Rana Abdelkarim RMT & Shamanic Practitioner

The desire to be safe, to feel safe, and to remain safe is primal.

But it can also be costly.

It can cost us opportunities we may not otherwise be able to access if we don’t allow ourselves to take a risk, to take a chance.

We want to feel safe. We want to be protected.

One of the most common requests I receive when someone comes in for healing often involves some element of feeling unsafe.

Something or someone around them is causing them to feel unsafe. It may be known or unknown. A darkness. An excess of negativity in their life.

I know what that’s like.

I spent a long part of my life feeling this way.

And even when I received the training to do something about it, I avoided it.

It was too scary.

I didn’t want to face what was causing me to feel unsafe, or what may or may not have been causing me harm.

For me, it was better to stay in denial.

So for a long time, I avoided doing anything about it.

I would let it build and build, and fester like a wound.

I was frozen. In shock.

Then I began to ask myself a better question:

If I’m not willing to go there, where am I willing to go that would help?

That question changed something for me.

It allowed the wound to get some breathing room.

It allowed things to begin to process. To move. To release the chokehold they had on me.

It took some time, but now I go there.

I go there and do my best to be neutral with what I find.

Because whatever it is, it is already there. It is already impacting me in some way.

Looking at it isn’t necessarily creating something new.

It is giving me the opportunity to understand what is already happening.

To gather enough information to make more empowered choices for myself.

And, perhaps most importantly, to stop maneuvering my life from the position of:

Why does this keep happening to me?

And start asking:

What can I do with what I now know?

Lately, I’ve been finding myself giving clients practices to help them reconnect with their feet.

And the more I do it, the more I appreciate just how important our feet are.

Our feet are our literal foundation.

They support our architecture.

They are our point of contact with the ground, constantly receiving information about pressure, position, movement, and the surface beneath us. That information helps our nervous system organize balance and movement.

But I think there’s something more here, too.

Shamanically, the feet have a beautiful relationship with the Mother — with Mother Earth, and with the deeper maternal principles of nourishment, support, belonging, and being held.

They ask a very simple question:

Do you allow yourself to be supported?

We spend so much of our lives trying to hold ourselves up.

Figuring things out.

Pushing through.

Carrying what needs to be carried.

Being independent.

Being capable.

And yet, every time you stand, your feet are doing something very different.

They aren’t trying to hold themselves up.

They’re allowing the ground to hold them.

There is a reciprocity there.

You offer your weight.

The Earth meets you with support.

And perhaps that’s part of why I’ve been encouraging people to become more conscious of their feet lately.

Not because you need another wellness practice to add to your list.

But because sometimes reconnecting with your feet is a very simple way of reconnecting with being here.

Feel the ground beneath you.

Notice where your weight is landing.

Notice whether you’re gripping your toes.

Notice whether you’re actually allowing your feet to spread and receive the ground.

Walk slowly enough that you can feel each step.

Stand outside barefoot if it’s safe to do so.

Let yourself experience the fact that you don’t have to generate all of your own support.

Your feet are already in a relationship with something beneath you.

And sometimes healing asks us to remember that we are, too.

You don’t always have to hold yourself up.

Sometimes you can let yourself be held.

My healing journey began somewhere around 16.

It was my first time being exposed to breathwork—a class that included me and mostly senior citizens.

I thought the class was beneath me.

A class focused on breathing. Who needed that? We breathe on our own, don’t we?

I hated every second of it.

I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to sit still. I didn’t want to be present with myself.

No one had shown me how.

All I could focus on was how uncomfortable and foreign it felt. I wanted to run away.

It’s funny looking back on it now.

Because some of the things I resisted most back then have become some of the places I find the most clarity now.

It’s in the stillness.
It’s in the presence.
It’s in the breath.

When I slow down enough to actually be with myself, I can connect more clearly with what I want and what I need. When I am present, I move differently. I make different choices. And those choices often lead me somewhere I couldn’t see when I was moving from a place of disconnection.

But I also think about that 16-year-old version of me differently now.

She didn’t need to be forced into stillness.

She didn’t need to understand why the breath mattered.

She didn’t need to be further along.

She needed to be met exactly where she was.

And I think healing is like that.

You don’t have to arrive already calm, open, spiritually connected, or ready to face everything.

You don’t have to know what you’re supposed to work on.

You don’t have to have the right words for what you’re experiencing.

Healing can begin with simply being where you are.

Sometimes that looks like feeling deeply connected.

Sometimes it looks like resistance.

Sometimes it looks like not knowing what you need.

Sometimes it looks like being tired of trying to figure it all out.

There is no particular version of you that you have to become before you are worthy of healing.

Healing meets you where you are.
And from there, it creates space for you to discover where you want to go next.

Hey guys,

I hope you’re all set up for the September long weekend that you need 🤍

I’ll be out of the office Monday and back Tuesday, refreshed and ready for a new week.

If the transition to fall has got you wanting to carve out some more time for yourself, whether that’s to nurture your physical body or your mental, emotional and spiritual bodies, here’s what I have available next week:

Massage Therapy
Tuesday — 3:00 pm · 60 min
Wednesday — 5:30 pm · 60 min
Friday — 10:15 am · 60 min, 12:45 pm · 60 min
Saturday — 9:00 am · 60 min, 1:15 pm · 30 min

Shamanic Healing · Private Virtual Support
Thursday — 10:00 am · 60 min

Book here: https://linktr.ee/ranathemassageshaman

Meegwetch ✨

Client wins that have nothing to do with massage.

“I quit my job.”

“I’ve decided to start sharing something from my culture. I have no idea where it’ll go.”

“Oh, and I’ve noticed a significant difference in my body.”

“I’m starting to feel more like myself.”

“I got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work abroad.”

These are some of my favourite kinds of updates.

Because sometimes the most meaningful change has very little to do with what brought someone through my door in the first place.

📸 by Jenn Clara

❤️

The longer I work with bodies, the more things I’ve changed my mind about.

Early on, I think it’s easy to equate being a good therapist with knowing more techniques, working harder, finding the “right” muscle, or being able to address everything a client brings into the room.

I’m much less interested in that now.

I’m more interested in paying attention.

What changed when I did that?

What happened when I didn’t?

Did the person’s movement actually change?

Did the tissue respond?

Was I working with what was there, or just doing something because I know how to do it?

I’ve also become much more comfortable with not having to force an outcome.

Sometimes the most useful thing I can do is something surprisingly simple.

Sometimes it’s working somewhere completely different from where the client feels their symptoms.

Sometimes it’s choosing one thing to focus on instead of trying to squeeze four different treatments into an hour.

And sometimes I learn something from a treatment that completely changes how I think about the next one.

I think that’s one of the things I love most about this work.

There’s always more to notice.