Sandra Ingerman - Welcome Home

Welcome Home: Following Your Souls Journey Home is for all people who are ready to move away from their past woundedness and refocus their energy on creating a positive present and future.

If you have been on a healing journey for a whilewhether through traditional or alternative counseling, spiritual methods, or traditional or alternative physical healingthis book is for you. Do you know that there is life after healing? Do you know how to shift out of an illness model to create your life differently than you have in the past?

Welcome Home addresses the issues that we need to examine as we change the direction of our livesit is a guide for shifting our focus to the present and the future. Each chapter includes step-by-step exercises that will help you tap into your own creative potential. This is a book that you should read at your own pace, taking the actions appropriate for you at the end of each chapter.

Welcome Home is about taking responsibility for creating a better future. No one is going to do it for younot the government, not organized religion, not science, and certainly not a mothership from outer space. You must be personally responsible for creating a positive future for yourself and this planet. This means clarifying who you are and what your gifts, strengths, and belief systems are and then making changes in your life. It means becoming your own authority and taking actionnow!

This book allows no place for guilt, judgment, or blame, which are all associated with the illness model. We are looking at a life in which energy is directed toward healthy ways of being that allow us to make choices and to grow. You have made the choice to read this book. When you dont agree with me or you dont understand what I am saying, you can simply recognize that. You can embrace the information that makes sense and serves you in your growth process, and you can ignore any information that is not part of your journey now.

Healing is in many ways a lifelong process, and those of us who have been in the therapy loop and in a healing process for some time must decide whether it is time to redirect our energy. This book is for people who have already done much of their healing work; it is not for those who have not yet begun. We cant deny that there are wounds in our past; but at a certain point, each of us must stand up and say, I have different tools available to me now. I have done enough work on what went wrong, and its time to focus on making life right.

Welcome Home: Following Your Souls Journey Home addresses several themes:

• Envisioning a future by redirecting our creative energies away from the illness of the past to the healthy needs of the present and future
• Receiving healing energy from the Universe
• Having passion for life
• Raising our awareness of how we communicate and treat others on an energy level
• Setting boundaries between ourselves and others as we tap into our creativity and vision
• Letting go of limiting beliefs from the past, thus freeing our creativity
• Staying centered in times of change by developing a strong identity
• Creating a positive future by knowing ourselves and remembering the gifts and talents we brought into this world
• Understanding our own creative power and not expecting an outside force to make things better for us
• Expressing our own soul
• Leaving human law to return to nature and its cycles
• Moving from self-focus to a more global focus
• Bringing honesty, integrity, and compassion back into our personal relationships and business communities
• Healing some of the scars we have left on the earth.

This is not a book about shamanism, although I will share some shamanic practices with you. This book comes from what I have learned in my own shamanic journeys, in working with clients, and in teaching workshops. What you need to know about shamanism to understand what I am talking about here is included in the chapters that follow. For readers who want a deeper understanding of shamanism, the appendix provides an explanation of some of the basic principles.

This book is written for people who have been on various healing paths. Because my own background is in shamanic counseling and healing, many of my case studies will include shamanic experiences. The individuals who appear in the case studies are composites created from real situations; they do not represent specific individuals. But please realize that all healing paths bring us to the same place. This book starts where healing practices leave off: how to continue with our own lives and spiritual paths after the healing has occurred, whatever method was used.

The system of shamanism is a path to accessing spiritual information, and I share some of the teachings that come to me from my spiritual teacher, Isis. I originally met Isis a few years ago when I felt the need to go on a vision quest. Although my own shamanic journeying gives me much of the guidance I need, I wanted some time alone to allow a vision of where my path was heading.

I began to work with a Native American man who was going to facilitate my vision quest. He asked me to fast on only fruit for thirty days before I went out for my vision. Because of the fast, I found myself entering into a semi-altered state even before the vision quest began. About a week before the time for my quest, he called to say he had broken his foot and would not be able to facilitate my work.

I was already on my vision quest, so canceling was out of the question. I finally found a woman who would take over and went out to her home in the country, ready to do my vision quest in a strict way. I was planning on being out and awake in nature for four days and three nights. The woman asked me to stay flexible and not to have such rigid rules about how to be during this time. When I told her that I wanted to work in a traditional way, she assured me that there was no rigid traditional way. To teach me about flexibility, she marked my sitting circle with blue corn for one acre around. (In a typical vision quest the circle is just big enough to include the persons sitting body.)

In July in northern New Mexico, the weather is quite hot. Between fasting on fruit for one month and now having no food or water, I was entering a very altered state. I sat quietly and patiently waiting for something to happen. By midday I had been stung by an insect, though I never saw what stung me, and I had a huge welt on my arm. A few hours later, still in the heat of the day, I saw a vision of a very old Native American grandmother walking toward me. She said, If you want a vision, go into the sweat lodge on this land and go to sleep. Your vision will come in a dream.

I struggled for a while with this information. I still had such a rigid idea about how my vision was supposed to comesleep was not part of my plan. I finally decided to give in to the instructions I had received, and I entered the sweat lodge that was within my one-acre circle. It was so wonderful to get out of the heat and lie down on the cool dirt floor beneath me. I stayed there until nightfall, when I went to sleep. Isis appeared to me in a dream and said, I am returning to the planet at this time to restore peace, harmony, and balance. Throughout the next few days she began to give me instructions in my dreams. From that day forth, she has given me a great wealth of information, including the clear instruction to shift my focus to working with the future: The world is looking so bleak. Provide a bright spot, be a window of light that people can look into.