This week, Mystic Mag had the opportunity to interview Stewart Blackburn, Writer, Teacher, and Spiritual Counselor. We talked about his career, self-empowerment, and what he loves most about his profession.
When did you first know that being a Spiritual Counselor was your calling and how did it come about?
I have had several “callings” in my life, and they seem to have each played into the subsequent one. In my late 20’s I had a very strong calling to become a fine chef. As one chef instructor of mine said, “A chef has an almost sacred duty to help transform the mood of a patron to one of joy and delight.” Helping people let go of their troubles, if only for a short time, became my guiding light.
That mode of creation and service transformed into working as a Sacred Intimate, a kind of spiritually oriented prostitute. The focus was on helping people work through their sexual difficulties and self-esteem issues in a full-bodied context. I was willing to go anywhere the client needed to go in order to resolve their issues. This openness to seeing and working with the deepest of one’s inner feelings and energies has been a major component of my work as a spiritual counselor.
After studying many spiritual systems, Tantra and shamanism stood out as being the most powerful and useful of systems I found. Ultimately Tantra didn’t feel as empowering as shamanism, particularly the shamanism of Huna. This shamanism is about helping others by aiding their understanding of how they are creating the problems they are facing and how to change their thinking in order to heal. This is a profound practice that is highly intimate in a very non-sexual way.
After about 10 years of learning, I started teaching Huna about 18 years ago. That quickly evolved into a practice of counseling based on the ideas of love, compassion, and self-responsibility.
What services do you offer?
I have written two books and am now working on a third. These books go into what I feel are the most common issues that people have around being authentically who they are. However, there still is a need for people to be shown which concept or technique is most helpful in their current situation. I prefer to work with people who have already recognized that they are basically spiritual beings having a human physical experience. That way we can put their current challenges in the context of their Inner Self learning various lessons.
So, I generally offer counseling sessions, in person or on Zoom, that are scheduled for an hour. If they go a little long that’s okay. But, I find that most people get plenty of insight and have changed in ways that need time for integration after just an hour. Subsequent sessions may be desired, but not necessarily.
What does self-empowerment mean to you?
The essence of power is choice. What I do is show people how their range of choices is unnecessarily limited and that if they allow themselves to claim it, they can choose from many more options or probabilities than they probably have been aware of.
For instance, many people suffer from a fear of disappointing other people. I encourage them to spend a week disappointing at least 3 people a day. That generally allows them to see that disappointment is a choice, one that we never need to choose.
We are responsible for every response to life’s situations we make. We can respond differently to each experience we have. Each choice brings with it a set of feelings and new choices. Being empowered is to decide how we want to feel and then to choose a strategy that will bring about those desired feelings as much as possible.
What can a person expect from your sessions?
Anyone who sits with me, in person or virtually, can expect someone who will listen to them with kindness and compassion. There is never any judgment of any kind involved. With gentleness and an appreciation of their vulnerability, I will suggest ways of doing things differently that likely will yield more satisfactory results. Many people find that what I have to offer is sufficient to resolve their immediate issues in one, maybe two, sessions. Other people want to have multiple sessions to work on and resolve multiple issues.
The more we can come from an awareness of our Soul or Inner Self, the more powerful we become and the more joy we have in our lives. I facilitate that.
What is the most important detail in maintaining a relationship of mutual trust with clients?
I find that trusting that one will not be criticized, no matter what, is the element most essential in developing a working relationship. That means that the practitioner must look for how each element of a person’s life is serving a specific and useful purpose in that person’s life. No matter how weird, kinky, or bizarre someone’s feelings and actions are, there is always some aspect of healing involved. The question becomes, “How is this behavior serving the client?” And if this behavior presents problems for either the client or society in general, then the next question is, “How can we address this need in alternative ways that are not so problematic?”
What do you love most about your profession?
I love pleasure. It is the motivating force in my life. Not just my pleasure, but the pleasure in the world. So, I want to help there be much more pleasure in the world. Each time I work with someone, and they shift from pain, primarily emotional pain, to joy, pleasure, love or what-have-you, the more pleasure there is in the world. I love that!
