The Joyful Shaman
Talking About Practical Shamanism For Everyday Life! Sharing Stories Of Hope, Transformation, Meditation & Spiritual Connection With Laughter..And A Little Bit Of Cussin'. Hey Y'all! I'm The Joyful Shaman.
The Joyful Shaman
Embracing Surrender: Finding Peace After Winter's Darkness
After months of spiritual darkness and personal challenge, I've emerged into a place of profound peace unlike anything I've experienced before. This journey began with painful lessons as I was forced to cancel retreats I'd planned across the country, realizing they came from a place of fear rather than alignment. The universe was demanding I release my grip on control.
February marked my darkest hour. My business revenue had plummeted to the point where I couldn't cover basic expenses. Having just moved into a beautiful historic office space weeks earlier, I faced walking away from everything. After a decade of self-employment, I contemplated returning to work for someone else—a prospect that terrified me. This was my moment of complete surrender.
What happened next transformed me. When I finally released my attachment to outcomes and simply accepted whatever would come, the universe responded with abundance. March arrived like a faucet turning on—new clients, opportunities, and income flowing at quadruple my February earnings. This wasn't coincidence but divine confirmation that our greatest expansion often follows our most significant contractions.
Now I'm preparing for exciting adventures—leading retreats in Mexico and Mount Shasta, returning to my birthplace of New Orleans after eight years away. These opportunities didn't come from desperate striving but from alignment after surrendering what wasn't meant for me.
The peace I've found isn't the absence of challenges but the presence of trust within them. In a world filled with chaos, this inner peace becomes a form of spiritual activism. By standing in our light and operating from love rather than fear, we contribute to the collective evolution happening around us. Whatever you're going through, remember you're not alone—and perhaps what you need to let go of is exactly what's blocking your path forward.
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Naomi@joyfulshaman.com
Thank You So Much For Supporting Me & Energetically…The Collective
Welcome back to the Joyful Shaman Podcast. I am Naomi, your host with the most, and I am glad to be back recording another episode for you all. How are you friends? How has 2025 been for you? I know I've taken a little bit of a hiatus and I'll give you an update as to where I'm at, but I'm glad to be back, making it through winter, really embracing the season of spring and what is coming for all of us.
Speaker 1:So I last left everybody with the holiday season really trying to integrate from my retreat in New Mexico, getting ready to move my physical business with my business partner, cassie, and just personal things at home with family. And I've got to say that winter was an extremely hard time for me mentally and emotionally as I was really dying to a lot of old identities and still trying to control and working from a place of ego in the areas of my retreats. I will say that spirit really had to move in me and through me and a lot of things have shifted and changed, all for the greatest and highest good and I'm grateful for it all. So, holiday season, cassie and I moved into our beautiful historic home office that we share with Dr Angela Boatwright, who is an amazing acupuncture physician here in our Lakeland community and the other attorneys that have private offices upstairs. We love the house. It is absolutely magical. I have never worked in a place where I have felt so much energy, protection, um, and spiritual connection. Truly, a lot of people ask me oh man, that house is 125 years old, it must be haunted. Honey, if I'm gonna walk in there, ain't shit gonna be haunted, okay, because I clear that motherfucker every single goddamn day. But, that being said, we are extremely grateful. I know that I was panicking from a financial standpoint and really it was a deeper wounding that I'm still working with. When it comes to scarcity and trust, my root chakra is pretty damaged, I would say, since childhood and every day. It's a conscious choice to really work and have trust and faith that all of my physical needs will be met, especially for my business. So Cassie and I moved into that space and we really made it our own and it has been wonderful.
Speaker 1:Now, january is typically a slower month for most small businesses. I can only attest to our community because it's post-holiday, you know. People are getting ready to do taxes, the holiday bills come through, kids are going back, a lot of people get sick, a lot of sickness. I call it January ickies, because everybody and their mama got something going on. So it was a slower time and I was grateful for it because I needed a lot of physical rest. I also needed a lot of emotional rest, as my mind was just still going around a million miles an hour. You know I had some clients and you know I did what I needed to do to take care of my personal expenses and stuff. But it was a time of also launching my retreat.
Speaker 1:As I was launching the original retreats to New Mexico, to Olympia, washington and to Sedona, arizona I started to come to realizations that these were not in alignment with me, whether it was the retreat, host, the location, the timing, the offering. I was really focusing on financial return because I really wanted to use the money to buy a car and to move and to do things like that for this year and obviously that was not what spirit had in mind and it was really not in alignment with my soul. So I had to learn some really, really hard lessons and I canceled my Santa Fe, new Mexico retreat. I canceled Sedona. We originally actually postponed it to September, but we actually canceled it, postponed it to September but we actually canceled it. And we canceled Olympia Washington because we did not have aligned people and at the time I was upset over the course of January and February in regards to this, but I really wasn't, because I knew that it wasn't right and that was a hard lesson I had to learn in winter. It was a big fat ego death that I had to do because I want to help people, but I also struggle with, I guess, still putting out my worth and my value and then realizing that I need to focus on my local community and to have trust and faith that the people that I am meant to lead in these special retreat containers will mainly come from my local community or from other people that I connect with online, that I don't have to make extreme efforts, as I was making, to really put myself out there, because it was attracting an energy of desperation, of fear, of not standing in my power.
Speaker 1:And that was a hard lesson over the winter, february because of my fears and just me panicking internally about control. And you know, am I going to be able to afford the rent in the house? Is my business still going to keep going? What about my retreats. All of that was at the forefront of my mind. February the energy was rough. I know everybody struggled through the month of March and maybe coming out of that retrograde eclipse portal right now at this time. But February was that time for me. I was closing out my Saturn Square to Sun Transit that had started in May of 2024. And February was the pinnacle moment. My business has been steadily declining revenue, wise, I want to say, since the beginning of 2024, and February was rock bottom. I was making far less than what I was able to pay my bills.
Speaker 1:And I reached the point in February where I was like, okay, spirit, if this is it, if I hang it up, if I have to walk away from this house we just moved into four weeks ago, if I have to go get a part-time job working in the world and I haven't worked for anybody in 10 years then I will do so. I will walk away from this. And I was scared, I was trying to trust, but I finally finally hit that place of just absolute surrender. Not that I was giving up, because I did, I really wanted to give up. I was like I don't know if surrender is giving up at this point or just knowing when it's time to walk away. But I just kept praying every day of like I'm just going to surrender, I'm going to be humble, I am going to understand that there are different ways of being able to help people and to heal people. And if it's not owning my own business, you know, doing the services that I do in my local community, if I have to get a full-time job and just do this part-time, then I'm willing to do it Like I was ready to take that step.
Speaker 1:Um, come March and I'm glad that I still have that mentality because it's very real, it's still very real and, um, I will say that March, since March 1st, the feels like a faucet just opened up and the water started pouring in. I was able to recuperate three, almost four times what I made in February. And if that is not a testament to divine intervention again, the many examples in my life of nothing short of a miracle, at least personally for me, I don't know what it is. So it's just a confirmation that the Spirit and God is so real. The positive that has come from all of this experience is that I am in this incredible place of just deep, deep peace. I don't think I've ever felt this peaceful in my life. I was on the edge of the abyss, of the darkness I really was and peering down in that darkness in February had me in a variety of different feelings and emotions and I just looked up. I just kept looking up and reaching towards the light and just being like help me, help me find peace and surrender and just ultimate trust and I finally I jumped off the cliff, so to speak. I jumped off the cliff and was caught and elevated up and I realized I had to do the jump because it was a powerful initiation and I don't want to say the word test, but it was a powerful moment in my life where I needed to have that deeper evolution for myself.
Speaker 1:I do have two wonderful opportunities that have come up for me during this time. I'm actually getting ready to leave on April 25th to lead a beautiful retreat in Yelapa, mexico, which is right outside of Puerto Vallarta, for my friend, jenny Carmel, who is based out of California, who's been leading retreats for 30 years. She is an amazing travel retreat chef and caterer and devout spiritual seeker and asked me to go and lead her week-long retreat in Mexico and I am fucking excited and I am fucking excited. This is my first opportunity of something of this magnitude to do and I get to work with other healers. So this isn't my retreat. I was just asked to go and do this and 100% fucking signed up and I was like, yep, do I need to be at the airport and I'm going to order 10,000 moomoos because it's hot as hell on the beach, but it's going to be great. And then I am leading my very own retreat at the end of July in Mount Shasta, california, which came to me in a dream 10 months ago and it wasn't something that I podcasted about because it was a dream and I just kind of kept it on the back burner, but around the holiday season it just really kept popping up. So Mount Shasta, california is fully activated and we are filling that retreat. I thank God every single day that that retreat is 100% channeled. It's from the heart. The information is on my website, joyfulshamancom. From the heart. The information is on my website joyfulshamancom. If you listen to this and are interested. Some spots are still available as this podcast is being recorded and I am just grateful.
Speaker 1:March for my business exploded. My clients came in, new people came in. So much more energy healing work, so many more opportunities for sound bath, meditation and for other services for the community. Like I am so grateful I'm actually going to be traveling quite a bit. Cassie hopefully won't hear this podcast, but I'm going to surprise her when I come back from Mexico and take her to Seattle celebrate her 45th birthday at the end of May, and then I'm going home for the first time in almost eight years, to New Orleans for my birthday in June to see my beautiful friends, the friends that I met in Tulum, mexico. They're going to join me there in New Orleans because why not, baby, it's New Orleans and then July going to California, and I'm actually in the process of possibly planning another retreat for the fall. Either it's going to be in Austin, texas, or it's going to California, and I'm actually in the process of possibly planning another retreat for the fall. Either it's going to be in Austin, texas, or it's going to be in Western North Carolina about Lake Lear, where they filmed Dirty Dancing, one of my favorite movies, which is about an hour away from Asheville. So I'm in a great state of blessings, but I will say winter was hard. I had to die like literally over and over and over and I think I'm in a great state of blessings. But I will say winter was hard. I had to die like literally over and over and over, and I think I'm still going to be in that dying process. We all will be.
Speaker 1:I know that March has been hard, with the Mercury and Venus retrogrades, neptune and Pisces, the eclipses, and so I was ready and I feel, because I've been doing the work internally and I've been just going through extreme challenges and just finally jumping off that edge and whatever was going to come I was going to accept. I feel like I've made it through the next cycle and right now I'm just in a state of grace, I'm in a state of blessing, I'm in a state of peace and I feel like I'm in a great state of flow and I've never felt like this in my entire life and I'm just grateful. I know that more challenges and more cycles will come. I feel like there's still some little woundings and things like that that get triggered, but I have greater awareness and greater patience about it as far as with my family and greater patience about it as far as with my family.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, the dog situation that I had talked about in the last episode did not work out with my family. That was pretty traumatizing and I felt bad for my mother and my sister. They really, really wanted a dog and I just knew intuitively this was not going to work out and I just had to be there and watch it all happen and just be there as a support system for my sister. Um, but I will say that, um, the dog situation didn't work out. They brought the dog home and I will say, um, that the organization that they adopted the dog from did not do its due diligence as well. I will say that when they went to just initially go and visit the dog on December 21st, they were not intending to bring this dog home. They were ready, but that was not their intention and when they got there, they had learned that this dog had not already been spayed. She was just literally spayed two days prior. So she was in a cone with stitches and we were like oh wow.
Speaker 1:And they went and put her on the ground and they said that she had been exposed to Parvo. She was 11 months old, so not like a puppy, puppy, but still not quite a year old and that you know there's supposed to be a 10-day quarantine for dogs that are exposed to Parvo why? Because it's a parasite that if it gets in and the dog gets activated from it, you have 48 hours to receive for the dog, to receive a life-saving shot or else the dog will die. And that's something we've never experienced with our other dogs that we've had growing up, you know, and they didn't quite inform us of all of that and the severity of it. You know, it's right before Christmas and the woman that had the dog that brought her was a foster and she only had the dog overnight and she said well, you know, I've had this dog, you know, essentially for two days and they haven't really shown any signs of having active parvo. So I think they should be fine. But just, you know, don't let her pee and poop outside and just keep like a kiddie pool in the house. And, um, you know, if she gets parvo, that's fine, just call, call the organization, call the rescue, and uh, we'll, we'll treat her.
Speaker 1:You know, christmas rolls around, um, and she started getting sick. She started getting sick to her stomach, she started having these allergies. We thought she was having pus from her incision, from the spay surgery, and so we ended up bringing her to the vet like two times in like 24 hours. And then this dog got violently sick Christmas night into the day after Christmas and the dog it was like almost the 10th day of you know the technical quarantine and yeah, she was active for Parvo and she started vomiting and defecating in the house and just chunks of stomach lining and blood everywhere and I'm sorry to be so graphic about it but it was horrifying because I've never witnessed an animal do that in real life in my face.
Speaker 1:And parvo, what it is, it's a parasite that essentially it's almost like an acid, so to speak the easiest way to explain it. It eats away the lining of your stomach and your intestines and that's horrifying and that's what kills the animal and puppies, like really young baby puppies if they get it it's very hard for them to survive. But because this dog was already pre-owned in 11 months, she was a trooper and my mom and my sister had to bring the dog to the emergency vet hospital. They had to wait in the car because they can't expose other animals and the bacteria in the office. I didn't know that once it's out of their body through vomiting or through poop, that bacteria stays active for a year, no matter how many freaking times you mop it when they go poop outside, no wonder they didn't want the dog to go pee and poop outside it gets in the ground. It can stay active for nine years. This is extremely wild.
Speaker 1:And sure enough she had Parvo and the vet was like you know, she needs this life-saving shot. It's $1,100. That's market cost. And then she has to stay in the hospital for quarantine for like two weeks and that's $6,000. And we're like goddamn, you know, we don't have this kind of money.
Speaker 1:This was not what we intended. So my mother and the vet are calling the rescue, calling the administrators of the rescue, you know, because this dog has hours to live and I stayed up with my sister most of the night, and so did my mother. We had to take turns to wash the dog and we were prepared to bring the dog to have her euthanized, because we don't have to let this animal suffer. You know, be done. We know what we need to do. And finally someone from the organization called and we had to voluntarily relinquish it so that they could be treated, because the vet was in partnership with the organization and that was fine and we had an agreement as a family. We talked about it, that nobody was supposed to want to adopt this dog Like we. We were going to voluntarily relinquish the dog and walk away and know like we did everything to save this dog, even if that's all our experience was. We saved this dog's life, however short, however many short days she was with us. That didn't happen.
Speaker 1:My mom and my sister definitely wanted the dog back. My mother at first was pleading and then, please give us a dog back. And the dog came back and my sister was really overwhelmed, um, with caring for the dog. She still had to be in another quarantine for three weeks, couldn't be outside um and we had to monitor her. And my sister is still in the process of acquiring her bachelor's degree online. Um, she wants to work full-time and my mother made the realization that she cannot see. She cannot see physically to care for this dog and really went through a really dark depression about it.
Speaker 1:My dad, with his early onset dementia, cannot close doors, he can't hear, he just wants to play. He's very childlike, which is fine. We all want to play with puppies and kitties and animals. They're cute, of course. But he could not help us and it was supposed to be a family effort. It was supposed to be my mom, my dad and my sister.
Speaker 1:I'm not part of it because you know like I'm very transient in this family and I just didn't want to bear responsibility for it. You know, and disappoint people with and when. I couldn't follow through and that's honesty, and my sister made the decision to be like no, we need to return this dog, but I don't want to give it back to this organization because they were very angry. They felt like they were not wanting to claim responsibility for letting my family adopt a possibly sick dog that could have died in our home and that was dying in our home, and so I'm going to try to shorten this story.
Speaker 1:There was an issue with my mother and my sister where my sister thought she had an agreement with my mother to let her keep the dog for three weeks until she was fully cleared no virus, no shedding, post-virus so that either they return her back to the organization according to their contract or they vet and find her the appropriate home that could take care of her, with the fence and kids and ample time. Yeah, my mom called, while my sister was asleep, the rescue that they got her from, and she woke my sister up and said you have to return the dog today. And my sister broke down and it was painful and it was sad and it was heartbreaking because she felt my mother betrayed her and all I can do is just pray and just send love and support my sister and help her clean up and get everything ready. My sister had to drive with my mother holding the dog. She had to sign the paperwork. She said that she was not treated well. I wouldn't say they mistreated her, but they made her feel like she was a bad pet owner and not responsible and you know it just wasn't meant to be. So the house has been kind of funny the last two months because my sister was obsessively looking on petfindercom every day to make sure like the dog was adopted. Because she's like I will forgive my mother, I will feel like I can talk to my mother once I know this dog is in safe hands with a good family.
Speaker 1:And it took about a month but the dog was adopted. She was no longer online and my sister. It took her about that month to really let it all go and I was really really fucking proud of her because I know she did it from like the absolute, unconditional love of her heart. I remember her in tears breaking down the crate and throwing away the pillows and everything, cause you can't wash that stuff, you can't give it, the bacteria is everywhere and just throwing everything away and me holding the bags and her saying I don't want to give up this dog. I wish I could have this dog, I'm just not in a place in my life to do it. And this dog deserves more and the best life possible. And I'm giving up this dog because I love this dog so much, even though it's been less than two weeks. I love this dog so much and I want to see this animal live a happy life. And, man, it brought tears to my eyes because I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't have just adopted the dog in the first place. But that's just me. But to be in that position, the sacrifice that she made, like I know, my sister is going to come and eventually have wonderful dogs of her own when she's in her own home that are going to give her so much joy and companionship.
Speaker 1:My sister loves animals so much like, deeply, deeply, loves and connects to animals so much, so much so that my sister, either this or next week is going to the Humane Society in our community to donate bags of dog food and little toys and powdered milk for newborn cats and puppies, because she just wants to continue to contribute, and God bless her. I mean, she also goes because she likes to pet the kittens and the dogs so that she can get her animal fixes. So she goes and donates and then she goes and pets all the animals, which I think is very sweet. Um, shit, I do the same thing too. If I had time and the extra money right now, I would Um, but I like to accompany my sister when I can to these little excursions because just her heart opens up so much and it just brings me and the realities of things. Just letting go and trusting is absolutely powerful and I think that was her lesson during this time. And my sister has a lot more lessons right now with school and things like that and it's been the lesson for me.
Speaker 1:Right now I'm just trying to have patience with my dad. His health is okay, his blood work is fine and stuff, but I really want my dad to be as healthy nutritionally as possible. I've taken an amazing herbalism class this past weekend, actually as continuing education for my massage therapy license that's required here in the state of Florida, but it opened up my eyes to the power that plants have, more than just what I learned growing up with my grandmother's herbalism and her home remedies and things like that, but just the fact that, like what foods and their energetics can do for us on a spiritual and physical level and emotional and mental level, how certain plans can help us, you know, with our mental and emotional needs, I was just really astounded and I learned so many more new things about food than what I originally knew, and I'm just excited to keep diving into herbalism, maybe take some more courses, um, but that's where I'm at. You know we're in April. I am working, I'm out of the office April 23rd getting ready to pack my stuff to go to Mexico, um, so, needless to say, like the journey has been hard. This winter was extremely hard, um, but I'm grateful to be in it. I was grateful to be in the journey, to be present, and I'm learning more and more every day to be present, um, and to not fall into the trap of escapism, and I know our country and our world is a fucking shit show.
Speaker 1:You don't have to tell me I'm not big on political stuff on social media because as a shamanic practitioner I don't really sign up for that. It's not like I don't believe in politics or like equal rights or anything like that. I absolutely fucking do. But I don't pick sides, and we're not supposed to, because we see the world from just human behavior. And it's hard it's hard as a layman person hearing this, to maybe understand and accept that.
Speaker 1:But from a spiritual standpoint I trust that everything has its reason. I cannot control humanity. I cannot control the behaviors, the thought processes, the actions. All I can do is keep sharing my light, keep helping people heal their internal wounds, keep helping people become strong and have faith and trust that they themselves will be protected, that their loved ones will be protected, that there is a reason for all this fucking madness and that we don't allow the energies the negative energies that come from consuming this affect us and overpower us. And so I stand in truth and in faith and in light to help keep spreading joy, love, hope, encouragement, inspiration, my truth to help others that are going through a difficult time.
Speaker 1:I know the country is a fucking shit show right now. Believe me, part of me is like I'm ready to get the fuck out of here and take my family with me, but I know that's not a reality in this present moment as of today. That might be a reality tomorrow and I'll be ready for that time, but for right now, I know that there is a reason for all of this. This is part of the human evolution. There has to be chaos, essentially, and complete destruction of foundations to be rebuilt, hopefully from a place of love and spiritual connection, and that doesn't mean religion. That means people understanding who they are, people healing their wounds, people coming from a place of love and standing in the belief system of love, of service, of kindness, of helping each other, and not from a place of ego, and not from a place of hate or fear or corruption All of the shit that we call demonic and dark not from those places. So I am praying every single goddamn day. I pray every day for all of us. I do, and that's what gets me up out of bed and that's what gets me dressed and that's what gets me to the office to help people and to keep doing this and to keep spreading love, as always.
Speaker 1:I don't know when my next podcast will be. I'm going to try my best to do a podcast as soon as I come back from Mexico to relay my downloads, to relay my experiences before I keep traveling in the early summer. But know that I'm with you, know that I love you, know that I appreciate every single one of you. When I see these fucking downloads I'm just like thank you, not for me, but because I hope this helps somebody. I hope this medicine and the support and the breathwork journeys and just the messages of hope help you.
Speaker 1:You are not fucking alone. You are an amazing human, believe me. And like, oh, a stupid thing that I've been doing is watching fucking high school musical with my sister, but that song, we're all in this together. Yeah, okay, that's like lives rent free right now in my head, but no, for real, like we all are, and if we can tap into that love, even though a lot of other people don't, right now we don't have to be alone and reach out for help. I am here to help anybody. You send me a message, you send me an email. Anyway, I will take time and I will talk with you and I will support you and I will hold you and I will do whatever you need to find a place of balance, of peace, of wholeness and clarity for yourself, friend, because that's what it's about and that's what we do to keep moving forward. That's what it's about and that's what we do to keep moving forward.
Speaker 1:So that's the update. I did do spring breathwork journey in my community. Only one person showed up, and that's okay. The medicine isn't for everybody at every time, but I do have a little playlist, so I will try my best to find time to upload all of that and create that as the spring shamanic breathwork journey for you all. But, oh man, I hope and pray that all of you are well and to keep hanging on. And you've got me, even though you may not know me, all of you that listen to me and even if you do know me, I'm always here and thank you for holding space as much as I hold space for other people, and I love you. And if you need to reach out to me, you can find me on Instagram. My handle is at joyful shaman, on my website, joyful shamancom, and my email, naomi, at joyful shamancom.
Speaker 1:Be well, my friends. You are an amazing human. There is a purpose and a plan here for you, and watch, watch how humanity starts to shift. I feel something big is coming for the summer and we're going to start to see some big changes and breakthroughs, my friends. So just be ready, just be in the energy of spring, of rebirth, of this Aries fire. Just be in the energy of spring, of rebirth of this Aries fire and shine your light. Now more than ever, we need to stand up. That is how we fight back with the darkness is through shining our light. Okay, so be well. And until we connect together again, sat Nam, friend Namaste, be well.
