WHAT IS SHAMANIC HEALING, HOW DOES IT WORK & WHO IS IT FOR?
What Is Shamanic Healing & Who Is It For?
What Is Shamanic Healing, Really?
Let me start by telling you what shamanic healing is not.
It's not woo-woo nonsense. It's not cultural appropriation dressed up in feathers. It's not a trendy wellness fad for people who've exhausted their yoga memberships.
Shamanic healing is the oldest form of spiritual healing on the planet — practiced across every indigenous culture, on every continent, for tens of thousands of years. Before there were therapists, before there were doctors, before there were priests — there were shamans. The healers who walked between worlds. The ones who understood that we are not just physical bodies, but energetic and spiritual beings having a human experience.
And here's what I find fascinating: I spent years as a cancer researcher at the National Institutes of Health, looking through microscopes, studying cells, trying to understand what makes us sick and what makes us whole. I was trained in the scientific method. I believed in what could be measured and replicated.
And then I discovered that the most profound healing I'd ever witnessed couldn't be measured under a microscope — because it was happening at the level of the soul. That's what shamanic healing addresses. Not just your symptoms. Not just your thoughts. The root. The soul. The places where you lost parts of yourself along the way.
The Science Is Catching Up
Here's something that might surprise you: modern psychology and neuroscience are finally beginning to validate what shamans have known for millennia.
Trauma isn't just "in your head." It's stored in your body, your nervous system, your energy field. The work of researchers like Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score) and Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing) has shown that talk therapy alone often can't reach the places where our deepest wounds live. Shamanic healing has always understood this.
When something traumatic happens — abuse, loss, shock, violation, betrayal — a part of your vital essence can split off. Shamans call this soul loss. You might call it dissociation, or feeling like "part of me never came back from that experience," or that persistent sense that something is missing but you can't name what. This isn't metaphor. It's lived experience. And shamanic healing offers specific practices — developed over thousands of years — to address it.
Core Shamanic Healing Practices
Soul Retrieval
Soul retrieval is one of the most powerful shamanic healing practices, and it's often what brings people to this work.
When we experience trauma — and trauma can be anything from childhood neglect to a car accident to a difficult birth to ancestral wounds passed down through generations — parts of our soul can fragment and "leave" as a protective mechanism.
You might recognize soul loss in yourself as:
Chronic depression or anxiety that doesn't respond to traditional treatment
Feeling like you've "never been the same" since a particular event
Gaps in memory, especially from childhood
A persistent sense of emptiness or incompleteness
Addiction or compulsive behaviors (attempts to fill the void)
Difficulty being fully present in your life
Saying things like "I lost a part of myself when..."
In a soul retrieval session, the shamanic practitioner journeys into non-ordinary reality to locate and bring back these lost soul parts, reintegrating them into your energy body. The experience is often profound — people report feeling "more themselves" than they have in years, recovering lost memories, and experiencing a sense of wholeness they didn't know was possible.
Energy Healing & Extraction
Everything is energy. Your thoughts are energy. Your emotions are energy. Your body is a dense form of energy. Modern physics has confirmed what mystics always knew: at the subatomic level, we are not solid matter — we are vibrating fields of possibility.
Shamanic energy healing works directly with your luminous energy field (what some traditions call the aura or biofield) to clear blockages, remove heavy or intrusive energies, and restore flow and balance. Sometimes we accumulate energies that aren't ours — from other people, from environments, from experiences. Sometimes we hold onto dense energies like resentment, grief, or fear that calcify in our field and eventually manifest as physical or emotional symptoms.
Extraction is the practice of removing these intrusive or heavy energies. It's not dramatic or frightening — it's more like energetic hygiene. Like clearing out what doesn't belong so your own vital life force can flow freely again.
Shamanic Journeying
The shamanic journey is the foundation of all shamanic practice. It's a method of entering an altered state of consciousness — usually through rhythmic drumming or rattling — to access non-ordinary reality and receive guidance, healing, and wisdom.
In shamanic cosmology, there are three worlds: the Lower World (where we often meet power animals and nature spirits), the Upper World (where we connect with teachers, guides, and ancestors), and the Middle World (the spiritual dimension of our physical reality).
The shamanic practitioner journeys on your behalf, but I also teach clients to journey for themselves. This is important to me: shamanic healing isn't about creating dependence on a healer. It's about reconnecting you to your own power, your own guidance, your own direct relationship with Spirit.
Power Animal Retrieval
In the shamanic worldview, we are all born with spirit allies — often called power animals or guardian spirits — who offer us protection, guidance, and specific medicine (gifts or qualities) that support our life path.
Through trauma, neglect of our spiritual lives, or simply the soul-crushing nature of modern existence, we can become disconnected from these allies. Power animal retrieval restores this connection, bringing back a guardian spirit who has been waiting to work with you.
This might sound strange if you're new to this territory. But consider: every indigenous culture on Earth has recognized the spiritual significance of animals. This isn't primitive superstition — it's a sophisticated understanding of the interconnected web of consciousness that modern humans have largely forgotten.
Ancestral Healing
You are not just you. You carry the unresolved trauma, beliefs, and patterns of your entire ancestral lineage in your DNA, your energy field, your unconscious behaviors.
Science now confirms this through the field of epigenetics — the study of how trauma can be inherited across generations, literally changing gene expression in descendants who never experienced the original traumatic event.
Shamanic healing has always worked with the ancestors. We can journey to heal ancestral wounds, release patterns that have been passed down for generations, and transform your relationship with your lineage from one of unconscious burden to conscious blessing.
Who Is Shamanic Healing For?
Shamanic healing may be for you if:
You've tried everything else. Therapy. Medication. Self-help books. Meditation apps. Yoga retreats. and something still feels unresolved. Something at the root that you can't quite reach. Shamanic healing goes to the places that other modalities often can't access.
You've experienced trauma — whether you remember it consciously or not. This includes childhood trauma, birth trauma, ancestral trauma, past-life trauma, sexual trauma, medical trauma, loss, betrayal, or any experience that left you feeling fragmented or diminished.
You feel disconnected — from yourself, from your purpose, from Spirit, from the natural world, from your own body. You're going through the motions but something essential is missing.
You're going through a major life transition. Divorce. Death of a loved one. Career change. Health crisis. Spiritual awakening. Midlife reckoning. Shamanic healing can support you in navigating threshold moments and emerging transformed rather than just surviving.
You're called to it. Sometimes there's no logical explanation. You just know. You feel drawn to this path, these practices, this medicine. Trust that. Your soul knows what it needs.
You're ready to take responsibility for your own healing. Shamanic healing isn't passive. It's not something done to you — it's something you participate in. It requires you to show up, to be honest, to do the integration work. If you want someone to fix you while you stay the same, this isn't for you. If you're ready to be an active participant in your own transformation, welcome.
Shamanic healing might NOT be for you if:
You're looking for a quick fix. Deep healing takes time. Shamanic work often initiates a process that unfolds over weeks or months. If you want a one-session miracle cure, you'll likely be disappointed (and suspicious of anyone who promises that).
You're in acute psychiatric crisis. If you're actively suicidal, psychotic, or in a mental health emergency, please seek appropriate medical care first. Shamanic healing can be a powerful complement to mental health treatment, but it's not a replacement for crisis intervention.
You're not willing to make changes. Shamanic healing will show you what needs to shift in your life. If you're committed to staying exactly as you are while hoping to feel different, you'll be frustrated.
You want to skip the shadow work. Some people come to shamanic healing hoping for light and love and spiritual bypassing. That's not what this is. We go into the dark. We face what's been hidden. We meet the parts of ourselves we've exiled. If you only want the pretty parts of spirituality, look elsewhere.
What to Expect in a Shamanic Healing Session
Every practitioner works differently, but here's what you can generally expect when you work with me:
Before the Session
We'll have a conversation about what's bringing you to this work. I want to understand your history, your
intentions, and what you're hoping to heal or transform. This isn't just intake — it's the beginning of creating sacred space together.
During the Session
Most shamanic healing happens while you're lying down, relaxed, with your eyes closed.
I work with drumming, rattling, song, and direct energy work. You don't need to "do" anything except be present and open.
Many people experience vivid imagery, emotional release, physical sensations, or a deep sense of peace. Some people don't experience much during the session but notice shifts in the days and weeks afterward. There's no right way to receive this work.
For soul retrieval specifically, I journey on your behalf to locate and return lost soul parts. When I bring them back, I'll blow them into your heart and crown chakras, then share what I discovered in the journey — the soul parts that returned and the gifts they bring.
After the Session
Integration is everything. The session itself is just the beginning. I'll give you specific practices to welcome home what's been returned to you and support the healing process.
You may feel energized or exhausted. Emotional. Peaceful. Stirred up. All of this is normal. Big shifts are happening at the soul level, and it takes time for your physical, mental, and emotional bodies to catch up.
I'm available for follow-up support, and I recommend giving yourself space and gentleness in the days following a session. This isn't the time to pack your schedule — it's the time to let the medicine work.
The Lineage I Carry
I want to be transparent about my training and lineage, because in a world full of weekend-certified "shamans," this matters.
I am an initiated Q'ero Paqo — a shamanic practitioner in the Andean tradition of Peru. The Q'ero are the last living descendants of the Incas, who preserved their sacred wisdom high in the Andes for 500 years, waiting for the time when it would be shared with the world. That time is now.
I've trained directly with Q'ero elders and have led sacred pilgrimages to Peru to connect with this lineage. I had the blessing to have gotten to meet the living Apus (half-man/half-bird mountain spirits) that are central to Andean cosmology in-this-earthly-dimension. (BTW they fly through the walls and the ceilings, while landing and introducing which mountain their govern, speaking in the Andean-Inkan language of Quechua, sounding like ancient grandfathers and grandmothers, sharing their wisdom, medicine, love, prayer and blessing).
I'm also a certified Reiki Master and trained in sound healing and somatic coaching, because I believe in using whatever tools serve the healing.
But here's what I want you to know: the most important thing isn't my certificates. It's the lived experience. The nearly 20 years I've devoted to this path. The thousands of hours in ceremony, in journey, in direct relationship with Spirit. The deep respect I hold for the indigenous wisdom keepers who have entrusted these teachings to be shared.
And — perhaps unusually — my background as a scientist. Those years at NIH taught me rigor, discernment, and healthy skepticism. I don't believe things because they sound nice. I've tested this medicine in my own life and witnessed its effects in hundreds of others. It works. Not because I say so, but because the results speak for themselves.
Frequently Asked Questions About Shamanic Healing
Is shamanic healing religious?
No. Shamanism predates organized religion and is not affiliated with any particular religious tradition. People of all faiths (and no faith) can benefit from shamanic healing. It's about direct spiritual experience, not belief systems.
Is shamanic healing safe?
When practiced by a trained, experienced, and ethical practitioner — yes. Shamanic healing is gentle and noninvasive. However, like any powerful healing modality, it should be approached with respect. That's why it matters who you work with.
How many sessions do I need?
This varies widely depending on what you're healing. Some people experience profound shifts in a single session. Others benefit from ongoing work over months or years. I recommend starting with one session and seeing what unfolds before committing to more.
Can shamanic healing be done remotely?
Yes. Because we're working at the level of energy and spirit, shamanic healing is not limited by physical proximity. I work with clients all over the world via distance sessions, and they are just as effective as in-person work.
What's the difference between a shaman and a shamanic practitioner?
In traditional cultures, the term "shaman" is earned through years of training, initiation, and community recognition. Out of respect for indigenous traditions, many Western practitioners (myself included) use the term "shamanic practitioner" or "shamanic healer" rather than claiming the title of shaman.
Will I need to take any plant medicines?
Shamanic healing does not require plant medicines (psychedelics). While plant medicine ceremonies are part of some shamanic traditions, the core practices I offer — soul retrieval, energy healing, extraction, journeying — do not involve any substances. You will be fully conscious throughout our work together.
Ready to Begin?
If something in you is saying yes — if you feel that pull toward healing at the deepest level — I invite you to reach out. Shamanic healing isn't for everyone. But for those who are called, it can be the most transformative work you'll ever do.
Book a Consultation — Let's talk about what's bringing you to this work and whether shamanic healing is the right path for you.
Learn About Soul Retrieval — Dive deeper into this powerful practice.
Join Dreamweavers — My monthly healing circle where we journey together in community.
The medicine is here. The doorway is open. The question is: Are you ready to heal?
Munay 🙏
About Phillia: I'm a shamanic healer, Q'ero Paqo, and former NIH cancer researcher who left the lab to follow the soul. After nearly 20 years on this path, I help people heal at the root — beyond symptoms, beyond stories, to the place where transformation actually happens. Based in New York City, serving clients worldwide.
Related Posts:
Soul Retrieval: Reclaiming the Parts of Yourself You Lost Along the Way
What to Expect in Your First Shamanic Healing Session
The Science Behind Energy Healing: What Research Is Revealing
Shamanic Healing vs. Therapy: Do You Need Both?
5 Signs You're Experiencing Soul Loss (And What to Do About It)