The Bare Truth Podcast

The Bare Truth podcast Julia Armstrong

'The Bare Truth' is a celebration of the extraordinary in day-to-day living, from the unsung hero to those on a bigger stage. Each week, Julia interviews someone from a different area of interest who is passionate about what they do, who is expressing themselves in their own unique way, and who wants to share what they do with others.

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Please feel free to contact Julia with any comments about the show, or if you would like to be interviewed yourself. We also include contact details of our guests where possible - if you'd like more information, why not get in touch?

Latest Broadcast

Interview with Veronica Houghton, Finance Director and Shamanic Practitioner

18 December 09

Veronica Houghton, Finance Director and Shamanic PractitionerVeronica’s backdrop is her work as a Finance Director – so she’s quite down to earth about the value that coaching can bring. She coaches business executives as well as working with individuals and couples in a Life Coaching capacity.

She did a year long course in systemic NLP with the Beleaf institute, and is a member of the Academy of Executive coaches where she trained and of the British Association of Vedic Astrologers. Her original training in counselling was with Berkshire Youth and Community service.

Veronica is also currently studying to become a full shamanic practitioner with the Four Winds Society.

Contact Veronica by email at time2012@live.co.uk or by phone on 01628 620711.

www.timecoaching.org

Click here to find this podcast on iTunes, or here for the feed – look for 18 December 2009. If all else fails, try here.

I drove to Dorset in the middle of November to take a Master Class from the Four Winds Shamanic Healing School – the class I was taking was called ‘Walking with Protection’ – it had originally been called the Sorcery Class – but no one had attended! The name change had shifted the attendence figures and so now here I was with 85 others.

Even with a name change, the essence of the work was to look at where sorcery happens, the mechanisms of sorcery, and to take a look at internal and external sorcery. The definition of sorcery is the abuse of power – even if it is with the best intention! Because everyone taking the class works in the lives of others it is a vital class as there is a knife edge between sorcery and service. It is about owning our influence and power, and understanding that the only difference bewteen sorcery and service is intention.

So the emphasis of the week we all spent together was to get in touch with and reclaim our shadow, to be certain that we become completely conscious of our power and influence in the world – with those we work with and what is going on for us.

The biggest ‘protection’ – or safety – from the effect of external or internal sorcery, or from misusing our own power, is to be fully conscious, a clear reflection – and to achieve that it is a daily practice of accessing what is within, so that whatver we do is clear.
‘If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you’ Freud (I think! – or was it Jung?!?).

So – this was the backdrop to meeting Veronica. I had arrived, found where I was staying – in the old stable block – and made my way to registration and then to the lunch queue. It was all taking place in a very beautiful old building deep in the countryside. It was in the lunch queue that I met Veronica – the queue was long and slow, so we sat down on a big wooden seat and started to talk. She had just finished anotehr class, had had a day to recover, and was back again for more.

We chatted over lunch and then chose to sit next to each other in the front row of the class – cross-legged on cushions. As the week unfolded Veronica, Julian and I worked together, laughed together and I asked Veronica lots of details that were unfamiliar for me as she had completed a few other classes before this and so was well versed in shamanic practice.

As you will hear from her podcast, a passion for patterns inspires Veronica’s work, helping people to see these patterns and work with them and make new ones – to do different things, to heal and dream the future they desire into being, which is at the essence of Alberto Villaldo’s work, the creator of the Four Winds classes.

Would you like to be interviewed?

The Bare Truth podcast Julia Armstrong

Would you like to be interviewed by me, about any subject or any aspect of your life? Is there something you want people to know about: maybe your work, your hobby, an event, work you are doing, a charity, your art, your writing, your music, your business, your politics, your spiritual beliefs – anything at all? What motivates and excites you, what you’d like to achieve, what you have achieved and how – anything that you would like to say, then I would like to listen to you and so would the people who are subscribing and tuning in every week!

‘The Bare Truth’ offers a chance to speak and be heard and to make a difference in the process of the dialogue as it unfolds! If this is something you would like to do, then please get in touch and we can schedule an interview!