Claiming our unique keys of healing isn’t pretty or easy. It’s down on our knees on the bathroom floor, crying out for help. The brutality of heartbreak. The commitment to show up in our own lives. The keys come in those moments. Do we take them, becoming our own healers? Making the choice to claim our key is the beginning. Nyssa is an ancient word for turning point. It’s the spirit of beginning.

We are our own healers. Powerful, wise and resilient.

The keys we keep are these, and many more.

The universe offers us these keys. Do we claim them as our right or refuse the gifts so freely offered?

The Nyssa: The Turning Point

Claiming the keys is the turning point. The Nyssa, the beginning of the beautiful voyage from pain to truth. From shadow to soul.

I’m proud of my keys. They were earned through trauma and led to triumph.

I keep my own keys, and those offered to me by the Goddess Hekate. For me, she called me to take up the key of healer. My life and career have all been lessons of the Great Work of this incarnation of mine. It doesn’t matter what you call the divine of your understanding. God. The Universe. Shakti. Hekate. The labels we apply reflect our unique soul code, giving us a glimpse into the divine force that fuels the world in the manner best suited to us.

Your Soul Assignment: Your Unique Key

Being a healer is the assignment I have in this life. Specifically, it is to spread a message of recovery and reclaiming through my teaching. If you’re reading this wondering what your soul assignment is, get still long enough to listen. Those whispers from the deeper world will only get louder until they become painfully obvious. You see, our assignment is mandatory. We can resist it, but it is still our key to claim. That key unlocks our truth. Funny thing is that we already know it. Our prison is not only our creation, but the key is right there for us to grab.

Claiming Your Key

The healer hears the call to be claim their rightful assignment in this life. Do we choose bravery and answer? Or do we reside in our shadows, refusing to take the keys offered? Our prison can be a beautiful one, even though it is the lie. This is the fundamental question we face. It’s a crossroads I’ve walked through many times in my life. Sometimes, I’ve turned away, not ready to move forward. One night, I decided to show up in my own life. I grabbed the key offered, opened the gates and off I went. Opening the gate to our personal mission is not designed to be easy, especially for us healers.

I needed to learn the lessons of heartbreak and loss. It was all preparation for the work I now do. Chronic illness, divorce, losing my home, unbelievable personal debt. It all sounds so dramatic looking back, and, at the time, it was a nightmare. But, I’d made a commitment to myself to show up in my own life. The work ahead seemed overwhelming when we were living in a friends’ basement. Shattered is about the only word to describe how I felt. If you’re going through hell, know that I’ve been there. Accept my energy freely offered through the words of this article.

We learn the assignment of the key when we enter into the deeper world, through calming the mind and connecting to the universal flow. Standing still to move forward.

The Flame Forges The Key

Here’s the secret: the torch that burned inside of me kept me going. Keys are forged in that fire. Turn inward towards it through contemplation and meditation. Listen to the flame from which your keys have been forged.

For me, that torch is both creative and destructive. All healing is such. Turning into the darkest corners of ourselves is the only way through our personal underworlds. It is the Sacred Fire.

Tend your own internal flame. That fire is your soul code. Look into it. Walk in it.

The Only Way Out Is Through

New ways of being, spiritual upgrades, spontaneous downloads and so much more are offered through our connection to the deeper world. The healer manifests these through grace and grit. Action balances stillness.

The way out of hell began that night when I decided to show up in my own life that until that point had been something that had happened to me rather than one I had created. Somehow I survived my alcohol hazed adolescence, only to jump into marriage at 19 with a very angry man who gave me my wonderful eldest son, but also made my body his dumping ground for all his own wounds. Is it possible to ever get over being thrown downstairs, kidnapped and violated in ways I won’t even mention?

In the eighteen years since I finally escaped, I done so much work to get over the unavoidable aftereffects of this relationship. I understand why he was so damaged but forgiving him for the sins he heaped upon us is not within me. May he find the peace he lacks. Perhaps he has since we haven’t had contact him for years. Still, I will occasionally have nightmares about those days. The healer must revisit that which taught her the most in order to have the lesson remain taught. That man was one of my greatest teachers.

When The Student Is Ready, The Teacher Appears

When The Student Is Ready, The Teacher Appears. There are times when it’s only after the person leaves our life that we realize they were a teacher. Healing has really begun once we see this. As long as we resist the lesson, we remain stuck in our pain. Not only do we suffer in our minds, but in our bodies. So much of chronic pain is the result of trauma that hasn’t yet been released. Pain is the signal that there is a key waiting to be claimed.

Being A Healer-Teacher

I’ve always be a healer-teacher. My earliest memories are of finding refuge in my classroom of stuffed animals and dolls. This was my escape from a family where I never felt that I belonged. The classroom was often in the woods. It’s so true that what we loved most as a child is exactly what our assignment is in this life.

When the teacher is ready, the student appears. My journey through personal pain, professional experience and mystical study has ignited my fire as teacher-healer. I claimed this key when I started the blog two years ago.

The Keeping Her Keys School And Open Circle Institute

The Sacred Seven was sent to me by the universe several years ago while I was scribbling in my journal in a Starbucks. I was making a chart, comparing different aspects of healing traditions when the entire download occurred. I was in the thick of a massive spiritual upgrade, having recently made that commitment to show up in my own life. The Sacred Seven is the system of keys that I am assigned to share with other healers.

The Mystai is the Master Class of Witchcraft that I was assigned by my goddess. To me, the path of healing for myself and others, is rooted in the ancient practices of witchcraft. The practice of holistic herbalism, the exploration of the meaning of life through contemplation, the interaction with the spirit world, and flowing with the universe. Meditation, trance and other mystical adventures help us enter into this space where true magic abides. The energy of the universe is fierce love: the power of creation and destruction. It’s my assignment to share these keys to the mysteries of healing ourselves, each other and the world, through deep practice involving Hekate as the World Soul.

I created the Open Circle Institute over a decade ago. I started out teaching The Sacred Seven, other workshops (like Feed Your Soul and Writing Your Story) and meditation. In October 2019, I created a private platform, a true coven for my students and community.

The Master Key of the Healer

Open Circle and Keeping Her Keys are my master keys as a healer-teacher. The Master Key of the Healer is the integration of the shadow with the self. Without this, there is no wholeness. Denying our darkness locks the gate to unity within ourselves and with the universe. This is one thing I know to be absolutely true.

My years of research on well-being showed me, without fail, that the more anyone tries to resist their shadow, where our failures and pains reside, the less healthy they are. They can’t claim their unique keys. As a developer of self-directed programs for women dealing with incredible stressors, I’ve witnessed the differences between those who ultimately triumph over their pain and those who remain consumed by it. I’ve learned what techniques help achieve this and cast aside those who don’t. They’re woven into the courses I teach.

Radical acceptance. Mindfulness. Changing our ways of being. These are the keys.

True Magic

While I was developing the necessary expertise in effective change techniques, I was practicing witchcraft in my private life. The further I went with the research, the deeper I went into witchcraft. The further I went, the more I discovered that spells and such are simply the external practices of connecting to the universe.

Correspondences and spirits bring us focus and open the gate to flow. Botanicals and breathwork are gate openers. Healing resides in the flow. True magic is healing. Fierce love is our radical commitment to recovery, and the embracing of our truth. Making the commitment to showing up in our own lives. The Sacred Seven is your guide along the way. Seven months of learning, featuring lessons that include a book, supplementals (such as plant and planetary monographs), audio lectures, video demonstrations, and monthly live seminars. The Mystai is the master class of 13 monthly lessons for those ready to go deep, climb high and walk the wheel of time.