I’m Kim McLaughlin, a shamanic practitioner offering shamanic healing treatments and spiritual counselling in Scotland.
Based in North Ayrshire, my goal is to help others reduce stress and anxiety and feel more peaceful and grounded in their lives.
I grew up in Ontario, Canada, and began my own healing journey back in the mid 2000s when I was sick for 12 months and couldn’t work or look after my family. This was the year I was forced to see things differently and embrace my true spiritual nature.
Four years later, I was adopted into a First Nations community through Anishnawbe Health Toronto (AHT.)
The elders explained it to me that, for my Indigenous son to never question the ‘white’ side of him, he needed to witness my full inclusion in The Community, and they worked hard to keep this promise, a gift for which I’ll always be grateful.
The AHT community taught me many things over a seven-year period, but the most important teaching was that we all carry spiritual gifts that are for the healing of our communities.
This teaching is the reason I started CedarLight Healing in 2016.
After my years at AHT, I was inspired to find out about spirituality from my own background.
My mother was born in North Ayrshire and my father is Acadian-French with Scottish descent. I spent much time in Scotland growing up and have always been inspired by my people, our native language, our history and our spiritual ways.
In this phase of my journey, I studied with the late Tira Brandon Evans who taught me the stories of the Celtic-Gaels, stories that hold the secrets of our ancient traditions and knowledge. I also studied under Daniel Leonard in core shamanism. Danielo taught me how to actively use my shamanic healing gifts to empower others.
In the summer of 2020, I moved to my family’s hometown in Scotland, and today I help clients overcome trauma, silence their negative thoughts and manage stress and anxiety through counselling, shamanic healing and teaching the powerful art of shamanic journeying.
Training:
2014-2016 The Hazel Grove two-year bardic training with Tira Brandon-Evans (learning the lore of insular celtic culture, combined with shamanic journeying to go deeper into hidden meanings).
2016-2017 The Medicine Circle one-year shamanism program with Daniel Leonard (learning Core Shamanism healing practices like power animal retrieval, soul retrieval, soul remembering, psycho-pomp and extraction).
2018-2019 The Medicine Circle two-year advanced shamanism program with Daniel Leonard (going deeper into core shamanism treatments including ancestral healing, releasing ceremonies, land healing, channeling, etc). .
2021-2022 COSCA Counselling Skills, Ayrshire College. This program focused on the human-centred therapeutic approach. COSCA is the Scottish licensing body for counselling and psychotherapy.
2025-2026 Compassionate Inquiry (current student). This one-year professional program provides training in a trauma informed approach to counselling. Expected completion and certification are both in 2026.
My personal practice:
I’m a practicing Celtic Reconstructionist, but I suppose I’m a bad one as my practice is quite syncretic given all the Indigenous influences from my time at AHT. But I don’t get bogged down in orthodoxy. For me, shamanism is 100% experiential, and my relationships and ability to do the work come from the land. I spend time almost every day either at the seashore (during the week) or in the forest or on the hills on weekends. This is my time with my first family, my ancestors and my spirit guides. This constant communion is what grounds my nature-based practice.
I also spend a lot of time in my medicine garden growing tobacco, sweetgrass, white cedar, berries and anything else that will agree to work with me. Working in partnership with Mother Earth in this way is a massive part of my practice/joy. In the autumn, I forage to make medicines that get my family and I through the flu season and anything else that happens, and I have a massive red cedar in my back garden that lends its power to client healing sessions and probably the whole street.
