7 Golden Nuggets for better journeys

In recent weeks, I have coached some beginners on the shamanic path who were frustrated that they could not perceive anything on their journeys. Here is how I guided them to have more insightful journeys. This might be especially helpful for beginners who work with drum tapes, and a good refresher for people who are more advanced on their shamanic path.

Some good practices for a successful journey

1. Clear intention: Make sure your intention/question for the journey is crystal clear, and you can state it (aloud) three times before you journey.
2. Stick to the process: Especially if you are a beginner, follow the process you have learned very rigorously. When you advance, you will explore other ways to journey, but at the beginning, repeating the same process is crucial.
3. Remember the 'Sacred partnership': Once you are in the spirit world (the upper/lower world), you can ask more questions in the context of your intention. If you don’t understand the messages or images you get, ask – in humble and polite ways – to be told in a different way so that you can understand. Don’t overload the journey with too many questions, and first go with the experience. Your message may come as a feeling, an image, a word, a song, or a sudden inner knowledge. Sometimes ‘being’ in the experience is just enough; it can trigger healing and transformation, without intellectual understanding or a specific ‘message’.
4. Silence your analytical mind: The drum beat will help your brain go into theta waves, which makes journeying easier. However, especially if you are an intellectual person, create a little ritual before you journey and ask your analytical mind to please step back. This can be a calling in the directions, some songs you sing every time before you journey, or just a few moments of drumming. Always be polite and grateful to your analytical mind; it is useful for many situations in your life! It just needs to step back a bit right now.
5. Surrender; be humble and grateful: If you force your willpower on it (“this journey has to work now”) you may just block the channels; the art of journeying is finding the right balance between giving a clear intention and surrendering to fact that nothing may happen at all. Give thanks for anything and everything that happens in the journey; for example, if a heavy rain starts falling; say hello to the rain and thank it for being there with you.  Being in a state of grateful reception often triggers more to happen on the journey.
6. Don’t give up: If nothing happens in your journey, you may just want to state your intention again “I am here to ….”. Keep stating the intention, without being bound to outcomes. Then if nothing happens, just witness that nothing happens and say how you feel about it. After the call back, still give thanks and try again another time. Journeying is a muscle we can train; it will get stronger over time.
7. Learn to get back into the journey when you got distracted: If your mind starts to wander and you feel you left the journey, don’t make a big deal of it by getting upset or blaming yourself. Just listen to the drum and re-engage with the last image you saw. For example, if you were in a forest on your journey and then started thinking about your to-do-list; relax, listen to the drum, and re-create the image or perception of the forest again; this is an act of conscious creation, once you are back in the forest, you can let go again.