Maybe it’s “energy.” Maybe it’s just human.

Seeking esoteric answers to normal, messy questions

When I was seven, I had to have my first blood test. A few seconds into the draw, I fainted, and for years after that, I was terrified of needles. At some point, my mom spoke with a psychic about my phobia, who said that I likely had a past-life thing around blood that carried over. We both shrugged. It made as much sense as anything else at the time.

This was meant to explain why I had this seemingly random fear, but it didn’t help. I just had another image in my head at the doctor’s office, another story to tell about how scared I needed to be.

As I matured, I did past life regression. I went to hypnotherapists and talk therapists. I worked with power animals and crystals and learned to meditate. And I still freaked out every single time, once having a panic attack so bad I couldn’t get out of my car.

I share this story because what finally did help, after thirty years of phobic nightmares, wasn’t regression or mantras or magically releasing karmic blocks or other energy-first stuff: it was thoroughly addressing childhood trauma.

I understand when shamanic clients come to me and want the esoteric explanation. They want to know what it means to have a kundalini awakening and is that why they can’t sleep? Or do they have past lives with their twin flame and is that why the relationship is so infuriating? Or should they carry a crystal for protection from the jerk at work?

Sometimes, I do have esoteric answers because the unseen world of energies is powerful and complex and we’re all part of it; there aren’t really compartments between the spiritual world and the material one. So there may very well be past life stuff tied up in our confusion. We may indeed have some stuck energy in a chakra. But sometimes, we’re just sad and angry. Life happens in ways that disappoint. We love things and lose them. We aren’t who we thought we should be and neither is our partner, parent, or friend. Needs go unmet. We trigger each other because of decades of unresolved pain. We have regrets, fears, and misunderstandings.

In other words, we are human and we live messy, human lives. Sometimes the meaning and explanation we search…