Often, too often nowadays, people expect ayahuasca to be some sort of magical potion, instantly reformatting them into a completely healed state. When this doesn’t happen, they feel resentful, even betrayed: “I did the work, I showed up—why did it do this to me?” This can easily segue into the very common plaint of individuals…
Emotions
Join me for this special 11-day ayahuasca retreat in the Sacred Valley of Peru – July 10-21, 2023 Since 2014 I’ve been doing my own personal healing work with ayahuasca, including many master plant dietas in the mestizo and Shipibo traditions. With a skilled team, I’m now offering this unique retreat for intrepid souls seeking…
Ayahuasca visions, despite their glamorous reputation, are not all light and love—they can be shockingly dark and downright disgusting. Sometimes people feel shame about what they experienced in ceremony, or in the surprisingly intense times that can arise afterwards. Working as an integration therapist, here’s what I find myself saying, over and over again: “What…
Of all the countless complex and subtle human feelings, it’s hard to find a more disturbing emotion than anger. In my work as a therapist, I witness ambivalence about anger on a daily basis. “I feel angry with my spouse … my child … my friend …. my boss,” people say. “And I read these…
Yesterday I spoke with a friend who had recently suffered a miscarriage. Jill and her husband were ecstatically happy with this first pregnancy, and it seemed brutally unfair when the baby’s heartbeat vanished, a few weeks before Easter. Since then, she said, it’s been a long, wild ride through grief and its entourage of feelings:…
