My Shamanic healing message was a… Metallica song?!

Cue the WTF moment, because I was damn surprised that my Shamanic healing message was a Metallica song.

Now, I’ve been playing the intuition game long enough that I know there are no coincidences. Even when things don’t make a helluva lot of sense.

Especially when things don’t make a helluva lot of sense.

The song that came during the session was “Nothing Else Matters”.

I hadn’t heard the song in about a decade - I was into all kinds of metal as a teen and into my 20s - so it showing up during a Shamanic healing was wildly unexpected.

I put on the track.

Listen.

“This is a love song,” I think to myself, and the enormity of Metallica releasing a ballad like that was lost on me at the time when I heard it as a young person, but it hit differently after the session. 

There’s more to it. There’s a story behind this. 

So being a good little obeiser of my intuition, I started doing some research, and lo and behold - the song almost never got made. 

If you’re unfamiliar with the track, it’s one of Metallica’s most popular songs. It has billions of streams, has been covered across genres and artists, and has impacted and influenced people and creators worldwide, from all walks of life.

So why in the hell did it almost never see the light of day?

James Hetfield, the band’s frontman, was scared to share it.

It was a song he had written for his girlfriend at the time, and there was no way he was going to bring it to his bandmates. Way too vulnerable, and definitely not “on brand” with Metallica at the time. Luckily for us, Lars Ulrich (Metallica’s drummer), and the album’s producer (Bob Rock) were all for it - even when Hetfield was like, “No way!”

Can you imagine if he had never shared that song? If he had kept it to himself because it felt too vulnerable? Too risky? That he might get shut down and shamed, HARD? 

And how many of us artists and creatives do that to ourselves?

Shut down our ideas, expressions, creative works and impulses before they even get a chance to take their first breath and open their curious eyes to the world?

That maybe, just maybe, the vulnerability and fear we feel about sharing a certain project might be the one that speaks the most to people?

That was the message that I got from the experience.

To start sharing the stories and feelings, and ideas that make me feel vulnerable and that I’m not keen to share, because they’re what’s true.

And it’s an invitation to all artists and creators, because you never know where that little spark of inspiration is going to lead. 

Maybe it fizzles out.

Maybe it sparks something else.

Maybe it sparks someone else.

Maybe it changes culture and sets the whole world on fire. 

You never know where that little spark may lead, so give it a chance to breathe. 

As an aside, having fellow creators and creative wing-people in our lives who encourage and believe in us, our expression, and our ideas is integral.

Ie) - Get you a Lars Ulrich. 

What’s your experience with creativity? 

Where do you feel you shut yourself down?

What’s calling you forth to be expressed?

I’d love to hear from you. :)

With BIG love and Reiki,

xx

-Kate