I had an interesting conversation this past weekend that got me thinking. I was speaking with a client of mine about the different traditions of shamanism. She had just been through a healing ceremony with a shaman from Bolivia. She had come to see me to see if I could feel the energy of what he had done for her working through her body. I scanned her and said I could. It felt like a warm fire running through her, burning through everything that shouldn’t be there. I had never felt anything like it before and enjoyed getting to see how the work of another shaman manifested for the benefit of her healing. She had invited me to the ceremony when the other shaman did the work, but I wasn’t able to make it. She admitted she wasn’t certain whether the invitation would have offended me in some way as another shaman was the “star” of the show.

It makes me laugh whenever someone says something like that to me. My ego isn’t big enough to think that I am the end-all, be-all of shamans. I like seeing what other shamans can do. It gives me a chance to learn something. From my experience, we all kind of do the same things, but we call them by different names and have different ways of approaching things. I look at it as taking a different road to get to the same place. Some of us take a more direct route while others take the scenic route. As long as you get there, it doesn’t really matter how.

There is no one-size-fits-all for anything, especially not spirituality. We all need to find what resonates with us. The road someone else chooses to take doesn’t mean it’s the one we have to follow. At the same time, I’m not an advocate for building a new road to a place that already has several. Find a road that already exists that fits you and use it. The many people who came before us have already done the hard work in scoping out the landscape and creating the map. All we have to do is follow it. Along that path, we can still make choices. We still have decisions to make. In my opinion, the more information I have to make those decisions, the better off I will be.

The human tendency, from what I’ve observed, seems to be to glom onto knowledge and then shut the door on the subject after making the wrong assumption that what they now know is all there is to know on the subject. That is not the nature of knowledge. It is a world that is ever-changing, ever-expanding, and constantly building on itself. It can take the holder of that information to a place of deeper understanding and greater possibilities. While I might do things my own way, it’s because it honors the legacy of my ancestors and more importantly, it works for me. My way is not the only way, and it’s not always the “best” way. It’s my way, and you will have your way of doing things and what works for you. As long as it works, that’s what matters.

Back to the conversation with my client. I told her that there was another shaman who happened to be sitting across the aisle from me, I was at a psychic fair at the time. It was a practitioner in a different tradition. I recommended she speak to her as well and get a feel for what she does. Later on, she did go to sit with her, and the practitioner came over and thanked me for sending my client to her. I told her I knew she was the real deal, why wouldn’t I send her someone who might be interested in what she does?

Often we think of people who do the same thing we do as competition. They aren’t. Not really. There is more than enough for everyone. My prosperity doesn’t have to be based on someone else’s lack or vice versa. I have always believed that people who need me will find me. The people who need someone else will find them instead, and I’m happy to get them to that person if necessary.

None of us can be all things to all people, and I don’t want to be. That’s too much work. If you do run across someone who says they can do it all, my question would be, how well do they do it? Even doctors have specialists. Why? Because no one person can know everything there is to know about something. There is something to be said about one-stop shopping, but spirituality is an individual journey. What works for most may not work for you. You may also find that what used to work in the past doesn’t work anymore. That’s when it’s time to look for something else.

The whole purpose of spirituality is growth, change, and raising your vibration. If you continue to do the same things that don’t work anymore, that creates stagnation which stalls your progress. As you change and your vibration rises, you meet new people and have new experiences. Think of it as taking the elevator to a higher floor, but you can only get there if you have an authorized key card. Allowing your knowledge to grow through the expansion of your awareness of other people, techniques, and viewpoints helps you continue to rise. We are all ultimately headed for the same place, Source/God/Goddess/The Universe. The people we meet and the things we learn are the things we get to enjoy on the journey. So look around, see what there is to see and most of all, enjoy it.