Allies & Demons Inner Journeys

#1 in the series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing, by therapist and Shamanic healer Renee LaVallee McKenna. In this episode, we use our active imagination to connect with the peace and power available to all of us through our connection with the Spirit of Nature. This is a grounding and deeply healing experience and the first step toward awakening your authentic self through the Allies & Demons process.

#2 in the series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing. In the first guided session, we found a sacred space from which to begin our work. Our next step will be to return to this sacred place to connect with a spirit guide in animal form known in Shamanic traditions as a power animal. Connecting with a personal power animal is an ancient practice for guidance, healing and empowerment. This creature may make itself available in whatever form is most helpful for you. The form of the animal itself is a teaching and this relationship can provide valuable insight and growth in our personal relationship with power and in the rest of our life.

#3 in the series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing. This inner journey provides a path to meet your golden child. The golden child is a wise and powerful part of ourselves, knowing with full clarity its true identity and power potential. The golden child within is naturally connected with the unique gifts and talents we were born to bring into the world.

The process we will use to find the golden child is based on the ancient Shamanic practice called soul retrieval. Soul retrieval provides a direct connection to our authentic self and returns vital life energy to us physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and energetically. Connecting with the golden child is a powerful step on our path to wholeness.

This curious, compassionate, creative part of our self can be a source of joy, creativity, courage, and wonder when we reconnect with it as adults. When disconnected from our true nature, we lose access to an essential part of our being. By bringing our golden child into the present moment, we receive power and resources previously unavailable to us.

#4 in the series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing. Working with non-physical teachers, angels and ancestors enlarges our grounded, trusting relationship with Source. Connecting with a spiritual guide in human form adds another valuable resource for wisdom, guidance and power to our internal tool box.

Teachers in human form come in many guises and from varied levels of consciousness. Ancestors and loved ones who have passed may provide very personal, emotional, spiritual support. Angels and saints frequently offer benevolent strength and compassion, while wise being and ascended masters may grant specific insight, guidance and healing. 

In this inner journey, we use a modified Shamanic journey to meet a spiritual ally In Human Form. Be open and see what comes.

#5 in the series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing. The focus of this particular inner journey is to dissolve our inner demons of fear, self-judgment and self-hatred using the Transforming Demons Into Allies process. Please note that this journey can be used to transform any inner conflict, unresolved emotional issue or unhealthy pattern we might have.

In this process we dissolve, transform or heal the inner critic using the energy of compassion. By discovering the core need underlying the inner critic, we find the antidote to the unresolved emotional suffering driving this destructive dynamic. We can then feed the inner critic the love, safety, connection, value, wholeness or compassion it most deeply needs.

Often the inner critic develops as a defensive structure to protect us from rejection, humiliation, fear and pain. Under every defense is a wound. The cause of the wound is an unmet need. When the authentic need is met, the defense dissolves or transforms. This is the gift of healing our demons. When our deepest needs are filled, our defensive structures become unnecessary and we can open to Higher Power and healthier, more constructive ways of living.

#6 in the series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing. The process we will use to heal the child within is a modified Shamanic soul retrieval. This inner journey may be done repeatedly to heal our wounds and grow in emotional vulnerability and maturity.

In bringing loving kindness to our lost inner child parts, we also grow in the ability to parent ourselves with presence and compassion. When our internal landscape is grounded in self-care, we create for ourselves the environment of emotional and mental nourishment we have always craved.

When working with our inner child, it’s as if this child is an actual individual with unique experiences that we might not have access to with ordinary awareness. In fact, we may have consciously or unconsciously blocked childhood experiences in an attempt to avoid or manage pain and trauma we couldn’t process or handle at the time.

When we lose authentic parts of ourselves in this way, a void is created in the psyche. This void is often a place where inner self-criticism and destructive, defensive patterns can come in to fill the gap. Alternately, we may create a social mask we wear with others in an attempt to manipulate or control how others perceive us. Though these tactics may be a way to keep our authentic suffering at bay, the pain created by our defenses may be exponentially greater than the original conflict we hoped to avoid. Allies & Demons teaches us how to become a responsible self-parent. With the help of our guides and teachers, we aim the attention of our best self devotedly toward those childhood parts of ourselves that didn’t get their needs met. We can then bring compassion and unconditional love to parts of our- selves that were misunderstood, ignored or abused. Now, in the present moment, we can care for our emotional self in empowering and deeply healing ways.

Trauma happens when an incoming experience is too much to handle and the psyche is unable to integrate the event in a manageable way. It’s like a part of us just can’t process what is happening and there is a disconnection, a shattering or splintering of the self in an attempt to manage reality and not go crazy. Every aspect of our life energy is a valuable part of a larger whole. The psyche always seeks balance and wholeness.

The Inner Journey To Transform Trauma focuses on rescuing, retrieving and reintegrating valuable parts of the self that were lost or disconnected as the result of trauma. We already lived through the traumatic experience once. There is no value in living through it again. In fact, one way to understand trauma, is that a part of us is actually stuck in the psychological time of the distressing event. Our work is to bring the parts of ourself out of the traumatic experience and into present time, where they can heal, recover and receive what they need from our guides and teachers and our own highest self.

#8 in the series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing. 

In Allies & Demons personal power or life energy is considered to be something real and concrete, as if it had form or substance of its own. Power can be lost in many ways; it may be given away in relationship, stolen by violence, bullying or abuse, or drained off by chronic illness, grief or long-term stress. Life energy may also be lost through accident, surgery, birth trauma or by experiencing or witnessing a distressing event.

Although personal power can be lost, the good news is that personal power can also be retrieved, restored, returned and regained. Using the expertise of spirit guides who are skilled in working with power, we reclaim our own life energy and find resources and renewal that inform our lives in profound ways. Personal power loss usually goes unrecognized and untreated by standard psychological protocols. 

Inner journeys #8 and #9 provide dynamic methods to restore our life energy and are requisite practices for health and integrity. These are the two inner journeys for power retrieval:

This first journey, Reclaiming Lost Power, is effective for restoring life energy lost through accidents, illness, addiction, trauma, grief, neglect and abandonment. We begin this journey by connecting with a power retrieval guide. This may be a guide we have worked with before or something new. A power retrieval guide is adept at restoring and reintegrating life energy and will assist in the power retrieval.

Power loss can contribute to sleep issues, fatigue, apathy, low immune function, learning disabilities, anxiety, depression, and autoimmune disorders, to name a few. Regardless of the way the life energy was lost, the following processes for power retrieval can help restore us to wholeness.

#9 in the series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing. In this episode, we use a modified version of the ancient Shamanic practices of power retrieval and power exchange to reclaim life energy lost or stolen as the result of trauma, abuse or difficult relationships and to let go of life energy that does not belong to us.

#10 in the powerful series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing. In this session we work with the energy of depression directly, as if it had a form of its own.  Once something has a form in our own intuition or active imagination, we can interact with it in powerful ways that radically shift our experience. This process of Transforming Demons Into Allies, is a modified version of the ancient Tibetan Chod ritual. This inner journey will transform the demon of depression or dissolve it completely. We than replace this outdated, destructive pattern with an ally, or more constructive, supportive way to manage our life energy.

#11 in the powerful series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing. In this episode, the ancient Shamanic practice of soul retrieval to reclaim lost parts of ourselves separated by the depressive experience.

#12 in the powerful series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing. In this episode, we use the ancient Shamanic practice of power retrieval to reclaim Power Lost From Depression.

#13 in the powerful series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing. In this episode, we transform the demon of anxiety into an ally or dissolve it altogether using a modified version of the Tibetan Buddhist Chod ritual. This is the first in a three part process to relieve fear. Be sure to check out inner journeys #14 & 15 to get full benefit.

#14 in the powerful series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing. In this episode, we use the ancient Shamanic practice of soul retrieval to reclaim lost parts of ourselves separated by anxiety. This gentle, empowering process is known in Western psychology as inner child work.

#15 in the powerful series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing. In this episode, the ancient shamanic practice of power retrieval to Reclaim Power Drained By Anxiety.