Negative self-talk, ayahuasca, and medieval torture tools
Every time you think, say or do something that diminishes yourself you are literally attacking both your physical and energy bodies. It’s like taking a the point of a thick iron nail against your body and repeatedly striking it with a hammer until it penetrates every level and layer of your body. As your body tries to heal it becomes lodged further and deeper as it is covered by scar tissue and more nails over time. Once we understand this, we can remove the nails, heal the wounds, and replace the negative currents that do not serve us with positive currents that do.
You may think I am being a little dramatic. I honestly wish I was. But unfortunately, I am not. How do I know this? This was one of the lessons I learned over the course of 4 nights of an ayahuasca journey. This week of plant medicine was the hardest experience I’ve ever done in my life. It was brutal. Exhausting. Terrifying. And painful.
In my journey I learned my worst assailant wasn’t any of the childhood bullies. It wasn’t any of the men that forced themselves on me on dates. It wasn’t even the cultural norms that judged or suppressed women throughout history. My worst assailant was me.
Every time I looked at the mirror with disgust, doubted myself, or tried to make myself small it was as if I was taking an energetic spike and hammering them into my energetic body.
There was a spike for every time I…
Told myself I was ugly, fat, and unlovable;
Craved external validation;
Insisted I didn’t belong in the world, with my family, or with my friends;
Told the lie “I am not enough”;
Used self-deprecating thoughts and humor in interactions;
Exhibited self-disgust, self-hate, and self-loathing;
Allowed myself to succumb to feelings of self doubt;
Denied my worthiness;
Expressed self-judgement or judged others;
Embraced the false belief that I could not be feminine in a world of masculinity.
Over the course of 4 nights I pulled out each spike, first one at a time, and then finally hundreds and thousands at a time through an ancient Hawaiian healing technique called Ho'oponopono. Finally, on the last night I felt a beautiful divine energy surge through my body for 10 solid hours. It was like salve on a body covered with open wounds.
It was in this process that I discovered we can be my own healer. I can be my best friend. I can be my protector. The transition from assailant to personal healer hasn’t been over night. I am learning that this is actually a good thing. It is teaching me to not only be patient in my healing journey but to find the gems that make life richer. Stay tuned for the next blog where I will share a gem I recently experienced that reinforced the mind-body connection.
