01/2025

This week we will talk about Anima and Animus

According to Carl Jung, the Anima (the inner feminine in a man) and the Animus (the inner masculine in a woman) serve as bridges to the unconscious — powerful archetypal figures that connect our everyday awareness to the deeper realms of the psyche. They carry our capacity for love, trust, imagination, and connection. Yet, when unrecognized, they often merge with the Shadow, shaping our inner world and relationships through projection, conflict and poor choices.

When the Anima or Animus remain unconscious, they can fuel self-sabotaging beliefs and trauma-born behaviors — patterns that repeat over and over, keeping us bound to the past. For many of us, a part of our being — our very ability to love, trust, and be vulnerable — has only ever known the framework of trauma, insecurity, or unhealthy relationships. From this, we may even derive a twisted sense of safety in negative or destructive situations, simply because they feel familiar.

However, when brought into awareness, the Anima and Animus become powerful allies in the healing process. By learning to recognize and integrate them, we can transform distorted patterns into sources of creativity, balance, and wholeness.

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08/25/2025

The theme for this meetup is Intergenerational Trauma — Healing the ancestral wounds

Much of what we carry in our lives is not fully ours. The fears, patterns, and pain that surface in us often belong to the generations before us. This is what we call intergenerational trauma — the hidden inheritance of unresolved grief, unspoken suffering, and ancestral cycles of abuse. It shapes our relationships, our choices, and the way we experience life.

In the shamanic tradition, such burdens are seen not as personal flaws, but as energies that live in our field, asking to be witnessed and released. Through ritual, prayer, and sacred journeying, shamanism helps us connect with our ancestors — not only to honor their struggles, but also to return to them what is theirs to carry, and to reclaim the gifts that are ours.

It is also our sacred responsibility to break the line of destructive patterns and abuse. When we choose to face and transform what has been passed down, we become the turning point — the ones who stop the cycle and create a new legacy of wisdom and love.

https://www.facebook.com/events/765902532695013

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08/18/2025

This week we will explore Active Imagination, Carl Jung’s transformative practice for entering into conscious dialogue with the unconscious. Through imagery, symbol, and inner conversation, we can step into a living relationship with the deeper layers of the psyche.

We will also draw parallels with shamanic journeying, a practice found in ancestral wisdom traditions across the world. In these journeys, seekers travel to non-ordinary realms to meet spirit allies, animal guides, ancestors, and elemental forces.
While Jungian work speaks of inner figures and archetypes, shamanic practice recognizes these as living presences in the web of life.

In terms of the techniques used, Active Imagination often starts from a dream image, fantasy, or spontaneous vision, then deepens it through creative engagement (dialogue, drawing, movement).
Shamanic journeying uses rhythmic drumming, rattles, chanting, or plant medicines to alter consciousness and “travel” to non-ordinary worlds.

In terms of purpose, Active Imagination focuses on psychological integration, shadow work, and individuation.
Shamanic journeys often aim at healing, soul retrieval, spirit communication, or community guidance.

Though the languages differ — one psychological, one rooted in ancient traditions — both invite us into direct experience of the invisible, and both see imagination not as “fantasy,” but as a bridge between worlds. They are both great tools to deepen our relationship with the inner worlds — and to bring their wisdom into our everyday life.

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