I was born into a Jewish family and raised by my religious but superstitious Grandmother.
She was born and raised in a small village in Ukraine, at a time when girls were wed at a young age to suitable husbands. Her husband was Russian, and luckily very kind.
In 1921, as Jews were persecuted and killed in her native land, the Red Cross stepped in and took many refugees to other Countries that accepted them. She was put on a ship with just the clothes in her body, her husband and her two young daughters. The oldest one died during the trip, but my mother, who was only two years old survived.
They arrived at the port of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, poor, without knowledge of Portuguese or the culture. Unfortunately, I do not know much more, as my Grandmother never spoke to me about her life in Brazil.
She read the Old Testament daily, and observed all holidays and most of what I became came from her.
She believed in a punishing God, as she constantly admonished me and complained that God would punish my mother and my uncle for the constant fighting and abuse going on.
I grew up immersed in an extremely dysfunctional and abusive home, and the abuse also spilled outside, to the way men treated, and still treat women, the way I was bullied for being white, a Jew and overly sensitive. I read many horrendous stories of extreme cruelty against little children and argued with my Grandmother that if there was a God, why would he let such cruelty happen to them.
Funny, I never realized that my family was so fucked up that I was the punching bag for all their dysfunction, anger and negativity. My Grand,other constantly cried, because she could not understand what she did wrong for my Mother to turn so viciously on everything.
All I could do is watch and suffer silently.
As I grew up and out of that environment, the word God disappeared from my vocabulary.
I never believed in an invisible punishing old man sitting on a throne in the sky that never came for my Grandmother or myself, no matter how religiously fervent she was.
Many years later, after I emigrated to the U.S., I gravitated to what came naturally to me, Tarot, healing, shamanism. I wanted to fit into the New Age movement, so I repeated many concepts that replaced the word god, with, Creator, Goddess, Mother/ Father God, Source, etc., etc.
I studied Metaphysics, I studied Buddhism, Zen, practiced Mindfulness, dabbled in other religions, Hinduism, studied with many Native American elders, living and non-living,, and many more, but never really connected with the idea that there is a God, painted in so many versions and colors.
About 15 years ago, at a psychic fair, I decided to have an Aura photo taken by this woman that had a very fancy and expensive apparatus connected with a computer and printer. For a few years I would have an yearly photo taken to check my progress.  One thing the first photo clearly showed was that my crown chakra was closed and the color was off. The woman's interpretation was that I was mad at God.
Well, yes. But not at the finger pointing man on a throne somewhere in the sky, but the feeling of betrayal of a promise made by a story that wants you to believe that there is justice in the Heavens and that little children should never be abused and tortured.
Well, much developed since those early days when I allowed other energies to speak through me and show me what could not be found in books, including a thought provoking belief that there is a field of infinite possibilities where all that is in that field can become matter and physical (Deepak Chopra)
When I first heard it, I was intrigued, but couldn't quite grasp that concept. I wanted to learn more, or better, experience it.
Fast forward to my experience with Star Beings and other Beings, I was at a Sound Bath event a few years ago,  where one is immersed in sound while in an alpha state, and the group of Beings in my life at that time used the opportunity to expand my physical and non-physical being into the field of consciousness that exists in the Cosmos.
I literally felt as if I was exploding into particles and expanding rapidly into Galaxies, planets and everything in between. I wanted to scream, but couldn't. I became the field. I was everything.
I was the galaxies, the galaxies were me. I no longer could explain anything, put things in files with labels, and what seemed important before became meaningless.
Everything changed. Including the concept of God, Creator. Goddess, Source. There is no out there, somewhere, there is only here, now.
I find it impossible to have a conversation with someone that hangs on to illusions.
I now know the concept of oneness and I look around on this planet and all I see is separateness, fear, judgement, which drive people to a God that will save them from their sins.

In the early 1980's, a woman asked me to help her with a back injury that caused non-stop pain, no matter what the doctors prescribed. It originated by a file cabinet falling on her back, so it was a workman's comp case.
Since she had tried everything and the pain was still there, I decided to use a Past-life Regression technique to go through the gamut of emotions she was still stuck into since the accident.
After the session, she sat up and looked dumbfounded. She yelled, "what did you do?"
I asked her to explain what she meant and she said that the pain was gone. But she was not happy, she was angry, very angry that she could not sue her employer anymore for the accident.
She demanded I put the pain back (?!?)  I told her I couldn't do that, and she stormed out.

On another occasion, a man I knew also had a work injury to his back that caused agonizing pain, taking pain pills to pass out for a few hours so he wouldn't feel anything. I offered to help and he said he wanted his former employer to pay for his negligence, so he wanted to stay in pain to get as much money as he could in the pending lawsuit. And after the Court hearing? He was used to being damaged by then, it became his identity, the victim that elicited pity from everybody.

A woman that came to me for a reading once, related how afraid she was of her mother. How old was her mother? Ninety years old. Her mother was abusive to her since she was a child, but now, in a wheel chair and sick, how much physical abuse can she inflict? None. But the daughter insisted in holding on to the fear, as if it was her identity. If she let go of the fear and empowered herself, who would she be? She didn't want to know.

The list goes on. I don't understand what people really want when they come to a Healer or Shaman for healing. Pity? Commiseration?
I don't believe they really want to let go of what is making them ill, as it is very useful to some to complain and feel helpless so someone will hurry to take care of them.
Sometimes, I presume, it comes from unmet needs in childhood, misdirected and twisted, so the reality becomes veiled and blurred.

There are, however, grateful people that are happy to shed the blocks in their lives so they can thrive.

As a Shaman, I don't deny healing to anyone that asks, but I cannot predict the outcome of my work. as It really depends on the willingness of the person asking for help to receive it.
Yes, the willingness to receive it.
Some people are stuck on "asking" for help, like a broken record that keeps repeating the same words until we push the needle forward out of the damaged groove.
Some people refuse to move out of the damaged groove, and I believe they don't want to be helped, they want to keep crying for help. Why? It is not my help they want, it is Mommy or Daddy that they want to come and fix what was broken a long time ago. It's very sad.
The truth is, we are all broken to some extent.
Some of us don't want to stay broken, we push forward out of the brokenness and accept the healing we seek. Those are my happy stories, to watch people transform and blossom, like raising birds from hatchlings, watching their wings grow and then one day take flight  and be free.