School of Shamanism

S1 EP9: Awakening inside the system with David Palacios López

• School of Shamanism • Season 1 • Episode 9

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In this episode, I sit down with David from Essence Scotland for an honest, searching conversation about what happens when you realise the world you’ve been living in no longer feels true and yet, you still have to learn how to stay in it.

David reflects on growing up feeling out of place, questioning rules that never made sense, and moving through systems that promised help but felt empty at the core. From social work and deep frustration with institutional care, to coaching, breathwork, and embodied healing practices, he shares how his own crises became the doorway into listening, really listening, to himself and to others.

We talk about the idea of living in a “non-truth world”, why so many people are drawn to breathwork, yoga and healing spaces, and the uncomfortable reality that waking up often hurts. David speaks openly about discipline over motivation, the daily battle of staying aligned in a system designed to distract, and the quiet compromises we all make around food, movement, work and self-care just to remain human.

Together, we explore what it means to walk between worlds: the physical and the spiritual, comfort and truth, illusion and awareness. We touch on identity, emotional honesty, embodiment, and why choosing consciousness doesn’t mean escaping society — it means learning how to live inside it without losing yourself.

If you’ve ever felt like you don’t quite belong here, sensed that something about “normal life” feels off, or are learning how to honour your truth while still paying the bills, this conversation is an invitation to stand your ground, soften where you can, and keep choosing yourself — even when it’s uncomfortable.

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About the Host

Originally hailing from the vibrant city of Milan, I’ve spent the past two decades traversing the globe in a quest for spiritual and personal growth and combined with 25 years of international corporate work experience. From navigating the vast landscapes of Australia in a campervan to finding tranquility living in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal, my journey is nothing short of extraordinary. Along the way, I’ve delved deep into Buddhist teachings, yoga, and shamanism, becoming Shamanic Teacher,  Forest Therapy Guide, Esoteric Numerologist, Shamanic and Integral Yoga Teacher and Ikigai Coach. In 2013 I settled in Edinburgh, where  I founded the Art and Spirituality Centre, a social enterprise and the School of Shamanism, where I passionately help others on their own transformative journeys.

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CHAPTERS:

Welcome David Palacios López from Essence Scotland

Choosing truth in a world built on lies

Making peace with imperfection

Where to find David

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David

People go to goes to yoga or to breath war or whatever. Because we are living in a life. And we want to embrace the truth.

Giada

Thank you so much for accepting my invitation to the season Walking in Between Worlds. We've got here today David from Essence Scotland, and we are in conversation with healers, practitioners that are at intersections with modern and ancient wisdom, with spirit and matter. So I'm asking you today to introduce yourself and let us know what you do.

David

Hi, thank you very much for inviting me to your podcast. Well, my name is David. I'm from Spain, living in Edinburgh since eight years ago. I didn't like to follow the rules, but it's not the idea I wanted to do I don't know to kill other people or to hit other people. No, it's just why I have to do this in in order of what? What is the what is the reason to to do homework after school?

Giada

So questioning the system since day one.

David

Exactly.

Giada

How was your family reacting?

David

Well, my family they say that they understood me, but they didn't understand me. No, no, no.

Giada

You had to do it no matter what, yeah.

David

So well uh this life led me to know more about myself, to know more about other people. I wanted to know why other people uh was acting like they like they did, and I wanted to help other people because I always felt that psychologists, psychiatrists, I don't have anything against them. But uh when I was younger I had to go to the psychology, to the psychiatrist, and they didn't uh they didn't talk to me, they didn't listen to me. So it was like I'm going to do something to listen to other people. I think facilitate something. The first step, the most important step is listen, listen to. If you listen to the other people, you have 50 or 70 percent done of their job.

Giada

Yeah, exactly. But many times we come across in a conversation where we interrupt the other people, I am blaming myself as well. And sometimes I think because I have got too much to say, and then I will forget. So I have to say that straight away. But actually, in Asia, for example, when I was assisting some meetings in Asia as well, you see lots of people are depending on the countering, take make taking notes during meetings, and then at the end they would have asked all the questions, even if in a conversation in a one-to-one, it would be here with a notebook and say, Okay, I need to ask David that and this and that. So you have the chance to take your time and speak.

David

Exactly. Well, I could I could tell a lot of my story, but uh my my life basically was understanding a bit, then being very happy because I was understanding that, but then I didn't understand something, so I go down, up, down, up, down. Uh I studied social work at the university. Uh I wanted to study psychology, but the the results were very low for me. I was a very bad student. In fact, no one in my family, even in my friends, they could believe that David was going to the university. So, yeah, I started to work as a social work as a social worker assistant in the middle of the of the university. And then when I finished my degree, I started to work as a social worker, but I didn't like I didn't like the job because at the university I learned how to work with one person or with a group, how to how to help them to manage their resources and the resources of the system. However, when you start working as a social worker, you are not helping anyone, you are just giving money or giving benefits, but you don't work with the people. So you are giving, I don't know, 500 uh pounds or 500 euros in in Spain to a person who has a problem with alcohol. Yeah, but you are not working with the the alcohol problem.

Giada

Yeah.

David

So for me it was really frustrating. I I didn't want to be part of that system for me was like killing in life to the people. So I had a very big crisis, and thanks for that crisis. I moved to Germany. And there I started to watch YouTube videos. Well, in the past where they were videos, but they are like podcasts, like today's podcast. I connected with coaching with neurolinguistic program.

Giada

I studied that for 10 years. Oh wow, totally forgotten, I guess.

David

So I I connected with a lot of things. I said, wow, this is the way. This is the way to help others. So I moved to I moved back to Spain and I did a master of coaching. Uh well, I did a lot of things by this codification. So, how emotions are affecting the physical life or the physical world. Um interesting. I started to learn one thing, another thing. I started to offer uh training, group training sessions, uh coaching sessions as well, and then moved to Edinburgh. I stopped it a little bit because I wanted to I needed to survive in the city. And once I settled down, I started to do coaching again. And I discovered breath work uh three years, four years ago. Four years, almost four. My god. Time flies.

Giada

This is another world post post-COVID uh pandemic time, time is very fast.

David

I discovered breath work as a tool to release emotions, to release trauma, to release the bad guys in your in your body. Well, it's not I'm a breath work facilitator. Yes, I'm a breath work facilitator, but that's what people know you nowadays, just because I've known you. But it's I don't do only breath work in in my workshops. I I give all of my knowledge, coaching, neurolinguistic program, spirituality. I'm learning about this wall of spirituality. What is spirituality? Uh everything I give all of my yeah, exactly.

Choosing truth in a world built on lies

Giada

You are blending that like many of us when we have been on many past, then at some point we need to define ourselves uh in one way because people want the labels, but there is always this mixture of actually in the sessions, like I don't know, within shamanism, I do other things. I'm also working with numerology, with the with the Kigai, with other elements, with creativity. But if I need to choose one way, one name at some point I had to rebrand the business with shamanism. Before it was called Invisible Cames, where uh then I understood that claims is a Gaelic word, so it was difficult also for the Scottish people to know how to write it. So, despite of being near to my heart, it wasn't good for marketing purposes. Like, still my name that people call me Gaida. That's why my email address is not Jada at something. It's info. Info is easy, otherwise, the emails would bounce back all the time. Yeah. And so, within all this beautiful journey, what do you what do you feel nowadays? That there are is there still a division of two walls or more than one that you would think you are walking in and out?

David

Yes, definitely. Sometimes you are in this world, and people who are surrounding you are in this world, and you think that the rest of the world is in the same ship, but it's not. Even sometimes I say every day more people are working in, blah blah blah, but it's actually a small percent. So there are two walls, maybe there are more walls, but in invisible and invisible in this uh in this situation, there are two walls. I think both walls have been existing all the story, they are going to coexist in the future.

Giada

Yeah, in shamanism, we also we have them three. This is one is the middle world, and then the others can be upper world or or a lower world. So it's even three. Or sometimes when I don't know where we are journeying and traveling, I always say, let's travel to the unknown world, or the it's in a in a reality that is that we don't know, it's not specify specified. So it basically opens up a travel to other forms of energies. Yeah.

David

For me, if if you take and you analyze everything, for me, there are just two worlds, which is the the the real world, the truth one, and the non-truth world. So most of the people, even myself, I'm I'm talking about this, but well, we are living in a non-truth world. Yeah, that's the problem. So all the problems we have, because of that, we are here, because of that we are facilitators, because of that, people go to yoga or to breathwork or whatever. Yeah, because we are living in a life, yeah, and we want to embrace the truth, yeah. But the truth is well, sometimes we want things very easy, uh, non-painful things. But if you are living in a life, it's in a projection, you want to go to the truth, it's gonna be pain. Of course. Because there is no other way.

Giada

Exactly. In order to live fully, you need to suffer fully, be down inside that. Yeah, the the Australian shaman says that we we dream the wrong dream, because you know they don't have the word imagination, and they call it dream time. Basically, it's the other world, of course, is the is the true one, and here where we are living in a projection, we are living in the wrong dream. We are dreaming things in the wrong way, uh, which is uh which is another beautiful expression of this reality that we think it's the only one. And so, what would you recommend to people that feel many times that they don't belong to this world or they don't fit into this world? What would you recommend them to do per your experience when there is this sort of inner struggle and they can't stay in the system, they can't follow the rules, the rules of this society?

David

If you ask me this question five years ago, I will say do whatever you feel, uh kill the system today today I will say the system is here, the system is not gonna disappear. We have to learn how to live in the system in ourselves, because the system is going to take you away from what you really are. So every time you open your eyes in the morning, you are starting like a battle, like a war. So a war that is not trying to kill you, it's just trying to confuse yourself, it's trying to unfocus from who you really are.

Giada

Exactly, exactly. It comes to my mind, you know, the the book by George Orwell, The Big Brother, the last sentence in which the main character it was the room 101, is the room where there are all your fears, uh all the things that you can't stand in life. And in order to go out to be away, to be separated from them, that room, at the end of the book, he says, I mean, take me out, do it to Julia, who was her lover, his lover, not to me. So becoming away from his true love, himself being subject to, of course, all the rules of the big brother, the tortures of this room in general, and taken away from his own identity, say, okay, do it to the person that I love most in my life.

Making peace with imperfection

David

Yeah, it's it's it's how the system works. It's if you if you have to eat real food, the system is gonna force you to go to the fake food. If you need to do exercise, the system is going to take away the exercise. So, what I say is just accept that we are living in this world, and we cannot do anything else in terms of no, I want to live in an spiritual world. No, you are not living in a spiritual world, you are living in this world, and this world is spiritual, of course, but it's physical as well, and it's a mental world, and it's an emotional world, and you cannot you cannot live in one of the four worlds. You one you have to live in this world, and it's okay. This is the system perfect. What can I do in order to be myself? What can I do to eat good food, okay, instead of buying fake products like trap test food food, ready meals, etc.

Giada

So what do you do? What David do does what do you do for being sure to be faithful to yourself in this world and connected with the other as well as your own practice?

David

For example, is in terms of food. I'm not I'm not at the 100% real food, but my my my shopping basket is plenty of fruit, vegetables.

Giada

Yeah, exactly.

David

Even I I don't eat chicken in the supermarket.

Giada

Yeah.

David

So I buy chicken, for example, in the farmer's market.

Giada

Because we knew exactly that uh hopefully, I mean some of those products are on organic, they have been sourced in a sustainable way, hopefully, definitely more better than the commercial chains.

David

I try to do exercise as much as I can every every day, at least to well, take steps, ten thousand steps. I there is one thing that is more difficult to explain, so but is understanding myself, understanding how I'm how are my emotions. So why in that moment I feel really really angry instead of blocking the emotion is okay, I'm angry, it's perfect. So today you are you don't go out because you are going to be able to do it.

Giada

You embrace the anger, exactly.

David

So it's okay, you are angry, perfect. Well well, what should I know now about this state about this emotion?

Giada

Yeah.

David

It's talking to my emotions. So if you if you know that for example, I I went yesterday to the dentist, and in the past they put me a couple of um I don't know the name now. Um so they put me something black instead of the white one so it has mercury. So mercury is is really bad for ourselves. Yeah. So I asked to uh remove them and put it a new one. And they told me we can we can remove this and we can put in this in this teeth, but the other one is going to be very dangerous for you. So I said, okay, maybe it's better to take a little bit of mercury rather than remove a being pain in chronic pain all my life because I is taking a nerve, blah blah blah.

Giada

Sometimes we need to do a compromise.

David

I what I do in my daily life is knowing what is happening, knowing the truth. So I don't I don't mind if it's good or if it's bad because it's nothing good or nothing bad. It's just okay. I have this. I couldn't do better in the past. So because of that, I have the mercury in my soul now what never be retrograde. What can I do? This okay. What are the worst thing that I can experience? So I know the chicken, the not the the regular chicken in the in the supermarket, they uh in in cages really yeah, diet, they don't live an happy life, of course. Yeah, so what I what I want to eat a chicken that is being good is is being treated in a good way, yeah. Being being free and outside, yeah, running, blah blah blah. So that's the knowledge. Okay, I have the knowledge, and and now I have to action.

Giada

Yeah, you make your choice, it's always exactly, of course, that we and sometimes we also need, of course, despite of our ideas, we need to make some decision uh what can be yes worse or good for our for our own health in general. I have been vegetarian for many years, and at some point I became very highly anemic. So I had to make a choice, tried with lots of supplements for irons in a several amount of way. Then at some point I have to reintroduce meat in my life because otherwise my health situations would have really been worse. I was really at the limit for which the iron was not even almost present in my blood. So at some point, we need to make some choices that are affecting ourselves that are improving some situations. And we we strongly believe that then there is always another way for which we can exactly when you choose the meat, choose at least the meat for which uh the animals are hopefully respected in a way. We know that then there is always this element of killing, which I don't like, but at least we can which I always blend with Buddhism, I always wish them human reverse from the Buddhist point of view, because according to their beliefs, is where in the human reverse we have the opportunity to go out from the cycle of the samsara. So while in their case, they I mean animals don't have they're not considered sentient beings, so they don't have this opportunity to go out from the circle. But here we can open uh huge conversations with plants that are not even considered uh as uh as as gain as again as as living beings, but it's fine. And and so, in do you think that it's an ongoing struggle between one step here and one step there, or at some point uh you feel that there is that balance being grounded, and it's fine. One day you need to paint on the right or on the left and still moving forward because we need to accept the role of this world.

David

Well, what we used to do, I think everyone, is you go to one side, so now I'm very awake or blah blah blah, whatever. I'm very spiritual, and you go to the to one side. Because you are coming from the other side, from the pain side, from the suffering side, and you are going to one side that you've you think is the highest side, the love side, but it's not the love one, it's the pain as well, and the suffering side because it's the same. Um I think it's really it's really normal to go from one side to the other side. Sometimes I say I I think why I'm not normal? Why I'm not working in a normal job, nine to five, having my security. Sometimes I think that, but is no, it's not possible.

Giada

So maybe I don't know if that's also the question of what is normality, yeah, exactly. And what happened in the pandemic is that normality was the problem, so that's why we were asked to go out of all the certainties.

David

I used to say that there is normal, normality, and natural. So, what is natural and what is normal? Because for me, normal should be the natural. Yes, but we create a new normality.

Giada

We were born in the natural code.

David

So it's normal to live in a city in a building with thousands or hundreds of people. For me, that's not normal. The normal or the natural is living with your space, uh in the nature.

Giada

Exactly. It takes to me, for example, a famous case that there is in Italy at the moment. There was a family of she was Australian, he was she's Australian, he's English, and they were they are living in a woodland in a remote area. They have become a big case because they had the they have two children, and they are living over there without electricity. They have chosen a way for being in nature, still not very far from the city, but educating their children in an old way. And now, unfortunately, uh the Italian law has decided to take the children away from them because the other people uh around in in the village they have said that it's not normal that these children are away from other children while still they play together when the children come in the woodland, but they don't go to the school, so they have been taken away from the family, which is okay. Um a decision, thinking that's the best decision for them to be away from their family and being able to be to school so they will suffer.

David

Exactly.

Giada

Also because they don't know the new world that they are going into, they haven't met them this way.

David

They are going to be forced to live in a belief system. Well, for me it's not normal, and for me, well, I don't believe in education, the nor institutionalized education.

Giada

Yeah, yeah.

David

For me, the school the school time was really hard for me. I'm here because of that. If not, I I will be in another place, but I don't think in a school you are teaching people, you are um I don't I I don't know the word now, but you are programming people, you are training people to serve to you, to serve the system, not to serve themselves.

Giada

You are training them to control to be controllable.

David

Exactly. So well, we are living in two worlds where probably the awakening world is more touchable because of the social media, for example. I think people are taking in account what we are doing to the to the rest of the species to the rest of the world that we cannot we cannot do the the pain we are doing to the rest of the world, but at the same time we need to survive, we need to live. So I was tell I was saying the best way I think to live is in the middle of nowhere with nature and so on. But I live here in the city. Yeah, maybe I don't live in the city center, I have my own garden and so on, but yeah, so but also because as uh practitioners, the people to help are in cities, as I always say.

Giada

If we would live isolated, it would be harder. Yeah, I think we would have people to travel to us.

David

It wouldn't be real, because maybe I don't know, maybe in 100 or 200 or 500 years we are living in a small town, uh, in our house, blah blah blah, but now it's not the case. So we we have to learn how to live in this world in the non-real world, but it's more real than nothing, uh being ourself, being in the real world. So it's not easy, but because of that, we are here.

Where to find David

Giada

Yeah, that's the journey of the of the soul. Exactly. Yeah. And where can people can can people find you your Instagram website? Can you let us know then I will add it to the description as well?

David

Well, if you if you speak English essence. I think it's in Instagram. Um I'm going to open the website soon. So it's essence essence scotland.com. If you speak Spanish as well, you can find me in Instagram at David Palacios Lopez. Yeah, and that's the way to find me. If you wanna contact me, you can send me an email to smile at essence scotland.com.

Giada

Yeah. We're currently offering uh a series of breastwork.

David

Yeah, we are doing one workshop per month at least, uh, the third weekend of the month here in Art and Spirituality. Um in Edinburgh. Um the idea is to do one workshop, uh, one big workshop, because I'm running three hours workshop. The next one is healing with family, uh the last one was healing with mom and dad, uh, the healing with your inner child. So healing ourselves. Um yeah, and we are going to start as well to to run workshops, just one hour workshop during the week to release the the week stress.

Giada

So yeah, the fortnightly classes every every two weeks on uh on Tuesdays, 6 p.m. here. Beautiful, wonderful. Thanks so much for for your time and uh looking forward to be guests on your podcast soon in the next year.

David

Thank you, thank you so much and thank you for for watching the podcast.

Giada

Thank you.