I am an empath, a healer, a channel, a medium, an intuitive, a past life regressionist, a shamanic practitioner, and more… and, until recently, I have lived in fear of others seeing these things in me.
As far back as I can recall in this life, I have been able to see, hear, feel, and know what is beyond my physical facilities. In childhood, I realized that the perceptions and experiences I was having weren’t the same as the people around me.
At an early age, I learned to dismiss the visions, the messages, and the depth of sight as nothing more than fanciful. I also learned – through the laughter, mockery, and overt condemnation of others – to hide myself. I was of the mind that my gifts and abilities were useless and held no bearing or consideration in the “real world.” I had no belief in my own experiences or abilities, spiritual or artistic.
Finding the Path
Being born spiritually open and struggling to make sense of my perceptions, I began my search with Christianity. In junior high, I gave my life to God in a Christian sense. It was all I had known and the only template I had been given to access what I felt as the Divine. Through this, I spent many years active in my church, local Bible camp, and in youth outreach. I had developed a yearning to help people in their connection with the Creator, I knew so much healing could occur if only I could learn and teach more.
My assumed natural next step was to become a Pastor and minister to people, so I moved to Seattle and enrolled in Bible school. After two semesters, I was called into the President’s office. The conversation was brief.
My questions were “disruptive to both students and faculty,” is how it was explained to me. “Digging deep is not the purpose of the school,” and the opinions I had arrived at or questions I had raised were not “Christian” in nature. Then, finally, “We (the administration) feel it is in the best interest of all parties that you pursue your education elsewhere.”
At nineteen years old, I had just been kicked out of pastor college.
I was crushed, bewildered, and lost.
I was just being myself and using the mind and heart I was given, and that was enough to be given the boot. I returned to North Dakota, eventually enrolling in University, I studied anthropology while also bartending at a local music venue. It was my first experience meeting people living and working as artists. It was also the first time I became acquainted with people practicing Wicca.
Learning to Walk the Path
My first true study of the spiritual nature of the universe began with a structured Wicca class. I was enthralled by the arcane knowledge they possessed. It was my first real introduction to ritual, meditation, meditative technique, energy healing, etc.
In this same time period, one of my professors was also a practicing shaman. I was invited to attended an introductory workshop. It was here that I first began working directly with spirit guides and basic shamanic healing techniques.
I was in love!!
I began reading tarot professionally, doing basic energy work, and seeing for people.
For the first time I felt like I belonged to a group, a people who understood… I was making friends. I saw the path. I was confident in who I was.
But I wasn’t. I didn’t. It was a mask.
While I was pursuing all of this there was a nagging doubt and a desire to conform to what the world had defined as success for me. That is a fruit of seeking approval of others- one I had not recognized, much less shed.
Going Astray
The fears and the lack of faith I had in myself led me to drop out of school, get married, and try my hardest to work a regular job and find contentment in it. I failed miserably.
After a summer living in a tent in Alaska, I decided I must follow my own dreams. Upon returning to North Dakota, I dared to apply at a stained glass studio and start my life as an artist. Spiritually, I wasn’t closeted at this point, I just was no longer overt and openly seeking.
As I returned to my conservative hometown to start my own glass studio, I began to closet myself more and more spiritually. Some of it was intentional, out of fear of what my community may think. Some of it was lack of focus. As I began to build my business and career as an artist, the spiritual side fell away as I worked and toiled, dreamt and achieved in the physical world.
My intuitive and empathic gifts were either only confided in close friends who I knew would be accepting, or sidelined to bar-room-psychic moments. The marriage that began in fear, consistently became more and more toxic. I lived this life for a decade, trying to forge my own path by ignoring the knowing I had: I was off my path, shutting out the calling to a spiritual life.
Trying to hold it all together was becoming a stressor that I constantly sought to run away from. I became withdrawn. I had no belief in myself. I allowed my self to be treated poorly, and treated others poorly. The lack of belief, of self-worth, and desire to conform to what those around me defined as success, led me to have an affair.
Implosion
The affair led to divorce and the divorce was brutal. I just wanted out. Not everyone involved wanted the same, one wanted to see me suffer. I did.
Within six months, I had been charged with crimes I did not commit. While never even brought to trial, these things were used against me to keep my kids away from me. Fighting in both family and criminal court quickly put me in immense debt.
I had lost my kids, my reputation, and income. I was almost ready to lose my house and business, and was fighting manufactured felony charges.
Hope For Hope
In the midst of the hell I found myself in, I found those I could trust and who still believed in me. I could not see any positive outcome. I could not see beyond the landscape of despair I walked through every moment, both waking and asleep. I could not dare to hope for a bright future with my current reality.
That is when I began to meditate again. I began to pray again. I began to pay attention to what was inside instead of outside. That is when I began to find the beginnings of value in my spiritual self.
I began to hope that one day I would be hopeful.
It was with this intention I began to let people love me. I began to let me love me. I began to let myself find value and lessons in what I was going through.
It was through hoping for hope that my life began to change.
Charges were dropped.
The divorce finalized.
I was able to keep my business.
I was able to keep my home.
My true love and partner walked into my life.
Returning To The Path
The next few years were a period of intensive healing. Learning to let go of fear. Daring myself to dream and truly embrace who I am.
I spent an entire year intentionally practicing nothing but authenticity. I consciously chose to peel away the calcified layers of cynicism and sarcasm, embrace the things that were hurting, and bravely go forward when uncomfortable.
I, once again, began to pay attention to my intuition and started to believe in the direction I was being given. Each and every time I trusted myself, my life improved. The more I trusted, the more synchronicity I saw working in my life.
At this point, I was once again a spiritual student on a self-guided journey, even though it had little impact in my life. It was still regarded as a novelty. Something to be considered, but not shared.
The synchronicities continued as I followed my intuition and trusted in the people who truly loved me. I was introduced to communities that helped me heal and made friends with people who believed in me and in my gifts; they helped encourage me on to my highest good.
Living The Path
In the summer of 2015, as I started to follow my own interests again, as I dared to start engaging life again, as I began to believe in myself… my desire to help others heal and find their way returned… but how can anyone be that person? How could I?
There was still a gulf between who I was as a mundane person and who I was as a spiritual being. They were separate and unintegrated.
Then it happened… what has become affectionately known as the Day of the Dragons.
I won’t go into detail here, but will say that the experience of that day hit me full force. There was no longer denying any of the experiences I had in the past, no longer denying the connection I felt was real and profound. I was amazed and overjoyed.
At that point, I could no longer ignore the whisper in my heart to help others. I prayed “If You (the Creator) want me to help others with the talents You have given me, bring them to me.” For one year I accepted helping anyone who approached me.
That year, I helped work with the spirit of a hunter who had died in the field so his body could be found. I then brought messages to his family to help them understand, forgive, and heal.
I performed a soul retrieval for a woman who had been sexually abused as a child.
I performed several intuitive readings for guidance.
Friends who had passed appeared in meditations with messages for their surviving loved ones.
The list goes on and on.
Since that time, my world continues to grow in amazing ways that I could not have dared to imagine for my own life. The dreams I secretly held in my heart, that I didn’t feel worthy of, began coming true.
My business has grown exponentially.
I travelled to Southeast Asia.
I was married to the love of my life by a Lakota Holy Man.
I have found true community.
The list goes on and on.
The stories continue to unfold.
Becoming The Path
Seeing the amazing power of spiritual transformation work in my own life has left me with a humble sense of responsibility. The lessons I have learned are not just for me, they are for everyone. The insights that have helped me navigate the turbulent waters of choice and chance are not for me alone. The spirits who guide me are just as willing to work through me to guide others.
The natural bends in talent I have for empathic knowledge, meditation, intuitive readings, shamanic journeywork, past life recall, healing, trance channeling, medium work, and manifestation aren’t just to serve me. They have been entrusted to me to serve others.
Find the power in your story.
Define your moments.
Change your life.
Welcome.
-Jason Lindell-
jason lindell 