Shaman Durek may be best known as Gwyneth Paltrow’s personal spirit guide (she calls him “bro” and he calls her his “soul sis”), but Selma Blair and Nina Dobrev are also clients, and Gerard Butler joined Durek’s girlfriend Princess Martha of Norway at the recent L.A. launch of his new book Spirit Hacking.

Hacks in the book (which Paltrow calls “thought-provoking, iconoclastic and powerful”) include how to turn negative thoughts and language into positive ones, and speaking a Daily Soul Talk out loud. A sixth-generation shaman, Durek often delves into the spirit world in one-on-one sessions, and calls on ancestral guides to help release whatever blockages are holding you back. He also focuses on how our strive for perfection can be detrimental, and emphasizes the importance of reflecting backwards in order to move forward.

“In today’s world of perfection, we achieve things based upon on what’s been achieved before us. Perfection is about feeling happy and joyful in what you’re doing, and the moment you feel stuck because you don’t have inspiration coming through, it means you’re taking it too personally and too seriously. You’re putting too much attention on wanting to be perfect so that you’re not enjoying it,” he says. 

Durek says remembering the “playfulness of being a child and allowing to realize why you got into this in the first place” is key: “Go back to a moment in your life before you decided to be a writer, actor or director, and reflect on what the inspiration was that made you feel so good about doing it. Remember the visions and ideas that stimulated you.”

These need to be brought back as your cornerstones or pillars of truth, says Durek, to allow you to recognize why you’re doing what you’re doing: “Pressure, stress, writers block, frustration and anger can all be avoided when we reflect backwards to the moment that made us first want to do what we’re doing, and then do it with joy.”