How to Find and Nurture Heart-Centred Relationships
By Livia Devi
/ 18 April, 2025
Love is all around us. It’s in the people we meet, the experiences we have, and the connections we share....
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by Sally Parker
Taking a step away from traditional counselling to become a shamanic counsellor
As a qualified Integrative Counsellor specialising in trauma I have worked in the Mental Health system for years. I am passionate about helping people find their true potential. I believe each one of us has the power to clear away feelings from the past to step into living our best possible lives.
I draw from a variety of techniques which are tailored to each client to evoke the necessary changes, processing and healing. I use the Person Centred core philosophy which means I believe that every individual has the ability to reach their full potential, to become who you came here to be. By using counselling skills I facilitate the uncovering of past events and relationships which have shaped the present, perhaps causing distress at this time.
Using Psychodynamic and inner-child techniques we unravel the past in order for you to understand where things are tripping the client up today, whilst drawing from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to provide you with strategies you can use practically between sessions and in your future life.
To keep myself sane along my own healing journey, and working with trauma, it has been integral to develop my own self-care practice. A big part of this has been attending Women's Circles where I can share openly about how I am feeling, being supported and seen by other women.
This led me to meet Ruth Cato, Shamanic Priestess over in the Herefordshire Countryside. I have since embarked on her Year Long Shamanic Initiation and attend monthly circles and have developed my own Shamanic Counselling Practice.
This is where the magic happens!!
Evoking healing using counselling, drumming, oracle cards, singing, walking and being in nature. Together we use powerful Fire, Earth, Air and Water ritual and ceremony as tools to aid the journey. Sessions can be 50 minutes- 1.5 hours long, depending on what we are called to do. The range of practices are incredibly diverse, we could be meditating into a drum journey to meet a Power Animal, using oracle cards, tarot, singing ancient songs, weaving, connecting with nature, working on boundaries or screaming at the top of our lungs. The list goes on.
I am guided intuitively to take whatever 'tools' the client will need on the day. The other day I was about to set off for a client session and as I started my car I had the overwhelming feeling I needed to take my drum. So, I hopped out of the car and grabbed it. I've learnt not to question these hunches, I just go with it! And, as ever, the session was exactly what the client had needed, which ended with a drum journey to meet a spirit guide, which she reflected was extremely healing.
It's a difficult thing to explain in words, but I see a fundamentally change in clients when we work this way. Unravelling the past met with stepping fully into their power is a wonder to behold! Each session begins with calling in the 4 directions and the guides, ancestors, nature spirits, helpers which takes the healing to the next level. We are not only healing ourselves, but ancestral trauma.
To be a counsellor I had obligatory Personal Therapy, which I continue on to this day. Diving into, exploring and shifting childhood trauma has taken me years, and one thing I do know is that I needed the traditional Counselling Therapy as well as the Shamanic Practice.
As somewhat of a 'Wounded Healer' I feel it is my duty to help others discover the healing tools that will work for them. This is why I have made the shift from Counsellor to Shamanic Counsellor.
So, here I am. In the Herefordshire countryside visiting those who feel called to Shamanic Counselling, using my counselling skills to deep dive into a client's inner world, which often includes their inner children. I can wholeheartedly say I see unimaginably big shifts in how the client is feeling after a few sessions and how things are in their day to day life. Not just feeling better, but fundamental changes in relationships, eating, addictions, attending work, not to mention increase in self-worth, self esteem and image. The list goes on. I feel I can liken it to watching the lights come on.
If I hadn't have experienced this myself I would be reading these words and thinking- great! Good for you, but not for me. But by having made this journey myself, from abuse and addiction, I can safely say I have found a way out. A way out I am now determined to share with those who want it.
I am working with Ruth next year to run a six month workshop The Way Out to help as many people as we can. Plus, I work in person and online for those seeking this kind of unwavering support.
