337. Indigenous Healing Traditions - Applying Ancient Wisdom in Modern Times - Ben Oofana

 [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the meditation conversation, the podcast to support your spiritual revolution. I'm your host, Cara Goodwin. And this episode with Ben Oofana is going to be really intriguing, particularly for those who are interested in healing and indigenous cultures. I was really drawn to Ben's work because he's studied extensively with native American medicine, men, as well as Dallas masters in the east. He has a deep wisdom and decades of experience as a practitioner of these ancient healing modalities.

We talk about how these healing traditions are dying out in a way. And it's an honor to get, to spend time with someone who is still holding these codes.

Ben Oofana is a gifted healer who initially began his training with Horace. Delcy one of the last surviving traditional doctors among the Kiawah Indian tribe.

He's also trained for many years in the internal martial arts [00:01:00] systems that are rooted in Daoism. Working in the tradition of indigenous healers, Ben facilitates the healing of the physical body and trauma, transforming suffering loss, and other challenges into fuel for personal growth. And helping individuals become more fully present, alive and engaged in life.

Ben also teaches an extensive system of mindfulness practices that he's developed over many years.

They enable people to engage their minds. Creative problem, solving abilities, enhanced solution orientation. Build resilience and provide a clear sense of purpose and direction. So we'll get right to that. After a quick word about quantum upgrade, this streaming service of quantum energy delivers a high frequency quantum field into your life to harmonize your energy balance, your body boost performance and shield yourself from harmful EMF frequencies.

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Kara Goodwin: Hello, Ben. I'm so happy to have you on today. Thanks for coming on.

Ben Oofana: yeah. Thank you for, bringing me in.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. So let's talk about your journey and how you came to train with indigenous healers.

Ben Oofana: From an early age, I was drawn to Native Americans and other indigenous peoples. In those days, our parents used. The television set as a babysitter. So when the Cowboy and Indian movies were on and the natives were getting killed, I'd be screaming and throwing fits. And conversely, [00:03:00] when the Indians were getting the upper hand, I would be like, get 'em.

And the fast fascination grew through my adolescence. And so by the time I was 17, I found myself. I had taken off on my own and my car got me as far as Southwestern Oklahoma, and I was living in a community of predominantly Kiowa Indians. And I started going into the peyote meetings. And it was in those meetings that I met my mentor, Horace oca, who was one of the last surviving traditional doctors, medicine men among the Kiowa tribe.

And so when I began the apprenticeship. Horace transmitted portions of his own healing gifts. a lot of these traditional doctors in times past in Horace as well, possessed paranormal abilities, and so he would transmit these. Portions of the healing gifts that he [00:04:00] possessed. And typically when you receive these gifts of healing you, you go through the vision quest, which entails fasting four days and nights alone in the mountains without food or water, which I've gone dozens of times.

Kara Goodwin: Wow.

Ben Oofana: Yeah.

Kara Goodwin: Wow,

 so you ended up with this tribe because that's where your car stopped. It sounds like you didn't have any connections to the tribe. You just, they let you walk in.

Ben Oofana: I did have connections because a lot of KI folks would come down to Fort Worth and Dallas area, even Houston too, for work. so I had met a number of people from the tribe, and I was stopping to visit. I was thinking I would head on to the Navajo reservation and get in boarding school there so I could finish high school.

But my car got me as far as Oklahoma,

Kara Goodwin: oh.

Ben Oofana: which [00:05:00] it was a good thing because in some ways I had a stronger resonance with the Kawa people and. the traditional healing practices that, Kiowa possessed. We're also more compatible with me and my temperament.it would be harder to do the, Navajo practices, the way they're set up and they wouldn't be as adaptable to people in our modern day world.

Some of the Navajo ceremonial. Healing practices. It could be in there for multiple days or nights, just, and people have so little patience and attention span. You're not gonna get people to take part in these things.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. is it unusual for them to, for somebody to train with a medicine man who's not from the tribe?

Ben Oofana: Yes, definitely. Even when I first got to Oklahoma, one of my peers [00:06:00] friends that, and I initially met him when he came down to Texas, he was part of a church group. even though his father was more into the peyote meetings and stuff, he would go to these. This kind of Pentecostal church or something.

And so I knew him through that and I grew up in that whole kind of cultish thing, a Christian evangelical. so I was talking with my friend and he says, Hey dad, Ben wants to go into the peyote meetings and surprisingly his father said. Okay. And even some of the other native elders were like, eh, he's not.

One of us, but this elderly man, Jack, He carried a lot of weight, and he said to the others, he said, this one is different. Let him come in. He sensed something about me that was unique, and so [00:07:00] he brought me into the peyote meetings and. and a lot of them, these native elders, I would talk with them and they warmed up to me quite a bit as they got to know me more and I regret that I didn't have more time with them.

It was the last generation that had a firm grasp on the language, and they were much more connected to this powers that. Had been passed down over the centuries and

so much of this is being lost, has been lost among a lot of these indigenous peoples that younger generations. And there's a combination of things that were happening that once they put the native people on the reservations. And they were living in somewhat prison camp like conditions, and the children were taken away.

They were sent off to boarding schools. Many were subjected [00:08:00] to, verbal emotional abuse, beatings. some were sexually abuse. There were a lot of, children who actually didn't survive that. I think there were more incidents of it in Canada where there were numerous graves around these residential schools.

Kara Goodwin: light just in the last like year or two, right? The Canadian, yeah.

Ben Oofana: Mm-Hmm. And there's some of that too in United States, but I think there was a higher number of deaths in Canada and instances where some of the children would attempt to run away from the schools and they would freeze to death.

because it was so cold and so there was this collective trauma that Native Americans experienced, and many of them as they would go home to their own people, and that connection was broken.

A lot of them just were trying to assimilate into the dominant culture, and it was. [00:09:00] There were instances where some of these old doctors possessing these gifts, what they refer to as medicine, and they wanted it to continue, and sometimes they would see a young child and knowing that they had limited time, time on the planet, and so they would.

attempt to transmit that power to the child but it was too much that a child would be having all these intense physiological reactions, overwhelmed.

Kara Goodwin: Hmm.

Ben Oofana: And I know from my experience too, when that power started to wake up in me, I had a lot of intense emotion coming out. A lot of the traumas of my childhood and adolescence began to resurface once that, that power, that medicine started to reawaken.

And so for a child and you have carrying that power, sometimes it was just too much. And so the old doctor would have to take it back and carry it to the grave with them. so [00:10:00] unfortunately a lot of this didn't pass on. There are very few people practicing at this level anymore.

Kara Goodwin: Wow. So can, what can you share with us about what, you mentioned about the, you had that transfer from Horace that he was

Ben Oofana: Yeah.

Kara Goodwin: transfer you. What can you share with us about what that was like for you? What that has been like for you?

Ben Oofana: When he would do those transmissions, he would have somebody standing behind me just to hold me up and. He would, again, a lot of these traditional doctors possess paranormal abilities, and so he would do things like, he would take the end of a feather, certain kinds of birds, and he'd stand in front of me and he would physically project it into my body.

And I would feel this like intense, like it. It sounded like a gun with a silencer going off, and it would [00:11:00] physically, it would knock me unconscious momentarily.

Kara Goodwin: Wow.

Ben Oofana: and that's why I had someone standing behind me to hold me up. But, and I felt this high initially, just altered stateand he gradually had me assisting him.

With some of his patients. For instance, there was a older man on the Navajo reservation who when a piece of heavy equipment turned over, maybe a bulldozer front end loader or something, he was pinned underneath and left him paralyzed from the waist down, and there were blood clots that were forming in his legs So one of the things that the traditional native doctors utilize was suction where they would actually do this extraction, pull things out of the body.

Kara Goodwin: or physically?

Ben Oofana: sometimes they would take the end of a buffalo horn and they would, with the [00:12:00]tip cut off and they'd put it to that part of the body and use suction, and sometimes just with your mouth.

And so Horace had me doing that in the, when I saw the blood clots come out the back of this man's leg, and here I was just starting and I was just like, it actually worked this, I was just seeing the blood clots come out and I was in shock like, oh, it's happening.

Kara Goodwin: Wow.

Ben Oofana: But I was still afraid in the beginning, Not knowing that much, having that much experience, and Horace could see my hesitancy and he just said, I cannot hold your hand through everything. You have to actually get in and start working with people, and it's gonna work differently for you than it does for me, and will reveal itself to you as you.

Work with people. One-on-one. so gradually I did when I was in, put myself back in [00:13:00] college and people would ask me as I would share with them what I had gone through my experience over the past few years. And they'd say, will you help me with this or that? And I'm like, I'll try. I'll see. There is one point where I would go to this meditation group and I was very shy and introverted, quiet in those days, and I had gone through some kind of breakup or whatever and I was still grieving or healing from that, so I just didn't say a whole lot. I would just go in quietly, sit on the couch and I would just.

Participate in the meditation. But there is a way in which I was the cute college kid and everyone else was older and would, it was almost a little condescending. They would talk down to me, but this one man that I was friends with attending the group and his girlfriend broke her ankle and so I was working with her and, and then he. made a little [00:14:00] announcement. He said, I wanna share something with you to the group. And he was talking about how he felt this intense presence just slammed down vertically in the room.and then it went out horizontally. And he said the forest or the power was so great that he said he felt as though it was pushing him back in the chair, and it was all he could do to keep his eyes open.

Kara Goodwin: Oh wow.

Ben Oofana: Yeah. and so he's describing that, and you could hear this or you could, there was this dead silence in the room. Like all these people are like uhoh, like here. We've been talking to him this way and he is possessed his power and he's never let on. it's mixed though, because. The different healers from these various traditions possess different kinds of power.

And here in what I refer to as our wonder bread [00:15:00] culture, like white bread with devoid of nutrients. there are good things about this culture as well, but having experienced. Both training with a traditional Native American doctor, a master from China, spending time in India and Sri Lanka, connecting with people like Sadhus, other people that possess these tremendous gifts and powers of one form or another.

but rarely do I ever see anything comparable to that here in North America. And there are, for instance, healers in the Philippines that could go in and, actually extract, remove tumors, reach into the body and pull malignant tumors outta the body and stuff. and they're good. I don't know if there are many of them left at this point, but now it's a tradition that goes back thousands of years.

but I assume there is in other parts of the world, all this is dying out I need to mention something else. In this culture, you have a lot of people go through three [00:16:00] weekend workshops and they assume the title master healer, and it cheapens our, degrades the, this.

healing. There's in these traditions, one goes through an apprenticeship. There are these lineages that go back hundreds or thousands of years, and the mentor, the native doctor, whatever, transmit our portion, their healing gift or power, and then From my own traditional lineage that I learned from.

you'd go through the vision quest, those four days and nights without food and water to earn the right to work with that gift or power. So it's not something you could ever get through a workshop. you apprentice, and it's a very long, arduous process and. it's not something you could disseminate to large groups of people.

It's just these transmissions are protected and if you just pass it out to large [00:17:00] numbers of people through workshops, it dilutes that transmission,So these there. Very much protected. as I said, one or a few people at a time will carry these transmissions down through a lineage. but part of the difference is the indigenous healers, we all work as conduits and that there other forces or beings or entities that work through us that go into the body.

There are times as I'm working with people, those who are more sensitive will feel. It some kind of reconstructive process happening. Maybe there's, I work with people with digestive disorders like Crohn's disease or colitis or IBS and others. Maybe they're injured in an automobile accident and they'll actually feel that reconstruction taking place within the parts of the body where they're experiencing the.

Kara Goodwin: physical pain or symptoms or injuries or whatever, and [00:18:00] some people actually feel the sensation of hands working within the body doing the reconstruction. It's fascinating.

Ben Oofana: so yeah. And it's, my intention is not to, I. Put anyone down or attack anyone or anything. It's just I wanna see a higher standard of credibility and I wanna see these traditions continue.

And so if you truly desire to be a healer, it's forget this three weekend master healer nonsense. actually go to where you would find some of these. indigenous healers, places like Indonesia or Malaysia or Philippines or parts of Central South America where some of these individuals are still practicing and apprentice and it's gonna involve some years.

it's like in order to become a physician, western allopathic physician involves going through that. You get your, do your undergraduate and then your medical school and. Residency, internship, all that.it's a long, arduous process. [00:19:00] Andand similarly, if in order to become a healer, it requires a great deal of sacrifice and commitment on your part, right?

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. and so tell us about what it is like with all of the years of experience that you've had now. And like you said, you've studied under. Some various traditions, it sounds like

within those traditions.

Ben Oofana: Yes.

Kara Goodwin: what is it like for you as a healer or with you as a healer at this time?

what's your modality like, or maybe that's the wrong word, but you mentioned where people feel like they've got hands inside them work, working things out if they're sensitive enough. I'm just, I'm curious about that.

Ben Oofana: when I work with people, initially there's some discussion, but I'll have them stand up and I'm holding my hand in front of the body and I scan the physical body. so I'm feeling through my hands, but at the same time, I have an internal vision of [00:20:00] what I'm feeling. So it's two different senses that confirm one another.

And then I'm also asking them like, here's what I'm seeing and feeling. How does this confirm with your experience? So I want to get that validation. And then

over the years I developed. My own system of meditation practice. I didn't have any guidance or instruction. It was when I had all that trauma surfacing from my childhood and adolescence that came up in my mid twenties. I was so consumed by the pain that I just instinctively taught myself to dive into it, and, but the practice has evolved over the years, and it depends on a person's.

Needs, if they're dealing with certain physiological conditions or issues,like heart disease or stroke or respiratory, digestive disorder, something, I'll have them focus their attention in the parts of the body that are [00:21:00] affected that engages. The body of mind's innate healing intelligence.

A lot of people are very much dissociated or disconnected from their bodies to various degrees and,this helps to make the body more fluid, more malleable. I find when I'm in India and Sri Lanka there are a lot of times where I'd be working with people that didn't really speak English and.

I may or may have not had anyone to help translate. And so it's it'd be like using gestures to indicate, get on the table. so I couldn't really instruct them, but their bodies tended to be more fluid. I think. there's something about a lot of South Asian people, not everybody, of course, but there's that tendency that there's more of a malleability.

But there's something about our culture here, and I think a lot of it's probably there's, we're so overstimulated. Yeah. All the Devices, smartphones and tablets and computers. We spend so much time online, we're working [00:22:00] such excessive hours and all the social media and we're constantly feeding off of,

Kara Goodwin: Stimulation.

Ben Oofana: all this digital input.

And so because of that, there's this saturation where like.it's more than our body and mind can process. and with that, when we have all this additional input, we can't process that. We can't process our own life experiences and our emotional and cognitive response is everything. So there's more of a saturation within the body.

And I find that it's necessary to get people who do these practices because it reconnects people with their bodies, and people's bodies become more malleable, more responsive. There's more of a fluidity, and with that, then once I have them on the table, that presence working through me can go [00:23:00] in and do the.

Regenerative work in the body. There's the work on the physical level, but there's also, and this is something very unique to this level of healing. Again, my intention's not to put anyone down or attack anyone or anything, but you know what, they just call energy work. I've seen people go through dozens of, for instance, Reiki sessions and.

I would look in after all the sessions, the chakras and layers of the, or could still be grossly damaged or disfigured if they have history of childhood, sexual trauma, physical, sexual, verbal. Often. There was a combination thereof And it's disappointing to me, 'cause I see how these people are suffering and I, I genuinely want people to heal.

I, it pains me to see people suffering like that, to, to experience those varying degrees of incapacitation as a result of that trauma. But what I find [00:24:00] is what's unique when you're able to work on this level is that it goes in and it takes those lived experiences, those traumas, and all those highly charged emotions, and it's literally being taken and.

Transform transmuted. It's being digested in a way so that it becomes fuel for growth. It takes the whole chakra system, for instance, like you have individuals, as I said, when they've experienced trauma of that magnitude. Often the chakras, the several bodies they fail to develop and the person is to varying degrees, dissociated.

They don't fully inhabit their bodies to any great degree, so I'll be working with them and it's pulling them into their bodies so they become. A lot more present. There's a lot more of them here, and it's going in and it's building that foundation, that infrastructure in the subtle bodies that has a lot to do with how you [00:25:00] interface with the world.

Your ability to show up and be present. we have the brain, the white and the gray matter and everything, all the various components of the brain, subtle bodies. Are this non-physical manifestation of,the mind and have a great deal to do with our ability to function to, the people who are, what you call highly functional.

You see how they excel in business and other endeavors, people that have a great deal of presence. And have a tremendous impact in the world. There's a great deal of additional development. Sometimes they too can carry a great deal of emotional wounding or scarring of one form or another, but they have these additional faculties that enable them to. Move through the world and have a greater impact. And so what I find working with people, doing the sessions with people is it goes in, it builds that foundation. And the [00:26:00] other thing, when people experience a lot of this trauma, for instance, the biochemical makeup of the brain, the neural structure is.

Not functioning very well. And so as I work with people, it facilitates, it brings about that balancing or that proper biochemical makeup. So I'll see these individuals when I start with them, that maybe they're experiencing nightmares and flashbacks and panic attacks. It could be very low functioning.

So many of their resources are consumed by the emotional wounding, the trauma that they carry. But as they're able to digest these traumatic events that they've internalized and the highly charged emotions that arise in response to them, then what happens is. They experience more of a calmness.

[00:27:00] They're much more present in their bodies. There's much more of them here, and I watch them become progressively more functional, more engaged in life. They can do what they need to do, whether in their. When it comes to their professional lives or,

instead of, I, I see a lot of people and whether they've experienced the considerable trauma or not, a lot of people who are struggling in relationships, either they're in the midst of a breakup or divorce, are struggling with patterns of abandonment, unrequited love, they'll digest that experience. Uh, their partner. Sounds a little cannibalistic, but

They will digest their experience of being in that relationship and they form that attachment to their romantic partner, that person they were wanting to be with, and

all of those highly [00:28:00] charged emotions. Attached to that individual in the relationship. And so there's this evolution that occurs where those unhealthy attachments start dissolving and they're able to let go of that person or the relationship. I've have other people though that.

They're able to, as they heal, it also affects their partner and the relationship's able to evolve.

Kara Goodwin: Hmm.

Ben Oofana: Um, friends with a couple, friends, I work with them still. They're out in, California. I'll be out there pretty soon in a few weeks. But The husband, his first marriage was a disaster and he suffered a great deal in that marriage and when he met his present wife and she was suffering from panic attacks and OCD.

Had been sexually assaulted and dumped in some remote area, was on whatever, psychotropic meds, [00:29:00] and he had just gotten together with her. I had just returned from Sri Lanka when I met her for the first time. Had dysentery at the time. I was struggling with that, He pulled me aside at one point, Annie, he said, look, I cannot afford to go through another disastrous relationship after what I've been through with that previous marriage, and I know you're a good judge of character, so I want you to just be really honest with me is I know she's got some issues here, but is she so damn that I need to just get away and just go our.

And she's someone that can heal. so I worked with her and it was very foreign to her at first. she didn't relate to it at all, but my friend, the guy who's later, her husband and his mother both encouraged her, said, give it a chance to work. And She's okay. And she did. And so after working with her, [00:30:00]sometimes she no longer experienced the panic attacks, the OCD.

She had this obsessive fear that she would swallow her tongue and choke to death.

When we have this trauma, it does weird things to our brains, but that all cleared up and He founded a startup and it was enormously stressful at times, getting all that off the ground, and she was actually working with him.

it's one thing to be married to someone, all the challenges you face within the context of a marriage, but to actually be working together as well in an area that is so high stress. And yet they were married and working together and I think they've been together at least 20 years now.

Kara Goodwin: Wow.

Ben Oofana: so

Kara Goodwin: So I'm curious about where, so you mentioned that where you are, you mentioned they're in California, but it sounds like you work, do you do hands-on work or do you do work at a distance or

Ben Oofana: I can't do some work at a [00:31:00] distance. The practices that I teach, as I said, I develop my own system and meditation practice and that I can teach over the phone from a distance. Anyone, anywhere in the world, as long as you either can call me by phone or through Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. And that's important.

No matter what healing modality, you're doing what, even if you're just working with a psychotherapist, if you're doing any form of deep tissue body work, if you're so disconnected from your emotions in your body, it's going to severely limit your ability to heal. they say if you can't feel it, you can't heal it.

So you need to be able to get into your body to feel. I will say though, the most powerful work is when I'm able to work with people face to face in person, even if that means having to travel, like for years I've been. [00:32:00] Making the plane reservations and Airbnb and rent a car and going to a great deal of expense twice a year, spring and fall to go back to the Wichita Mountains to go on the vision quest, the four days and nights fasting.

With no food and no water, and October was my 61st time. I'm not saying that to impress anyone. I don't care about impressing anyone. it's more from the standpoint of having trained with a traditional Native American doctor and a master from China In these traditions, one continues to take steps, continues to do practice, intensive practice intervention on a daily basis.

most days I'll do two hours of sitting meditation practice and then the vision quest is the most powerful of any therapeutic intervention I've ever done. I make that investment to go to do the vision quest. And so even if it, whatever state that you're in, I [00:33:00] understand if you're. maybe if you're living in a place like Iran, I had this guy reach out to me from Iran sometime ago. You may not have the luxury. The means with which to travel are if you're some other country, some other part of the world. in some of these circumstances it may not be feasible to travel, but if you can, I think it's important to do so.

Kara Goodwin: Where would that

to? Where are you? Are you in Texas?

Ben Oofana: I'm in no. At the moment I'm in New York City

and yeah, and sometimes I'm in northern Idaho. I'll be out in San Francisco Bay area in a few weeks. I'll be in upstate New York before then. I'll be, in Kansas City in Oklahoma. shortly after the Bay Area, so I do move around a bit.

Kara Goodwin: Okay. Fascinating. how can people connect with you and learn more about your work

Ben Oofana: You can always go to my website,

Kara Goodwin: and what is that?[00:34:00]

Ben Oofana: ben ana.com. B-E-N-O-O-F-A-N a.com. So ben ana.com on my website, I've posted so many articles. I continue to write new articles, film new videos. You could find me on YouTube and Instagram. there's also a link. If somebody is in the midst of a breakup or divorce or two, there's one just getting over your breakup.com. You could download a free ebook if you're dealing with that. Those kinds of issues are, you can just go to refining relationships.com, so that's

Kara Goodwin: Those are of yours.

Ben Oofana: yeah.

Re refining relationships.com. If you're struggling with heartache and, 'cause I can take people who are in the midst of, yeah. The devastation of, of a painful breakup or. [00:35:00] Experiencing the ghosting or abandonment unrequited love and cycle them through that much more quickly. But that's just one of many things I've worked with

Kara Goodwin: Beautiful.

Ben Oofana: over the years.

Kara Goodwin: Beautiful. thank you so much for sharing and, for being here today. I've really enjoyed learning about your experience and your modalities and, and your expertise. I'm grateful for you to be doing the work that you're doing right now. . Thank you so much, Ben.

Ben Oofana: Thank you.