The Healing Circle
Exactly a year ago today I sat in front of Lynn Andrews during what’s called the Healing Circle as she brought me to the very place she took me to the first time we talked four years prior – Baghdad. The city which I thought I had let go of, which I wanted to put behind me, kept pulling me in its direction. What did this city want from me? Why wouldn’t it let me be? Or what did I want from it? Why did I keep holding on?
Those questions were finally answered and that part of my story finally released. Healing Wisdom for a Wounded World: My Life-Changing Journey through a Shamanic School (Book 4) is the fourth and final of the four-book memoir series of my apprenticeship in Lynn’s school. One major lesson I learned in this school is that you can create a new interpretation that takes you out of your past and into the present and a new future. You do that once you identify the story that is running your life. You release that story and are then able to pursue your dreams while enjoying healthy relationships and living a sacred family life. In this school, through the ancient teachings and with the help of my wise teachers, I used my storytelling abilities to change my narrative and, since then, I’ve helped others transform their lives by changing their own narratives.
For over two decades, medical practice has increasingly recognized the significance of what’s come to be called “narrative medicine” to the person’s healing. Narrative medicine is a wholesome medical approach that recognized the value of people’s narrative in clinical practice, research, and education as a way to promote healing.
A number of medical schools such as Columbia University now have Narrative Medicine master’s program. Columbia states on their website that “The effective practice of healthcare requires the ability to recognize, absorb, interpret, and act on the stories and plights of others. Medicine practiced with narrative competence is a model for humane and effective medical practice. It addresses the need of patients and caregivers to voice their experience, to be heard and to be valued, and it acknowledges the power of narrative to change the way care is given and received.”
Since I graduated from Lynn’s school a year ago, I’ve watched various discussions about shamanism, what it is or isn’t, who is considered a real shaman and who isn’t. I just observe and listen and think of how I entered into a shamanic school not knowing what shamanism was, not knowing who Lynn Andrews was, but wanting to change my story. It was toward the end of the second year that I googled the word shamanism and learned, for the first time, its real definition. This was not a matter of ignorance, but of innocence, of trusting God to lead me in the right direction.
Available on Amazon
eBook: https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Wisdom-Wounded-World-Life-Changing-ebook/dp/B01LYMYLRR/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1477997102&sr=8-1&keywords=Weam+Namou%2C+eBook
Cultural Glimpse 