Episode 6 – From Stuck to Free – How to Heal the Almighty Syndrome

For years, Amina needed the people around her to believe what she believed, and with a partner, preferring jelly babies to her Haribo could almost be enough for a break-up. Today she finds it deeply liberating to hear someone say they disagree, and to feel that it’s still fine.

In this sixth episode, she and her teacher and guide, Pål-Esben Wanvig, talk about the sixth of the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart: becoming a master of healing your almighty syndrome, the belief that you know what you don’t really know. They explore why we identify with our opinions, how the first chakra turns a disagreement into a fight, and how to start identifying where the syndrome strikes in your own life. It is part of “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a podcast about the bravest journey a human being can set out on: the journey home to yourself.

This episode is an English translation of our Norwegian original, voiced by the digital avatars of Pål-Esben and Amina.

In this episode

• Pillar 6, the almighty syndrome: believing that your truth is the only truth
• We are not our opinions: using opinions as tools, as the ancient Greeks did
• The first chakra syndrome, the sabre-toothed tiger, and the Kodak trap
• Choosing your battles, and the friendships that fell by the wayside when Amina changed
• Why the 9 Pillars are the practical way to clean up the chakra system, and why there are no easy solutions from cloud cuckoo land
• The identification phase: documenting the situations where painful feelings come up
• Amina’s students after two months, and how a teacher meets the almighty syndrome, from burnout clients to advanced students
• Why we never reach the finish line, the circus within, and why incarnating on this planet is like winning the lottery

This podcast is for you if you:

• Seek real depth in your spiritual practice
• Want to understand yourself on a more fundamental level
• Are curious about shamanism but tired of superficial “new age” spirituality
• Have taken many alternative courses but still feel that something is missing
• Feel an inner longing for freedom, love and wholeness

In a time when so many get lost in external methods and promises of quick fixes, this podcast invites you back to the only place where true answers can be found: your own heart.

Listen above, or read the full conversation below.

Transcript

A warm welcome to the podcast “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a primordial shamanic journey of development back to your true nature. This podcast is a collaboration with our favourite magazine, the health and lifestyle magazine Medium, and is devoted to exploring the bravest journey a human being can set out on: the journey home to oneself. We follow Amina, a student at the Yggdrasil Shamanic School, as she goes through a deep primordial shamanic process of development together with her guide and teacher Pål-Esben. It is a raw, unpolished journey of discovery towards true joy in life, deeper meaning, and a life that truly feels good to live.

This episode is an English translation of our Norwegian original, voiced by the digital avatars of Pål-Esben and Amina.

Today’s topic: the almighty syndrome

Pål-Esben: A warm welcome to a new episode, Amina.

Amina: Thank you so much. Likewise, Pål-Esben.

Pål-Esben: How has your day been so far?

Amina: It’s been nice. I’m getting ready for winter. Very nice. What about yours?

Pål-Esben: It’s been lovely. We have sunshine and autumn here in Germany. Fantastic. And today we’re going to talk about something exciting. We’re going to continue the discussion about the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart, the ultimate path to happiness, meaning and shamanic magic. That’s quite a mouthful of a title. We’ve already started discussing the first pillars in the two previous episodes, and today we’re going to start talking about the almighty syndrome, which is a slightly tricky topic.

“My truth is the right one”

Amina: Yes, the almighty syndrome. I’ve had my moments with it, where I’ve thought that my truth is the right truth. Throughout my life it’s been important to me that others believed the same things I believed. So I’ve really got to know the almighty syndrome in a different way through the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart. Today I feel, and it’s very liberating, that I can have a discussion, a conversation, give a talk, anything at all, and hear someone say they don’t agree, and it’s still fine. It’s very, very liberating not to need to convince anyone that my truth is right.

That’s one thing. Another thing is that I used to be very caught up in the idea that there was only one kind of truth: “Now I’ve found the truth, and that’s how it is.” But what I found back then was that it closed me off from everything else that’s out there. So always being open to the possibility that I may not have the whole truth has also been very important, and it has helped me a lot on my journey.

The one thing that changes everything

Pål-Esben: Yes, and this is something that often creates a lot of suffering and frustration for people. The 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart are a practical way of finding your way back to your heart in everyday life. Away from states of suffering filled with resentment and anxiety and hatred and frustration and low mood, and more into primary feelings, happy feelings. If you use them in your daily life, they bring about quite big, exciting, positive changes. Over the years I’ve often been asked: “If there were one thing you’d recommend, after all these years of helping so many people, what would it be?” And if there’s one thing I’d recommend out of everything I’ve learned, it’s to engage with the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart. I have yet to come across a student or client who hasn’t more or less revolutionised the way they experience life by starting to practise the nine pillars. You’re one of them. And in a profound primordial shamanic journey of development like the one you’re part of, this is an important part of the foundation the house is to be built on.

In earlier episodes we’ve talked about this idea of living in love and being in the heart, and how abstract it is. With the nine pillars we have a very practical, pragmatic way of learning how to gain access to the heart. Not just “living in love”: you learn to live from the heart, from love and from all the heart’s perspectives in your daily life. That’s what’s so exciting here. And as we’ve talked about before, it’s had a very big impact on your life too, Amina.

Amina: Yes, absolutely. Turning love into something practical and concrete, and not so abstract, has been very important. We’ve talked about becoming a master of gratitude, the first pillar, and the second pillar, becoming a master of forgiving yourself and others. We’ve talked about the difference between gratitude and becoming a master of gratitude: anyone can practise a few gratitude exercises, but you’re a master when gratitude arises spontaneously in everyday life without you doing an exercise. That’s when we’re talking about the mastery aspect.

Pål-Esben: The third is becoming a master of self-regulation. The fourth is becoming a master of building a healthy value system and a strong personal character. The fifth, which we talked about last time, is becoming a master of seeing the glass as half full. And today we come to the slightly tricky, slightly difficult matter. There are two difficult matters we’re going to talk about from here on: becoming a master of healing your almighty syndrome, which I’d say is one of the most important reasons why people create suffering in their lives, and then number seven, becoming a master of healing perfectionism. So let’s dive into the almighty syndrome. What is the almighty syndrome, Amina?

What is the almighty syndrome?

Amina: Well, among other things, it’s believing that you know something you don’t really know. And when you believe you know it, you’re very closed to new input, and to developing and expanding. That can lead to negative consequences in life. It’s also about not thinking that your own truth is the only truth, including when you’re with other people. That’s how I’ve got to know the almighty syndrome better. Because as I mentioned earlier: when I’d found a truth, I was very keen for the people around me to follow that truth as well. And it perhaps became difficult to be with people who thought differently from me. But goodness me, how much you can set yourself free, and how much less you have to carry, when you also accept that we’re all different. We have different thoughts and points of view.

We are not our opinions

Pål-Esben: Yes. And the challenge is that in our society we’re taught to identify with our opinions. That means that we ARE our opinions. If someone has different opinions, they’re suddenly opponents or enemies. So we have this fight going on all the time. You only have to switch on the TV to see it: in debate programmes and on the news, people fight tooth and nail to prove that their opinions are right. And often an opinion holds only a tiny bit of the truth, or perhaps none of it. But you identify with it as the only truth: “This is reality, and everyone else is wrong.”

If we look at relationships, this is very easy to spot. You come home with an opinion, your partner says “no, I don’t agree with that”, and then you have this quarrel going. It’s really completely unnecessary, if you don’t identify with your opinions but use them as tools instead: tools that are meant to keep improving through the discussions. The ancient Greeks were experts at this: developing opinions into better opinions, insights into better insights, instead of standing there saying “I’m the one who’s right, and you’re wrong”. Today’s society is really set up so that people hardly ever sit down together and work their way, through discussion, to better tools, better opinions, better points of view and better standpoints.

The first chakra syndrome

Pål-Esben: And that’s one of the foundations of what could be called the first chakra syndrome. There are people who, to a greater or lesser degree, say: either you’re a friend or you’re an enemy. If you agree with me, you’re my friend. If you don’t agree, you’re an opponent or an enemy. I call it the first chakra syndrome, since it triggers that part of our survival mechanism: fight or flight is triggered in the first chakra. If we observe the people around us, shaped by our society, we see that the first chakra syndrome is pretty strong more or less everywhere. Just try saying to someone: “No, I disagree with that.” It happens straight away: the fight starts. It wasn’t flight here; it was fight. “Who are you? What are you saying? I’m right. Who are you to come here and tell me I’m wrong?” You can spot this first chakra syndrome everywhere in our society.

And it isn’t that people do this on purpose. It’s part of the autopilot we’ve been drilled into since we were born: that this is how it’s supposed to be, and that if we can’t do that, we quickly end up as losers in society. We have to elbow our way forward; it has to do with survival. And then we end up in all these pointless discussions with other people, where we claim to know what we probably don’t know, since it’s an opinion. So I assume you experienced a lot of that earlier in life too, that you often ended up in situations of conflict.

Jelly babies or Haribo

Amina: Well, we were at the point of almost breaking up if I had a partner who said he liked jelly babies and I liked Haribo. We sank that low. It’s quite incredible to think about today, when I experience myself completely differently: I’m more open to the fact that we aren’t the same, and I see that we humans have different filters to see life through. But I also find that others can get a bit triggered by me when I don’t play along with their game. That’s another interesting aspect of this.

Pål-Esben: It can trigger people a lot. Because they’re used to pushing certain buttons in you, and they know that when they push them, you explode, or you react. As you go through the process of healing your almighty syndrome, you understand that there’s really very little you understand. You learn to become open: “OK, this is an opinion I have now, but it’s a tool, and let’s see whether it can be developed into something better in a discussion with this person.” That’s part of the healing process: that we don’t dig in our heels, but are open to discussing and improving ourselves, as an active part of our process of growth.

The Kodak trap

Pål-Esben: And we see it everywhere. We took relationships as an example, but it happens in companies too. If you have leaders who struggle with the almighty syndrome, problems often follow. One of the worst examples is Kodak. If you’re old enough, you’ll remember the time when we took pictures with film. Perhaps you, the listener, don’t quite know what that is. When I was young, we had cameras with film that we wound on. We had to wind the film on before we could take a new picture, and then we took it out and handed it in to be developed. I don’t know if you experienced that, Amina?

Amina: No, I missed that in this lifetime. Maybe in the previous one.

Pål-Esben: That’s how it was in the old days, when I was young. Kodak was the world’s biggest company in photography and film. And they had leaders with exactly that kind of almighty syndrome. When Apple came along with its first camera phone, they said it was just nonsense: “People will want our film for ever.” They weren’t willing to adapt, not willing to go digital. And we know the story: the whole company nearly went bankrupt, and today they’re a shadow of their former selves, through arrogance and the almighty syndrome. We find this everywhere in our lives.

Choose your battles

Pål-Esben: And how do you handle it? Say you’re talking with some friends or acquaintances, and they try to start a pointless discussion with you, an argument, by coming out with an opinion they know you might not like. And you just smile and don’t react in the usual way, and they get sulky and angry. How do you handle that? What do you do?

Amina: Usually I try to steer the conversation onto something else, something nicer. But sometimes it depends on who I’m talking to, and not least what the topic is. I’ll honestly admit that sometimes I can be caught a bit off guard, when an old autopilot comes up and has a go: “Hello, you’ve got to fight to be right!” And then: “No, I don’t need to.” I can have a bad day too, when I feel the old autopilot, but I see that I don’t need to take on that fight. It’s fine. That’s especially true in the alternative world, now that I’ve got to know other ways of seeing things, perhaps especially around life after death and big topics like that, which a great many people I know identify with strongly. I know what I can be bothered to get into and what I can’t. If someone tells me something and I feel that it doesn’t quite resonate with how I see the world, I don’t always need to say so either. I size up the situation: is there any point in saying what I think here? Because I recognise the situation; this could turn into something. Not because anyone is controlling me or holding me back, but I see it a bit as choosing my battles.

Today I’m lucky, because I don’t feel I have many battles like that with the people close to me. But at the start, when I still had friendships and acquaintances that suited the person I was before, and I began to change, I stood my ground and didn’t budge an inch. Even so, I was open to us still being friends even though we disagreed. But that was almost even more triggering for the other person: “Yes, but how can we be friends if we disagree?” So some friendships have fallen by the wayside because of this. And I’m still learning a lot about the almighty syndrome, both through the people I come across and through myself.

When I started this primordial shamanic path of development with you, there were many things I felt inside: “Whoa, no, I didn’t like that”, or “that isn’t true”, in a way. And all along you’ve been very clear that “you’re not here to believe in anything, you’re here to experience it for yourselves”. It has never been taboo to say that you disagree, or “this is what I’ve experienced”. You present how you see it, and I can say: “OK, if I’m open to these impulses, what comes out of it?” We’ve had an episode where we talked about my big challenges with darkness and demons, and today I’m very grateful that I’ve opened up these four walls of the almighty syndrome. Because if I hadn’t, well, I’d say it has almost saved my life. God knows how far down in a fictional hell I’d have been if I hadn’t been open to seeing the bigger picture, taking in new information, and not least putting it into practice in my life. Because the consequences of the almighty syndrome are pretty scary, in the worst case.

The demons and the belief system

Pål-Esben: And in a later episode we’ll look a bit more at what demons are. Throughout your life you’d been taught and imprinted to believe that demons are external entities that come and possess you and create chaos in your life. That was your belief system when you came to me, and it came from painful experiences growing up. We talked a little about it in episode 1, about your childhood and how your life came to the point where there was chaos. You believe this because you’ve been imprinted with it and have learned it. Then suddenly a figure comes along, in this case me, who says: “That has very little to do with reality.” So you have your own opinion, and then you come across someone with a different opinion. And the more you identify with the opinion, and the more it’s connected to deep, difficult things, the more defensive you can get. That’s probably how you experienced it too, when I said to you: “Amina, that’s not what reality is like.” It wasn’t exactly anything positive for you. You must have reacted to it?

Amina: Yes, of course, because it was the only reality I knew. It’s almost like saying: “Amina, the sky isn’t really blue.” But I had to sacrifice something to see what’s behind the curtain. And I see in the students I have today, through the primordial shamanic journey of development in collaboration with you, that when they know they can say “I don’t agree”, there’s so much healing in that too. When you say out loud that you don’t quite agree, a space opens up where you have the chance to see the bigger picture, simply because you’re allowed to express it, and because it’s safe.

Pål-Esben: Yes! And it has to be. Because we can’t have a healthy discussion that improves opinions as tools without a safe setting. And as teachers, both you and I, with many students: how do we work as teachers if we can’t make peace with having students who disagree with us, who have other ideas? Are we then some kind of superhumans, super-gurus, who understand everything? There has to be room for discussion. That’s what we’re talking about here, and it’s healing in itself. You come into something that’s very exciting, very mysterious, and you know that you can say: “No, I don’t believe that. I’ve heard other things about that.” And then we say: “Let’s discuss it.” And then we make sure to show them a way into an experience where they can experience the truth for themselves.

That’s what I did with you on the topic of demons. We won’t talk too much about it now, because we’ll take it up in an episode of its own; it’s a bigger topic. Because it wasn’t just a matter of saying “now you do this, and then it’s fixed”. It was a more complex affair, since this had been imprinted through religious traumas from your childhood, through really harsh things. There, it isn’t just a matter of taking the feather, a bit of smoke, and saying “hoo, hoo, hoo, now it’s gone”. That doesn’t work. Here we had to do real things to bring you into a relevant experience, so that you experienced for yourself that what you used to believe doesn’t match reality.

Amina: Yes.

The shield around the heart

Pål-Esben: So this is a pretty heavy topic we’re talking about now, and it’s also part of the almighty syndrome we carry with us. Most people who have the almighty syndrome, and really that’s everyone, are completely unaware of it, because they act on autopilot. When we started discussing the demons, you had an opinion, and you believed it was reality. It was the truth, because this was painful for you. You felt the demons inside you; they churned around in there and decided what you thought, how you felt and what actions you took. That was how you’d experienced reality. So the almighty syndrome isn’t something you can simply say you have or you don’t have. It’s part of our society. And when it comes to finding the way to the heart, it’s very important to identify where we have it. Because everywhere you have the almighty syndrome, where you claim to know something you don’t really know, you trigger emotional states of suffering. Emotional states of suffering are always about fighting, the first chakra, and the more of that there is, the thicker the shield around your heart. Our task is to dissolve this shield around the heart. The almighty syndrome is one of the parts of it, and perhaps the most difficult one to deal with. Through all these years, if we’re to point to the pillar most people struggle with, it’s the almighty syndrome. That’s because at the start it’s invisible; we don’t think we have any problem with this. Then the identification phase begins, where we look more closely at how we can identify it.

And there’s one more thing I want to say a few words about: how sad is that? You told us you had friends who said that if we don’t have the same opinion, we can’t be friends. And I think: how sick is that? It isn’t just a few people; it’s part of our society. “If you have different opinions from me, you can’t be with me. If you’re a Muslim and I’m a Christian, we can’t be together.” Hello? I find that incredibly, incredibly sad. With people who have these ideas, the only way we can be together is if we think and believe exactly the same thing.

Amina: Yes. And as I’ve thought since: how firmly do you really stand in your own truth if you depend on others believing the same thing for it to be worth anything?

The sabre-toothed tiger in the first chakra

Pål-Esben: But where does this first chakra syndrome come from? The first chakra is connected to the theme of fight or flight. So it’s connected to survival, physiological survival. In addition, the first chakra is connected to blood, bones and our survival mechanism. But this has also spread to the emotional survival mechanism, since we don’t live in caves any more, where there were sabre-toothed tigers we needed to protect ourselves from. In the old days, when we lived in caves and the sabre-toothed tiger came, the first chakra fired, we got lots of adrenaline and ran like greased lightning to safety. Well, since we don’t have sabre-toothed tigers any more, this has moved up into a behavioural and emotional arena. When someone says something we don’t like, the fight reflex starts, which is also the first chakra. Fight, not just flight; it’s both flight and fight. Then the fight reflex starts on autopilot, and I fight against other people’s opinions, because I’m right. Then we have the first chakra up and running in our society, and it happens everywhere. And if you have a first chakra syndrome and are stuck in the first chakra, in flight or fight, then there’s no way either for the kundalini energy to move out of its potential state, right at the bottom of the tailbone, and begin to flow up through the spine. It’s stuck in the first chakra.

The chakra system in brief

Pål-Esben: That’s why, when we work with more advanced development on the way towards spiritual enlightenment and self-realization, it’s very important that we get the chakra system cleaned up. Not energetically with lots of techniques and methods, but in a practical way, in how you live out these themes in your daily life. The first chakra is typically fight or flight. The second chakra is connected to having fun, to closeness, touch and joyfulness. The third chakra is connected to how we set healthy and loving boundaries, and how we can relate to the ego in a healthy way, as servant and adviser, instead of the way most people have it today: as ruler. The fourth chakra is connected to how we handle saying yes, to love and to family. The fifth chakra has to do with expression and communication on all levels. The sixth chakra has to do with finding the resources you need in this incarnation. That’s both practical, like finding the right doctor if you’re ill, and, if you’re on a spiritual journey of development, finding a suitable spiritual teacher. It has to do with the connection to your life mission. And then we have the seventh chakra, which isn’t connected to time and space, and there’s no way of developing direct access to it. There, a leap happens between the sixth and seventh chakra, and it’s a moment where you have an experience of enlightenment. For that you need a teacher who gives these nudges. There we are, that’s the chakra system in brief.

When we work through this: in the old days, when I was new to this and didn’t understand very much, we were very focused on learning methods. How do we cleanse the first chakra? Which method? Which stones? Which smoke? Which mantra? And that’s all very nice. But you discover this over time: when you see the themes of the chakras, identify where you have problems with them in your daily life, and start changing that in practice, the chakra system cleanses and opens by itself. That’s the way I prefer today. It’s the quickest, but also the most uncomfortable, because it means you actually have to change. And we often don’t like that, do we, Amina? Changing is worse than just using a mantra and hoping things turn out fine.

The pillars cleanse the chakras

Amina: Yes, definitely. And what you’re mentioning now: a great many people are very focused on the chakras and the chakra system, and what each chakra stands for, and what you do here and there. But it doesn’t become very concrete for your individual life. So the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart are also the practical way to clean up your chakra system.

Pål-Esben: Correct. Exactly. Because the whole key to the chakra system lies in the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart. They aren’t just channelled from cloud cuckoo land; they come from a great deal of experience. When you engage with the nine pillars and become a master of them, it isn’t just your life that changes for the better in practical ways, so that you become more joyful and happy and get better health. A fundamental spiritual development also happens, a fundamental development in the energy system: not just in the chakra system, but of course also in the nadi system that lies behind the chakra system. The ancient Indians, in Indian culture, talk about 72,000 nadis, these tiny, tiny energy channels. In reality there are of course far more than 72,000. Through the most important channels, in Ida and Pingala, which are yin and yang in the system, the sources of yin and yang, the sources of the main channels in traditional Chinese medicine, the meridians, this is in turn connected into the chakra system. And the chakra system is connected into the divine spark in each chakra, which in turn is connected to the sixth, seventh and eighth chakras. It’s a pretty complex matter.

The most effective way to start the groundwork, the foundation of all this, is to begin living out the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart. There you deal with the coarsest layers first, and then the finer, more subtle layers of the chakra system, the nadi system and the various areas of our light body. In our tradition we also need shamanic rituals and methods, where we get to work and deal with complex, crystallised karma that we find inside the chakras and beneath the light body. But without doing the groundwork, without creating this fundamental foundation, there’s a limit to how well the more subtle methods can work. Because ultimately we have free will. We’ve come into this life to learn and experience, in this straitjacket where we’re limited by time and space, precisely because we come here to learn and experience. And to learn and experience, we need to use our free will, take the consequences of our choices and use the experiences to keep growing. It isn’t the case that things get fixed with some energy stuff, and then life is good. That’s not how it’s designed. We come here to learn and experience, not to say abracadabra, toss out a mantra, and then everything’s fine. That’s not how our existence works. It takes a bit of groundwork to learn and grow.

Amina: It’s actually very logical, if you look at the heart chakra and the fifth chakra as a bridge, a link, between the physical and the metaphysical world. But if you think that living from the heart, living out love means feeling loving feelings, perhaps that’s where many people miss the mark, at least if they don’t get the results they want. For me there’s some logic in it as well.

Cloud cuckoo land and the easy solutions

Pål-Esben: Yes, there’s logic, and over time you feel it through experience too. You have to experience it. Over the years I’ve come across many people in the alternative world who are stuck in some energetic method or other that they use to get a particular result. I remember the really old days, 20 years ago, when I was pretty new to this. Back then I had fellow students who were very focused on becoming enlightened. They were very focused on getting the kundalini energy to rise, because they believed that without it there’s no enlightenment. That of course isn’t true, but that’s another matter. They’d learned special methods with symbols, received initiations, and worked with the aura and chakras and all that. They kept at it for hours every day for several years, the same endless stuff, without any result whatsoever, except that they ended up in cloud cuckoo land, where they did things and ran energy without it having any effect. Eventually they became very desperate because the methods didn’t work and didn’t give objective, measurable results. Of course they didn’t work, since we haven’t come here to solve all our problems through a healing method. We’ve come here to learn to grow. It’s a process of growth that nature shows us so clearly and plainly; it’s only we humans who haven’t understood it. Go out to a tree in the forest and ask it: “Dear tree, why do you grow from the time you’re born until you die? Why do you grow constantly, all the time, from when you were a seed until you die?” And the tree looks at you: “I don’t understand the question.” Of course it doesn’t understand the question, because that’s nature. It’s only we humans who have this idea that we don’t understand these things. We want easy solutions to something that can’t have easy solutions, since it’s about action, self-responsibility, free will and our continuous process of growth through experience. That process is governed by our karma and the karmic pressure we build up through the incarnation. But that’s a topic for an episode of its own, Amina.

Amina: Yes, there are lots of juicy topics we can get into.

The identification phase: document the triggers

Pål-Esben: So back to the almighty syndrome, otherwise we’ll get completely carried away, and the discussions will go in another direction. What I encourage all my students and clients to do is to take this seriously. Then you start a phase where you begin to identify where the almighty syndrome kicks in. It isn’t really that complex. What I tell you, if you’re my client or student, is this: be very attentive throughout your everyday life. Every time a negative feeling comes up, you’re on the alert. And then you think: “Does this have to do with an opinion, an opinion I have? Then I need to pay attention.” Then you start documenting when this negative emotion comes up, and you document the theme. You’re having a discussion with your partner after a long day, your partner says something, and you notice it coming up. Then you press the pause button and think: “What is this? Was it my partner having a different opinion from me that triggered this? OK, then we’re on to the almighty syndrome. Document it.” The only thing you’re told to do for the first few weeks is to document the situations where these painful feelings come up. In the next conversation we discuss the experiences, and through the discussion we identify what is the almighty syndrome and what isn’t. Then you get practical tasks where you can gradually practise your way out of it.

But as we talked about: if you aren’t open to these things, open to learning, open to experiencing, open to understanding yourself better, you don’t stand a chance. And that’s one of the strengths I really like in you. Since our first conversation, you’ve been open to looking at things beyond what you knew at the time. You were open, curious, inquisitive. That’s one of the reasons it’s gone so fast with you. In under 18 months you went from starting out to becoming a teacher. I mean, hello, that’s not normal. It takes openness and a willingness to try out things you may not be entirely sure about, given your own system of beliefs and opinions.

Amina: Yes, and I see how important it is to get help to see it from the outside. I’ve asked you so many times: “Can we look at this situation? Is this the almighty syndrome? Is it me, or is it the others?” Getting help to see it from the outside has been very important, also for getting to know my own navigation system and becoming more independent. It means that today, if my partner says something I find a bit odd, I can think: “I don’t quite agree here”, and give my opinion. If he wants to take the impulses on board, he does; if not, he doesn’t. And that’s perfectly fine, unless it’s about big, serious things; then it’s a different story. But it’s so important to have someone who can see you from the outside. Because it’s easy to think, even today, that you’ve mastered a pillar: mastered gratitude, mastered perfectionism or the almighty syndrome. But I keep realising that I should still be willing to be curious about where these things show up in my life, and not think that I’ve healed everything. Because it can also be a pitfall to think that once you master these nine, you’ve crossed the finish line, sort of.

We never reach the finish line

Pål-Esben: We never reach the finish line. That’s one of the cool things about our existence: we never reach the finish line. It’s an endlessly long process of growth and evolution that we’re part of. And if you don’t believe that, it’s very easy to back up: you only have to observe our nature, that is, where our nature comes from. When we observe the universe since the Big Bang, we see constant evolution and expansion, from when it’s born to infinity, that is, until the next singularity comes, where the universe implodes and comes back to nothing, and then explodes again, like a pulse. If the universe has an eternally long process of evolution and growth, and our planet has the same, why do people think our nature isn’t the same? Did we just land here from outer space, so that it’s something completely different for humans than for the rest of the universe? Hello? This idea that our fundamental nature is somehow not constant evolution and growth is very easy to dismiss when you see how the universe works.

Winning the lottery: the gift of incarnating

Pål-Esben: Imagine this: your soul, which has a timeless and spaceless nature, exists in a field where time and space don’t exist. Then it chooses, or the creative force chooses, or whatever it is that lies behind it, to take this soul, your essence, and pull it out of the freedom of oneness, where everything is one, into a dualistic nature where it’s limited by time and space, which is a crazy straitjacket. Why does a soul choose this? Well, it’s very simple. In a timeless and spaceless nature, the soul can’t experience the taste of strawberries, or how good crème caramel tastes, or how love is experienced, because in oneness there is no love. Love is what binds things together, and when everything is one, there’s only one love there. Nor can the soul experience melancholy, frustration, anxiety, conflicts or the experience of having a child. That isn’t possible in oneness. So it comes here to experience, to grow, to go through a unique process of evolution that isn’t possible where it comes from.

So I think our existence, getting to incarnate on this planet, is an incredible, fantastic, wonderful thing. Getting to come to this planet is like winning the lottery, because there are so many other places to incarnate that definitely aren’t like this planet. But so many people are focused on how terrible everything is here: there’s so much stress, and then there’s war, and then there’s Putin, and then there’s Trump, and then there’s this and that. Everything is so terrible, life is terrible, the planet is terrible. What? This is a goldmine: getting to come to this planet, into a lump of flesh that is brought to life, that is, your body, and getting to experience green nature, fresh air, water, strawberries, falling in love, going through a divorce, feeling fear, joy and joyfulness. For the soul, that’s beyond words. All of this is further guided by the karmic current that governs the process of growth and learning the soul has chosen to live out. I think it’s so spectacular that we get to come into this body and experience this life. So why should we block ourselves, through the almighty syndrome, where we think we understand something we’re far from understanding, from living a life that can fundamentally be joyful for more or less every human being, if we choose to cultivate ourselves in that direction? And it definitely doesn’t come from lighting a bit of incense, taking the feather and saying “hoo, hoo, now everything’s fine”. It takes hard work.

Amina: Yes. It takes hard work. We’re often on the lookout for the one pill or the one solution, but I’ve tried the one pill and the one solution and the one incense stick. It’s hard work.

Pål-Esben: But good heavens, what big gifts we get back when we’re willing to do that work. Those who really dare to set out on this journey of self-development …

Amina: Yes, that takes a lot of courage.

The students’ first months

Pål-Esben: Yes. And in your case, as we talked about in episodes 1 and 2, it took around six months from when you really began to engage with these things until your life began to turn upside down: from a life full of stress, fear, suffering and chaos, to a life more and more filled with joyfulness, meaning and excitement. It didn’t take many months of this hard work. And hard, well; I don’t quite like putting it that way. It’s just a specific job that needs doing, with an important practical component in daily life. But it has to be done, and when it’s done, it’s very hard not to experience what you yourself are experiencing after only a few months. Can you say a few words about how this is for your students? You now have a class under way in the basic training at the Yggdrasil Shamanic School, which has been running for quite a few weeks now, as we speak.

Amina: Yes, well, two months. We started on 21 September. Now it’s 4 November. About two months. A couple of months, give or take.

Pål-Esben: Tell us a little, Amina: after a couple of months, how are your students beginning to experience the process of development and change?

Amina: This is very exciting. Because you have those who sign up for a training like this, a primordial shamanic journey of development, because they want a better life, to find more happiness and meaning and free themselves from old patterns. And then you have those who think they’ve done self-development, they’ve mastered that, and now they’re interested in the mystical, magical and shamanic. Seen from the outside, those are the two groups I’ve been dealing with. And with some of those who think they’re there to learn about the magical and mystical, I’ve seen from the start: “Wow, you’re going to be very shocked at yourself here”, because I can see a bit of the journey ahead. And they have been. Things have come up to the surface that at first they saw as little things: “Yes, a bit came up here and a bit there, but this is going fine”, or “no, I don’t really know what I should work on”. But as I see it now, so much has happened. There are so many insights, there’s so much healing. These people who thought they’d worked on self-development for many years see that there are new layers of self-development. And by going into the new layers, they find themselves seeing life in a completely different way.

With the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart, there are also some who’ve thought: “But I have a good life. I feel I have a good life. Yes, I get a bit triggered by Mum and Dad perhaps, but otherwise I have a good life.” And then they dive deeper and see: “Whoa, yes, here’s something I can do something about. Something has surfaced here that has been lying deep down in my subconscious and governing my character more than I’ve really realised.” And yesterday we had an in-person gathering where we worked with healing; power animal healing was the theme. Some had such incredibly magical, healing experiences of healing each other. It was incredibly beautiful. Words fall short, as you can perhaps hear, but you see that things are happening. And for example, some who have been afraid of the dark, or haven’t wanted to go into these things, have found that things have already begun to come up, and we’re taking it slowly but surely, and calmly. That’s where you see the importance of working together with beings of light and power animals, so that you feel: “OK, this is a safe space.” And not least, several have said: “I don’t really like sharing in a group, but it feels so very safe and good.” I think that has a lot to do with the structure of the training, the way it’s set up, and probably other reasons too. So I’d say that in just these few months, those who have really engaged are already seeing big results.

Pål-Esben: Yes, that’s what’s so exciting. Because as long as you’re willing to engage: if you aren’t willing, nothing happens, no matter what you learn. If you aren’t engaged and don’t start using it, living it out, testing it out, you can’t get any results, of course. Try it on the golf course: if you don’t put yourself into your swing, your swing won’t get any better. But those who really engage and say “I want to try this out, as wholeheartedly as I possibly can”, they see these very exciting results so quickly.

Meeting the almighty syndrome as a teacher

Amina: How is this with your students and clients? How do you deal with the almighty syndrome there, from your experience?

Pål-Esben: It depends a little on whether it’s a student or a client, because with a student you can slip in a few little gems between the lines. What I do is notice when someone has a strong notion about something, and then I assess whether it’s important to take it up now or not. What are we actually talking about here? Is it a bigger topic? Is it important to comment on? No, not that important; if it’s important enough, it’ll perhaps come up later. But if it’s a question along the lines of “no, I don’t think it’s like that, because that’s what I’ve learned”, then I deal with it by presenting my experience of the topic and why we hold this view. And then I say: “Take what resonates with you, and discard the rest. This is my experience of this topic.” What I notice is that a space often opens up in the student or client, and that they may come back next time and tell me about insights around it. And then of course there are some who stand very firmly in their almighty syndrome around a topic, and then I see that there’s no point diving deeper and ending up in an ego clash. Then we can talk about something else instead. It isn’t so important to fix every possible almighty syndrome; it’s more about looking at where it shows up.

Amina: But you have quite a few more years under your belt with this than I do. How have you experienced this? And not least: what do you do?

Pål-Esben: Yes, I can tell you how I experienced it as a newcomer, 20 years ago. With lots of experience, you have experience behind your opinions, and back then, when other people believed something else, I suppose I tried to persuade them: “You must understand this.” But eventually I understood that this is pretty daft. Why be so stupid? Why not go with the flow and try to help people instead, rather than ramming your experiences down someone’s throat? As you become more experienced and a bit wiser, you deal with this as a teacher, guide and mentor in a very different way.

Take burnout, for example. Many people come to me with burnout to get help getting out of it; it’s been one of my areas of expertise over the last two decades. There they first go through a self-analysis, where we look at where the shoe pinches in the different areas of life: from the physical level to the emotional, mental and behavioural level, in relation to belief system, hope and several other things. We go through a pretty complete, big analysis. From that I pick out the most important things, and then I have a conversation with the client and ask what they’re most motivated for and most want to start with. Let me give an example: one of the top three areas is about setting healthy and loving boundaries between working life and private life. Then they say: “That’s no problem, surely I can take my work home with me; if I don’t answer emails in the evening, everything goes wrong.” Then I say: “OK.” Of the other two or three: “What would you like to work on?” It might be sleep, for example, or what they value. “I’d like to work on that.” So we start there, we begin to get results there, and then a process of maturing begins. When we get a bit further into the maturing process, they come to the point where they’re open to discussing healthy and loving boundaries between work and private life, so that they get the chance to regenerate.

On top of that, this is much easier today: I ask them to read my book The 7 Golden Keys before they even start talking to me, and that saves me many, many hours of guidance. When they’re prepared, I say: “Could you read that chapter for next time?” Then we can discuss that chapter. So today I’m more the type who tries to go with the flow of the person in front of me, based on their needs and what they want to engage with. And then I use this “read that chapter in that book” or “read that article for next time”, and then we can discuss it and see whether we come to good conclusions from it. It’s much, much gentler: flowing with the river instead of struggling against the current or digging tunnels. And what happens is that the results also come much faster, since the clients and students have a much better sense that they get to control, steer and decide their own process. That’s where I stand today.

And sometimes, when I have people like you, advanced students, things get a bit tougher. Then there’s no more beating about the bush. Then we go straight to the point, and I don’t pull any punches. But for that you need to go through a process and get used to it. Then of course it goes much faster. Then we don’t tiptoe around things: “Here’s the psychology, here are the references to the psychology, here are suggestions for how to solve this. Try it out for a few days, and we’ll talk again.”

Amina: Yes, I love the way you work, and your directness, and all the different angles to look at this from. That’s also why, when I stumble, I get back up faster than before, because it’s so direct. Not everyone likes it, because it’s a bit uncomfortable too, when you get it straight. But when you know that the teacher or guide is doing this from a good heart to help you, you’re also better able to open up to it, instead of being in protection mode. But it’s an art, all this.

The circus within

Pål-Esben: And I’m also in constant growth, constant learning, constant evolution towards becoming a better version of myself. I work on it every day. Because if a teacher says they’re fully trained, that it’s over, then the student should start looking around for another teacher. Imagine it: go out into the forest and talk to a tree. “Why do you grow from the time you’re born until you die, all the time?” “I don’t understand the question.” And then the teacher says: “Yes, but I’m fully developed.” What a fool I’d be, then! That’s not how it is. For me this is natural, not something I have to do; it’s just part of my nature to be curious and inquisitive, to love analysing myself, seeing the madness and the circus in myself. Sometimes it’s a real madhouse in here too. When my dear wife sometimes says things I may not like to hear, I can have episodes where, as we men do, and this isn’t very unusual, I go quiet and sulky and won’t say anything, or go into another room, like a 14-year-old kid. “What a circus act, Pål-Esben! You really need to stand up straight, put on your big-boy trousers and go and talk to your wife respectfully. You’re a spoilt little brat.” Seriously, that’s how I talk to myself. I see my life as a circus; I see existence as a game. In Indian culture it’s called maya: the illusion, a game. That’s how I experience my life, as a tremendous circus. Not an unimportant circus, but such an exciting circus. I love getting to be on this planet, in this body. I love crème caramel especially. And the day I die, it’s over. Such were my days.

Amina: Yes, such were the days.

Words of wisdom to wrap up

Pål-Esben: I think we should wrap up the almighty syndrome now. I don’t understand why we end up in all these places, but that’s the almighty syndrome too. Becoming a master of healing the almighty syndrome is the main topic today. Next time we’re going to talk about something just as challenging, which creates just as much suffering in people: perfectionism. And perhaps you have some words of wisdom for the listener to finish with?

Amina: Yes, you only have to look at how this episode has gone: if you work on your almighty syndrome, you end up in laughter and joyfulness. That’s where the path leads. So, a bit like you said so nicely earlier, Pål-Esben: in the weeks ahead, notice where you experience the almighty syndrome in your life, and write it down on paper. Get it down, get an overview, not to run yourself down, but to create awareness around it. That’s my message and advice to wrap up, I suppose. Do you have any wise words, then, Pål-Esben?

Pål-Esben: I think I’ve said enough. Whether it’s wise or not, I don’t know. But I say it from the heart, and I’m not too fussed about whether it’s wise or not. From the depths of my heart I truly wish people well, you as a listener too: that you’ll find a life where you can experience what it’s like to be free, truly liberated. Free from these chains, free from limitations, free from emotional states of suffering, and living a life filled with meaning and joyfulness. And yes, it’s possible. It’s possible even if you’re ill. We’ll take that up in an episode of its own, where I share a lot of experience about how this is also possible when you’re seriously ill. That’s what I wish for every human being: the chance to experience this. And what I know through experience is that it doesn’t happen by itself. You need a process for it to happen, and for that you need a suitable guide, teacher or therapist. I believe that the day you acknowledge that you can’t manage everything in life on your own, and that sometimes you need help, you’ve taken a big step forward. And that’s our wish, from both of us, to you as a listener: however life is now, that doesn’t mean it has to be that way in a week, a month or six months.

Amina: Cool. Yes, definitely.

Pål-Esben: We never know where our conversations will go; we have a starting point, and that’s probably just how it will be from here on, so stay with us. This isn’t the last episode of our podcast; we’ve only just got going. We’ve barely started, we’re still warming up: talking about the foundation for a profound journey of development. So just wait until we really start to take off; then this could get incredibly exciting. Thank you so much for staying with us all the way, dear listener. We really appreciate your feedback, and a five-star rating on Spotify helps our podcast reach more listeners. And thank you so much for being here with me, Amina. I really appreciate it.

Amina: Likewise, Pål-Esben.

Pål-Esben: Thank you for being with us, dear listener. I hope you’ll join us again in the next episode. And until then: have a truly wonderful day, evening, night or morning, wherever you are listening from. Take care.

Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a primordial shamanic journey of development back to your true nature. We hope Amina’s story has inspired you to explore your own journey of self-discovery and development. Remember that the path from suffering to self-realization can be demanding, but with courage, patience and support from a competent guide, mentor, teacher or therapist, almost anything is possible. We wish you all the best on your journey, and we’ll talk again in the next episode.