Meet Carrie DeVaney of Ojai, California

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carrie DeVaney

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’ve always felt a connection to, and heard the voices of, spirit but I didn’t always know how to use it or channel it. I was very sensitive and felt so overwhelmed by the world that I spun out at an early age, getting into trouble, skipping school, and getting into drugs and alcohol. By the time I was 16 I was already very wild and I knew that I needed to find a path to walk that was better than the one I was taking. The summer after I turned 16 I spent 6 weeks on a remote island with my grandmother. I had a lot of time to think. One morning I prayed whole heartedly to be shown my path for this lifetime.

After hours of sitting on my own I returned to the cabin I was sharing with my grandma.. I found her very sick in bed. She had been fine when I left her that morning. Now she was hot with fever and said she was in so much pain she couldn’t move. I was really scared. We were a boat ride and an unpaved drive away from any town or doctors. I didn’t think I could get her into the outboard motor boat by myself and I had just passed my driving exam and didn’t think I could manage the wild, remote roads. It was only Nana and I on the island.

She said “Could you please just rub my back?” I grew up with my Nana and she rubbed my back before I went to sleep. Copying her, I put all the love I had into that back rub. She soon fell asleep. Four hours later she woke up and was shaken but no longer feverish or achy.

I took that as my sign.

Now decades, and many trainings and life lessons, later I get to do this for a living. And every time is similar to the first time. I show up. I channel love. I pray for assistance. I now know how to channel my gifts to help others. The world still feels overwhelming sometimes, but when I connect with spirit and the natural world, it all makes sense. I love being able to help others to see what I can see.

I started out as a massage therapist when I was 20 years old. While I was working on clients, I’d start to receive intuitive guidance for them. At first, I didn’t want to share what I was hearing. However, the information would become so loud that I had to share it with my clients or it wouldn’t leave me alone. Once I did, it would have such profound meaning for them, and helped them shift stuck energy patterns in their bodies. After that, people started coming to me specifically for intuitive guidance.
Over time, I realized that even though giving people information about their lives is really helpful and valuable, it can only go so far. They need to learn to use their own intuitive guidance system. Also, once we see our truth it can still be really hard to make actual changes in “real” life! So I studied with Martha Beck, the OG of Life Coaches, so that I had more science based, cognitive tools to share with people as they shift their lives to align with the truth that lives in their hearts.

Now my work blends all the teachings I’ve been given from Spirit and all the remarkable human teachers I’ve worked with. I meet my clients where they are. Whether they come to me with an ache in their shoulder or their heart, or don’t know where they hurt, only that they feel blah, we start with there. My tool kit includes bodywork, energy healing, intuitive guidance, shamanic practices, and life coaching.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I think that every “healer”, (I believe everyone ultimately heals themselves and that those of us in the healing arts simply hold space for that to happen), has to go through many initiations. I sometimes wish it weren’t so, but living through tough and/or painful situations seems to be a necessary prerequisite for the life of a healer or spiritual teacher. It’s as if those of us who are called to the healing arts need to really understand what it’s like to be hurt, or depressed, or frightened, or sick, so that we can truly be available to help others through the same thing. So no, lol, it’s not been a smooth road. But every time I’ve gone through a hard life situation, I learned so much! And I always take that learning as an addition to my medicine tool kit and as a new understanding of the human condition.

Believing in my gifts has also been tricky. I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, not exactly a metaphysical mecca! My family and culture was very secular. And yet, I could hear and sense things that others didn’t. Sometimes this felt very lonely. But then I’d sit by a river, or under a favorite tree and I wasn’t alone any more. The tree spoke to me of kinship. The river taught me about changes. Nature filled the gap that my secular, human family did not know how to fill. Since nature was teaching me things that I had no way of knowing, I paid attention. When I learned to trust nature, I began to trust myself as well. After all, I wasn’t separate from nature. That meant that I too was knowing and connected. The more I accept myself and my gifts as part of a greater whole, the easier and more joyful my life is. The more I am able to help my clients. The more I experience the inherent joy and harmony of life.

My work now is helping others to learn to listen and feel their inherent oneness and connection with all life everywhere and to trust their own intuition.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I see clients in person in Ojai or over the phone or Zoom. I think of myself as a practical intuitive. I’m a midwesterner after all! I use my intuition to help people to align with their spirit guides and helpers, and with the truth that lives in their hearts. I also use the tools I learned as a life coach to help my clients make real, lasting changes in their lives so that they can live that heart centered truth out loud. I believe that each person that is able to live their purpose and passion creates a ripple of joy and love in the world.

I’m also beginning to lead classes and workshops that teach people how to tap into their own intuition. Everyone has access to a wealth of information that can help them tremendously in their lives. Any information from why the baby is fussy, to aches and pains in the body, to our unique soul calling, is available to each and every one of us, if we just knew how to listen, receive, and take action on the information.

And finally, I help people to gather with intention to create celebrations and gatherings that are deeper and more meaningful than the status quo. A couple of weeks ago I led a sister circle at the onset of a wedding weekend. The bride had friends and relatives coming together from all over the world. Most of them did not know each other. By gathering together at the beginning of the weekend, sharing a space of deep connection and heart-centered sharing, they were able to not only share amazing blessings with the bride to be, but they forged a much deeper relationship at the onset of the wedding than they would have meeting for the first time over drinks or in the pool. This started the weekend off with so much love and connection!

Helping people to connect with spirit, with their own intuition, and with each other in more meaningful ways, are some of the things I’m most excited and proud of right now.

Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
All of my favorite childhood memories take place at my cabin in Canada. I did not grow up in beautiful or natural surroundings. I grew up in the city of St. Louis, or its suburbs, in a working class family. My mom was a single mom and money was always a struggle. I spent my school holidays, mornings before school, afternoons after school, at school, in a latchkey program. At least we weren’t on the streets or left alone, but it wasn’t fun or inspiring. On the glorious summers that we could afford to get there, we’d load up my Nana’s little Nova, (National Lampoon style), and drive 1,000 miles north to our tiny, remote cabin on Lake Huron. This place has been in my family for 5 generations. It is the same place that my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother spent their summers. There is no electricity. We use propane for lights and fuel. We get our water from the lake. There is a moose head on the wall and the old woolen blankets that my ancestors put there when they built the place. It’s full of generations of family memories. It’s also the only wild nature I ever knew as a kid. It’s where I learned to hear the voices of nature and, subsequently, of my own spirit.

Pricing:

• 1 Hour Intuitive Readings- $150
• 6 Week Soul Clarity Quest Coaching Package- $1,250
• 12 Week Guided Transformation Coaching Package- $2,250

Contact Info:

• Website: https://carriedevaney.com
• Instagram: @justcarriedevaney

Image Credits
Simone Noble