My Experience with Plant Medicine

A variety of plant medicines and psychedelics have been an integral part of my personal healing journey over the years. But Ayahuasca, or Grandmother Aya as the brew is often referred to, was the most profound by far. 

Before you read any further, I want to mention that psychedelics are not for everyone. They should be utilized with the utmost respect, preferably under the supervision of an experienced guide to ensure the session is productive rather than distressing. There are many approaches to healing and self-discovery. Substance-induced altered states of consciousness are but one of many paths. If you utilize these medicines as a means to escape without doing personal self-work outside of the session, you’re less likely to experience real results.

With all that said, it also brings me great sadness that the government has demonized these ancient healing medicines and made them inaccessible. There are so many people for whom I believe they could do a lot of good, who won’t consider them because of the stigma.

One of the factors that first got me thinking seriously about leaving the corporate world years ago was the ability to write and speak freely about any and all topics that are important to me, from psychedelics to sex/gender and human rights issues-- to not feel caged or silenced by a fear of losing my income. So I’ve been saving this story for a while now, for a time when I felt totally empowered and safe to share. Many people will tell you that it is impossible to capture the real magic of a hallucinogenic experience in words. But here we go!

My first ayahuasca experience was back in December of 2019. I had known about the medicine for many years and was aware of its powerful and fierce reputation. So when the opportunity to ingest it legally with friends at a Native American Church without traveling all the way to Peru was presented to me, I immediately agreed. I went into the experience having already done a lot of self-work and personal healing related to the trauma in my past. What I needed help with next was stepping into my future. At the time, I had just put in my two weeks notice at the highest paying job I’d ever had in order to start my own business and pursue my passion for studying and teaching yoga full-time. And I was terrified.

Now that I had finally started to believe in myself, what if I failed myself? I still had massive self-doubt and knew that this fear would hold me back from showing up confidently. So I entered the ceremony with the intention of “letting go of the fear holding me back from achieving my dreams.” And I received more than I could ever have dreamed of.

The holistic healing center we stayed at held two nights of ceremony. The chemicals in Ayahuasca are unique in that some of them stay in your system longer than a day, despite the fact that the “trip” itself lasts only a few hours. So when you take another dose the next night, you aren’t starting from ground zero, and the experience is often much more intense. The healers and guides at the center I reference in this blog like to say that this mild to uneventful first night phenomenon is Grandmother Aya’s way of “gently introducing herself."

The first night I took Ayahuasca I managed to consume 3 cups— quite a feat considering it was the foulest taste I had ever encountered. My body immediately associated the substance with my stomachache, making each subsequent swallow more terrible than the last. I managed to keep from throwing up long enough for it to take effect and was rewarded with approximately 10-15 minutes of vibrant geometric visuals. The dancing shapes behind my eyelids were paired with an overpowering feeling of self-love that I had only felt once before during an experience with DMT a few years back. This makes sense because DMT (N, N-dimethyltryptamine) is the same natural chemical ingredient used in the ayahuasca brew. Pair this ingredient with a second plant containing MAO inhibitors (MAOIs) that strengthen and lengthen the effect of DMT and you have ayahuasca.

It felt like Grandmother Aya was reminding me that we were already acquainted. The minutes were some of the most beautiful and joyful of my life, and yet when they were over and I found myself completely sober, I was disappointed. I’d already had such a similar experience with DMT a few years back, and I’d only had to smoke a few puffs that time, versus the multiple gulps of awful retch-inducing medicine I had just consumed and the miles traveled. I felt that I already knew what lesson the medicine was trying to tell me— that I needed to trust and love myself in order to succeed. I was frustrated because I had already received this message and still had no concrete way forward.

On the second night, I had fewer cups than the first. The medicine was MUCH harder to keep down this time around, and my motivation was wilting from the previous night’s letdown. After finishing my second cup I lay in my cot to await my fate.

I was writing in my journal when my letters began to grow and my sentences became fragmented. I became sick. The night before, my mini “journey” had been initiated by a purge, so I began bracing myself for blast off. I closed my eyes, felt my clammy skin, and was suddenly transported into another dimension, one that existed entirely within my own mind. I could feel how all my sensory neurons and cells were interconnected in an energetic web. I was able to make connections between all the pieces of knowledge I had acquired and identify exactly which beliefs were no longer serving me. These were beliefs like “I’m not good enough.”, “I’m unworthy of love.”, “I can’t follow through with things.”, and “I don’t deserve to succeed.”

I pulled out every thought and belief that was holding me back, many of which had once protected me, but were now doing more harm than good. Once I had collected them all, I knew I had to let them go. I had to purge. I began puking my brains out into a bucket while feeling supreme self-compassion and watching the most brilliant light show of colors behind my own eyelids. I felt the old beliefs physically leaving my body as I retched.

Feeling euphoric while throwing up is unique in of itself, but this moment had a deeper meaning for me because I struggled with bulimia nervosa in high school. The act of throwing up was so powerfully associated with my own self-hatred that I avoided it at all costs in my adult life, even when I was sick and knew it was the best thing for my body. So the positive experience alone was therapeutic. I was breaking old patterns of thought, and rewiring neural networks.

Though every individual person’s experience with Ayahuasca differs significantly, the guides had told us before the ceremonies that a common theme of the journey is purging. Puking, coughing, crying, screaming, dancing, yawning, laughing and singing are just a few other ways people might purge (and yes there is the possibility of purging out your back end if you're wondering, but that’s rarer than many stories make it seem.)

Having just had an incredible awakening, I thought to myself “WOW. That was it, I received exactly what I asked for and lessened my attachment to my limiting beliefs.” The whole experience lasted almost an hour, so I thought I was done. Little did I know that my journey had barely begun.

To save time I will skip ahead to the most notable events of the night in chronological order. Upon recovering from my purge and sitting back up on my futon, I realized that I was definitely not sober.

I lay for a while trying to process what had just occurred through a lens of judgment and categorization that my brain was currently incapable of. Eventually, I gave up and began rolling around on the floor, enjoying the sensory experience and giggling to myself. Then suddenly it hit me that there was something I NEEDED to do, it wasn’t a question. In order to move forward after releasing my fearful beliefs, I knew I needed to anchor new loving beliefs in their place. The answer felt obvious. I had never been so sure of anything in my life. I needed to dance!

The same native chanting that had been playing on a radio in the background all night suddenly came alive in a new way. Her voice was old and wise, and it imbued my limbs with an energy I could not resist. In the moment, I assumed the energy was that of my ancestors. I felt the presence of other, wise entities guiding me, whom I knew had suffered. Even my mother and estranged biological father, both of whom were still alive, were with me, supporting me as I did healing work that felt like it was bigger than me. 

Anyone who has seen my dancing knows that it is often more of a mixture between interpretive dance, yoga and acrobatics then simple swaying and so I began moving quite ecstatically around the room. I kept my eyes shut tight on the off chance that opening them might break the magical spell I was under. As I danced I repeated the new agreements I was making with myself, phrases like “I am loved.”, “I am powerful.”, “I am passionate and dedicated.”, and “I am the universe.”

By dancing and moving my body I felt that I was integrating this new awareness into my psyche. Rather than intellectually knowing that loving myself was the answer (a conclusion I had already come to in my first run-in with DMT) I physically FELT the sensations of unconditional self-love in my body and wholeheartedly believed them to be true. 

Ironically, my ego smugly believing that it already knew what Ayahuasca's teaching was had limited me. If I knew the answer was self-love but didn't feel worthy of love, then I hadn't fully learned the lesson yet had I?

I was by far the most animated of our group and quickly acquired the attention of everyone in the room. Normally that would spark my fear of being seen, judged, and perceived as disruptive to others, but at that moment there was no fear to be found. Some of my friends, who were having their own experiences began cheering me on enthusiastically. Their words, spoken in their own alternate realities for their own healing became an integral part of mine. I vividly remember hearing the phrase "They're not ready!" which became to me, an assertion that the world was not ready for this newer higher version of myself that was emerging. My dance was like breaking free from an energetic cocoon and coming home to my own power, and I felt celebrated by the whole universe as I arrived.

I ended up dancing for a very long time, having stripped down to my undergarments in the process, flinging clothes around the room. I am told the guides watched over me with justified mild concern as I whirled around doing handstands and cartwheels and spinning on one foot, all with my eyes closed. They only restrain people if they are a threat to themselves or others and make a very conscious effort to allow each participant to have their own unique journey by staying as uninvolved as possible. But I never missed a beat.

Eventually, I grew exhausted and collapsed into a human puddle in the middle of the room. Surely my journey was over now. I had been given a whole new outlook on life and figurative wings with which to fly. What more could I possibly receive?

But Grandmother had one last gift to give.

After some recovery time from my dramatic physical purge, singing songs to myself and rolling around some more I settled into a curled-up child's pose position. I let out a big sigh and enjoyed the sensation of making sound as I exhaled. 

I often experience synesthesia sober and the effect is intensified when I take psychedelics. This means that when one sense is stimulated, hearing for example, another unrelated sense is activated at the same time such as sight or touch. As an auditory-tactile synesthete, I'm often able to see and feel sounds as well as hear them.

With my eyes closed, the sounds coming from my throat reverberated in my mind's eye as beautiful patterns perfectly synchronized with tone, volume, and pitch. And at the same time, I felt the sounds physically vibrating throughout my body. It felt so incredible that I continued to make increasingly dramatic sounds and before I knew it I was screaming at the top of my lungs and I couldn't stop. 

This was the most out of control of my own body that I have ever felt to this day. And yet, I still wasn't afraid. I surrendered completely to the experience. I emitted the most high-pitched sound I’ve ever heard from a human being, over and over again. The following day my guides and peers would say that the noises coming from me didn't sound human. 

It sounded like a blood-curdling alien screech, but it felt amazing, like an auditory orgasm. But it was more than just a physical experience. It was deeply emotional. As I screamed, I realized that I was making up for all the times in my life where I had kept quiet or made myself small to appease others. I was screaming for every moment where I had wanted to scream, where I had wanted to speak up or to be heard, but didn't do so out of a fear that people would reject or abandon me.

Memories flashed through my mind of the times when I had shut down in childhood and stared at the wall while being yelled at by an intoxicated parent, when I held my sadness or my rage inside, when I didn't speak my real opinions when I made myself as insignificant and non-threatening as possible to avoid sparking envy or jealousy in other people. This moment was about healing from all those moments, validating my emotions and my own voice, enforcing my boundaries, and no longer censoring myself for others. I wailed until I had nothing left, and then melted into the floor, fully spent. 

Each morning after ceremony, our group circled up to debrief our experiences. We also received reflections and counseling of sorts from the incredibly wise chief minister of the church. The significance of this circle can not be understated. It allowed us to process in safe space and enhanced our understanding of our experiences— another reason to seek out an experienced guide when you feel the call to work with Ayahuasca.

Our beloved chief minister left us with many wise words, some of which I wrote in my journal. “Ayahuasca medicine reflects your own mind back to you and shows you how powerful you are. It's not the medicine, it's your mind.”

This plant-medicine uses the power of what you already know, it uses your body’s own intelligence to help you heal. All the work I'd done leading up to my ceremony was what guided the incredible experience that I walked away with. 

Every journey is different. Some people have life-changing experiences while laying down with their eyes closed the entire time. What’s important is the narrative shift. Whether I literally rearranged the connections of my neurons or felt the energy of my ancestors is irrelevant. All that matters for the brain to change, is that you believe the new story, that it serves your highest good, and makes sense to YOU.

As a result of my journey, I acquired a brand new self-narrative and a belief in myself that has allowed me to keep moving forward with the utmost faith, in the scariest and most transient time of my life, while starting my own business, moving into a new house, and ending a relationship, all in the midst of a global pandemic. Gratitude is an understatement. 

If you’ve made to the end of this story, feel called to investigate further, and want more information about the center that I visited, please feel free to reach out to me directly. I am not sharing the name publicly here intentionally.