Shamanic Healing addresses the psychic and spiritual aspects of illnesses where illness is seeing as energy in an inappropriate place or form often blocking the person's life force, not allowing balance or flow. Shamanic Healing aims to remove energy blockages, retrieve soul parts and restore balance, re-empowering the person energetically and spiritually.

Healing is when something in a person changes, shifts, expands or is transformed for better. It can take place in the emotional, the mental, the physical or the spiritual level. Shamanic work is concerned with healing the spirit at a soul level. When a healing takes place at a spirit or soul level very often it has an effect in all other levels.

Healing cannot take place if the person is in a dis-empowered place. First thing to do is to empower the person and we do that by calling the person's spirit helpers and connect the person with them. The spirit helpers provide power, energy and support.

Angelic beings, ancestors, native people, power animal spirits and other beings of light according to the person's own spiritual tradition are very common helpers coming to be of service.

When we suffer a trauma, be it small or major, a part of our soul, a part of our essence flees our body departing to safety leaving us to cope or survive. Sometimes it can also happen that we give away parts of ourselves to someone we love, or through abuse or neglect we may lose a soul part. This soul loss is a process that helps us cope mentally, physically and emotionally.

Part of being human is having this adaptation mechanism for our survival. That part of us - our essence or life force - has the ability to live in other dimensions because we are, by nature, multidimensional beings. When soul loss occurs, we are left with a feeling that something is missing but we are not quite sure what that is. Sometimes it is a sense of not being here, not being present, sometimes it is a sense of confusion, not being able to have clarity or direction, sometimes it is being stuck in enacting suffering and pain, depression may set in, suicidal thoughts haunt us. Childhood trauma is also a very common reason for needing soul retrieval.

With the help of a shamanic practitioner, the inner helpers will tell us how many parts need to come back to help solve a specific problem in our lives. When a healing takes place at a soul level, when the re-union takes place, very often, it has an effect in all other levels. Soul retrieval, although very simple, is one of the most powerful shamanic healing one can have.

A very common type of energetic illness and complain brought for Shamanic practitioners to work on is the removal of intrusive energies. If for whatever reason one has a hole in his/her energy field, negative energies can come and stay in that space. If there for a long time, those energies can manifest themselves as negative thoughts, inapropriate behaviour towards others, physical illnesses or pain and sometimes even suicidal thoughts. Those energies sometimes can also be coming from other people e.g. envy, bad thoughts or anger directed towards one.

During an extraction session, we identify the intrusion and remove it from the person's energetic field. This is another ancient healing technique where the shaman has to have sufficient power, therefore, the importance of learning to have a good balance of ruthless and compassion is fundamental for this work.

As the veils between the spiritual and the physical worlds are becoming thinner and thinner, past life problems have been one of the main causes for people to seek shamanic help. We are all multidimentional beings and on the shamanic path time does not exist, therefore we are able to journey into past lifes for healing purpuses.

This work is for cleansing and balancing the energy field. By upholding unconditional love and channelling healing energy and support to you, the energy healing work helps to raise your vibration and remove blocked energies where needed. This work keeps your energy field strong, hence supporting you in many ways. The integrity and humility of the energy worker keeps the purity and clarity of the energy; and it can go very deep indeed.

As well as offering sessions, Claudia and Mark train people on Shamanism and Energy Healing work. Please check courses from the top menu for details.

Going through life transition, uncertainties? Want to live a happy, fulfiled life filled with love, purpose, living from your heart, creative and determined? Then the Transformational Healing work is for you.

Moving from one stage of life into another? This means great changes in the psyche and a Rites of Passage Ceremony is a way to facilitate and mark this change. Rites of Passage ceremony prepares you to the next stage in your life and connects you to your higher purpose in a deep and meaningful way.

Wishing to connect more with the Divine Feminine in yourself? Than the Goddess Initiation is for you.

Having a birthday and would like to celebrate it with friends? Book a group Goddess Initiation or a group Rites of Passage and have women who are part of your life seating in Sacred Circle with you.

Wanting to dive deep into self development and have friends who would like to do the same? Than a group work is for you.

If you wish, you can talk to Claudia to discuss any of the above: 075 0443 8763.

Claudia Goncalves   Claudia was born in Minas Gerais, central part of Brazil. Working from the heart, she holds a deep honour for the Sacred Healing tradition passed down to her from her indigenous grandmothers.

Claudia started to develop spiritually at age of 13 years old guided by elder Dona Mercedes. This was the start of her spiritual shamanic path which she takes very seriously and with full time dedication.

When she moved to the UK in 1994 she embarqued on a profound journey of personal transformational development. In 2001 her great-grandmother's spirit came to her in a sweat lodge ceremony and summoned her to start doing this work. Seclusion, deep inner work receiving teachings directly from the Spirits and training from outside teachers began; a year later, 2002, she started to work as a full time shamanic practitioner serving the community in the UK.

In October 2003 she co-founded The Edinburgh Shamanic Centre with her husband Mark Halliday and today they offer Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 Shamanic training, Guided Meditation training, Feather Stone Energy Healing work and various ceremonies for the community.

In 2005 she co-founded Youth Vision Charity with Sara Beauregard. Youth Vision offers "Rites of Passage" for young people age 14 to 24 yrs going through the transitional process from childhood to adulthood. Today Claudia is advisor for Youth Vision which operates in Balerno working with various High Schools in Edinburgh.

Claudia also works with couples who are going through difficult times in their relationship, empowering each person to stand on their own power and strength, remove projections from each other, grow spiritually and let their light and love flow.

Earth Lodge ceremony, Shamanic Healing, Rites of Passage, Goddess Initiation and Transformational Healing work are all part of Claudia's work which can be booked as one-on-one sessions or group work.

To keep the inner balance and strength, Claudia practices yoga regularly for inner balance. She takes time off in Dec, Jan and Feb to replenish and re-charge her energy in her homeland and also to learn more from the indigenous people in Brazil.

In 2009, Claudia was featured in the documentary The Edge of Dreaming by Scottish film director Amy Hardie.

A brief description of Claudia from the Book What to look for in the Winter: A memoir in Blindness (2010) by Scottish writer Candia McWilliam:

  Shaman-Claudia's personal tone was calm, amused, taken at a magnificently easy pace. It is unusual for the very small to be magnificent. Her own magnificence lay in this: That, like a creature, she was at once serious and weightless. She was one of those rare people from whom you get the strong sense of what the world is to them and how it would be to be loved by them. She was both unstrained and entertaining. It was hard to be defended or harsh near her.