About Debra
Shortly after I consciously stepped out onto my spiritual path in my early 30s, I was told in a shamanic journey that my purpose in this lifetime was fourfold – healing, writing, teaching, and speaking. This resonated with me and gave me the courage to leave behind my stressful, unfulfilling job in the corporate world. I followed the guidance of my soul to develop my shamanic gifts and be of service in the world.
I opened a shamanic healing practice in 2006. Since then, it’s developed into working with heavy energy – spirit attachment, ancestral patterns, childhood trauma, and the discomfort of being sensitive to energy. In partnership with my helping spirits, I shine light into the shadows and hold space for clients and students to transform. I’ve been told that my gentle, grounded energy creates a safe space for healing.
Shamanism has helped me to heal. I understand what it means to walk a personal healing journey. In my 20s and early 30s, I buried my emotional pain behind work. Disconnected from joy, I would lie in bed at night thinking “there’s got to be more to life.” Later on in my shamanic training, I learned that this feeling was a symptom of soul loss. I worked on bringing the pieces of my soul back home.
Layer by layer, I shed limiting agreements and pain from the past and stepped more fully into the light of my True Self. Many wonderful and capable healers and teachers held space for me to grow and encouraged me along the way – Jaes Seis, Herb Stevenson, Julie Tallard Johnson, CaSandra May, Betsy Bergstrom and Dea Parsanishi.
I continue to grow and evolve and work on myself. During the pandemic, in a series of dreams sent by Spirit, a huge chunk of the old protection that I kept around my heart fell away. I was no longer in agreement with using walls to keep myself safe. My heart is more open, and I am able to hold a deeper container for healing.
I also enjoy teaching and offer a variety of in-person and Zoom classes, including the popular “Energy Essentials for Empaths” modules. Other offerings include basic shamanism workshops, a “Staying Centered in Difficult Times” circle, and ancestral healing classes.
It has been a labor of love to develop longer programs that hold space for growth and healing to happen over time. I offer a one-year, four-part medicine wheel for ancestral healing and a 2.5-year medicine wheel for personal transformation and shamanic techniques.
I know that I am living my purpose from the joy that it brings to reunite a client with their missing soul pieces and to help lost souls cross to the light. I have the sense I’m helping to make the world a better place when the client’s ancestors speak of the original wound so it can be healed. It is deeply gratifying to support other empaths to discover tools to help them be more comfortable with their energetic gifts.
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Being in nature has been a big part of my personal healing journey. I walk at Steinke Basin, Devil’s Lake State Park, and Riverland Conservancy as often as possible, talking to the nature spirits and sometimes doing ceremony in their presence. I have had many sacred encounters with the furred and feathered ones, who eagerly share their wisdom and medicine – including coyotes, deer, owls, and pileated woodpeckers.I am blessed to live in this magical place, doing what I love.