How can the combination of Science and Shamanism contribute to our wellbeing?

Our specie has been separating from the natural world, from our ancestral roots, our own human nature, our innermost instincts, emotions, and desires, at an exponential rate, for hundreds of years now. Particularly, at pivotal moments in Homo Sapiens’ history there have been serious deviations from the way of life necessary to secure our own survival and wellbeing; because every time we take a step away from Mother Nature, its rhythms and its resources, our link with that which provides us with life, health, and prosperity, weakens.

I will tell you about four relevant moments that have contributed to our disconnection from the natural world that supports us, because only if we understand the history of our problems, we will be able to create innovative solutions that bring about healing and happiness.

#1. The prosecution undertaken by monotheistic religious movements, carried out under the excuse of heresy, blasphemy, or for political reasons, most of which have taken place in our era, allowed for the prohibition of rituals, ceremonies, and practices dedicated to honor the universal and natural energies; punishing and oppressing many of our ancestors for deifying Mother Nature and its different manifestations, such as the Water, Rain, Wind, Thunderstorm, Mountains, Apus, Sacred Fire, Father Sun and Sister Moon, just to name a few.

Those movements have been taken place all over the world, throughout centuries, causing not only the death of innumerable human lives, but also leading to spiritual, emotional, and psychological suffering, which still reverberates in many communities these days. An example of this long-lasting consequences can be seen in the native American communities all over the Americas. Sadly, religious prosecution continues to take place these days in certain middle eastern and Asian countries.

Before those events took place, we used to develop our spirituality through the connection with the environmental energies needed for our own survival, worshiping the Sun for providing us with heat and light, honoring the stars for their guidance while navigating the oceans, appreciating the waters for calming our thirst, cleansing us, and keeping us alive. In that manner, through respect and the recognition of our interdependence with the forces of nature and all other living beings, we used to remind ourselves that we need them, for our survival and well-being.

Let us take a moment then, reflect on these actions, and determine: How have these occurrences affected you personally, your neighbors, your friends, your community, and your own spirituality?

#2. Large-scale farming for commercial purposes has also significantly affected our specie’s relationship with nature, which moved away from a symbiotic connection of mutual protection and benefit, to being dominated by processes of exploitation of our natural resources, triggering the use of vital elements such as water, land, and food, not only for our survival, but also for personal enrichment, domination, control, and manipulation of our environment, and other human beings. 

This increment in agricultural productivity, together with the third factor that follows, has contributed to the significant and steady growth of the human population since the 1960s, and even more utilization of our environmental resources, which are no longer being seen as living energies, part of who we are, but simply interpreted as “things” that are supposed to serve the few people who are in control, because yes, let us remember that there are parts of the world were food, water, energy and land are very unevenly distributed and under the power of a small groups of individuals.

Let us pause and notice then: How do we feel reading and reflecting on these happenings? How does it activate our emotional body? What would the future of our families and children be if we continue this trajectory?

#3. The arrival of the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Reason between the 17th and 18th centuries, exponentially accentuated the misuse of our surroundings and of us, human beings, to serve the process of production, technological and scientific developments, while making us believe that our instincts and emotions were of lower barbaric importance, and that we had to use our intellect, and sacrifice our physical bodies to produce prosperous and advanced societies.

Industrialization has had its advantages of course, such as allowing an increment in our level of comfort and life expectancy, but has also brought about many significant detrimental consequences that affect us very much today, for example, it has replaced family time, leisure, rest, play, personal physical, mental, emotional wellbeing and activities intrinsically satisfying, with goals focused on work, labor, obedience, productivity, and sacrifice, in order to earn money to buy material goods, even when this takes place at the expense of our precious, limited time, the quality of our interpersonal relationships with our loved ones, and even the health of our own physical bodies.

The industrial revolution and modern technological advances mainly serve a minority, who have been becoming richer at the expense of others’ exploitations, building societies based on egoism and materialism. Simply look at the statistics and observe nowadays, how a small group of people own most of the planet's resources, abusing and manipulating most human beings passively or actively.

Active abuse is, for example, when workers of multinational and multi-billion-dollar companies, earn very low wadges despite working exceedingly long hours under uncomfortable conditions, receiving inadequate benefits such as health care, paid time off, maternity, or paternity leave.

Passive manipulation, on the other hand, is when for example, marketing and advertising companies utilize psychological tricks to make people believe that buying and having certain services and material goods, will bring them the life satisfaction and happiness that they much desire and have not found, when the truth is that psychological, social and behavioral sciences studies are showing that the path to happiness is far from materialism and consumerism, but on the other hand, comes from events that are intrinsically satisfying, meaning that the mere fact of performing the activity brings you joy, not something that you will buy with your labor. So, the brainwashing is only intended to benefit the minority who own the goods and services, that will be acquired through the sale of this illusion.

Let us meditate then: What role are we playing in society these days? Are we the Tiger or the Deer? Are we the Hunter or the Pray?

#4. Since the 1980's, with the Virtual Revolution, there has been other lacerations in our bonds with Mother Nature, with the arrival of computers, Windows, the internet, and virtual reality, all of which have made us focus on an illusory and simulated world that very often interferes and damages our communications, conversations, and our relationships. These “tools”, to the happiness of their creators, nowadays permeate everything we humans do, from working, shopping, finding a partner, entertaining, “educating” our children, numbing our boredom, sadness, and frustration by playing videogames, feeding into our fears, needs and desires with pornography or compulsively shopping for items that we really do not need, because it will not solve our true problems.

Consider: How is technology and virtual reality affecting you these days? Is it contributing to your wellbeing or causing problems for you and your loved ones?

The results of these four periods have been the creation of a world where we humans are functioning totally disconnected from the rhythms of nature, being increasingly exposed to artificial lights, contributing to environmental destruction to produce material products, with its resulting atmospheric and water pollution, raising in global temperatures, desertification of lands, and deforestation, just to name a few. These negative environmental changes, direct consequences of our human behavior and activities, are in turn important factors contributing to the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters, the appearance of global pandemics and the raise in functional illnesses and functional neurological disorders.

We have built a life where we are forced to work most of the time, spending our days preoccupied with our productivity, our expenses, our ability to consume goods, how to get richer, and have more things. We have designed a world where we work at the same pace in all seasons of the year, sometimes with 24hr or longer shifts, not respecting our own biological, hormonal and neurotransmitter fluctuations. We always feel late, in a hurry, incapable of producing enough, accomplish sufficient tasks, or achieving all the goals we have, feeling constantly under the stress of never having time to get everything done. No wonder there is so much anxiety, panic attacks, teeth grinding, functional tremors, headaches and chronic bodily tensions! How can anyone, even a machine, function at such speed, all the time!

We have designed a world where the phrase “I have to do __” is much more frequently said and heard than “I am going to do __ because I want to”. The truth is that we are living with few choices, little freedom to do what we really want, desire, and yearn for, and we cannot seem to awaken from a nightmare filled with many duties and responsibilities.

We have constructed a reality where we feel forced to speak what others want to hear and, rarely, can we convey our deepest emotions, feelings, sensations, and desires, for fear of being judged or criticized. In this society, leisure and pleasurable time is very little compared to obligatory activities. We spend excessive number of hours in traffic or inside small cement spaces. In this reality, unhappiness, depression, addiction to chemical drugs, pornography, and social media rule, together with symptoms and functional diseases such as fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, back pain, chronic bodily aches, diseases “without medical explanation”, and functional neurological disorders, all of them affecting us an unimaginable high rate, never seen before. In this existence, our siblings, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are having problems with suicide attempts, death from overdose, communication and interpersonal difficulties, insomnia, psychological, emotional, and mental illnesses, never seen before in the history of our specie.

Today, in this world, we continue to destroy the trees and forests that produce the oxygen we need to breathe and survive. We are contaminating the waters we depend on to stay alive. We are polluting the atmosphere to such a degree in some cities around the world, that children, pregnant women, and the elderly cannot travel on the street because they may develop respiratory symptoms. We are rapidly destroying everything from which we depend on to survive with health and well-being. This is a place where virtual realism seems more important than reality itself.

So, how can Science and Shamanism help us solve these problems?

First, we must realize that shamanism, the philosophy of nature, and science, are pointing to the same path, and speaking the same language. They both are saying that we must understand the causes of our problems and the solutions lies in living holistically and comprehensively, understanding the undeniable relationship between our mind, the conditioning implanted in it, and its influence on our actions, behaviors, and our choices.

We must accept, modify, and perfect the link between our mental state, the environment we are embedded in, our emotions, and the realization of our maximum expression. We cannot depend on a healthcare system, a society and a government that serves and responds to monetary interests, where health belongs to an industry that is intertwined with multi-million-dollar pharmaceutical companies, for which getting sick, taking that medicine, having that surgery, in the end, brings profits and enrichment. We need to take charge of our own health, our wellbeing, our destiny, our choices, and recognize the causes of our illnesses, because that is the only way of true healing.

We will only attain full health when we acknowledge and resolve the causes of many of our problems.

We must become our own healers and gain independence from faulty systems.

We need to awaken our human nature.

We need to focus on preventing disease more than partially treating them.

We need to reconnect with Mother Nature, the bearer of healthy air, clean waters, the earth that offers us medicinal plants, and healthy food without pollution.

We need to understand that death is the only certainty we have, and we must start living each day as if we were going to die tomorrow, because death can come at any time.

Most importantly, we need to do all of this not only for our own happiness, full health, and satisfaction, but also to ensure that our children, grandchildren, and all future generations can enjoy life, and the benefits of living healthy.

We need to wake up from the illusion, and truly embody the power we must do what we truly want to do, admitting that the choice is completely yours.

As always,

At your service,

Yadira Velazquez, MD.