Shamanic Leadership Path

Living Our Mission

SLP Processes

 

“Mirror-Mirror Clearing”

Often times when we face an emotional charge, the charge itself has nothing to do with the person who incited it.  Often times the charge is related to our own past, our own projections, and our own assumptions about what is happening.  Further, being so charged in an interaction with another can cloud our ability to effectively communicate with and resolve the issue.  To say it in another way, despite where the charge may be coming from, your feelings are still valid.  And, it is important to work through those feelings, get yourself to a grounded and clear space before trying to work through the issue at hand.  

The below exercise is one we’ve affectionately begun calling the Mirror Mirror clearing.  The purpose of this clearing is to help gain greater understanding of our emotional charges and to process through them in a safe way.  In so doing, we move into a clear and grounded space to continuing on with our issue in a way that is safe and held.  

This Exercise is intended to be run with at least one other person (the facilitator), but often can be more potent with a third (a volunteer stand-in for the person you are at odds with).  

IMPORTANT NOTE!  You cannot continue this process if the person doing the clearing (the one who is charged) starts to show or indicate that this charge is related to trauma with a capital ‘T’.  For example, if they answer the optional question 5 with “yeah, they remind me of my asshole dad who abused me”.  You then must Ask the question: have you worked with this before?  If the person in the process answers “Yes, I have moved through that, I have good support around that”, then you CAN PROCEED with the clearing. 

 If the person in the process answers “No, I just remembered this right now”.  Then your responsibility is to manage the emotions that are up for them right in the moment, get them grounded, get them out of the memory, get them SAFE.  Then offer them support through finding professional assistance in working through the TRAUMA. 

The Steps

  1. Identify the charge?  Who is the charge with?  Find a stand in, ground the stand in, ask them if they need support and remind them that at every part in the process it is okay to ask for support or ask to step out.  Have the person clearing to name the stand-in as the charge.
  1. Identify the Data- What did the Camera see? Separate the actual data from judgments, stories, or emotions.   The key with this is to keep them out of a long story. 
  1. Honoring the emotions- emotion needs to be expressed in all the ways it needs to be in order to be really FELT.  

SEEN, HEARD, FELT

Look for incongruities (ie: smiling when they say they are sad).  If you see them, coach them through it until they’ve really connected with the emotion.

 Things to possibly ask: where does this feeling live?  Do you need to say anything?  What does the emotion need to say? 

Always bring them back to the most basic emotions, and there are 5:

                                                Anger

                                                Fear

                                                Sadness

                                                Joy

                                                Shame- I AM wrong ( vs guilt which is not an emotion, it is a judgment of the action- I DID something wrong)

                        Look for qualifiers used to minimize or maximize the emotion.

  1. How do you judge this person?

Go back into your teenage or childhood years, what would you have called this person when you were that age?  Get visceral, use foul language if the charge warrants it. 

  1. (OPTIONAL, this may or may not be helpful. You should really know the person you are facilitating for and have a good relationship with them if you attempt this.) Who is behind this person?  Who else in your past was this for you?  Who else did this to you or acted this way? 
  1. Go back to the statements made in question 4 about the charge.  Ask: when have you been these judgements?  (ie: if they say that the person is toxic, is a liar, is an @$$hole, then you are asking the person in the clearing to think back on times that they too have toxic, a liar, or an @$$hole). 
  1. How do you feel now? How do you think you will feel the next time you see that person?
  1. Are you willing to withdraw your projections/judgment of this person? 
  1. When the clearing is done and the person moving through the clearing is complete, have the person who is grounding speak to the stand in- “you are not (the charge), you are my friend (friend’s name)”. Check in with both, ground both.

 

Shamanic Accountability Exercise

NOTE: This exercise is not about SHAME.  Shame cannot be a part of this to be effective.  Release any shame that comes forward related to this. 

The purpose of the accountability exercise is to work through failed agreements and find our way back to good relationship.  This exercise is more effective when done with a facilitator, we’re simply too good at lying to ourselves.  Although simple, when we’re open to this process, it can serve as a very powerful vehicle to greater understanding of our own shadows.  

 

 

 

  1. What is the agreement that was broken?  State the agreement.

 Example: I said I would be somewhere at 3:30pm.

  1. What did you put before this agreement? (what did you do instead?)

Example:  I chose to do more prep for class instead.

  1. What is the possible impact of that broken agreement? (What could happen as a result?) or more simply- What was the impact on you?  (In an agreement that has been broken between people- the impact on the other is not known.  At this point, any impact on others is only a story you are telling.)

Example: I feel like crap.

  1. When you feel this way how does that express itself?

Example: I get angry.

  1. What do you think is the impact on others?

Example: my partner won’t trust me.

  1. What is the story that you tell about yourself that made it okay to break the agreement? What is the judgment on yourself?

Example: I’m more important than my partner. (my time is more important). I am selfish, self-centered. 

  1. How long have you been struggling with this belief? (bonus question: what is under this belief- where does it come from?)

Example: The feelings of others are not as important to me as my own feelings.  I separate myself from others.  I place other’s below me, I self-isolate.  I do this because if I opened myself up to others, I would be vulnerable.  I might experience the pain of rejection.  I am afraid of that pain.    

  1. Is that the person you want to be?  Who do you want to be? (how do you really want to show up in the world?)

Example: No.  I want to be a trustworthy person, I want to be a person brave enough to build relationships with others.

  1. What do you need to do to let this old belief go? (this might be an action, a very loud vocalization, this might be a symbolic ritual.  It might be nothing.  But it tends to be more effective with a strong energetic release of some kind- like a scream)
  1. What do you choose to bring in instead? (visualize it)

 where do those qualities live in you? 

Example: This could be a physical location in the body- ground the new thing bring brought in INTO THE BODY.  Make it physical and somatic, make it real. 

How do you want to claim that quality?  (possibly another symbolic action)

  1. What do you want to do to come back into right relationship (with whoever you broke the agreement)? 

Set a clearly defined, measurable, ACHIEVABLE goal with a specific time frame. 

Example: I will be ten minutes early to our meeting tomorrow.