My name is Christian Bonvin, and I am a teacher at the CaveShamans school. I have been teaching for a while now and would like to address something I’ve observed throughout my teaching and personal practice. This might be useful for you, the blog reader, or it might not, but shamans are accustomed to seeing patterns in people’s energy. Our job is to understand those patterns to help create a different path out of them. Think of most lives as living the same day over and over (at least mine was). The same emotional states come back in a loop, and the same things happen with people repeatedly, even when we change our environment. These patterns can trap us in our own little hell, and often it seems the world conspires to keep us there. For some, it might feel like a safe golden cage, but it is still a cage.

Before embarking on a shamanic healing path, it’s important to understand that it will require effort. Why? Because it took a lot of work to arrive where you are now. The plan is simple: to escape that cage, dissolve it down to its deep foundations, and then build something more aligned with who you truly are (which you will discover when you step out of the cage). This work will involve your intent and will, and often you’ll need to heal those aspects as well to become the escape artist necessary for your freedom. Unlike other types of healing work, shamanic healing is not linear; everything happens simultaneously because it is energetic work, not just mental.

Now, let’s talk about the real subject of this blog: pain. Pain can stop you—whether physical, emotional, or existential. It is the kind we carry for so long that it becomes our best friend, and we agree to perceive the world through it. We hesitate to let it go because, well, letting go can feel even more painful. What could replace it? Our minds hack into our energy using pain and the fear we have of it.

So how do we deal with pain?

Energetically, pain resembles stagnant energy—a place where things are no longer in motion or have slowed down too much. This slowing can happen gradually, but it is also a fact of life; as we age, for example, we naturally slow down. When things slow beyond their natural pace, we can become stuck, lacking the momentum to speed up again. If your anger slows down, there comes a point when you can’t move it using your usual methods. If you can’t move it, you become stuck in it and angry all the time. This process applies to other types of energy as well: physical pain, your intent, your will, your dreams.

Our minds can be crafty; they influence how we perceive pain until we shut down completely and become too afraid to move. I’ve known people who stay home for months at a time, and I’m not judging—just stating a fact. In simple terms: moving is life; stagnation is death. Pain can be many things: a signal to pay attention to something, a nexus point where many issues intersect. You must be willing to unknit these complexities until you find the root cause to address it. Pain can also be a distraction from something more significant, and recognizing the function of pain within ourselves is knowledge we can use to help others.

The path to healing involves learning from where you are, understanding why you are there, and creating movements little by little in different directions than your usual patterns. This means moving your emotions again, your intent, your will, and your dreams. Movement is your birthright; you are, by nature, a mover. Makers are energy movers.

So, pain is a crack in the mind's plan. Yes, it can stop you, but only if you agree to it. Change that agreement, and your healing begins—one step at a time, little by little—until your energy flows like a thriving river. My teacher likes to say, “Dream me a river…” When your energy becomes a river, it will flow, guided by your intent and will. How does it feel to be a river in the world?

There is much more to say and discover, but I will stop here for now.

I hope you’ll consider signing up for classes.

Christian