LightSong School of 21st-Century Shamanism and Energy Medicine Talking Stick Podcast Finding the Magic: Breaking Free from Doomscrolling and Choosing What Feeds You
What are you feeding with your attention?
In this episode of LightSong Talking Stick, Jan Engels-Smith and Micah Schwader explore how easily we can become caught in the noise, conflict, fear, and constant stream of information surrounding us—and what happens when we consciously choose something different.
The conversation begins with a phenomenon many of us know all too well: doomscrolling.
Social media algorithms quickly learn what captures our attention. If we're drawn toward conflict, fear, outrage, conspiracy, or drama, we're likely to be shown more of it. Before long, that stream of information can begin to feel like an accurate picture of the entire world.
But is it?
Jan and Micah explore the difference between the world we're being shown and the world we actually experience when we step away from the screen and engage directly with life.
The question becomes: What are we looking for?
Are we continually searching for evidence that the world is dangerous, divided, and falling apart? Or are we also noticing beauty, kindness, creativity, possibility, and connection?
From a shamanic perspective, Jan explains, attention is energy. What we continually focus upon affects our emotional and energetic state and influences how we experience our lives.
The antidote doesn't require pretending difficult things aren't happening. It begins by deliberately noticing what else is here. A sunrise. The sky. The sound of the river. Thousands of shades of green in a forest. Music. Art. A conversation with someone you love. The simple experience of stepping outside and reconnecting with the natural world.
The magic hasn't disappeared. We may simply have stopped noticing it.
Jan and Micah discuss practical ways to interrupt the patterns that keep us trapped in fear or frustration: putting down the phone, changing what we consume online, spending time in nature, creating art, learning something new, taking a nap, changing our physical environment, and surrounding ourselves with people who support the life we're trying to create.
We may not control everything happening around us, but we can become more conscious of what we give our attention to, what environments we place ourselves in, what stories we repeatedly tell, and what energy we choose to carry forward.
Ask yourself how you feel after consuming something—and whether it is feeding you or draining you.
And perhaps most importantly, ask: How do I want my life to be?
Then begin making choices that support that life.
Because even amid the noise, uncertainty, and chaos, the magic is still there. We simply have to choose to look for it.
About Jan Engels-Smith
Jan Engels-Smith is a shamanic practitioner, teacher, author, and founder of LightSong School of 21st Century Shamanism and Energy Medicine. For more than four decades, Jan has explored consciousness, healing, personal transformation, and humanity's relationship with the unseen realms. She has performed thousands of soul retrievals and trained students around the world in shamanic practices designed to help people reconnect with their innate wisdom and spiritual nature.
Jan is the author of Becoming Yourself: The Journey from Head to Heart and Through the Rabbit Hole: Explore and Experience the Shamanic Journey and Energy Medicine.
Learn more about Jan, LightSong, classes, and shamanic training at LightSong.net.
About Micah Schwader
Micah Schwader is a transformational writing coach, editor, publisher, author, and shamanic practitioner who has spent more than 30 years helping people discover and express the stories that matter most. His work explores the intersection of writing, creativity, discernment, inner guidance, and personal transformation, helping writers move beyond formulas and external expectations to uncover what is authentically their own.
Micah is the author of Stumbling Into Grace: The Adventures of a Transgender Shaman and works with writers, authors, leaders, and creators to use writing as a means of exploration, discovery, and authentic expression.
Learn more about Micah at ShamanSezz.com and InspiredLifePublications.com for information about writing and publishing.
