NANCY El Amor
I’m Nancy. Thank you for checking out my work. It’s been a long and interesting path, that’s for sure. I never felt that I chose this, certainly not in this lifetime, but now I’m glad the ‘shamanic path’ and I found each other.
Since the beginning of my life as Nancy, I have been able to communicate with unseen beings, plants, spirits and across worlds. My family have endless tales of me conversing with ancestors long dead and knowing secrets I couldn’t possibly know. ‘Strange happenings’ and knowing what would happen before happened were common in my childhood. I was known for holding invisible hands, speaking strange languages and relaying information I simply couldn’t have known or understood, certainly not as a small human. Most children are born with these gifts, but gradually tend grow out of them. Not me though and a point came where I just didn’t want it anymore.
Knowing things I shouldn’t, seeing things no one else could and with all the sensitivity that goes with it, I felt that it was impossible to be happy here. I saw these ‘gifts’ more as a burden and tried to hide them, thus hide who I really was. However I remained curious about what lay beyond the veil, so to speak. This led me down many interesting pathways, learning from so many people and experiences mainly with what we now call Shamanism.
It wasn’t until much later in life that I realised that the source of my unhappiness wasn’t what lay inside me, it was the fact that I was trying to deny what lay inside of me. Oh what a journey this is, the never ending story of magic and mayhem, beauty and truth in the shadows… Once I opened my eyes to no longer distrusting myself, these innate gifts, and trusting the power of my own alchemy and wisdom I found peace and happiness from within. Just like all of us, the answers are always inside and often where you start, but the journey itself is the key to unlocking it all. It’s when you get back to the beginning you realise you had the power all along.
I didn’t go looking for this path, I actively tried to avoid it. In the end it caught up with me and I eventually surrendered. Now I’m very gad I did.
So I’ve working with plant medicine for over 22 years. It started for me with Kaxinawa tribe in Brazil in my late teens. I was taken to an Ayahuasca ceremony, not knowing anything about what we were doing. Lucky for me, I had the most beautiful experience of my life. Here a relationship was forged and innocently I began the journey back to myself…
What I witnessed, the ‘shamanic’ practices resonated with me right from the start, and still do, but from that night I felt it in my bones, the knowing of something much greater than we are allowed to know in mainstream society.
The path had found me and I simply followed the breadcrumbs. At a time before the internet etc, it was near impossible to find out more about such clandestine practices, but through what can only be described as divine intervention, the path unfolded more and more. But there are no coincidences, right? Looking back I can only describe it all as ‘re-remembering’, every step of the way echoed something I already knew somewhere inside of me.
Life in the western world took over for a while there too – I really tried to fit into the matrix. I was a teacher for 10 years in state comprehensive schools, but behind the scenes I continued to follow the ever unfolding path, always feeling like I was being guided somehow (but also continually questioning whether or not I just had a wild imagination).
I learned about Cacao ceremonies, responsible and sustainable use of plant and animal medicines, Kambo, shamanic practices from the lower Amazon and the Andes, energy healing, divination, alchemy and so on. I even became a successful practicing therapist in western terms…
For years people told me that I had a gift for being an instrument for the Medicines and Spirits to work, but I simply couldn’t believe it and refused to own it for a long time.
One day everything changed. I could no longer ignore what was in my soul; the message came loud and clear by way of a total breakdown. Feeling lost and full of pain and trauma, I knew I had to turn all this into a breakthrough opportunity to turn my life around. I knew it was time to come out of the ‘Shamanic closet’.
In 2019 I was back in the Amazon working and healing with Don Wilmer Campos when I met Don Arnaldo. Leaving the jungle in March 2020, I walked into the chaos of the covid pandemic and took cover in the Andes unable to return to the U.K where I lived then.
I took the opportunity to dive deeply into myself and this became a period of solitude and intense self-healing. Arnaldo would call me on the phone but from far away in the jungle, and our connection, via the Medicine, deepened profoundly and it felt right for us to join hands and work together, combining eastern and western traditions and practices for the benefit of all. I just wanted to give back to others in the way Shamanism had saved me from myself.
Today Arnaldo and I live and work in the Amazon together holding dietas and creating opportunities to work with plants, upholding principles of humility, respect and compassion. I love my life amongst fellow healers, teachers, shamans, communities and the people I’ve worked with and come to know and love.
It took a lot of time, patience, dedication, self-enquiry and self-compassion to get to where I am, I nearly gave in many times. But this is the process, this is the path; we have to heal oursleves before we can be useful to anyone else. Our battle scars and stories of endlessly getting back up again are what make us who we are. Now I understand how our demons can become our greatest strengths and that our magic lies behind facing our fear and pain.
Today I wouldn’t change any of my personal story, even though there were times I didn’t believe I could go on. I’m so grateful for my life and for the ancestors, to nature and its divine intelligence, for these sacred practices that have become my way of life now. I’m so grateful I can be useful. Thank you for reading this and I look forward to learning who you are some day soon too. Much love, Nancy
“You are an alchemist. You create your reality.” – Nancy
Shamanic Heartspace 