From Chaos to Clarity-A Journey of Spiritual Healing
In the world we live in today, no one is safe from pain and struggle. It doesn’t matter your age, where you come from, or who you are, it’s just inevitable at certain points and times in life. Things like depression, self-doubt, lack of life’s necessities and resources, tragedy, loss, unexpected events, trauma, and many other adversities and challenges in life can all cause serious damage to one’s being. If one is not careful, it is easy to be swallowed up by life’s difficulties. If many were aware that there are ways to deal with life’s issues and the unexpected, the world would be a slightly better place. The enemy wants you to believe there is nothing but doom and trouble, complete hopelessness. While it is easy to understand how life can cause you to feel this is true, it’s absolutely not. There is a balance to it all. Where there is bad, there is good. Where there is darkness, there is light. The Bible says, “And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” -(John 1:5, NKJV). I believe that to be true. This life and this world can be a tough place to navigate without the right tools, without help. That’s why God gifted His children with Jesus. That’s also why God gifted His children with other gifts as well. People like Deneen Joyner are here to help those who may not understand that they need help, and do not have to remain helpless. She also helps people to not be afraid if they are gifted, and how they can use them for good to help themselves as well as others. Pain and struggle does not have to mean defeat. There is a way to get through even the darkest of hours, and God made it so that we could deal when things seem to be falling apart and/or too difficult to bear. Deneen Joyner is living proof that trauma does not have to take over your life. She was able to overcome her adversities, and she wants others to be able to rely on God and the gifts He has given us to do so as well. Here is what Deneen Joyner had to say:
Who is Deneen Joyner in her own words?
“I am my parents’ seventh daughter, and a mother, grandmother, auntie, sister, and friend. I’m also a seventh-generation shaman, spiritual teacher, nationally awarded author, and ancestral soul healer who uses the ancient soul healing practices of my indigenous ancestors, to guide and empower others who silently carry emotional pain and trauma to naturally heal their lives and break generational curses.
I would say that I’m both personally and professionally an expert in emotional pain and trauma. I lived most of my life in pain and then moved from that space to choosing to do something about it, which opened the door to my self-guided healing journey and learning about the true purpose behind emotional pain framed by the spiritual wisdom of my ancestors.
I jokingly claim of having a Ph.D. from the school of hard knocks. I have been prepared by life’s fire. Been there, done that, got a t-shirt and a website too! Prior to embarking upon my healing journey, I can’t recall a time when life was consistently good, and I was genuinely happy.
Professionally as a retired social worker of 18 years, I have seen just about everything that anyone at their worst could experience. I have both the training and education to work with people at their worst. The emotional pain in my life and the countless families that I was entrusted to work with have had the biggest influence on my life. Now I understand why I experienced the things I did because it was all a part of where I was heading. I have come full circle and now know the power of owning your entire story!
My entire life’s journey speaks to who I am today, and how important it was for me to awaken and do the work…so that I could remember who I am, and why I’m here and fulfill a promise I made to God in the form of a soul contract, and arrive at a spiritual inheritance passed down to me by my ancestors. I am most proud of not giving up and taking my life when things seemed hopeless.
That even at my worst, I was still able to hear the voice of God and blindly followed Him believing there was more to my life than just pain.”
When did you realize that you were gifted?
“Since the age of five I knew I was gifted, God had been preparing me as a shaman for my entire life some (50) years. I have always been very close to God and able to see angels, hear the Holy Spirit, and other divine energies who I looked to for comfort; they were/are my true family.
I never thought like a child. I had the wisdom of a wise old soul, that I now know is the spirit of my great-great-grandmother, Lucinda. I was very inquisitive, always searching for answers and challenging people, mostly adults who tried to give me short answers to big questions.
Although many other gifts surfaced the more I matured, the gift that was more heightened than the others was my ability to consistently sense others’ emotional pain and could feel what was heavy on one’s heart. This deemed me “a cry baby” because I was often crying, for what appeared to be no reason at all. Unknowingly being an empath often made me feel alone and misunderstood, because I could never explain what I was experiencing.”
What made you want to share your gifts with others?
“I had to share my gifts because it is my life’s calling, divine assignment, and the only reason I am here. I know what it feels like to have something painfully traumatic take your breath away, and still must find a way to breathe when everything is numb inside, and you’ve already given up hope in believing your life will ever be good.
We have the tendency to believe the totality of the pain we have experienced in our life is the evidence of who we are and what we deserve. We often fail to reason that most of our ways of seeing our life have been through the lens of our parents, who themselves had painful and traumatic experiences. Hitting rock bottom emotionally, allowed me to personally see what my clients from my social work days felt. And I didn’t want anyone else to have to go through it alone or have to figure out what to do to heal on their own when I have already done it.
Like most people, I took my family’s emotional history regarding pain and trauma as unimportant. I failed to see how my wounds and gifts connected back to where I came from, and who my ancestors were. Because I now fully understand how all this impacts how we show up in our lives, it is crucial that others know it too!”
What is your favorite thing about using your gifts to help people?
“My favorite thing about using my gifts to help others is the divine connection I can make with their ancestors on their behalf. It is a very powerful and humbling experience being used to convey personal and intimate information that is unique to a family that brings deep enlightenment, clarity, validation, closure, and peace.
My soul guidance provides a proven spiritual vehicle for others, to explore their own individual experiences along with uncovering their family’s spiritual inheritance tied to both spiritual gifts and traumatic karma patterns that have been passed on and replicated unknowingly from generation to generation. It also inspires having a new relationship with themselves and others. They also establish a new emotional framework that aligns with healthy ways of responding to emotional pain, versus reacting from an unconscious place of pain from their childhood. Those who souls I read experience immediate transformation, and it continues on once our time together ends.”
There are many people who struggle with accepting their gift and/or gifts. What would be your advice to them?
“Whenever I want to bring awareness and acceptance to those who struggle and frown on having spiritual gifts, I always begin by posing two questions; “Have you ever been a witness to someone who had a bad accident and was badly hurt?” I add that more than likely, you could imagine how they might be feeling and felt a need to immediately rush in to assist and comfort them in whatever way you could. You were demonstrating empathy. And, “Have you ever been driving somewhere, and something comes over you and tells you to go a different way and you decide to listen, and later learn that you avoided a major car accident?” You were using your intuition.
Empathy and intuition are just two examples of gifts that we all have, but more than likely we each use them differently. God has given us all some of the same gifts such as empathy and intuition, and there are varying levels to experiencing them. There is an array of many others, (psychic, medium, clairvoyant, and shaman) that just like personality traits, tend to be stronger in one person and less so in another. Fear and ignorance surrounding having or believing in spiritual gifts definitely plays a part in the struggle, and not being able to easily use them. When you decide and choose how you feel about something that will be energetically attached to your experience with it, you are either in agreement or you’re not.
Having gifts is not bad or of the devil, like some people may believe. Just like anything else, gifts can be exploited and used for negative and unhealthy purposes too. However, most people who are open and accepting of their God given gifts are using them for the intended purposes; to spiritually align and develop themselves and to guide, help, and be of service to others.
Staying open to knowing you have gifts and being willing to learn about the ones you have, will allow you the freedom to explore more of your divine identity.”
You are a woman with a story. You’ve been through a lot, but you did not let it break you. How did you leave your trauma to find your victory?
“I left my life of trauma not by my own design but by God’s. I had been ignoring all the signs, despite sensing and knowing that my life was closing in on me. Although I was secretly miserable, I thought that I could continue to numb all the emotional pain and trauma I had been carrying for over 40 years of my life. Truth be told, we are on a limited emotional timer with not addressing our ish. We can take life into our own hands and choose to get our life together, or we keep pretending everything’s good. The latter is what I did, and I have to say it wasn’t pretty! When God intervenes, you hit rock bottom emotionally and are faced with evaluating everything in your life, including all the things you had been trying to avoid and live around. When I recounted all the places I had been in my life, the one common denominator was ME! I knew it was time to finally do the work.
I had successfully helped countless clients in my career as a social worker of 18 years and was living a life that was unbecoming of what I knew deep down inside I was created for. But with God’s mercy and guidance, and later with the channeled wisdom from my ancestors, I started a sacred journey to heal my life’s pain and trauma. My journey to victory began when, 1) I learned to become curious about my life’s pain and trauma, along with the emotional DNA within my family. 2) I became a student of my life and opened myself up to consciously learning about all things Deneen, by approaching my life as if I was taking a college course. 3) I became my own best friend and spiritual counsel.”
What does peace mean to you?
“In the bible, Jesus was on a boat during a storm with his believers. He was awakened by them because of their fear of the wind and the ocean’s high and turbulent waves. Jesus saw them afraid, and rebuked the wind, and spoke to the waves by saying, “peace be still”, and the waves became still.
For me, peace is divine calmness and stillness. It offers order and correction serving as the bridge that connects me to pausing during prayer and meditation, and especially in life’s turbulence and chaos. It is an energy that knows no boundaries and is a synergy that can be felt upon my invitation.
There is power in speaking peace into any situation. Peace is the exhale within a breath, leaving behind a lingering energy that softens the heart and mind, bringing spiritual counsel that can offer increased inner awareness and solace to the heart and soul. Peace is a gift from God, one that can be unwrapped to partake of whenever and wherever we want the world to slow down, so we can catch our breath and remember the power in being still.”
God is love, and with that love comes a peace that surpasses all understanding. I can testify to that. Deneen Joyner can testify to that, and she wants you to be able to testify to it as well. God has gifted us with the ability to “Be still”, in a world that oftentimes moves too fast. If you’d like to know more about Deneen Joyner you can follow her here:
Website: https://www.deneenjoyner.com/
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