“You don’t spend Your whole life working on Yourself. that is not what it’s about. You spend Your life loving Yourself.” ~Shaman Durek, a Los Angeles-based spiritual guide and teacher.
According to client testimonials on his website, the Shaman brings “an abundance of comfort, love and light.” I must admit, my first chance meeting with him was nothing short of one of the most profound interior transformations of my life. And it is why I sought him out (this time intentionally), once again risking the nerve-racking transparency and stirring truths that characterized our initial enchanted evening together. I did this, dear readers, to of- fer to you searing insights from the heart and soul of a man who splashes love all around every room he enters, touching for certain, any who are present.
In my living room, on a crisp late October day, Shaman Durek (fresh off of a plane from Turkey) and I sit for an hour to chop it up about his forthcoming book, currently untitled, and a wide range of topics, including shame, negative thinking and what women must do to save the planet. Suit up girlfriends!
Message from the other side
When I died, I learned one thing, which is love completely. Let people show up as they are. Without expectations. They are not here to fulfill or make you happy. That’s not their responsibility. That’s your responsibility. In relationships for instance, the number one problems is not seeing the other person, not accepting them for who they are, having expectations of them. Having a story about who and what they’re supposed to be, how they’re suppose to act and how they’re supposed to represent love for you.
h&s: Why do you think people do this?
Because their vessels are empty. That is my message to the world right now, Women, fill your vessels! I’m serious, there is
a really intense energy that women hold for the planet. As divine givers, women give everything away, with their moon cycle, their children, their love and so
on. Because of this women have to fill up their vessels ten times more. You cannot be a vessel that gives love out if you’re
not willing to fill up your vessel within yourself.
h&s: What about men?
Men are not the leaders of the spiritual revolution. Men’s biggest issue is they don’t want to feel any expectations placed on them. They don’t want to feel like you have some kind of plan that they are not a part of. This makes a man feel pressure and men can’t think clearly when they feel pressure. They get annoyed and do sabotaging things. Because they’re feel- ing all this intensity. And that intensity would not be there if the vessels of the women were filled. When women fill up their vessels, they will not “need”. The “expectations” won’t be there. Then our relationships change.
Completing ourselves
Women are the anchors of our planet. Women are the ones the shamans have been talking about that are leading us to our spiritual revolution. I kid you not, it’s not gonna happen if women don’t fill their vessels, if women keep looking for outside representations of love.
h&s: how do we (women) really love ourselves?
The first thing you have to do is stop looking at who you’re not. The way you really love yourself is to let go of the idea of who you think you should be. You are exactly who and where you are supposed to be. Embrace that. You have done nothing wrong in the eyes of God…only what you needed to learn. Also, write a bunch of notes to yourself. Hide them around the house. Maybe six months or later, you’ll find a card that says, “I love you, thank you for all the stuff you’re doing in your life.” Self-love.
The art of radical self-acceptance
You don’t spend your whole life working on yourself. That is not what it’s about. You spend your life loving yourself. My book is about teaching people to embrace them- selves as they are and giving them the tools and understanding to do it. I share personal stories from my own life – the highs and lows – from drugs to sex to reli- gion to shamanism to women to you name it. It is a book about complete surrender.
In order for us to feel complete, whole and safe, we cannot hide anything. We must
be revealing. I don’t sit back and think oh,I did all this coke back then. Oh I went to jail for a year. I’m glad I did those things because it gave me the understanding, the wisdom, the definition and the clarity to be able to help other people.
h&s: how have you been able to help your clients shift the shame of their personal stories?
Reveal it and there is no power. Every experience you have has a purpose. Me being molested as a little boy had a purpose. I have to embrace that part of me and not push it away and feel shameful. I don’t have to put on and say I’m a Shaman, I don’t have any issues. That’s not real. We are all God’s children.
Freedom and paying it forward
When you have no judgments, you are open; free to be who you are. You can drink green juices, you can go to yoga, you can bow down to Mecca, you can pray to Jesus, you can fall down on the floor, you can do circles on the ground, you can go
to the woods and call yourself a goddess and chant…it doesn’t matter. It’s how you are living inside yourself that matters. It’s the love that’s in your heart that resonates. When others see you embrace yourself, you make it possible for them to embrace themselves.
The gifts of our burdens
The alchemy of your “self” will change more and more as you continue to embrace the painful things. That pain will transcend and all these amazing, beautiful gifts will flourish right out of your being. And people will say, “Wow, you’re like a well- spring of amazingness.” You’ll say, “That’s right, because I embrace who I am.”
Transform your thinking
We create dissension because we have this perception that people are doing some- thing to us. This is what I call malfunction in thinking. Higher-mind consciousness is recognizing no one is doing anything to you. Everyone is here reflecting to you so can [consider and] decide if you are acting from love.
Love is the Core
Love is a journey. If you put on the glasses of love and you embody that – meaning your mind recognizes everything that everyone is doing is for your greatest possibility of love – then when someone talks to you, you won’t just listen to the tone of their voice and react. You’ll say to yourself, “oh this person is actually talking to me because they care.” You’ll know regardless of their tone, that they just don’t have the right tools to express themselves without their frustration, worry or fear. So it comes out that way. But, there’s love in the core energy of everything.
Ambassadors for love
Love isn’t something you have to achieve or prove. Love just is. The fact that you were created is love. If you think you have to do something to be loved, that is mal- function in thinking. And what I want the readers to understand from this day for- ward is that they are ambassadors for love. They’re bringing love through in many different mediums. That’s what God wants – to see love multiplied; for us to recognize ourselves in everything we see. A tree,a blade of grass, a flower, an animal. In everything, we see God reflected, because God is the ultimate lover!
What god sounds like
We must practice discernment. Discern the difference between what is love and what isn’t love. A child knows. Why do we not know? Ha! We do. We’re just not exercising it and acknowledging that the creator gave us the gift of knowing what is and what isn’t love. If you have a voice in your head or a feeling that runs through you that is not love, it also is not God. The best thing you can do for yourself in those moments is say, “I know you’re not me, and I know you’re not God. I’m not listening.”
The greatest love of all
The greatest gift you can bestow upon anyone is to see the highest possibility for them. Do not buy into their [negative] stories. Don’t buy into the lies of those stories. There is only the truth that God presents. And that truth is that all things are possible.