How to Choose the Right Spiritual Practitioner for You
- Andrea Lawrie
- Jun 5
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 11
A reflection on integrity and discernment
In a world where spiritual language is everywhere – from “energy healing” to “ancestral work” – it can be hard to know who to trust. This reflection offers some thoughts to help you choose an ethical practitioner: someone who aligns with your values, honours lineage, and supports your healing in positive, empowering ways.
Many Ways of Knowing
Choosing the right person to work with is a question that comes up often; in supervision sessions, in conversations with peers, and within myself.
How can we know who to trust in a world filled with promises of healing, knowledge, and transformation?
It’s a meaningful question, perhaps now more than ever. Marketing posts and spiritual slogans appear everywhere, from Instagram to therapy rooms. It can be difficult to discern what is deeply rooted from what is surface-level or performative.
Recently, I came across a post warning against anyone who describes themselves as ‘spiritual’ or who speaks of ancestors. While on the surface it encouraged discernment, it also made sweeping generalisations that risk discrediting entire traditions. For those of us who walk this path with care, community, and commitment, I thought it raised questions worth exploring.
Grounded in Science and Spirit
Many of us come to this work through multiple doorways - lived experience, formal education, deep healing, and a call to the unseen. My own path weaves together decades of professional work in the legal sector, healthcare, and academia, alongside a long journey of spiritual study, personal healing and practice.
Rather than seeing science and spirituality as opposites, I’ve come to understand them as two languages that can deepen and enrich one another. The measurable and the mysterious. The physical and the felt.
Spirituality Across Cultures
Across time and cultures, humans have long spoken with ‘the unseen.’ From the Toltec wisdom keepers of Mexico to Aboriginal Elders of Australia, and the seers and folk healers of Scotland. Spirit, ancestors, dreams, and land have guided people’s lives and healing.
Scholars like Dr. Michael Harner, Dr. Barbara Tedlock, and Dr. Mircea Eliade have studied these practices not as superstition but as valid systems of knowledge. Dr. Carl Jung also understood this, speaking of dreams, symbols, archetypes, and the collective unconscious as vital to psychological wholeness.
And now, with the growing field of epigenetics, we’re learning that intergenerational memory isn’t just metaphor, our ancestors experiences live in our bodies and our bloodlines (see the work of Dr. Rachel Yehuda).
Therefore, to speak of spirit or ancestors is not necessarily a red flag. For many, it’s a way of remembering who we are.
When Discernment Is Needed
As interest in spiritual practices grows, so too does the number of people offering services -some with little or no training. Asking questions is therefore essential.
Questions you might want to ask or qualities to look for in a practitioner:
Ongoing personal healing and learning
Connection to real teachers, mentors, or lineage
Deep listening over performance
Humility, not hierarchy
Respect for your pace and sovereignty
Grounded in reflection, supervision, and community
Potential red flags:
Claims of exclusive knowledge or authority
Supernatural “downloads” that override your own intuition
Avoidance of feedback or questions
Emphasis on charisma, secrecy, or urgency
Dependency-based business models
Demand for commitment
Dismissal of other paths or traditions to elevate their own
Integrity is rarely loud. It tends to be quiet, consistent, and deeply human.
Importance of Crediting Teachers and Lineage
No one walks this path alone, and you’ll find that practitioners with integrity will credit their teachers and lineage. I owe so much to all the teachers who shaped my understanding and continue to influence how I work.
Richard Pavek (1995) physicist and founder of SHEN® Therapy, who introduced the concept of emotional energy stored in the body.
Dr. Evgueni Faidych (1997) my first shamanic teacher of Siberian lineage.
Rev. Master Jiyu Kennett (1997) Zen priest and teacher whose approach to meditation continues to ground my life.
Midwives, educators, and academics (2009) whose teachings shaped my understanding of care, research, and evidence-based practice.
Usui Mikao Sensei (2016) founder of the Usui Reiki system.
Two Birds Cunningham (2019) teacher from Embracing Shamanism, whose work bridges Indigenous African, Toltec, Native American and plant medicine traditions.
Dr. Sophie Messager (2020) for passing on the rebozo and ‘Closing the Bones’ traditions with deep respect for origin.
Tiffany Stephens (2021) for sharing the Munay-Ki rites, rites of the womb and Andean wisdom.
And, as always, I honour my own ancestors, from Scotland, the Orkney Isles, Ireland, England and the Cree Métis First Nation people, whose resilience and connection to land and spirit live through me every day.
Questions to Ask …
If you’re looking for someone to support your healing, it’s good to ask:
Do I feel more like myself with this person, or less?
Do they invite my power, or subtly claim it?
Are they accountable to anyone?
Do they honour the roots of what they teach?
Do they speak with honesty and humility?
There is no perfect human. But there is such a thing as right relationship, and that’s where healing begins.
In Closing
Discernment is essential. But assuming that everyone who uses spiritual language is untrustworthy can shut us off from rich, authentic traditions that can support our healing and wellbeing.
Likewise, avoiding spiritual language or leaning only on science doesn’t necessarily make someone safe or ethical.
What matters is how someone lives, listens, and leads. And often, you’ll know just by the way they respond.
Trust your instincts
Ask questions
Honour your own wisdom
Andrea Lawrie is a Registered Healthcare Professional and Teacher, a Certified Shamanic Practitioner, Shamanic Counsellor, Reiki Master, and Facilitator who integrates science with heart-centred holistic methods and ancient wisdom to support health and wellbeing.
References & Further Reading
Harner, Michael, 1980. The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing. HarperOne.
Eliade, Mircea, 1964. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton University Press.
Faidych, Evgueni, 1999. Spirits in the Land. Sacred Hoop.
Tedlock, Barbara, 2005. The Woman in the Shaman’s Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine. Bantam Books.
Jung, Carl Gustav, 1964. Man and His Symbols. Dell Publishing.
Jung, Carl Gustav, 1959. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Princeton University Press.
Yehuda, Rachel et al., 2014. “Holocaust Exposure Induced Intergenerational Effects on FKBP5 Methylation.” Biological Psychiatry, 80(5), 372–380. [Intergenerational trauma and epigenetics].
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