My Story
Hello, loves. Lyarra here <3
The short and sweet version..
I am a Shamanic Practitioner, Cycle Witch, and Spiritual Guide here to help women who have lost or forgotten their true nature learn who they really are on a soul level, love themselves as they are, and learn to express their most authentic selves in their lives and live their most aligned and magical life possible. I am deeply intuitive and my greatest magic really lies in guiding people through their own underworld, their deepest fears, doubts, pains and insecurities, so that they can heal and learn to love the unlovable, thus coming into their greatest power and strength. I work closely with the rhythms of nature, the moon, and my own body and am passionate about teaching women to do the same.
I offer a wide range of services including Shamanic Reiki, Intuitive Guidance Readings, Solar Sabbat Ceremonies, Sound Healing Ceremonies, Intuitive Development, Soul Exploration Courses, Underworld Journeys, and personal ceremonies crafted to your unique needs. If you would like to learn more about any of these, you can check the Local Events Page here, the Offerings Page here, or you can sign up to my email list below to get the first updates on sales or new offerings opening up.
If you want to learn more about me, buckle in.. This next bit turned out way longer than I thought it would! lol!
If I am being totally honest, this was by far the hardest part of my website to create.. (It may or may not have stayed completely empty for more than three years..!)
Because, if I’m being totally honest, it was very hard for me to talk about myself in the past.
I suffered from horrible self-confidence for a great majority of my life, and I feel that is an important place for me to begin, because it is my journey to overcome that and learn to Love myself unconditionally that has delivered me to a space where I finally feel comfortable talking about and sharing myself and my unique gifts.
For as long as I can remember, I have felt deeply connected to Nature. The plants, the animals, the sky, the waters.. all of it. Nature made more sense to me than anything else in this silly human world. Yet, at the same time, I had a deep desire to connect with other humans, something that actually felt incompatible with my natural state. So I changed.
I honestly lost count of how many times I changed myself, my personality, my story, in order to try to “fit in” and be accepted by other humans. And it did work, to a certain extent. But I was still left feeling overwhelmingly unsatisfied and unfulfilled. Which I later realized was because I was never truly connecting, being seen, understood and accepted for who I truly am on a Soul Level, from others or from myself.
Enter… The Awakening.
In truth, I actually had two separate Awakening experiences.
The first happened when I was in High School, and although for a while I was exploring it excitedly, I eventually got to a point where I thought I must be completely bat-shit crazy, so I shut it all down and locked the memories away to the deepest corners of my subconscious.
Which kinda worked… for a while.
But the feeling of being unfulfilled and unsatisfied with my life continued to grow and fester inside of me.
So I continued seeking all the things I thought I wanted on that surface level, in that fabricated persona that I had been living in for so much of my life, and I actually did end up attaining almost everything I thought I wanted…
yet I felt more alone and empty than ever.
It was at that point, shortly after having my son Malakai, that my second Awakening began.
I had no idea what was happening to me.. in many ways, I was very happy. Like I said, I had everything I thought I wanted. The joy my son alone gifted me was overwhelming at times. But I couldn’t shake this feeling that something was missing.
“I know I am meant for something more..” repeated in my head non-stop. It was like a broken record, breaking me open more and more each time it repeated.. But I had no idea what was happening to me or why that sentence was repeating in my head or what I was supposed to do about it.
Thanks to the glorious modern age, when in doubt, there is always Google.
I ended up googling that phrase that was stuck in my head on repeat, which lead me to a lot of dead ends and a few very strange places.. but eventually, I found something that sparked. I found a very old forum where someone mentioned going through a very similar experience, and finding relief from something called Reiki and the spiritual insights that the Reiki practitioner offered them. I had never heard of Reiki, and I was a bit put off by the word “spiritual” (since my only connection with the word was the Catholic teachings from my childhood that didn’t exactly sit right with me), but somehow I knew this was a lead I needed to follow.
Also around this time, I was desperate to find anything that would give me some form of the fulfillment I was searching for. The first thing that came to mind when I tried to think of anything like it that I felt in the past was.. horses. It made no sense to me, and I had no idea how I would find a way to be around horses again (you don’t have to be a horse person to know just how very expensive anything horse related is..), but I knew this was another lead I needed to follow. So I found a local trainer and signed up for riding lessons. I started feeling so many shifts! I began feeling truly excited and inspired for the first time in ages the more I dove into my research on these incredible creatures and allowed myself to dream a new dream that included them.. It felt like this was it. This was the missing piece! This was the “something more” that I was searching for!
And then I got Reiki done..
I was quite hesitant to actually get Reiki done for a while. For one, at the time, I thought $100 was way too much to spend on myself, especially for some woo-woo thing that I didn’t know would work. And on an even deeper level, I think the parts of me that I suppressed all those years ago (out of fear that I was going crazy) knew that this would begin leading me down that same road.. and that was absolutely terrifying.
Eventually, however, the thought persisted long enough for me to book an appointment. I had no idea what to expect, and was quite nervous about the whole ordeal. I had read somewhere that some Reiki practitioners can give you messages from your Spirit Guides, and that thought was quite exciting to me. At this point in time, I didn’t really remember what had happened to make me shut down my first awakening experience (I did a very thorough job at locking the memories away), but I knew that was something that always interested me, and I wanted to find out how to communicate with them myself if it was possible.
So I went to the Reiki session and was honestly completely blown away by the whole experience. I was amazed by how “normal” this very kind woman was, I was amazed by how relaxed and at peace it helped me to feel, and I was absolutely floored that I actually felt the energy moving through my body (I actually peeked my eyes open to see where her hands were, part of me was convinced that it was some kind of trick..! lol!). But most of all, I was so impressed by the spiritual messages she relayed to me from my Spirit Team. The messages she was giving me were so aligned with everything that was currently going on in my life, and at the end of the session, she said she felt it was important to mention to me that she offers a weekly guided meditation group where she teaches how to communicate with Spirit on your own.
I immediately knew this was something I had to do (not to mention a little freaked out that my main desire from this whole experience just happened to be something this woman is an expert at and teaches on a regular basis..!), and ended up going to her very next class. I was absolutely terrified, but was quickly put at ease by the environment that was set up and the peaceful and relaxed way she had of guiding and teaching everyone. I was hooked after that first class, and ended up going almost every week for over a year. At this point, the teacher was moving and actually came to me asking if I would take over teaching the classes. Although I was petrified by the idea (at this point in time, I definitely didn’t see myself as a teacher or leader in any capacity, and still had horrible self confidence and self worth issues), there was a part of me that just knew that this was my direction, and that this was the start of something much, much bigger.
Upon accepting this invitation to step into this new role, so much opened up for me! I had a much clearer sense of what I wanted to do with my life, my mission and purpose. I knew without a doubt that I wanted to help others to heal and understand their connection with Spirit. I began taking course after course on Energy Healing, Psychic Abilities, Astrology, Shamanic Healing, Sound Healing, Human Design, Sexual Healing and Empowerment, Past Life Remembering and Integration, Shadow Work, Soul Retrieval, Dharma and Soul Purpose, … the list goes on and on. I was obsessed. It gave me new life. It awakened a sense of purpose and passion in me that I had never felt before, and I was beginning to feel the stirrings of the fulfillment that I had been searching for.
This ultimately ended up guiding me along a path of incredibly deep personal healing and transformation. At first, I was guided by the idea that I needed to do these things in order to be “good enough”. Although there was always that very aligned drive to do these things because I knew they would be an integral piece of how I would help others, the self direction of my studies began as a way to try and “fix” myself to be worthy of the path I had envisioned for myself. But luckily, these healing practices can see beyond our limited human perspectives and eventually guided me to the Truth that I was always good enough, that I (just as every other human being) am innately perfect exactly as I am, and that the only things that needed “fixing” were my misaligned perspectives on my worth and self image.
Sounds pretty easy and straightforward when I put it like that, but it definitely wasn’t so in the midst of it all. In truth, it was actually a very messy, often horribly uncomfortable, sometimes even scary journey of looking at, healing and resolving lifelong (and past life) woundings and programming, as well as the very challenging and tedious work of creating and integrating (or simply surrendering to) new patterns and programs that are in alignment with my Divine Truth.
Although there were many times I simply wanted to give up and, like in the past, make myself forget everything and go back to living a “normal”, muggle life, the further I got along in my journey, the more impossible that became as I was gaining momentum towards my more aligned life of passion, purpose and service. And it most certainly paid off. Though, as I said, there were some very dark and difficult times as I was moving through some deep healing, as I continued moving forward I was increasingly experiencing greater and greater levels of joy, bliss, and fulfillment.
Eventually, my life began opening me up to another new and unexpected direction: Art. It came in one of those exceptionally dark and uncomfortable periods, and it seemingly came out of nowhere (I kind of hated art when I was younger, though I now realize that that was simply because I was so terrified of “getting it wrong” that I never allowed myself to discover the simple joy that art can open you to).
I quickly became obsessed with a form of art called Fluid Painting, watched more tutorial videos than I would like to admit, and before long had everything I needed to start doing it for myself. The first colors I started wanting to paint were the colors of my Soul Essence, or Energetic Signature. Once I started, I couldn’t stop! I was so enamored with these beautiful expressions of color, and I noticed that the more I created, the more I was actually falling in Love with myself.
I began to realize that through painting and playing with and falling in Love with these colors and expressions (that were so resonant with my Soul), I was becoming more clear on who I am on a Soul level, and seeing this reflection of my Soul outside of myself was kind of a tricky way for the Universe to remind me how beautiful and love-able I actually am. I began to realize that all the things that I have loved and felt resonance with through my life, but that I thought were simply outside of me, were actually a part of me, just other expressions of the same Soul fabric that make up who I am. So how could I possibly love those things without also loving myself?
Well, I soon found out, I couldn’t!
Once I started seeing myself in all these things that I Loved so dearly, I couldn’t help but Love myself equally so.
It was the beginning of the most incredible Love affair this life has to offer, that with self.
I also came to realize that this is what life is really all about. Learning to Love our lives, everything and everyone around us, and ourselves as deeply as possible.
Now, although, yes, I am a magical, beautiful and unique soul that is worthy and deserving of all my hearts desires, this isn’t unique to me. In coming to this awareness about myself, I came to realize that this is true about all humans.
Not only is every human deserving of all their hearts desires, they deserve to feel what it is like to truly love themselves, wholly and completely, in all their perfectly imperfect, unique and beautiful ways. I realized that the reason I was directed on this path to my own self love and empowerment was because I am meant to help others along this path themselves.
After a long year of falling madly in Love with myself, devoting myself to myself and to what nourishes and enriches and inspires me on a Soul Level, and following the (sometimes very difficult and uncomfortable) directions that my Soul was guiding me upon.. what should re-appear in my life, but… Horses.
After many wild synchronicities, I was guided to a program that weaves deep spiritual healing with horses, and I knew I had to join. Thus began the longest, and most challenging training I have ever gone through, both in and out of the actual course. Through my time in the program I was really forced to face and connect with the part of me that felt I needed to learn more, do more, be more in order to be able to call myself a healer, in order to be good enough for the path I knew I was destined for.. and after completing the two year course, plus a year + of offering Equine Gestalt sessions, it really brought me to my knees and made me re-evaluate why I had joined the course in the first place.
Yes, I have always loved horses and the idea of helping people to heal with the assistance of horses sounded too good to pass up. But beyond that.. more than anything, I did it because I thought I needed the fancy title and to be trained by a psychotherapist in order to be good enough, to be taken seriously. Yet the reality of practicing the Equine Gestalt.. There was always something missing, I was having to bypass so much of my innate wisdom and intuitive guidance in order to stay within the guidelines of the EGC framework..
I came to know deep within my heart that I had to let this go, strip myself of the titles I thought I needed, and go back to ground zero.
Once I did.. my life, and my business opened up in the most glorious ways. I began channeling workshops teaching about the cycles of nature, and how we can work with them to better understand ourselves and live our most aligned and alive lives. We created a beautiful community of sisterhood, connection, and support, and I had an arena to be able to let my wildest, witchiest self truly be seen and heard.
But of course, that was just the appetizer.. Once my inner hag witch, or the Bog Hag as I lovingly call her, gave me this taste of how good it is to let this part of myself be seen, she bagan asking me to stretch it further, beyond my little local community I felt so safe with, into the world wide web for all to see…
And you see.. this was one of my greatest fears for as long as I can remember, letting my weird and wild side be seen by the world at large, letting these parts of myself that are so sacred to me be judged, rejected, and ridiculed by others.. I had spent so much time over all these years learning to accept, then appreciate and love these parts of me for myself, I even found sacred communities that I felt safe enough to let them out in, but social media was the last frontier I never wanted to even consider letting these parts out into.
Yet, by the time she asked me.. I had already spent so much time in my own underworld, facing my fears and doubts and insecurities, getting to know them, befriending them, learning to love them.. that now, when she presented this invitation to me so lovingly, it wasn’t so scary anymore. Or at least, it no longer felt impossible. I had already faced so much of my fear that I knew without a doubt that I could do what most scared me and keep my heart open. I knew that I had such a solid foundation in my own self love and respect that no matter what anyone had to say about it, I would be ok because my truth was stronger than anyone else’s opinions.
So I did it. I faced my fears and let the Bog Hag out for the world to see, and had so much fun with it! And when I was ridiculed by those I used to be most afraid of judgement from.. all I felt was deep compassion for them, for the pain and fear they must be in to say such things..
That is the true power of this work.. going from the mere thought of something shaking you to the core, to being able to walk through that very thing with confidence and courage and an open heart.
That is why this Underwold work is so sacred to me, why it is my greatest honor and pleasure to support others through it.. Because I have seen firsthand, with myself and many others I have supported through this process, how when we face and feel and embrace our deepest fears and insecurities, we truly come into our greatest power, our greatest ease and passion, pleasure and freedom.
And that is exactly what life is all about.
So now, who am I?
I am Lyarra Love.
Bog Hag, Shamanic Priestess, Spiritual Mentor, mother, daughter, lover, friend, gardener, artist, intuitive, a million other things and absolutely nothing at all.
Will my titles and niche’s change again, as they have a thousand times before? Most likely.
And that is ok. Because I have the one thing that will never change, the one thing that will hold me and support me and guide me no matter what I face…
I have Me. And that is the greatest gift of all. And with any luck, I will be able to help many other women find and foster this relationship within themselves.
Thank you for being here. I can’t wait to see how we can grow together. <3
When I was a little girl, I would switch back and forth between wanting to be a cowgirl, a witch, and a teacher when I grew up. Societal programming eventually taught me to believe that only one of those was a viable option as far as “real life” careers go, yet as I deprogrammed all that old conditioning and began Loving myself back into wholeness, all three of those seemed to make a whole lot of sense for who I truly am and what I came here to do..
Lyarra Love, Cowgirl / Witch / Teacher, aka Untamed, Bog Hag, Spiritual Mentor, at your service…
(Yes, this is me (on the left), before the world tried to make me forget who I am and what I came here to do.)
