Intro

You're listening to episode number 116 of the Transform your Life from the inside out podcast. In this episode, we delve into shamanism a bit of spirituality. And I talked about setting up an altar, and a bit about morning rituals and intentions. So if that piques your interest, keep listening.

Hi, I'm Jim Fortin, and you're about to start Transforming Your Life from the inside out with this podcast. I'm widely considered the leader in subconscious transformation. And I've coached super achievers all around the world for over 25 years. Here, you're going to find no rah rah motivation and no hype. Because this podcast is a combination of Brain Science, Transformational Psychology, and ancient wisdom all rolled into one to take your life to levels you've never thought possible. If you're wanting a lot more in life, to feel better, to heal, to have peace of mind to feel powerful and alive and to bring more abundance and prosperity into your life, then this podcast is for you. Because you're going to start learning how to master your mind and evolve your consciousness. And when you do that, anything you want then becomes possible for you. I'm glad you're here.

Charging Up Your Life With an Altar

Okay, so my approach when I mentioned shamanism and spirituality, I mean spirituality can be many different things. However, you know that, if you've listened, listen for any amount of time you know that my brother in law is a shaman. And shamans work with the elements. You know, I've said before but shamans can be traced back by anthropologists over 70,000 years and that can be traced back to Siberia, ancient Siberia, and shaman technically means one who can see in the dark. Now in shamanism, shamans actually in there by the way, there are elements of shamanism that runs through all the major religions. But shamans work with the elements and my brother in law is also a sorcerer, and a babalao. And amongst other things, but shamans work with Earth.

They work with wind, earth, wind, fire, water, they work with the elements. And this is something that I've done for, 25 years of my life. And I can make this very complex. And that's not necessary, because I don't think any of you, for the most part are apprentincing with shamans or you needed anything elaborate or fancy. But the reason I'm going to do this is to show you a way to consolidate your energetic power as a being. And the way to let's put it this way to cast your power. And to make it even more powerful. And I'll give you some real life examples. And I don't think any of these are going to be any surprise to any of you for the most part, but I just want to share with you about how I do it and why I do it.

And I'm also going to make this very simple for you. So the first question might be and you might you might be thinking as well why would I I want an older, let's go there for a moment. an altar can be anything. I mean, I have seen the whole gamut of extraordinary extraordinary altars to things that are very simple. I mean, quite literally boulders that, you know, out in nature and I've been, you know, to indigenous countries where people might have an altar outside that is literally a flat boulder and they use that as their altar space. But why would you want an altar? Let me put it that way first. And the reason that I have an altar and just follow along with me here, okay. But the reason that I have an altar and I have many as a matter of fact, I have an entire room in my house, even though it's called the healing room. It's an altar room. It is probably has, when I say probably, at least has 200 different spiritual artifacts in it. And I have altar tables and shelves and everything in this room. It's a sacred space for me. I do not wear shoes in there. No more Even friends, family, no one is allowed in there except myself and my partner. And I remember a friend of mine one time, this was a long time ago that I did, I did allow her in. Honestly, I just I was guided to would be okay to let her in.

I don't go in there with shoes and she didn't have any shoes on. And she goes, wow, the energy in here feels like when I was in Machu Picchu, she was also sensitive to energy. But I use that space to to commune to commune with the divine to commune with spirit. And I also understand that all of you, you know, you might not have this space, you might not have an entire room. So I want to talk about just carving out a little space in your home, whether it be a table somewhere a corner table or something. But to make that table your altar, and I'm going to tell you in just a bit what I have on my altar, but I just want to share a little bit about maybe how you can use this space to more powerfully cast your and you know your intentions. to cast your will, upon the universe.

Now the reason that's why I have one but the reason also is for Divine Wisdom as Divine Wisdom many times as all sharing just event comes through symbols and comes through different tools, different divination tools. I have many, many tools, which I'll tell you about in just a minute. Briefly, I'll just tell you what I have in my healing room. But, but the spiritual wisdom can come through tools and through guidance, and I have all these tools and, you know, these tools for guidance in my healing room. I do want to point out that I spend, I started every morning in my healing room. And again, I'm only speaking for me, okay, this doesn't mean you have to do this. Obviously. I start every morning in my healing room and I finish every night in my healing room. And I sit in front of my altar, on my main altar, which I have many but I sit in front of my main altar, and you can do the same with whatever you you set up for you. But you can do rituals. Because you probably already know also that rituals, you'll find that all the major religions, but you can do rituals for money, or love or health, or courage, technically anything that you do over and over again and a prescribed order as a ritual. And you can imbue those rituals with power when you do them in a sacred space.

Do you have to be in a sacred space? No. But what I've noticed for a lot of people, I think having that sacred space also helps them just literally, ah, helps them slow down, disconnect from the external world, and helps them connect with their internal world. I don't watch a lot of TV but I remember watching an episode The last season of Oprah, and she was showing her apartment and she had a table in there which was I don't know if she calls it that, but it was an altar and she said every morning, I stopped by here. And I remember to some degree it had like a candle on it. It had maybe some some meditation, like some Tibetan meditation bells, and had some divination cards, which I use a couple of different sets I'll tell you about. But there were different things that she had on this table. And I recognize that all right away, and a lot of people are like, well, that's just the table of stuff. But more than anything, what that table was for her was a way to connect with herself, internally, a way for her to connect with the divine.

And like I said, she said that you know what, every day I start my day here, it can be maybe one minute or it can be five minutes, it can be longer can be 20, just depending on what I have that day. But I make sure that I start here every day. Now, on my altar, as I said, I have an entire room. And these are pieces that I've collected from all over the world on my sacred journey. With my brother in law I've mentioned on other episodes every spring back on the equinox, which we don't know anymore, but every spring equinox we used to go to what's called the power spot on the planet. The planet is an energetic grid and these power spots Connect. My family has been literally granted unsupervised permission to go into the king's chamber the Great Pyramid for two nights. And out there we ICANN, which are the pyramids outside of Mexico City extraordinarily powerful and they're also energetically connected to, to the Giza the Great Pyramid in Egypt. But we've been inside Machu Picchu and Chaco Canyon and Uluru and Haleakalā, and many, many power places on the planet.

We've done ceremony there. And then all these places I've actually brought artifacts back with me whether I bought them from somewhere local, or they're things that came to me while I was on those journeys. I also want to point out I don't want to jump around here too much. But when I say things that came to me while I was on those journeys. Some of you might know this, a lot of you might not. But anytime you take something like a piece of nature from somewhere, whether it be a rock or something else, you always want to make an offering. So if let's say that you're traveling somewhere and you find a rock that you want to put in your spiritual garden, or you find something that you want to put on your altar, like it really calls to you, what you do not want to do is you do not just want to take it, you want to ask if it's okay, listen for guidance. And then what you want to do is leave an offering for what you know for what you're being allowed to take.

But in my healing room,I have pieces of trees that I brought back from a little bitty pieces. I mean, I don't mean I don't mean big old branches, but pieces of trees. Why? Because and I asked the tree before I took it and many times that are already falling off the tree. But the tree has the energy of the soil where it was actually where it grew. And so it's imbued with that energy. But I had pieces of trees and flowers that became dried flowers and rocks and, and I have things like this my altar room in my healing room and that I have sage and drums, drums and I have a hand pan which is a metal drum and I've got a buffalo skin drum. I've got a Turtle, turtle shell rattle and many other things that shamans use, or people that have rooms like this may use, I have medicine cards, I have my own cards. I have Aboriginal cards that I use for divination, and various other pieces. And in particular, I have well I'm just going to tell you I'm going to come out of the woowoo closet even though you probably already suspected this. I have crystals and crystals are scientifically known to conduct energy. And once we learn how to conduct with energy with crystals, we can use them to actually channel and to to move energy, but I have some very significant crystals made some very, very, very powerful and very significant pieces. I don't mean little, you know, little pebbles that you carry in your pocket. But I mean, literally very significant hand carved crystals that have come from different places on the planet.

Now, let me go back and let me bring this to you as to why you may want to create an altar. I've had an altar for all 25 years since I've worked with a Shaman. And that's my, for lack of better words to share with you, that's my power spot. That's where I go to. And that's, as I said earlier, that's where I go every morning. That's where I finish every evening. And I use sitting in front of my altar, to cast my intention, and to cast my will, which there's an episode just a few episodes back where I talk about intention and wills and no reason to really go into that here other than to just talk about it a little bit at the end. But I have this little glass pyramid and there's a reason by the way that the pyramids are shaped like the pyramids.

You may want to read a book. It's called Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock. And you'll find I think there might be some inaccuracy in the book, but you'll find it's uncanny. When you look at how did the Egyptians literally align the pyramids thousands of years ago, which, by the way, it wasn't the Egyptians who built the pyramids, but let's just say that it is because that's what human history says. But how were the pyramids aligned to the cardinal points perfectly. And actually, I think they might be one degree off. But it's pretty fascinating when you read the sacred geometry and the geometry and the mathematics of and you'll learn the mathematics of the Great Pyramid, as well as other power spots on the planet.

Anyway, I used to have a glass pyramid on my main altar. This was a lot of years ago. And in this glass pyramid one, it was a glass and one part of it opened up and what I would do is when I would cast my intent, and I would cast my will and I would say like I want to attract x yz. I am attracting XYZ, I'd write it on a piece of paper and put it in that pyramid already knowing that it was already like short-ordered, special-ordered by way of the universe. And I remember that I had to move from the Upper East Side to the Upper West Side. And I'll keep the story very short. But I pulled out a piece of paper and I said, I want to live on the Upper West Side of New York City on 72nd Street. I want my own bedroom, my own bathroom. I want a roommate that is spiritual. I want a roommate that likes dogs, and I want my rent to be the same what it is now.

Okay, I'm going to dispense with the rest of the story, because there's there's some more to the story, but for the sake of brevity, I'm going to dispense anyway.Two weeks later, I was walking on the Upper West Side. And I said to myself, you know what? 72nd Street, which really, if you've ever been to New York, you know, New York. It's a very busy intersection at 72nd and Broadway. I said, nope. I changed my mind. I want to live in the 73rd, and well, I said Broadway but it's Amsterdam is the closest create. It's only about 100 yards. But basically I said I want to live on 73rd Street, same block, they're about the same block. I went home took them a piece of paper scratch tell 72nd to put 73rd long story very short, I went to a roommate service, which is what people use back then. They said they didn't have anything. When I got home, the light on my answering machine back when we use the answering machine was blinking.

They said, Hey, Jim, five minutes after you walked out when normally don't do this, because you know what, it's not our job to call you. But five minutes after you walked out somebody walked in who has seemingly exactly what you're looking for. And I didn't mention the spiritual part and stuff like that. I just said that I had a dog, my rent requirements, etc. I called the guy. I was the first person to call him he interviewed me he interviewed other people. I was the one that he invited to move in. Now what I want to point out is that I had my own back bathroom, which is a big deal. It is. If you live in New York City and anybody who knows there, if you're renting, you know that I had my own bathroom. I had my own bedroom. I asked him, I said, Why did you pick me? And he goes, because, I mean, you seemed like a nice guy and I really liked her dog. I had a black lab at the time. So he liked dogs. He had a book of Rumi poetry on his credenza when I walked in, and he had somewhat of a spiritual bent, and my rent was literally 78 cents more than what I was paying.

Now, mind you, I don't know the exact numbers but I think the entire New York City Metroplex, Acropolis, whatever you want to call it has like 18 million people. There are what I think 3 million people who live in Manhattan alone, 3 million and a little two and a half mile by 12 mile, you know granite block of Island. Okay, my address. Are you ready? 170 West 73rd Street,how is it that I, I say I want to live on 73rd Street. And within 30 days, I'm living via roommates service on 73rd Street. And all the rest of my list requirements were fulfilled. Well, that's the power of intention. That is the power of using your will, which I did a couple of episodes ago. And when I'm sitting at my altars, I'm literally casting my intention. And I'm casting my will, for what it is that I want to create in life. So hopefully you're starting to get that this can be you know, this is what Oprah did to. This is why she had this table if she would sit down it would be her connection to the divine, or whatever it is that you want to call it.

But I also want to point out that when you sit down at your altar, you get quiet and you detach from the world. You quite literally shift your consciousness. You move from an external world. It's kind of like meditation, and you move to an internal world. I do want to mention and it's kind of on topic but I said that I have sage on my altar. I have Sage all over my house, I burn Sage all the time in my house. I burn sage, I carry it when I travel. Because airports are literally just energetic toxicity when you walk through an airport. Candidly, I don't really go when I haven't for a lot of years, I don't go into public places. But anytime I go out and about, I say to myself when I come home, anytime anybody comes into my house, anyone I say when they leave with the exception of my brother in law, because he's actually cleaning up the energy in a different way at a higher level.

But science, you know, you can say Oh, that's a bunch of Hocus Pocus. But, you know, the Native Americans used to Sage to clean energy. And scientists have also discovered that Sage can actually clear up 94% of airborne bacteria and a space and a disinfects a year, and you can Google that you'll find that hundreds inside and some scientific literature. But when Sage is burned, it releases negative ions, which is like putting people in a positive mood. Let me share something with you here. When I sage. Anytime I go out, and I come back home I sage. And what I do is I actually a sage on my side porch, but I light my sage and literally you have an electromagnetic bubble around your body. It's called an aura. But I Sage from the front of my body all the way around the my back and then I switch hands and go all the way from my front all the way around my back. And then I do the same thing like I cocoon myself in a bubble then over my head and down my back and down my legs and down my feet. And then I imagined down onto the earth. But I literally sage myself thoroughly. And I imagine that I cocoon myself in a well a cocoon of smoke, which is Sage smoke, altar bowls. I have ultra bowls on all of my authors, but I'm constantly making offerings. Something you may want to look into a little more on yourself, you can find some stuff on on YouTube. I can talk about it a little more here a little later on. But I make offerings that anytime that I make a request of any homage kindness, I say it this way of any being or any entity or any, any what we might consider divine entity or divine energy. I always make an offering when I request something.

Like, let me go off topic here. I'm just jumping around here a little bit, is the reason that a lot of people don't get what they want in life is because they're takers, not givers. And even many of you listening will say, Well, no, that doesn't apply to me. Yes, it does. And I know that because for many years it applied to me and now for what I do, and helping people with transformation and things that I do in bringing spiritual wisdom. I've learned many years ago from my brother in law, that a Native American times this would also be in shamanism. You never, ever go to an elder ever and ask for guidance of some sort without first making an offering. Yet so many of you and I'm telling you this non judgmental, I'm telling you to serve you. Many of you will take energy from other people, but you're not exchanging the energy and the Universe can't exist in a vacuum and then you wonder why you're not pulling more things back into your life. What you have to look at is what are you taking out of life, life must balance but the reason I started talking about that is because I have offering bowls and I'm constantly making offerings.

Now, I don't know your living situation. I don't know if this is possible for you to do this or not do this but what I also want to point out is whatever altar you have, whether it's a you know, an end table and it's a two by two table, or it's a full like altar or whatever Are you have admit, you know, wherever you have it that is a sacred space. I cannot stress that enough that is a sacred space. And what I mean by that is it doesn't mean that you put things there that your kids come and play with and your kids put their toys there, or any of your guests put their drinks down on your altar, or anybody, let me just put it this way, your sacred space, no one touches, no one handles, whatever you put on your sacred space and on your altar is energetically yours.

What you also want to do when you can find this on YouTube, so I don't have to really go into it but you cleanse any items meaning especially if you're using any kind of crystals or rocks or any of that you want to cleanse them first. And you can cleanse things by using Sage by setting it out under the full moon by putting it in the freezer. Literally you can you can, you can cleanse for freezing. But if you want to learn how to cleanse crystals, there's a couple of ways my brother in law actually does. He calls taking them back to natural meaning He cleanses all the energy out of any human being even touching anything that's been carved or whatever. But for most people that don't have access to that, as you can put things under in water, put it in saltwater, also as a way to cleanse or put it out under a full moon and let the full moon energy also cleanse.

What I want to point out is as I just said, even when I go in my healing room, I do not wear shoes. I do not take money, I have no money in my pockets because money shifts energy and not the way that I want for my healing room. And I do not take my phone in there. If I'm going to listen to a meditation of some sort that might be digital, I'll put on I'll put on my, my air pods. And I'll listen in what do they call it the apple things you put in your ears or air pods right? But I'll put those on and go in there but I leave my phone outside of the room because of the electromagnetics but what I want to share with you as I said is I don't set things down on my altar if they do not belong there. So I don't know if you know you have the luxury of maybe having a side room or an old room or whatever, or even a table somewhere, but all I want to share is this. Wherever you create your altar, make it your space and ask your family please or your friends, please not to touch things on your altar, because there are things that are sacred to you.

Okay, morning rituals, as I said, I go in there every morning, and I finished my day every night in there. And I'm thinking about what I want to say here and about how far I want to go in this podcast. And I don't want to go too far in this episode. But working with a shaman, I've had the grace and the fortune to be able to connect with let's just say many energetic entities. So I go in there, and that's where I'm at. I can connect anywhere anytime and I don't have to be in that room. But I go in that room to connect because it's quiet. It's peace. Let me put it this way. It's like my sanctuary. Now Oprah, she only had a table in her apartment and it was in her living room. And of course, you probably had a 15 room apartment and you know where she lived in Chicago. But it's her space. And you can make that your space as well. So I go in there every morning. And here's what how I break it up. I go in there every morning and I set my intention, and I set my will for the day. And then I go in there every night. And I give thanks for my day. And I give thanks for all the blessings that I've had that day.

Now, earlier. I'd mentioned also a few minutes ago that I did do an episode recently on intention and will there's a lot of things that I want to talk about. I'm going to just be I don't script anyway, but I'm really going to be unscripted. There's a lot of things that I want to talk about with you guys. And honestly, this week, I just don't want to do it this week, because we're living in a world right now. No matter what you do, I recognized it doesn't matter. No matter what you do, there's going to be someone that's going to attack you somewhere. And I've had some people attacking me because they're saying, I'm not doing enough for Black Lives Matter. Well, what they don't know which one to share with you in just a moment is, which is a whole another episode is that you don't have to physically do things to support Black Lives Matter. But then you know what, then you get into will all lives matter. And then no Lives Matter and how can Black Lives Matter than white lives don't matter? And how could this not come down? How come this and how come that and you know what, just speaking for me to you. I'm tired of the flak this week.

So I'm going to chill out. And that's why I decided to do this episode. I've got some other really good stuff coming for you in the near future, though. And I do want to say that I've spent, I'm sure you don't know this about me. But aside from working with a shaman for 25 years, and I don't know how long you've listened to this podcast, but if you don't recognize that I am for the goodwill and the prosperity and the abundance for every single human being on the planet, then obviously you're not you've not been paying attention to the podcast or I've not done my job and conveyed something properly.

But I've spent my entire life working for human rights. In college, I was a Political Science Major and a pPsychology double Major, I have a degree in both. And after college, and by the way, I got the job through using my intention and setting my will. But after college for a couple of years, I worked at the Carter Presidential Center, which by the way, is non partisan. And I wanted to work at the Carter Center so badly, because Carter,well, after he left for for many years, decades now, after he left the White House, all that he does is he fights for human rights. He fights for equality, and many years ago, when I used to go do things to make things happen. I said, I want to be part of that. I want to champion human rights around the world. And it's also for anybody that's like like, Whoa, Carter Democrat, that doesn't matter. The Carter Center is all non partisan.

Now on a very important note, I want to say here for the record, and I want to share something. And light of the events of what's been happening here in the United States, I want to state for the record. And believe it or not people who called me out and said, well, you should state for the record. So I'm stating for the record, is that I 100% denounce racism and any and all forms. I am 100% supportive of anything anti-racist. Now that I get my verbs in mind that I that I dangle a participle or something that somebody is going to criticize me for, I don't know. But it should be obvious that I denounce anything that takes away from the dignity of another human being, as I've said before, and I said I think about three weeks ago in a podcast, we're all equal.

And I've said that before every one of us are equal, and we're Earth school. And we're equal in the eyes of the universe, and we're all living out our karma. And by the way, that's something that a lot of people aren't looking at this week is that a lot of things that are happening to a lot of people in this world are actually people living out their karma. That is an entirely different episode. And I'm not going to get into that right now, in this particular episode, but you know, what is every nation, every person, every religion,every everything, everyone, every animal, everywhere on the planet is living out their karma, and what I want to share with you and then I'm going to tell you something that I'm doing to actually contribute to black lives matter. But you know, what? his honor and love other people, honor and love because, you know, what we generally we don't, most people don't see people as human beings. They see them as social structures as colors or nationalities or religions. And you know what many times when we do that we're not actually honoring that person. We're actually or we're not, whatever we're doing that person, we're actually responding to our interpretation to that person, a whole another podcast as well.

But here's what I want to point out is I'm doing a $5,000 total contribution match, meaning I will match up to $5,000 in contributions. And I reached out to some of my students that are African American, and I asked them and they're very, I mean, I'm like, Guys, help me please tell me what would be a reputable organization that I could contribute to and I could match and they gave me several organizations, but I found one that I liked, mainly because they're about eradicating systemic racism.

Again, I'm just using these words. I read it on their website, and I went through the website. I'm like, I like these guys and I like what they're doing. But it's the NAACP LDF which is the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, In . Their domain is in naacpldf.org. Now the reason I'm telling you that is not everyone's going to agree with what's going on in the world, the chaotic energy. Not everyone's going to agree with an NAACPLDF organization, somebody's going to say you should have picked that organization you should have picked it doesn't matter. That is the one that I picked. If you if you agree and you like it, that's great. If you don't agree and you don't like it, well, then that's, you know, that's on you. It doesn't pertain to me. But what I want to point out is if you would like to donate to the NAACPLDF naacpldf.org. And by the way, the domain name will be in the show notes, then simply donate and send your receipt to support@jimfortin.com. Whatever amount that you donate, I will 100% match until we hit $5,000. Everything's kept anonymous. I don't even mean my team. I don't even see who donates my team will just say hey, this amount of money has come in. But we started that tonight on this date, so with the following that I have, I'm sure this will fill up. And I'm guessing that even in my transformational coaching program right now, don't fill up all the all of the quota of $5,000. But if not, anyway, it's for an amazing cause.

So, okay, I've spoken my piece in this particular episode, I going forward, I don't want to tell you what next episodes are going to be because I don't want to lock myself in because there's a lot of things at a higher spiritual level that I want to share with you guys. And sometimes have to wait for the right timing the right social environment, and just the right window to be able to share things when people like Aha, I get it now I see life from a bigger spiritual perspective. So I don't want to lock myself into Well, this you know, next week, this is what we're going to talk to. So next week. I don't know what the total I do have some ideas, but right now, I'm not going to announce what the next podcast is going to be. And your transformational takeaway this week is that your altar is your conduit to connect and communicate with the universe. That being said also is I want tojust heartfelt thank you. And I have profound and deep gratitude for you listening to the podcast, and you sharing,stay well, you know be inharmonious place this week because as I've said before, which I've been criticized for saying this, but “Be the change you want to see in the world,” the more that we open ourselves up to unconditional love and peace and especially compassion, the more that we all can grow. Okay, stay well and make it an awesome week. Bye bye.

Conclusion

Thank you for listening to this entire podcast. If you're the kind of person who likes to help others, then share this with your friends and family. You know, if you found value, they will too so please share via your social media channels. Also, if you have questions I'm here to assist. You can email me questions to support@jimfortin.com. And I may even use your question for a future podcast episode. Also, if you want transformational content like this daily, connect with me on Instagram, my Instagram name is @iamjimfortin. Finally I do have a personal request. I believe that we're all here to help others and to grow and evolve ourselves. together, you and I, let's help more people. If you would, please leave a review on iTunes, and a good one by the way. I'd be grateful and through your assistance together, we can transform more lives. Thanks for listening.