In the intricate tapestry of healing, where the spiritual and scientific converge, Dr. Beatrice Pouligny stands as a unique luminary. A PhD, Shamanic Healer, and Spiritual Mentor, her journey unfolds as a harmonious blend of ancient wisdom and modern academia, creating a symphony of soulful alchemy that transcends conventional boundaries. As a Shamanic Healer, she taps into the wisdom of ancient traditions, using rituals and energy work to mend the threads of the soul. Simultaneously, her academic prowess, fortified by a PhD, brings a scientific rigor to the mystical realms, bridging the gap between the seen and the unseen, the known and the mysterious. Join Mystic Mag on a voyage through the extraordinary life of Dr. Beatrice Pouligny, where the spiritual and the scholarly coalesce to form a powerful narrative of transformation and healing. In her role as a Spiritual Mentor, she extends a guiding hand to those navigating the labyrinth of their own spiritual evolution, illuminating a path where ancient wisdom and modern understanding dance in harmonious unity.
Your background is incredibly diverse and rich. How have your multidisciplinary and multi-cultural experiences influenced your approach to healing and coaching individuals and communities?
I have always been fascinated by the diversity and complexity of our humanity. My 35+ years of working around the world in the most complex and violent crises has taught me to listen intently first, forget whatever I may think that I know to really listen to the people’s experience and truly value it as such. It’s only after I had listened that I could tap into my expertise, and the diversity of tools and approaches that I knew to help individuals and communities find their own resources, their own way back to resilience and wholeness. In one-on-one shamanic healings, this is even clearer as my role as a facilitator is really to hold the safety and sanctity of the space for the person, of course, but otherwise to stay out of the way: I let Spirits (Source, the Divine, etc. depending on the vocabulary one is comfortable with) show us the way. Spirits are the ones leading me exactly where we need to go first, giving the why and the how, allowing the healing and guiding me to support that person at best. This is what then may inform how I will mentor and coach the person. One of the best compliments people can give me is, when asked by other people how “I” healed them, they say that I did not, that it was between the energies / Spirits and them.
As I continue the journey with some of my clients, as their spiritual mentor and life coach, I also keep listening intently to how things keep unfolding for them, their experience, their own intuition, as well as what makes sense to them. Whether it is with an individual, or while facilitating a group ritual or officiating a memorial service here in the US, or supporting communities going through life-threatening crises, I always make sure that whatever we do makes sense for that person, that group, that community. I receive people from all walks of life, and from a wide diversity of cultures, traditions, religions, systems of beliefs or absence of beliefs. Honoring and embracing that diversity is what I love the most about my work.
Shamanic healing is often seen as unconventional. How do you bridge the gap between traditional spiritual practices and contemporary coaching methodologies to connect with a broad audience?
Shamanic healing may be perceived as “unconventional” in most Western cultures because we have forgotten the role those spiritual intermediaries and healers used to play in our societies, but they have never disappeared. Shamans have been found in virtually all cultures and throughout the ages. Two recent discoveries have pushed the origins of shamanism back as 70,000-years ago. We just happen to live in a society (in the US) in which many people have become disconnected from nature, energies around us, and mostly themselves. Plus, the communities who still hold this ancient knowledge have been oppressed or marginalized for different reasons. Bringing back the spiritual dimension of our existence is really a way to bring back all dimensions of a person, to bring them back to their wholeness. And it has proven over and over to be a crucial complement to more mainstream approaches, including in modern medicine and psychiatry. I work with neuroscientists and am a researcher myself. I send people to the doctors, and they send them to me. One does not exclude the other. They complement each other very powerfully.
In terms of coaching, as I mentioned, I always start from the specificity of each person. I don’t apply a set program or preconceived curriculum. I never have. Even as a former University Professor and international trainer, I have always made sure to adapt over and over to where my audience was at each point of the process. To this day, I meet the people I work with exactly where they are along the way. What I bring from my scientific side is a grounding in what science is telling us, and what we are progressively understanding in neurobiology, in particular of how our brains and bodies work, to which I add the spiritual. That combination allows me to bring to people results that last. What I bring from the ancient spiritual traditions is the essence of what it means to be a spiritual being having a human experience. The rituals, gestures, and language that I use with people are the ones that make sense to them. I was born a shaman, with a special connection to The Love Light, which happens to be pretty universal. I was initiated in different cultures but don’t borrow from them what is not mine to borrow. What I took from those initiations is an increased capacity to remain radically present and aligned and attuned to my patients, mentees and clients. I offer a very unique and highly personalized form of healing and mentoring to individuals who come to me.
What type of services do you offer?
Right now, individual shamanic healings and spiritual mentoring/life coaching are at the core of my work. That’s where I spent most of my time. Those are mostly individual services, although work with children, for instance, usually ends up involving the whole family. I see most of my clients in person but I also work at distance (including internationally) through video calls.
I also do space energy cleansing and blessings in private homes, businesses and other community spaces. This service generally involves healing for those who live or work in the space.
Last but not least, I facilitate group rituals, ceremonies and training. Those are on demand and vary greatly depending on the nature of the request.
Your work extends to both individuals and communities. How do you navigate the dynamics of collective healing, and what unique challenges and opportunities arise in this context?
In my past profession as a researcher and practitioner, I work extensively on the different processes through which individual traumas impact the collective and how historical, transgenerational and collective traumatic events impact different individuals and communities. I am very careful and specific about distinguishing between those dimensions. Within that dynamic between the individual and the collective, there are two aspects to distinguish: 1) What individuals can do to address the collective impact and dimensions of traumatic events, and this can be different if you are at the heart of a crisis or a bit more remote. I have many posts on my blog that address different aspects of that first dimension. And that’s at the heart of what I can mentor and train community leaders on, as well as the meditations and rituals that I lead. How to hold the pain of others with active compassion, how to be and hold The Light for the world, while nurturing one’s inner peace and hope. 2) The second aspect is how what happens at the collective level impacts individuals, families, groups, teams, etc. There, in my past profession, I did a lot of lobbying and advising at the political level to highlight the short- and long-term impact on individuals, communities and societies and I have many publications on this topic. I also still advise some groups on how to integrate this in their programming and work in their specific context. And then there is what I can do on the ground to support a group, a team, a particular community. Here too I start by silently (at times very discreetly) creating a safe space and listening, and only afterwards mobilizing what I know to support them. A huge dimension of my work in the past and now has always been to show people that they were not alone, that others had gone through the same, that there was nothing wrong with them. In other words, listening and validating their experience. You could call this active compassion. I know that it is something that clients always recognize from me in the healing room as well. It is absolutely central. Then, inspiring them by other stories that they can relate to. It is also an important aspect of what I communicate to individuals as well: there is nothing wrong with you. I see you as whole, I fully see you, the hurt but also the beauty, the trauma but also the resources that are still present. Then we start digging together into what can be done to help them move from survival to true resilience.
The main challenge at the collective level is the political level (local and international) and the entrepreneurs of violence who can jeopardize the work at any time. It is always heartbreaking and that is why, in the past, I have also worked consistently at the political level, something that I no longer do. But I truly believe that the more we give individuals and communities the support to be able to choose differently how they can live their life, the more hope there is to make our humanity evolve.
In your role as a mentor and coach, what advice do you find yourself giving most frequently, and how has this advice evolved over the years in response to changing societal and individual needs?
Most people I mentor and coach these days do not live in situations where their lives are in immediate danger and they are not safe, in the most basic way. That’s an important distinction to make. The exception would be for patients who suffer from severe mental health issues. For others, including patients who have received a terminal diagnosis or are in the process of transitioning, my invitation to them is the same: Who are you now? Who are you choosing to be now? What do you want your life to be about today, just for today? How do you want to live your life today?… I could decline this invitation in so many ways but it comes back to the same: our intention for being alive and a sense of commitment that, in spite of everything (our stories, past traumas, diseases, circumstances, etc.) we can choose who we want to be, how we show up, we can choose to be fully aware and awake to what is happening, including within ourselves. This radical choice of presence (which starts with a simple awareness of our breath in the moment and the commitment to come back to presence over and over) is absolutely key for me. It is a commitment to our soul to fully experience this human life. It is also a commitment to others and the world to be fully there and bring the best energy. Our humanity needs every single one of us at their best.
If you want to learn more about Beatrice, please visit: https://shamanicspiritualhealing.com/
