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
Breathwork, Sound, and Spirit: The Wild Spirit with Alicia Meeks Interview
Recorded Interview with Podcast Host Alicia Meeks of The Wild Spirit with Alicia. She is based out of Vancouver Island, Canada and is a Spiritual Guide, Teacher & Facilitator as well. www.aliciameek.com
Have you ever wondered what happens when everything you've built crumbles away? For Naomi, founder of A Joyful Shaman, this devastating experience became the doorway to her authentic calling as a vibrational therapist and modern shamanic healer.
In this transformative conversation, Naomi shares her remarkable journey from suppressing her intuitive gifts while growing up in an evangelical Christian household to embracing her Mayan indigenous heritage of herbal medicine women. The turning point? A complete loss of her first business that led to bankruptcy, depression, and ultimately—a spiritual awakening through a visitation from her grandmother's spirit.
"You're a healer," her grandmother told her during this profound experience. "You come from a long line of powerful women that have special gifts." This reconnection to her ancestral wisdom set Naomi on a path of deep healing work combining breath, sound, and spirit to help others return to wholeness.
The highlight of this episode is a guided breath and sound journey that gives you a taste of shamanic breathwork—a powerful technique that Naomi describes as similar to "a mild ayahuasca journey but with greater control." Through rhythmic breathing, drumming, and visualization, this mini-ceremony helps release what no longer serves you while awakening your connection to your true self.
Whether you're curious about indigenous healing practices, seeking to reconnect with your own ancestral wisdom, or simply looking for powerful tools to regulate your nervous system and release trauma, this episode offers a gentle introduction to the transformative power of shamanic practices adapted for modern times.
Ready to remember your power, your joy, your wholeness? Listen now and experience a taste of coming home to yourself through the ancient wisdom of breath and sound.
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Thank You So Much For Supporting Me & Energetically…The Collective
Welcome. Today we are joined by Naomi, the founder of A Joyful Shaman, a vibrational therapist and a modern shaman helping people shift emotional patterns through breath, sound and spirit. And really special for us today. Stay tuned because Naomi is going to give us a mini breath and sound journey and it's like a little personal healing ceremony in your earbuds. So welcome Naomi. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here. I'm excited to share a bit of my path and to guide everyone that finds this and listens to this little journey that brings breath into their body, into their heart. So thank you for having me. I'm doing wonderful.
Speaker 1:Excellent. So we would love to know, like how is it that you came to do this? How is it that you came to call yourself a shaman? Like what is your story? What are the spiritual moments that you had throughout your life that were like oh, this is my path, this is my path.
Speaker 2:Sure, so I myself don't call myself a shaman. In the shamanic practice you call yourself a shamanic healer or shamanic practitioner. If your immediate community and traditionally it would be in indigenous tribes call you a shaman, which is a very general term, that means teacher, guide, healer, counselor, chieftain, warrior. It's a very general term. If they call you that, then you take it upon yourself to call yourself that among those people or if you're addressing yourself. So my community has certainly called me shaman.
Speaker 2:I live in Lakeland, florida, here in Central Florida, between Tampa and Orlando, and I'm known as the local shaman. It's kind of a funny thing. A lot of people like to joke around and you know they invite me to dinner. They're like oh, we're having the shaman come over. You know we're having this person come over, but I wouldn't call myself outright. That's a bit insulting, it's a bit egotistical. So I always refer myself as a healer, but my business is called the Joyful Shaman, just to solidify like I believe that I have been placed in a position of authority to be able to help people with the gifts that I have acquired and my self-belief in helping people return home to themselves, to remind themselves of who they are, to utilize different techniques of mindfulness, of sound, of body work to help them get out of the conscious and go deeper within themselves. My story as far as how I got on the shamanic path is one of number one birthright. I am part Mayan indigenous, so I am original indigenous to North American land and that is on my father's side.
Speaker 2:My grandmother and all of the other matriarchs that have come before me at least by four generations it's been written in their oral histories and in the journals that they've kept. They were all herbal medicine women. They all kept beautiful, large gardens growing a variety of different plants and vegetables, using their recipes their materia medica, as it's called to create herbal remedies, tinctures, salves, liniments for themselves and also selling it to their local pharmacy and botanical stores so that people who didn't have money to go to the doctors could at least acquire something to help ease pain, to help at least heal the process, so that infection wouldn't take place. My grandmother passed that on to my sister and I. Generally it's passed on to the firstborn daughter or the head of the household and my grandmother had a boy my dad and that was her only child, so she didn't really teach my dad when they came to the States because they're from the Yucatan, the lower part of Mexico, from Merida. My dad got married to my mother. I am the firstborn daughter. My grandmother passed it on to me and also to my sister. We both used the remedies but I've really taken to it.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't necessarily call myself a green thumb, I'm not the best at growing plants and it's hard to grow plants in Florida with the sun radiating everywhere. But that being said, she also taught me the gift and the insight behind using these herbal recipes and laying of hands on people. She grew up Catholic and then later converted to evangelical Christianity and I grew up in an evangelical Christian home. So I would say those belief systems were really instilled and conditioned in me as a child that with old remedies, with old belief systems kind of merged the beginning of the shamanic path. I would say that my true awakening to the path didn't really come until I was about 30, 31. So really only about eight years ago is really when I woke up to it.
Speaker 2:I had from birth very strong intuitive gifts that I didn't understand. Of course we're all empaths. Some of us are just more sensitive, more in tune to that frequency than others. So I was born that way. I'm also a medium I don't like to use the word psychic but intuitive. So I'm claircognizant, I'm clairaudient, I'm clairvoyant.
Speaker 2:So all of these gifts at a young age in a very, very evangelical Christian home ended up being a recipe for kind of disaster for me. So I really repressed a lot of that, just because I think my grandmother knew and just didn't know how to handle that. My dad wasn't going to understand that either. So I just kind of held everything in. I wanted to be loved and accepted and not rejected and not seem weird or possessed or anything like that. I really felt the call in my career. I'm a licensed massage therapist of 20 years and that's my main business here in the Lakeland community where I live. But I really felt the call in my 20s and my later 20s to go into holistic body work, learning practices from Ayurveda, from Thailand, from China, from a lot of Asian countries, and just really embodying the practices of mindfulness, especially Buddhism, in my work. I love world religions, I love world cultures. I feel like they just provide a broad philosophical background for me, that I apply a lot of different things in my own life and in the way that I counsel people. But learning those techniques really started to open me up to something greater In my 20s, kind of had an identity crisis once I left home, really didn't resonate with the formal structure of organized religion anymore.
Speaker 2:I just had a lot of religious trauma growing up and did a lot of therapy for about 15 years to really come to terms of what my personal beliefs are, how I see myself, how I live my life in the world, how do I, you know, understand what my values and morals are outside of what my parents taught me, outside of what they believe, outside of what the church says. And that took some time. It took a lot of healing, a lot of childhood trauma, and I'm still healing from that at various points in my life. But it really wasn't until I opened up my first business when I was 30 years old that I lost that business within two years of opening, completely crushed and burned. And it was absolutely necessary. I feel.
Speaker 2:In my healing journey and my spiritual journey I think my soul signed up to build something that took 10 years to dream, for it to burn down to the ground, to the point where I had to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. I was bottom of the barrel, nothing left, and I had left a corporate career to open up my first business, which was a beautiful boutique, luxury, high-end Ayurvedic spa and yoga studio along the Gulf Coast of Florida. And I did it from a place of ego, you know, I recognize that and I openly admit that. But it was necessary. It had to be completely, as we call, initiated, completely, experience profound death and grief and just really be stripped away from everything to return back to spirit. It was after that loss I had to close my business on my 31st birthday. I left four weeks later to go grieve and cry in the mountains of Asheville, north Carolina. I wanted to just hide away in the mountains. The mountains have always been a place for me to power up, restore, feel at home, come back to my center and I needed to hide, I needed to hibernate, I needed to embody the medicine of bear and go in my little cave and just cry. It was a profound death having to go to federal court plead my case. Please eliminate almost $400,000 of debt, you know for my business.
Speaker 2:And it was in North Carolina that I had a visitation from my grandmother. She's already been in spirit for almost a decade now and at the time she had been in spirit for a couple of years. It is the only time that I can honestly say I've experienced a full physical apparition in my life. I was deep, deep in depression, crying all the time, trying to find work, trying to hold down a job, trying to just reinvent myself out there and really struggling to face this darkness that I needed to face within myself.
Speaker 2:And one night, around 3 am, my grandmother showed up in my room sitting on my bed. My bed was literally on the floor I, you know, it was in between an air mattress and you know, and something else, and she sat there and I could I could almost touch her, you know, she was so real and I looked at her and I said am I dreaming? Is this real? And she's like no, this is real, I'm here for you. And I said what's going on? This is real, I'm here for you. And I said what's going on? And she said I'm sorry for the way that I didn't love you, the way that you deserve to be loved, and for not telling you who you were while I was on the earth in the physical form. And I was like panicking. I was like, oh God, I've got into full psychosis.
Speaker 2:What's happening in my life and she literally said you're a healer. She's like you come from a long line of powerful women that have special gifts and I turned it away because I thought that's what was the right thing to do. But now that I'm back on the other side, I recognize and know that I need to guide you and help you to reclaim who you are and what you came here to do. She's like you have a message for people. You're here to help people come back home to themselves. And she's like can you hold great powers in a variety of different ways, but you need help in learning how to wield them for the good of others and not from a place of ego.
Speaker 2:I was like full on having a panic attack, you know, and I said I don't know what to say to this grandma and she said you need to go home. You need to go home to Florida. She's like you're going to open up another business in four months. She's like this business will continue. It will evolve from your initial concept. Go along with the journey. She's like this business will continue. It will evolve from your initial concept. Go along with the journey. She's like you have a lot to heal. She's like you will go through many challenges. Life will never be easy for you. She's like, not right now. She goes. You will come to a place where you'll find peace and balance. She goes as long as you continue to do your healing work along the way. And she left and that's the only time I've ever seen my grandma in that way and I was just like I don't know what to do with this.
Speaker 2:I came home about four weeks later, right before Thanksgiving holiday here, and I opened up my business in March of brick and mortar. Just wanted to have a little shop offer body work, little metaphysical bohemian shop selling dresses, candles, accessories and I did it in the middle of the pandemic when it started in 2020. And my business like exploded and like blew up in six months. Like I was fully booked, people wanted more. I was in a sublease, moved on to bigger space, did three years of journeying with other people and realized I need to dive deeper into my spiritual work. I need to really turn away from what I think other people will accept. I live in a very conservative community, very, very, very conservative community. That's growing and changing but will take time. But I was accepted. You know, I was loved. I felt that I still just had fear and I didn't trust. I almost lost my business again for the second time as a lesson to trust and have faith.
Speaker 2:And that's when someone came to me and said you know, you remind me of a shamanic healer that's here in town. And I said shaman, what's that? I said I thought that was just you know, indigenous practices. They're like, no, they're like we're all indigenous to the earth when you think about it. And I said, well, who is this person? They said it's this very, you know, powerful woman. She's a yoga instructor, pilates instructor, but has studied 30 years with Andean and Peruvian shamans and sorcerers and magicians and all these other people deep in the mountains of Peru. And she's like I think it would really benefit for you to talk to her. I think it would be really powerful for your healing and just to awaken you to see if this is a path for you. And that's when I met my shamanic teacher, ali Smith, three years ago. And that's when I met my shamanic teacher, ali Smith three years ago, and the rest is history. We did an apprenticeship. I met her grandmother teacher, who is still my teacher today, linda Starwolf, who owns a huge shamanic school in western North Carolina on the Smoky Mountainside Venus Rising University. It's the first psycho-spiritual university that offers bachelor's degrees in shamanism and I practice with her, study with her and work with other healers.
Speaker 2:So I feel like through this long story and I'm a Gemini, so I'm going to talk a lot I kind of go around the bush and as a shaman we are storytellers, so sometimes our stories you got to keep up with us, but it's through deep grief and pain and complete surrender, of just letting go and just understanding that even if my life continues to blow up in a lot of big ways, I'll always be held and I can trust in the energies of the earth that's been here long before we were and will be here long before, long after we're gone, and trust in the creator and trust that we're all interconnected, you know, and just opening myself up to believe that there's something greater than what my physical reality likes to tell me sometimes, what society likes to tell me, with what other people like to tell me and what my shadow likes to tell me sometimes. So if that kind of answers your question, that's what led me to Shemani Keeling.
Speaker 1:I love all of that. Thank you so much for sharing that. What really touched me close to the beginning is that you have awareness of your IK, your indigenous knowledge, where it came from, your lineage, your matriarchal and your patriarchal line. And so this is something that I struggle with, for, you know, probably some obvious reasons is that I come from colonizers. I've been removed from the land that I was indigenous, that my ancestral line was indigenous on, and I really struggled with that throughout my life.
Speaker 1:And you know, I was into witchcraft a lot when I was younger and it created a huge problem because my parents are like hardcore Christians and so that caused a very big problem. But it kept calling to me over and over and over again and I'm really grateful that through that, a lot of the pieces that were calling to me were actually from Ireland, from Scotland, from England. That was a really natural pull for me. And then now being older and really learning about how we should be connecting to our own Indigenous knowledge instead of trying to go into other people's and take from that and then essentially make money off of that in some way, which is not a great way, not a great karmic way to be going about things. And so recently I started doing a facilitator training for facilitators to get better at facilitating and like women's circles and healings and all of this kind of stuff, and the first portion of it is ancestral healing and that's a really sensitive thing for me because I am not connected to my grandmothers.
Speaker 1:Sensitive thing for me because I am not connected to my grandmothers. Both of them were very bitter, angry people that didn't like my parents, because my parents are very Christian. They're extremely judgmental and that caused a lot of rifts throughout the family so I didn't really get to be connected to that. So I don't really have a sense of pride around any of that. And so just recently I found a company that does not sell your DNA and paid for in my matriarchal mind to go back 125,000 years, which is absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1:I didn't even know that was possible and maybe I'll include that in the show notes of where people could do that if they're interested. And I am sitting very impatiently day by day, any day. Now I'm going to get those results back. You know, I did the swab, I sent it in.
Speaker 1:I'm waiting, I'm waiting and they've acknowledged that they've received it. So I'm just waiting for those results now so that I can ideally go to those places you know where my tribal families were from and go and learn that indigenous knowledge and so all of that. So I envy you for having connection there. You know that's such a beautiful thing. So thank you so much for sharing that. Let's jump into our sound and breath journey. How does that feel for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Before we begin the breathwork journey, I want to talk a little bit about the breathwork that I like to facilitate. My grandmother, teacher Linda Starwolf, is the creator formally of shamanic breathwork. She and Stan Groff together created holotropic breathwork in the 70s at Esalon in Northern California. But Linda is just super devoted to Seneca, wolf Clan teachings, shamanic teachings, and felt the need to bring in shamanic traditions with greater intention to holotropic and somatic breathwork, so it's a combination thereof.
Speaker 2:The way that I make it my own is I add vibrational therapy to it in person. I utilize tuning forks and large Tibetan bowls on the body physically to vibrate the body to help regulate the nervous system and open up sacral chakra for stuck and repressed emotions to come out. Breathwork is so powerful because there's no walls with breathwork, there's no inhibitions. Anything that you fear, anything that you are conscious or unconscious, that's stuck in the body from trauma, from pain, from grief, will come up if you fully allow yourself surrender to the rhythm of the breath. Normally I use a very channeled chakra activating playlist that I play very, very loud. Only in the beginning will I do drumming to call in the spirits to protect the circle in the container, and then I do the drumming at the end to call back the person from deep into the unconscious mind.
Speaker 2:Breath work, especially in the style that I like to teach and facilitate, is done normally for an hour. It's very similar to holotropic. It can release a high amount of DMT and oxytocin and dopamine into the system, like taking a very mild ayahuasca journey with a lot greater control. So it does get you very elevated into the upper chakras. I always like to say you're a little high as a kite, we're doing it for long periods of time, but you feel such deep releases. A lot of people may cry, scream, laugh, dance, move their body, vibrate. It has a full body systemic nervous system release that gets you out of your regular conscious loop, especially if you ruminate, if you have anxiety, if you're deep in depression, and totally resets you like original programming button. It's the number one way that I feel that I have totally transformed my life. It's been crucial and a huge part of my healing, of who I was like five years ago to who I am now and to who I will be and continue to become and evolve.
Speaker 2:To Breath work is that conduit. For me is the channel. So I do like to preface that before I start, and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to show people the shamanic breath. I'm going to show you a really great way to do a kind of impactful breath but still gentle breath on the body. Is there a variety of different breaths that we like to do?
Speaker 2:In shamanic breath work we say there's no right or wrong way to breathe as long as you keep breathing, and so this is the way that I like to breathe. It's taking a deep inhale through the nose and then exhale through the mouth. So inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth, and when you exhale, you fully engage that core. It will feel like an ab workout. So if you're lying down and you should be in a safe and comfortable position, no one should be doing breath work while driving. Being in a calm, quiet space where no one can bother you, like minimal lights or even wearing an eye mask, would be great. Doing this breath in a fluid motion looks like this you find your own natural rhythm, so it feels like a wave up down, up, down. When I work with people, I'll say in, out, in, out in, out to help keep the rhythm.
Speaker 2:But for today, I'm going to do a little bit of a variation of a journey, with some gentle breath work. I am going to start with a little bit of some chimes and I'll bring in the drum to do the visualization. In the beginning I just want to focus on coming into the body, okay, and then once you start to hear the drum, that will be the cue for people to begin to breathe, as they're already more relaxed and just their body is ready to be more open to receive. Okay, so I'm excited, let's begin. Okay, I'm just going to grab my chimes, so I'm just going to have you close your eyes. We're going to take a deep breath in through your nose and exhale softly through your mouth.
Speaker 2:This is a regular yogic breath, a natural, somatic breath to deeply relax Again, inhale and then exhale, feel your body settle, feel the earth holding you, place one hand on your heart and one hand on your belly, breathe into this space and notice what you feel. Sit with that for a moment and then let's set an intention. Maybe an intention for you is I return to my wholeness or I am open to receive Whatever is coming up for you, for this breath work whether we're calling in, releasing or just being is perfect in this moment, in this journey, we're going to be using a simple, shamanic breath. It's a steady, open-mouth breath like this In through the nose and out through the mouth. In through the nose and out through the mouth. It's like a wave, the wind moving through you. Let's begin slowly, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Let the rhythm be natural, let it move you Few more breaths. I'm going to begin to call in our guides and our protectors. Continue with the breath, call in our team of light. Honor the spirits of the four directions and use the drum to represent Mother Earth, the heartbeat, the energy that connects us all With your breath and the beat.
Speaker 2:Imagine yourself walking into nature, Use your breath. Imagine yourself walking into nature, use your breath. A forest, a mountain, a desert trail, wherever your soul feels at home. Breathe you come to a glowing portal, a doorway of energy. With each breath, step closer, keep breathing, keep breathing. The light of the portal is with you, signaling you to trust and have faith, calling you to step forward in this journey of breath, into yourself, into spirit, into the earth. When you're ready, step through. Use your breath to give you strength to do so.
Speaker 2:As you cross over, you realize you are in a sacred space now, a place that you go, where you can connect to yourself, connect to your heart. Connect to yourself, connect to your heart, connect to everything that you feel within you. It can be a cave, it could be a sanctuary. It could even be a temple of light. Let the breath move you, let the sound guide you. Every breath releases what no longer serves. Every beat brings you back to your truth.
Speaker 2:Inhale, exhale. You are remembering your power. Inhale, exhale. You are remembering your power, your joy, your wholeness. Feel the energy clearing you, softening you, awakening you. If emotions rise, breathe. Visions come receive you. You are seeing. Keep breathing, thank you. Way away, way, breathe, breathe, breathe. Connect to your breath. The breath shows the way. Thank you, we are home. We are home. We are home, thank you. Slowly, allow the breath to return to a normal breathing pattern. Begin to journey back, carrying the healing with you. Let your body be still, let your breath be still, let your breath be soft. Feel the ground beneath you, the rhythm inside you. Wiggle your fingers, wiggle your toes. Take one more deep breath in and exhale with a sigh. Whisper to yourself I am whole, I am home, I am light and am home, I am light. And when you're ready, gently open your eyes and bring this sacred feeling into your day A whole. And so it is Welcome back.
Speaker 1:Wow, that was a journey. That was a journey. I definitely feel that highness. It's not my first time doing Threat4, but every single time it still feels so impossible. Even the things that you're saying, and like allowing that to become a piece of me, like truly believing that, which is what I believe a lot of these journeys are for is like let's integrate that into ourselves, make that like a true belief, like I am home, I am light, it's like I feel whole. I am whole and you know as I am.
Speaker 2:Thank you, that was wonderful oh, it's an honor and a privilege to guide and to bear witness to those that journey. So thank you truly all right, naomi.
Speaker 1:How can people connect with you?
Speaker 2:absolutely so. Of course, my business is the Joyful Shaman. I definitely have a website, wwwjoyfulshamancom. I'm really big on social media. On Instagram my handle is at Joyful Shaman. I'm always posting videos throughout the week of, you know, different teachings showing different ceremonies, rituals, practices, readings, things like that. I also am a retreat leader.
Speaker 2:I literally just got back last week from leading a powerful retreat in Yalapa, mexico, outside of Puerto Vallarta, for 15 women, deep in the jungles of Mexico, where we did powerful breath work to open up and work with sacral chakra Very transformative work. I actually have an upcoming retreat at the end of July in Mount Shasta, california, where we will be working with the powerful root chakra of the world, but working with all chakras. I will be doing breath work. We're actually going to be doing it in Panther's Meadow, which is a powerful place at the base of Shasta Mountain with babbling brooks out of a story tale. We're going to lie in nature and breathe. So we're going to be practicing a lot of rituals and other sacred practices in nature while connecting, and that's July 24th through the 27th.
Speaker 2:We've got spots for four more ladies. It's a small group, six or seven women coming with me to the mountain to heal, to do some deep spiritual connection connecting to angelic energy, lemurian energy. So that is a great way to connect with me. I always post my retreats on my site as well and I do offer, of course, in-person sessions. Here in Central Florida, in Lakeland, I have a private office where I do body work, energy medicine, sound healing, and I also do this online one-on-one with people. If you want to experience breath work, sound healing, a reading, reach out to me via my website and we can schedule that together. I work with people all over the world, so that's how you can find me joyfulshamancom or joyfulshaman on Instagram as well.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. Thank you so much, Naomi, for joining us here.
