Damien: So Davide, what exactly is a Shaman?

Davide: Hi Damien. OK, the word 'Shaman' has become quite widespread over recent years. In tribal cultures shamans would journey to other realms to find solutions to problems back on Earth. It's said that Shamans can be viewed in four different ways:

1. The path of a healer, in which the Shaman is of service to the community - healing disease be it physical or mental.
2. The path of the warrior, which is not the one who makes battle, but the one who makes peace.
3. The path of the teacher or sage, the one who continues the transmission of the medicine way and the body of wisdom. This is where the path of the Shaman becomes a spiritual path.
4. The path of the seer and of the visionary. Here we recognize that the world is a dream and that we can dream it into being - and when you don't dream it into being then you get caught in the collective nightmare that we are all living in.

In our modern, western culture however - a bit like 'Yoga' - the word 'Shaman' has come to symbolise a whole spectrum of healing methods and ideas. It is perhaps becoming more widely associated with the idea of transforming unwanted behavioral patterns than physical maladies. Some purists tend to get annoyed by this, saying that we are being disrespectful to tribal cultures, but I'm completely on the other end of the spectrum. My view is, essentially, that if something is being used to bring greater awareness, healing and vitality into people's lives then it's up for grabs. The essence of the original shamanic practices are still enfolded into the contemporary meaning, yet they have evolved to include something new. If the root of something is strong it can't be toppled so easily.

So... a further answer to your question would be: in a contemporary context, a Shaman is someone - be they male or female - who seeks to shed light on unconscious fear-making patterns and transform this fear back into life-giving energy. A Shaman is someone who has lived and experimented with the notion of a 'higher' guiding principle and takes action to bring understanding, wisdom and ultimately healing to an area where people are experiencing problems.

Damien: ... and what does a Shaman have to do with money?

Davide: Moving on from my last answer, money is a particular area that reflects back to us a vast amount of suffering. As I say in my course, I don't use the word suffering lightly. We tend to associate suffering with more extreme situations such as war and depravation. But I see the constant fear and omnipresent anxiety that countless people are experiencing around not having enough money, being in debt or simply feeling that they are bound up in a world of threat, struggle and scarcity, as one of the most deserving areas to bring a sense of empowerment and healing to.

In essence, so many people spend their entire life in a dark parallel universe, where there is no possibility of expressing their full capacities. In this context the work of a Shaman is to strip away the veil of fear so that we can all see that nature wants nothing more than for its children to exist in abundance. The Shaman's job is to expose the illusion of a dog-eat-dog world as the phoney it is. We have all been taught to search in the wrong places to find our true worth. We've been taught to search for love in 'things' which have no ability to love us back. When this illusion is finally seen for what it is, money then becomes a miraculous force in nature with no other purpose than to experience more of what life has to offer. It becomes a force to bring about a transformation. And the very first transformation is of our own life.

Damien: Why do you think so many people have issues around money?

Davide: In many ways this is going to sound like a contradiction or a paradox, but actually people don't really have issues around money. In fact, money is never really the issue. Money is more like a very powerful mirror that reflects back to us our beliefs about life. These are the filters through which we look out onto a world that can, at times, seem so utterly devoid to love and compassion. When we begin to see money as this mirror and work with it as a means to dissolve limiting beliefs, money is allowed to flow into our lives for no other purpose than to bring about a state of natural flow and equanimity. Underneath everything that we do and experience in the world is the desire to come home to our true self. And that true self is limitless being. In this way, money is the great teacher showing us where we need to look.

Damien: A lot of what you teach in the Money Shamans course is borne out of your own personal experience. Tell me a little bit about your own financial journey?

Davide: Oh wow! Where can I start? From an early age I found myself heavily in debt. I was a consistent under-earner despite running my own successful design company and working with people such as David Bowie. I had always neglected to pay myself enough to live on and this reflected a deep-rooted belief that somehow I didn't deserve to be rewarded for my talents. At times this brought me to almost comical crisis points. It allowed me to hide behind an identity constructed on lies.

In many ways, money became my ally, helping me disguise just how terrified I was of being rejected. Whenever I was about to really step into my power and needed to take a leap of faith, money would be there to make sure I didn't get rejected. After all, how could I be rejected if I wasn't even participating? It works every time. Part of us never wants to get hurt, but sometimes we've got to 'sweat our prayers'. Lack of money and a belief in struggle gave me a great excuse for not really doing the things I knew would help me to grow. In other words, I used money as the false protector, the excuse preventing me from embracing the adventure of life. So money wasn't the issue, I was deeply afraid of being rejected or refused - but it took me one hell of a long time to see how money fitted into this drama.

When I started working with the concepts given to me by Paulo and Carolina Santoro, it became apparent how money was reflecting these deeper issues of self worth and fear about the process of life. One of the most powerful things I learnt was that using the physical body as a means to bypass the mind's habitual limiting patterns can initiate a process of rapid change and integration without the need for years of analysis. I came to understand that unless we are able to gently release or unravel fixed belief patterns pulling us away from abundance, it is practically impossible to implement any money-making system. After years of struggling around money, I started to see that living an abundant life is not about escaping the up's and down's - the pain - of life, but rather to fully embrace this as part of our being. To live an abundant life means becoming intensely interested in life, and seeing that life is always already intensely interested in us. Money is the by-product of our willingness to step into the unknown and meet life head-on. It's absolutely not about getting the money first and only then doing what we want. There's nothing stopping us showing up for our own life: do it now - right now...

I came to understand that the most vibrant and successful people are all experts at getting things wrong. And then responding instead of reacting. They're not waiting for the big 'one liner'.

Damien: So what was you own lowest moment with money?

Davide: There have been so many. But perhaps the very lowest must have been when my dad died and I went to pay for the flowers to go on his coffin and my card was refused. I had a grand total of £5 in my wallet. I stood there in the florist and understood that things had finally reached rock bottom. I had to telephone my mum and ask her to pick up the bill. The other sting-in-the-tail being that I hadn't even told her just how strapped for cash I was, and to my desperation, I heard my own voice - as if detached - concocting some elaborate lie about how the date on my card had expired. This really brought me low!

Damien: You were fortunate to meet some quite extraordinary teachers to help you overcome your own struggles with money? Tell me a little about them.

Davide: In the course, I outline how I came to meet Carolina and Paulo Santoro and some of the amazing ideas they were putting forward. And in the years since those events took place, I've often asked myself if time has somehow enhanced their capabilities - embellished the teachings with attributes culled from all I've learnt in subsequent years. And perhaps the answer is, yes. What I will say is that we all have pivotal encounters in our lives. Unfortunately many simply get brushed aside in the blur of busyness and our reluctance to believe that life actually does contain the quality of magic.

In the case of Paulo and Carolina, they were able to break the trance of fear and struggle long enough for me to see that something far more wonderful is available. In a sense they were visionaries that had dedicated their lives to experimentation and adventure. The thing that absolutely stood out about them was that they were not afraid to play with life. This energy moved through their business and personal lives. They saw that ultimately every thought emerges from unconditional love, and therefore no matter what, can always be traced back to this source. This quality is so rare. If we stumble across it, it stops us dead in our tracks. It's a bit like seeing an angel walking along a busy high street - we can't quite believe it but at the same time we're compelled to stop and investigate. I'm not for one moment saying they were angels, but they were not afraid and that radiates something unique in a human being.

And in essence, what I've just said about Paulo and Carolina is really what the course is about. They used business and working with money as a way to crack open problems and find the treasure that lies hidden within. And that treasure is always connected to love. I firmly believe that if you only ever got as far as doing the first two practices that they gave me - as outlined in part one of the course - your life could be transformed.

Damien: So how is the Money Shaman e-Course different to other money programs people are teaching?

Davide: The writer of the book or course is in truth the only one who knows absolutely what was meant - even then the complexity of the human mind means that it can never be 100%. We all view the world in our own way. We do this because of the totally unique experiences and influences we've had throughout our lives.

One of the biggest reasons why so much of the information that comes into our lives is unworkable is that we haven't ever been taught how to translate information into our own individual way of understanding things. The course guides you through the most powerful way of translating information into your own unique vocabulary. I think so much of what's out there dealing with money totally misses this point: and it's actually crucial to making anything work. In some ways this can take the shape of first understanding how to unlearn what we've been told is true about life. For the most part we've been sold a fake version of reality and what's possible for us.

But ultimately, when it comes to money - or anything else in life for that matter - no predetermined system or fixed manoeuvres can fix what's inside. And this course has nothing to do with fixing problems. The course is fundamentally about using the 'dross', the raw materials of your present situation - no matter how bad they may seem - and turning them into gold. This is actually more like how the true alchemist works. And each person moving through the course discovers how to turn the base elements of their life into gold: that includes the unpaid bills, the overdrafts and the tear-stained bank statements. Personally I'm not interested in just papering over the cracks, I want everyone who comes into contact with the material in this course to find their brilliance. Otherwise there's no point in doing the course. If anyone is looking to just read it and come away with something then they will be disappointed.

The real objective of the course can be summed up in the words of the Taoist Master Chuang-Tzu, "if our entire life is a dream, then why not bring the full power of dreams into play to create a beautiful dream instead of a nightmare."

The course is not about paying off your debts or making huge amounts cash, although that may well happen - it's about creating something compelling and transforming money into the energy that enables you to spread joy to as many people as possible.

Damien: What kind of money challenges does your Money Shaman Course help people overcome?

Davide: As you can imagine, over the years I've been working with this material and sharing it through the course and seminars, I've seen practically everything. Because the course has been specifically designed so that each individual finds their own way of working with the ideas, I would say that it moves with what each person brings to the table... "Bring it on!" - as the saying goes.

Damien: Are there any other thoughts, insights, or advice you would like to offer people who are looking to improve their relationship with money?

Davide: Always invest in life first: it's the only real investment we can ever make. And let the process of transforming your relationship with money and opportunities invite you to step into the unknown and try things you never thought you would dare to try.

By now, you've probably heard so many different things about how to earn more money that you don't know who or what to believe anymore. But more than anything else, you just want to stop feeling so afraid and disempowered around money and perhaps even life in general. Nothing can stop the ups and downs of life, but why shouldn't you be able to experience the feelings of connection and flow. Why shouldn't you have access to the resources you need to live a more exciting life and explore the things that bring you joy and give your life meaning? This is where the amazing teachings contained in 'Secrets Of The Money Shamans' come in...

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Listen to Davide de Angelis: Uncovering the money feeling will help you to magnetise an abundance of wealth, prosperity and happiness. It will also open you up to the aliveness and potential that resides deep inside of you...

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