Stories heal
Stories, on their various structures, have been a part of human history from its very beginnings.
Stories, any story, provide information, prepare and describe, share and comfort.
They accompany us in our physical, literal reality and resonate in our emotions and thoughts.
When expanded with a healing aspect, stories tickle our souls to embark on heroic journeys, explore, expand, walk our path, find our soulmates, and go for that one small thing that fills our hearts with whole joy and dance.
Stories were once an oral tradition.
Once upon a time, stories were an oral tradition passed by elders to the younger generation, imparting wisdom. The storytellers would alter the story over time, accommodating themselves to circumstances, age groups, aims, and styles.
Some of these stories were healing, some informative, and others served as a tool for divination. Sometimes, a new story would emerge, a tale of a hunt or a tribal victory. Some were based on real tribal or personal events, while others were the fruit of the storyteller’s soul’s journeys.
Healing stories come from higher guidance in what we refer to as the invisible worlds.
Fairly early in my recovery from the car crash, while trying to understand the scenes and dreams I was experiencing, I participated in a short storytelling workshop. The storyteller was a unique and warm-hearted soul, who taught how to ask for stories and how to frame them.
The workshop didn’t help me gain a better understanding of the visions I was seeing, but I did learn how to craft a story from the heart, and it opened up an entire world for me.
I started asking for stories for my girls, and that developed into receiving stories in general, sometimes sharing them and sometimes having them come for me to guide me in a visual, mythical way. Then, when I embarked on the shamanic path and training, I realized it was all very similar to shamanic journeying.
Healing stories are not real-life stories, and in parallel, they very much are. They are all stories of love.
The stories I share here, in my little space on the web, come through when I journey, shamanic journeying. Sometimes, the journey is an expedition into dimensions of the universe and beyond. Other times the journey is the humble birthing of a story.
- I close my eyes…
- …an image starts to develop into a picture…
- …and then into a short, simple story.
At times, the stories are more elaborate and mythic.
See, for example: A field of grains; On the bank of river time; The storyteller; Light changes everything; Two friends; A wheel of release; A pool of light; A giant of light, and An old notebook and a lost pen.
Each story has so many layers to it – read with your heart and discover what’s in the story for you.
I have been journeying since I was a little girl, but it became an intentional practice only after the car crash and my NDE.
Journeying is a developed, advanced work of our imagination, and, in parallel, it is an innate tool all children are born with—an imaginative muscle we can work or ignore.
Shamanic journeying is a tool that brought me healing, a tool I use when mediating shamanic energy healing in my writing and in receiving higher guidance.
The stories that come to me always carry deep meaning. I enjoy the experience of their evolution, and I write them as I experience them, letting them work through my heart without trying to analyze them.
I invite you to read the stories I share here with your heart.
Can these stories be shared with children?
All stories can be shared with children, but before sharing a story, I recommend that you read it and make sure you feel it’s appropriate for your child.
Then when sharing, feel free to flow, to change the wording, to make the story yours. If you close your eyes and see a different variation, that is a blessing. Always stay very attuned to your children when doing so, so that the variation that comes to you is indeed for them.
Healing stories are always heart-based. There is no clear outline, no rules to determine how the characters should behave, and they don’t necessarily face an explicit challenge.
Most children, especially younger ones, enjoy healing stories.
Soon after you start telling them such stories, many begin crafting their own as their connection inward is intact.
Others like drawing what you share.
Any expression is a blessing.
By allowing yourself to tell the stories I share here, from your own heart, with your own variations, you are letting the stories dance to their unique rhythm. Connecting. Touching. Reminding.
I hope the stories I share here, in my little space, touch your heart like they touch mine.
Stories and Shamanic Journeying
Shamanic journeying is a practice shared by all those practicing shamanism walking this path, whether as mediators of healing or just as their way of walking their lives. It enables an intentional reach for information, knowledge, and guidance obtainable in what we humans, from the perspective of our lives here on Earth, call ‘invisible.’
In shamanic energy healing sessions, the healing mediator often embarks on a journey to retrieve information that can guide their client in whatever issue they are is facing. This can include general guidance, resolution of past issues, ancestral healing, and so much more, as well as soul retrieval or bringing another quantum of personal or collective energy that the client is ready to work with. Traditionally, the journey is assisted by drumming or rattling in specific rhythms that aid in changing one’s brain waves.
Yet, while journeying is maybe the most shared and basic tool of shamanism, in practice many people, especially children, journey without realizing this is what they are doing. Some refer to it as daydreaming, others as occasional visions, some see it as an active imagination. No matter what you call it, this inherent ability is widespread.
Are mythical healing stories exactly like shamanic journeying?
No. When shamanic practitioners journey, or guide others on a journey, they journey with a clear intention. They travel through invisible worlds according to known maps. Maps learned from human teachers and expanded with the direction of their higher guidance and lineage. The journey has a clear start and a clear end, limiting the time in the invisible worlds, carefully weaving information and healing retrieved in other dimensions of our reality into our awareness and physical existence.
Healing stories, as referred to in this post, are a simplified, small and local journey.
Where Do Healing Stories Come From?
The line between imagination and retrieving information from invisible worlds is very fine. When children start crafting healing stories, it’s very clear where they have added motives and characters from a movie, book, or an element of their physical, literal lives, and when stories are indeed coming from other dimensions.
In a mythical form, the information reaches us as a partially formed image or a short story. When we share it with another person, they can pick up on the elements they meet. If we extract the meaning from the image, we bound the gift we share with the other person whom the journey is for.
The retrieval of healing stories are a small, delicate, mythical shamanic journey. In simple terms, healing stories come from higher guidance in what we refer to as the invisible worlds.
I know this might feel strange for those of you not feeling connected to your guidance. But we all are, whether we are aware of it or not, and in my experience of our universe, that’s where stories, images, and ideas come from.
“Tell Me A Story”
When a child asks for a story, it’s a soul’s wish to receive one, a soul’s wish to connect. To connect through us, their parents, and cultivate our connection. It is the same when a child asks us to read him or her a story–it is a request for connection.
For little ones, good books are often healing stories that came to another mother or grandmother and were received so well they felt compelled to share them with the world.
Healing stories are always heart-based. There is no clear outline, no rules to determine how the characters should behave, and they don’t necessarily face a challenge. That sometimes happens, but it’s not an essential part of the story, as seen in many children’s books today.
What makes a story mythical?
We often use the adjectives mythic or mythical to describe something that is not bound to time. A story becomes mythical when its characters or settings carry a deeper meaning, teaching, or example. Nothing is directly said or taught. Instead, the story meets us somewhere in a gray zone of our being, each of us picking up on a different element, touched, and awakened.
In shamanic journeying, there is a clear advantage to receiving information in a mythical form—especially when journeying for another person. In a mythical form, the information reaches us as a partially formed image or a short story. When we share it with another person, they can pick up on the elements they meet. If we extract the meaning from the image, we bind the gift we share with the other person whom the journey is for.
Let’s look at an example…
“I see a beautiful, small, purple bird. It is standing on a branch in a birdcage, head bent. The cage is old and rusty, hanging on a huge tree, by the window of an abandoned house. The cage’s door is open.”
Take a moment to look at this image with your inner eyes and see what comes next.
Possibly, note to yourself, what element in the story was more salient for you?
Healing stories, as a basic form of journeying, invite that mythical quest. A small quest, staying with what comes, trusting the evolving image. Not forcing an earthly, known construct of thinking, assuming that the character must find a solution or that happy endings have specific meanings. And indeed, when several children hear the same story and are invited to draw it, they rarely all choose the same element of the story.
Stories become healing stories when they speak not to the listener’s mind but to their heart and soul. Meeting the listener at their soul’s level and providing assurance, comfort, love, connection, inspiration, and healing in an indirect, creative, and open form.
Healing Stories and Children – Tools for Working with Stories
Children love these stories. My daughters have been listening to and crafting their own since they were little. And even now, at 11 and 13 years old, they never say no if I suggest a story before bedtime. Sharing stories with them was a significant step in my spiritual journey as a parent.
We also incorporate healing stories in our mother-daughter journeying group to receive personal guidance and resolution.
Most girls in the group easily craft such stories for themselves or others, not because we taught them how to do so in our shared work, but because it’s a tool available to all children. Together, we simply reinforced its place in their lives.
Do we need to work with a story beyond telling it?
Do we need to work with a story beyond telling it? Not always. Often, it is our own need, as parents, to embody it, and therefore we look for additional work tools. If you feel the need, three such tools are:
∞ Tell the story again and again—twice or twenty times until your child had enough. But do be flexible and allow the story to evolve and change as you tell it. Or as your child picks on it and tells it herself.
∞ Invite your child to draw the story. He might draw something completely different than what you understand. Don’t judge and don’t interpret anything. It’s a form of embodiment, of recalibrating the vibration of the story inward.
∞ Older children sometimes like to keep a record, write the story and even make a small book for themselves. Invite them to make changes that come to them. Let them know that once they write, it becomes their story, and in line with oral traditions, they are welcome to make it their own.
TRY…
You may find that healing stories are your doorway to the beauty of your path.
2 Responses
Dear Efrate Shokef, Your article about the mythical healing stories truelly resonated with me. I am a children’s book author and illustrator, and I am currently working on a story which has spoken words to me through some cosmic mythical, magical, universe magic. (Exactly how you described.) In many ways I am still reattain my child-like storytelling qualities and connect with “the great muses” as I like to call them to tell their stories. I would very much like to connect with you further and discuss all about this topic.
Dear Kelly,
Thank you for your comment!
The best children’s books I know come through the heart, which is, in a way, Spirit’s way of communicating with and through us.
I use stories in my work with children often (And often also as a birthday gift to my family and friends).
When downloaded with love and edited carefully (not to ruin them) to our human needs and requirements (grammar… short paragraphs…), they are touching, fun to work on, expanding to give and offer to others, and are wholesome spiritual nutrition.
Let’s connect! I’ll send you a private email soon.
Efrat