The Night Ayahuasca Healed My Chronic Dissatisfaction

The maloka at Gaia Sagrada

Do you guys all remember the first time that you were too deep into a psychedelic trance to be able to discern if you were in the bathroom or your bed?

I do.

It happened on my first ayahuasca retreat.

A cup or two into the night, I found myself wildly perplexed.

“Where am I?” I wondered.

“Am I in the bathroom?”

“Or am I curled up in my blanket in the maloka?” (The maloka is the sacred space where you participate in a plant medicine ceremony.)

And the reason that this was perplexing was because, well…

Different activities happen in the bathroom and in the maloka.

And it felt like it would be rather embarrassing to complete bathroom activities in my blanket, surrounded by forty other humans.

But the real reason I was having the conundrum was because of a lifelong pattern.

Back in 2018, when I went on my first ayahuasca retreat, I hadn’t yet resolved my chronic dissatisfaction.

My restlessness.

My desire to be somewhere other than where I was. Anywhere other than where I was.

And that theme was playing out STRONG in this ceremony.

When I was wrapped up in my blanket, I’d become convinced that I needed to use the bathroom and begin the long trek up the hill.

But then once I got to the bathroom, I’d yearn for my warm blanket and the magical environment of the maloka.

Back and forth I went.

Blanket to bathroom. Bathroom to blanket.

Convinced I needed to be somewhere else when I was wrapped up in my blanket.

Convinced I needed to be somewhere else when I was perched on the toilet.

So I surrendered.

I figured out how to open my eyes enough to get clear that I was in the bathroom, then decided that I would stay in my blanket for the rest of the night.

If I wet my blanket, I wet my blanket.

Ain’t nobody who’s on an ayahuasca retreat who’s going to care about that. My very first night, my neighbor vomited on me four minutes into the ceremony. 

And I stayed there. I chose the blanket as where I wanted to be. And I settled in. With gratitude. With determination. With a deep, deep, deeeeeeeeeep inner knowing that my blanket in the maloka, surrounded by other humans and listening to the shaman’s songs, was the right place for me to be.

And do you want to know what happened?

My chronic dissatisfaction…

That inner restlessness…

That discontentment with my human experience…

It evaporated that night.

In a ceremonial setting, while working with oh-so-powerful plant medicines, with my neural pathways wide open and ready to be reprogrammed…

I sorted out that pesky tendency that had negatively colored my life.

And it’s never returned.

Ayahuasca.

Powerful stuff.

So long as you integrate. “If someone is doing psychedelics and not integrating, then they are really just doing drugs. It’s not medicine work without integration.” - Anne Other

Love,

Your friend who used to hate being a human on Earth and now delights in it

Morning Musings is a delight-first writing practice where I wake up, put my fingers on the keyboard and “learn in public” (credit: Liz Gilbert). The delightful humans who read these musings tend to see them as an invitation to slow down, have a virtual cup of coffee together, and contemplate the human experience. If you’d like to join our tribe, subscribe here.