Gabriela Ming

SO TELL ME

By Natalie O’Connor

Natalie O'Connor - Author & Entrepreneur

eYs Magazine - Media Editor & Business Relations Director

As you may or may not know, for over a year now, I’ve been writing for the eYs business section – Focus on Business. With my background in photography, corporate business consulting and MBA studies, it was a very natural fit for me and I truly loved show casing people’s business. Through meeting some amazing people and talking to them about their passions, I began to want to learn more about them. More of what excited them, what their passions were and what made them tick.

Not all people have a business that is aligned to their passion, but a lot of people have passions or interests that they explore, spend time on and volunteer their time to. This is what I wanted to uncover and this is why I developed. “So, tell me…”. It was born out of an innate curiosity for humans and their interests and what lights them up. Why they do what they do. Why they are drawn to certain things and why they spend time doing it.

To certain things and why they spend time doing it. It is my hope that you will enjoy reading about the stories of everyday people and what they are passionate about. This will also become a podcast and a You Tube channel, so you will be able to listen and watch these stories too.

I had the privilege of sitting down to talk with Gabriela Ming to discuss shamanic healing and the importance of nature. She explains how important nature is in reconnecting people back to their true self among other things.

So, tell me… about Shamanistic healing, with Gabriela Ming, Soul Blossom

https://soulblossom.com.au

Hello, Gabriela.

Hello.

Thank you for speaking with me today. You are a modern-day medicine woman, among other things. Could you tell me about shamanic healing and the healing that you do?

Thank you for having me today. Shamanic healing is really one of the first healing forms that ever existed. For me, shamanic healing is so powerful because it addresses what I call the “undercurrent of human existence”. It goes beyond the mind, it goes beyond the emotion, it goes beyond the traumas. It goes into what we call the tapestry of our human existence. In shamanic healing or in shamanic philosophy, you look at every human being, who is born with a tapestry, and that tapestry is perfect, and that tapestry is beautiful, and it exists behind us.

When the traditional shaman, looks at people who come to them for healing, they can see the tapestry behind the person, they can see how they were hurt or how this tapestry has been disrupted. In shamanic healing, we’re going onto the journey into the landscape of a person’s soul and into the tapestry, and reconnecting things that have been disconnected, or have been isolated due to trauma. This is where there’s soul loss. We’re calling those soul fragments back home via basically bringing the person back in touch with their life force.

When did you know you wanted to be in this field of healing?

I grew up in Switzerland, in the Swiss Alps, and I studied nursing and became a practical nurse. As a nurse you’re working hand-in-hand with doctors, you’re very independent and competent and make a lot of autonomous decisions. You have a lot of patient contact, and you get a lot of insight into the patient’s life. In my job as an emergency nurse, I started to understand that there is more going on for people than just the accident that they had, or the stomach ulcer that just burst, or the migraines that just disabled them again.

When I heard their story, I thought, “it’s no wonder you have a migraine. I would have a migraine as well if I was having your life experience.” That made me really curious about how I can actually work in a preventative field. I started to feel, as a nurse, that I was helping people when it’s too late – when they were already sick.

I studied Bach Flower Therapy first, and through that course I came in touch with transpersonal psychology, which really fascinated me. I was working with a practitioner, and she was able to open up these inner spaces and provide healing experiences for me. When I came to Australia, I studied Australian Bush Flowers, and I also found a transpersonal psychology course.

It was during that course I heard of a shamanic healing course. Someone mentioned it and it was a clear yes, I had to do it and that’s how I got to shamanic healing.

You mentioned that nature is of really strong importance in your life, but why has it always made sense to you?

Nature has always made sense to me because it’s simple. Nature is such a strong mirror through mind, or to channel people’s experience. I recall a moment of walking through the forest after a lot of things were going wrong in my life, and I saw a fallen tree. This ginormous, beautiful tree had fallen, and it just grew sideways. I thought, “Ah, just because I’ve fallen, I can still continue growing.” So, nature has always had these beautiful, simple messages that went straight to the heart. It always has given me the space where I can just ground and be present. It has given me an opportunity to be alone, and be me. I don’t have to prove anything to nature. I can just show up in nature and be who I am in that moment.

Gabriel Ming

The power of that is profoundly touching in the heart, and also in the tapestry of myself and what I see with my clients. That’s why I do a lot of my work outside in different sacred places, or just in nature. There is this moment that happens when a bird flies past, or the breeze picks up and someone is like, “Oh, now I get it.” You cannot achieve that deep sense of healing or understanding in the confines of a room. That’s why nature is almost like an extra ally that supports people’s healing process, and also my personal journey and my personal process.

Do you find that we as a society, by and large are quite disconnected with nature? Is this why there are a lot of issues with people feeling disconnected from their true self?

I believe so because we are nature, essentially, and we’re the only species that separates ourselves from nature. All animals live outside, naturally. We used to live outside, but we have created a separation between us and nature. We are sheltered, we’re indoors, and we’re not experiencing nature. We actually have created a barrier of who we truly are as humans and recognising our human nature, and being able to live that. I think that’s a big aspect of it.

I see that when we take people to the desert for a vision quest, when you sleep under a tarp, not in a tent, people really love it. They experience this space of non-separation. It allows an experience of wholeness and connection that cannot be achieved in any other way. Just having that experience and that memory creates a completely different foundation of healing for a person.

So, people come to you to help reconnect to themselves?

Yes. The first step is to go into nature, or even bringing nature into your home with whatever means you have, such as a pot-plant. It’s not something you go and receive something and then go home. It requires your active participation, and the more you participate, the more you will experience change within yourself. We have to get ourselves out into nature. I know some people call it the “wilderness”. They have to go into the wilderness. The indigenous people call it “going home”.

My work supports people that want to discover their own, wilderness and also that want to feel the connection to their own life force. What happens when we live disconnected from nature, we forget that we have the same life force like the trees or the wind. Just being in touch with that and being touched by that reminds us, “Oh, I have that force within myself,” and opens up the channels within us so we can access it. That’s where our life force comes in and comes through, and we can act from that place that is sustainable, nourished, and whole. If you’re in a deep place of depression or if you’re in a place of ecstasy, it doesn’t matter. When we have access, we have this resource within.

Why is being of service important to you?

In my work, I’m really honored that I meet people. I don’t meet masks, I don’t meet personas. I just meet humans, and that’s such a gift to provide a space for humans to be humans, and all experiences of humanity are accepted. I think that’s what the wheel of life provides. It provides a space for us to step in and just be humans, and we don’t have to exclude or deny any aspect of ourselves. That’s what’s important to me to offer, a space that is not available in any other way in our society.

I see myself complimentary to the medical system. The medical system and the mental health care system holds the space for physical and physiological support, while I hold the space for the emotional and the psycho-spiritual support, and they’re both equally as important. I have a lot of people that are in both systems and work together to get the return to wholeness. In my experience, the medical system doesn’t provide support for the heart. It doesn’t provide the whole thing that a traumatic experience requires, and that’s why being of service is really important to me, that this space is provided, because we need it.

I can imagine there’s a lot of successes and challenges in your line of work. Is there anything that springs to mind in regard to successes and challenges?

A personal challenge right at the beginning was moving away to Australia. I stepped into a corporate career as managing a private hospital and staff, and I had a very good job. Transitioning careers and convincing society that I am a healer was a challenge of my journey. The whole stories that people hold around, “You can’t make money from that”. “You won’t survive”. “It’s a lot of cheats”. “It’s charlatans”. All of that, was one of my biggest challenges, to say, “Hey, this is me, and this is my niche and my expertise, and that’s where I really want to work. So that’s where I shine my light.” That process I remember was really, really difficult.

I remember one particular conversation around the time when Donald Trump got elected. There was a lot of upheaval during this time, and a friend came to me and said, “The world is going to end. The financial market will collapse, and businesses like yours will just not go anywhere. They’ll just disappear.” I looked at her and said, “No, that’s not my truth.” In that moment I knew I was part of the counterbalance of holding that space of trust and hope.

That was sort of a breakthrough moment where you say, “No, this is where I’m sitting, and I’m holding that space.” That was one of the biggest challenges to overcome, including convincing my family. We all have challenges, but I guess my work just speaks for itself, and my clients like what they are experiencing when they see me and for the first time in a long time are reconnected to themselves. That’s a really wonderful gift that I get to witness. I get to witness souls, and I don’t get to witness titles. That’s very special to me.

Is there anything else that has come up for you? Or anything else you want to tell people about yourself or what you do?

What I’d like people to know is it’s worthwhile to opening the heart. It’s worthwhile to step into your own sacredness. It’s not to create a better world, or be a better husband, or a better wife, or a better worker, but just purely for your personal life experience. It’s worthwhile to step into the unknown of yourself. It’s only when you’re on the path of the heart, that’s when you know real change is going to happen.

I always say, everyone has to do at least one vision quest in their lifetime, so they have this gift of being on their own, and just being your own company and to meet yourself without any distractions. What a blessing in our time. Be brave to meet yourself, because you’re beautiful, and the world needs your beauty more so than your sorrow. The world is feeding our sorrows, but remember who you are, and take that leap, and step into that truth of yourself.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.