ayahuasca

A Conversation With “Grandmother”

/ vaillantgicqueau / 9 Comments

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I went back to “grandmother” last week. I am not talking about my grandmother who just turned 101-year-old, but the plant medicine administered by the shamans more commonly called Ayahuasca. Some centers in Costa Rica can actually administer it in a completely legal way. It always amazes me that some of the most toxic and addictive pharmaceutical drugs are administered completely legally in the US while the most healing and non addictive drugs such as Ayahuasca are banned. Though it was beneficial in so many ways, my last Ayahuasca journey 3 month ago had been painful however I knew I had to come back. When I went last time, I was stuck and quite desperate. This time however, I felt pretty good, having a sense of direction and making good progress on my life current challenges. But just like we should not wait for a health collapse to start exercising or eat healthy good, it is also wise to go to “grandmother” before we hit bottom.

This time, I did not have any particular intention besides coming closer to living my life with an open heart in a state of spontaneity. This has been a conscious goal of mine for at least 20 years. I feel I have made so much progress towards that goal however the destination still seems so far. I felt both anxious and in a state of acceptance before meeting “grandmother”. As we grow wiser, the fear does not disappear. Instead, we learn to speak with it so that it does not freeze us into inaction. There were just 3 of us for this ceremony, one community member and a Yoga teacher from Drake Bay, Costa Rica. We were brought to a new beautiful location with a river and abundant fruit trees. We had a couple of hours to chill out before darkness. After exploring the property, I used this opportunity to take a nap. This is when I realized I was under more pressure that I was willing to accept. After I woke up, I chatted with the shaman who shared with me his own journey in finding God. He does not see himself anymore as a separate individuality who has to control his life to make things happen. He sees himself as one of the arms of the divine, and in this new perspective and identity, synchronicity is abundant as a more universal and larger “he” is working towards the fulfillment of his mission. As we were talking after dark, I noticed the beautiful fireflies or lightning bugs that were flying around us. The shaman asked if I wanted to see one closer. He made a few steps, took one in his hands and showed it to me. The firefly was completely at peace and seemed to enjoy for me to look at it so closely. There was instinctive trust between it and the shaman, and with me vicariously. After about 2 minutes after I had all the time to contemplate the two light dots on its dots, it went back to its business flying away into the dark.

It was now time. The shaman called me to take in the magical drink. The taste is quite awful. Despite this, I declined his offer of getting honey to sweeten the bitter potion. It never takes me very much to start on my shamanic journey. The fact that I always choose to fast for at least 2 days before the medicine could be a factor. Within 5 minutes, my heartbeat had accelerated and my body felt the need to dance, sing and move. The shaman gave me a maracas to beat with the music. It felt good to be able to express the energy this way, as I know that when the energy gets stuck, confusion and purging are next. I felt the need to be active with my body for about 30 minutes until “grandmother” called me back to my inner world as I was entering the psychedelic part of the journey.

This was only my third time doing Ayahuasca. I had done it for the first time 5 years ago. During this first journey, I was first called to a high definition, high-tech fractal space. The sharp and very colorful beings that appeared were frightening as I felt I could not trust them. They initially appears as predators to me. It was so scary that I became afraid of death and leaving my body. During my second journey, I saw them again. I was not as afraid however still chose to ignore them. In this last journey, we were able to establish a more trusting connection as I started to accept that they might be benevolent beings from a higher dimension. They felt like doctors from the future. They took me in what seemed like a spaceship for treatment and were quite busy. Their physical appearance seemed like high technology, very colorful, robotic flamingos. As I warmed up to them, I even entertained the fact that I could be one of them on a visit to Earth. They recommended to me to keep coming every 3 month for a check-up as it is critical that I keep working on my heart connection, as I will inevitably gather heart blocks and hindrances during the normal course of my life at this stage of my evolution on Earth. My heart is the receptor that makes it possible to listen to the truth from higher dimensions, and live in harmony with the laws of this universe. During this journey, I identify this truth as Christ Consciousness. They went on explaining to me that the Lord left his Kingdom to our care, and only by staying connected to our heart, can we administer his territory (Earth) according his Loving and Conscious Will.

I was then brought in the current state of the world. I was sent in the immense heartless gearing of a production factory. It felt like animal farming but for humans. It was all about production, power, control, profit with no consideration for human feelings and happiness. Facing the actual reality of the matrix and new world order was incredibly brutal for my conscience under Ayahuasca. As Teal’s husband, I became interested to better understand SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) and the abominable treatments she went through in her childhood in order to become a more supportive husband. Before I knew her, I was aware of conspiracy theories like most of us but I felt powerless to do anything about it. The information on the Internet seemed sensational, contradictory in nature and not very scientific. I felt I could not verify the veracity of one perspective against the other, so I let go and just went after my own business dealing with things I was actually in control of, which was my work, my relationship and diverse activities that increased my quality of life. A turn around of my thinking happened when I read Breaking the Chain from Svali, a former Illuminati trainer. It was so similar in many ways to what I heard from Teal direct cult experience that I knew she was telling the truth. Two other books from former president models Cathy O’Brien and Brice Taylor Trance:Formation of America and Thanks for the memories confirmed to me the corruption and moral depravity of our world leaders, and that the situation is much worse that I had initially envisioned. Most of what we are taught or hold for true are sadly just lies and manipulation. History is teaching us that we defeated the Nazis. They have actually won as their most lethal weapon Mind Control has infiltrated all parts of society that has money and power: politics, large corporations, media networks, music & sports industry all over the world. Actually, the top German experts in mind control such as Josef Mengele were placed in top US universities in complete secrecy to continue their research. The new world order is already in place as the elite realized it was much easier to control the masses when they are ignorant to what is exactly going on. The creation of superhuman slaves through trauma based mind control and dissociation is the covert tool for the elite to lead society in any way they chose to. Presidential elections are decided in advance or when they are not, they make sure to control both candidates that are presented to the people. This was the case in the USA with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and it was again the case in France with Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron. National elections are nothing but a puppet show designed to distract the masses to what is really going on. The actual world leaders are not the ones that are fed to us by the media. These leaders are just corrupt puppets that have already sold their soul to the devil through criminal activities, sex deviance and various addictions. The world as we know it is actually governed by black lodges that act in complete secrecy to feed demonic or low astral entities that have cut themselves from the Source. As a result, their only way to sustain themselves is through manipulation and stealing energy from beings who are still connected with their heart with the divinity, basically people like us. “Grandmother” showed me more clearly the covert ways of how we all get corrupted. I am going to give you some examples. Being vegan is quite inconvenient in our society, so we develop the taste and the craving for unethical food that require the systematic murder of our animal friends. These foods are heavily advertised through the mainstream media. By buying and eating this food, we become the partner in crime of the elite so now we have to defend them to cover our own shame. Let’s look at another form of insidious corruption. We work hard to develop skills and abilities to get us ahead and create a better world together. During our progression, we reach a spot where we get closer to a leader that we used to admire. As we get to know him personally, we realize then his level of moral depravity and we feel disillusioned and helpless. We exchange then our sincere desire to do good for the world and our longing for a merciful God for the vanity of belonging with the “big boys”. There is then no turning back as our thirst for power and security make us then commit some actions that if revealed would make us lose everything. As we get corrupted, we become easily controlled and manipulated. This is one of the reasons why the leading politicians are such sex addicts. They had to corrupt themselves to such an extent to get to the top that sexual deviance is used to sedate them as their conscience that is tormenting them. At least this is true for the ones that are not completely disconnected and dead inside. Many facets of society are conducive to traumas that promote disconnection and selfishness so that, we, the masses are more easily manipulated. There is only one escape from this somber reality. It is the connection to our own heart. Purity, personal integrity and self-discipline, the antithesis of corruption, is what keeps this heart link alive. At that phase on my shamanic journey, I see the voice of the Lord (Christ Consciousness) on the other end of my heart. This is the inner guidance and connection we desperately need not to give in the manipulation and venality of our leadership. In their gloomy reality, everything is transactional. People’s value is judged according a hierarchy, as they hold no value in themselves. It is a predatory environment based on exploiting rather than taking care. It is a world full of backstabbing, lies, manipulation, betrayal, selfishness and apathy. To realize the split in oneself between the two realities of our heart and disconnected mind is the first step towards healing, and loosening the grip with our own demons. How we spend our time, what we buy, who we connect with will strengthen or weaken the parts of this polarity. Become a vegetarian, avoid watching TV and mainstream media, develop authentic heart-based relationships, maintain a healthy balance in your life between work, family & friends, be kind with all living beings, buy an electric car with solar panels on your roof, honor the word you gave, be congruent with your value system in all of your relationships, and build a trusting connection with the divinity. These are some practical steps we can take to do our part in this confusing world to slowly develop an internal frame of reference when faced with the brutality of the truth regarding the world elite.

During that night with “grandmother”, I was brought many times to my wife. I felt so much love towards her that the words are lacking to express this ecstatic feeling. As a species, I saw how our need to attach is so critically important. Our society and even the spiritual field is so much about developing independence however it is unnatural. This is why understanding attachment theory is such an important key in one’s personal healing and in explaining most personality disorders. Attaching to someone we love is so critical and healthy to our personal development. This is another reason why I am excited to facilitate our next singles retreat in July, and catalyze people in finding new love. Relationships are hard but there is nothing else in life that can bring the same level of contentment and fulfillment. I could see at a deeper level my absolute terror for aloneness, and accept it as something healthy. We have been shamed for wanting intimate connection as it makes us look needy, weak and dependent while this is our birthright. It is also natural to be frightened to attach as it is so painful to lose the connection once the relationship breaks. This is why I want to educate people to recognize a match when they find one and then to empower them with tools to help grow the relationship and avoid rupture. There is something truly sacred when two people commit to each other. Only a life with love is worth living. I was shown how when a woman marries a man, she gives herself to him and to that extent, he becomes her owner. However, this is ownership in the sense of nurturing and taking care in the same way Teal & I feel responsible for the land we own at Philia with all the trees, plants, animals and bugs. We will not kill even a snake or a scorpion on our property. We are not speaking here of ownership the way that the corrupt elite think of, as their understanding of ownership is nothing but exploitation. The millions of mind controlled slaves today in the world can attest to this fact.

During this new experience with Ayahuasca, I developed a new relationship with purging. Purging is used by Ayahuasca as a purification mechanism. Let’s agree to call demon, a repressed and unhealthy attachment, belief, negative emotion or fear that is here to repress a sense of lack we have within ourselves. As we experience resistance to let go of our inner demons, Ayahuasca would sometimes attach them to our own fluid to purge both at the same time. This process is painful but salutary. 3 months ago, I did so much purging that I was really not looking forward to it again. Fortunately, this time, purging was only required on two occasions. The first one was related to the culpability around my children. Interestingly enough, I thought I was exempt of culpability as I hold consciously the belief that I always do my best so if it could have been better, it would have been. Actually, Ayahuasca made me realize that I was deeply repressing the culpability of losing my children. It was difficult to accept so “grandmother” had to get me to expel it physically. It felt such a relief once this energy was out of me. The second one was related to an action that I had taken that I knew was not in the interest of a loved one while it made financially sense. The mind had fortunately won and I was full of remorse. I had to suffer the potential consequence of damaging a very important connection for a monetary gain and realized deeply that it was not worth it. I made the decision to come clean to the person, take full responsibility for my decision and openly communicate about the shadow that had taken a hold of me. I ended up doing this a couple of days later and the person, while dissatisfied, did not hold a grudge as he felt I was sincere with my regrets. “Grandmother” challenged me throughout the night with some of my beliefs and actions. She would tell me “we can do this the easy way or the hard way”. This time, she only had to do it twice the hard way, which is something I am very thankful for. I developed a new understand regarding our relationships with demons. Demons are not able to have a hold on us unless we repress feelings or emotions. Denial is a necessary condition for demons. I got to understand better why Teal is so open with her emotions when sometimes it does not show her in the best light. By being authentic on how she truly feels, even if it can be frown upon as a spiritual teacher, she makes herself less vulnerable to these demonic entities. I am also trying to be more open about my own struggles so that many will follow, and together we can be more authentic and accelerate our path of healing and learning. The most deviant men today are often the ones that are looked with the highest regards: our presidents, heads of religious institutions or non-profit organizations, artists or sports idols. The books I mentioned above will make you realize this fact. They appear saintly for the media but participate in the worst perversions behind closed doors. Many people have become experts in projecting an appearance they give that have nothing to do with reality. As we come closer to seeing reality, the level of manipulation is such that we can feel lost in believing in anything or anyone anymore. In fact, when an action is made and tries to solicit positive attention, it is already suspicious. Productive narcissism as defined by Ross Rosenberg in the Human Magnet Syndrome is still narcissism. It is enough for our intentions, thoughts and deeds to be known by the divinity. Ultimately, as we need to cross over death, this is the only authority we will have to respond anyway.

I am currently counseling a business executive in developing a truly connecting and intimate relationship with his new partner. Despite his best intention, he is unable to feel into her, see her and understand her, which activate many insecurities in her and lead to conflict. He sees her as emotionally unstable and acting out for no valid reason. He thought I would help him to fix her so he became surprised when I confronted him that most of the work would have to get him to reconnect to his heart. When I talked to him, I felt true compassion, as I understand the struggle and suffering to go through to bring back to life our inner child. Unfortunately, in the business world, we are often rewarded to develop a sociopathic behavior. 10 years ago, I remember telling a new older executive I hired for my company that I was proud that I had never fired anyone in my company. He made fun of me and told me that he is going to get me tougher. Two years later, I had to go through a downturn and had to fire almost half of the company. He congratulated me for my “progress” and expediency. As a business executive, we need to make many decisions that impact people life and families. With the goal to succeed in a highly competitive environment, we do not give ourselves the time to feel and evaluate the consequence of our decisions on our employees’ emotional life. As a consequence, we learn to feel less & less. After 20 or 30 years in a position with responsibility, we have develop the capacity to disconnect so much that we have become incapable to develop a truly intimate and connecting relationship. We start treating our significant other like an employee as we start optimizing the home life in the same way as our office life. The irony is that most of our professional success is driven by the desire to be loved, admired and respected by our loved ones. It often leads us to a place where we are wealthier but actually alone. I am spending now a lot of my time undoing what I thought was useful to my career. I want to tell the younger generation that it was not worth it. Money & power is never worth selling your soul to the devil and disconnecting with your inner child. Do not compromise your personal integrity for short-term financial gains. It is however easier said than done and the temptations are plenty.

“Grandmother” brought to me a new understanding about people suffering with borderline personality disorder (BPD). This disorder comes often hand in hand with people who went through very severe abuse or have complex PTSD. These people do not have the means to cope with life. Borderline individuals are the psychological equivalent of third-degree burn patient. They simply have, so to speak, no emotional skin. For this reason, the slightest touch or movement can create immense suffering for the borderline. Yet, on the other hand, life is movement so they find themselves in permanent pain and crisis. I was shown that if everyone would lose their capacity to cope just like the borderline, then the world would rapidly become a better place. By coping, the rest of us are actually enabling and feeding the dysfunctionality of this world. Every day, we keep accepting the unacceptable: killing our animal friends for food when it is absolutely unnecessary, keeping our corrupt leaders unaccountable for their crimes, exploiting and polluting our earth for profit, ignoring the abuse of minorities as long as we are not part of it. What would happen if we were to become physically incapable to participate to all of this wrongdoing? A similar analogy can be made of autistic children who from a spiritual perspective are refusing to engage in our 3D reality as a wake-up call.

During the night, “grandmother” kept revisiting with me all these various topics, going deeper every time. At dawn however I shed my first tears as I felt fully the pain of separation with my two children, my little ones that will always be my babies. They are the flesh of my flesh (“la chair de ma chair” in French). It is so hard to feel alienated by them as I have not had contact for about a year. I am then shown the suffering of cows that are separated from their calves at birth for the dairy industry. The cows are then made to produce milk in an industrial way as they are in distress wondering what happened to their babies. The male baby calves are actually brought to a horrible death by the meat industry. The agony of the mother crying for her babies goes in the milk and the cheese that you eat everyday. As I relate to this suffering, I decide to let go of dairy products. It is not an easy for a French man as we are so attached to our cheese. I decide to use the natural cultural temptation of my body preferences and associate it with the future reconnection with my children. Every time I say no to dairy products, I connect with the suffering of these poor cows longing for their babies, which I connect with my own loss. This loss though uncomfortable is a way I can connect today with my children and send them my love on the inner planes. It does not matter how much it hurts, I make the commitment that I would rather be connected and be in pain rather than disconnected. I do not want to contribute more to the world misery. I still hold so much grief for losing my children. I realize however that I will be their caretaker for the rest of my life whether they accept it or not in this dimension. They live in me just as I live in them whether they are denying this reality presently. This is why it feels so ridiculous that they are currently made to believe they have no father or being assigned substitute fathers. Fortunately or unfortunately, the connection between biological parents and children can never be erased. I experience then compassion for my own parents and while I have diverging views with them, I promise to give an honest shot at loving them. I do not have to make what they have done OK to love them. I can love them even though I disapprove of many of their actions. The fact is they need peace and appreciation like anyone of us. If our children keep evolving and raise their standards for parenting, they will probably find that many of our behaviors were abusive. It is not always easy to love our parents especially if one of our parents keeps hurting us. However by being at war with them, we only are getting at war with ourselves. It is a difficult balance to achieve and only within the deepest places of our heart, can we know if it is best for us to maintain distance or develop a closer connection with them at a given time. Suddenly, I start breaking down as I relive the double abandonment from my mother and father when I was 11 year old. I am disappointed as I thought I had already worked through this trauma 5 years ago. Obviously, there was still much more to release as I now sob uncontrollably. “Grandmother” then shows me that my subconscious mind used my own children to re-experience the pain of this double abandonment. My daughter was the first one to disconnect with me. This feels like my mother who left me behind to live a new life as she is in too much pain. Then 6 months later, my son decides to stop all communication with me. This is a remembrance of my father who gives up on me, as he feels overwhelmed by the pressure he is under. I am called to apologize on this blog to my own children that I used them subconsciously to heal traumas from my own childhood. I want to tell them that the horrible experiences they had to go through are not their fault. This is not their pain. It is their mum and dad’s pains that were replayed subconsciously. It is unfair and cruel to them. This is why it is so important we do everything we can to heal emotionally before we have children. I have failed in this instance as I could not prevent the ordeal and tragedy my children had to go through. After I was able to fully relive this trauma, I hope they will feel more invited to reconnect with me as they could see I come more from a place to add to their lives instead of repeating the hurt from my past. In the meantime, I want them to know that they have teaching me unconditional love like no one before as I patiently wait for our reconnection. Papa thinks of you everyday and has never abandoned you.

And you “Grandmother”, I thank you for revealing to me so many insights that help me to become a better and more connected man. Your wisdom is grounded in simplicity, truth and heart connection. Thank you for guiding my steps. I will finish this blog with some humor from our friend JP Sears’ video “If Trump drank Ayahuasca”

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Inducing altered states of consciousness to speed up evolution

/ vaillantgicqueau / 20 Comments

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I never took drugs or spiritual medicine outside of a safe shamanic container. A good friend and roommate of mine first introduced me to medicine work when I was 26. At the time, I took LSD and it completely shattered my reality. It short cut my mind and gave me an insight into the truth of spiritual reality, love, consciousness, my own life and my ultimate purpose. What I especially loved about it is that it gave me a direct access to reality, what people call God or Source and the truth of who I am. Because of this experience, I developed a lot of respect for medicinal plants and would commonly recommend to seekers who feel stuck or who have minds that get on the way on their heart. Because many of these substances are illegal in the US, I found in my early thirties a completely safe and legal way to bring altered states of consciousness using holotropic breathwork. As a psychotherapist, Grof was involved in earlier tests on the therapeutic potential of LSD. When psychedelics were peremptorily banned in the 1960s, Grof developed holotropic breathing as a means of simulating the psychedelic experience of LSD without the drug itself. I found an excellent facilitator where I lived in San Francisco at the time: Todd Zimmerman. Todd taught one of our best workshop to date at Philia from March 11th to 18th 2017. While breathwork does not provide the psychedelic elements that you may found with substances, it does bring altered states of consciousness, visions into the subconscious, deep emotional release and inner journeying. Another benefit is that one is able to bring much more memory from the journey as this is a body centered experience.

After I started dating Teal, I decided not to do medicine work. First, she was not that comfortable with shamanic medicine because it is bringing very high intensity emotions and could prevent people from feeling fully day-to-day reality that now become dependent of substances to get a high. The cult that abused her used breathwork as a way to program her as well so she was not open to try it at the time. However, after she had a private breathwork session with Todd at Philia, she changed her mind completely on this practice and stated this was the single best healing modality I had introduced to her. From my perspective, the states of consciousness brought by these shamanic processes are just guides to show your potential and bring you back into alignment with your higher purpose. They give you a window into the actual emotional truth of where you stand in order for you to take adjustments or changes to live your life at a higher level. They are a sacred tool that should not be used for recreational purpose. And many who have not treated them with respect have been burned. I was comfortable stopping medicine work at the time too because I felt that Teal was acting as my medicine as she continued to shake my reality, not letting me believe my own lies and challenge my perception while our love story provided so much movement that any increased stimulation felt unnecessary.

After we decided the move to Costa Rica, I become very busy with all the logistics and ensuring that Philia would be a success from the get go. As a problem solver, I threw myself in this endeavor fully while I started to pay less attention to my relationship with Teal. Teal started to feel more and more uneasy. She started to express a lot of discontent that I could not understand. From my perspective, we were living on a magical property in beautiful Costa Rica, with our family and friends, starting a retreat center to heal people, a common dream we shared. Our relationship continued to deteriorate to a point that Teal & I started to feel hopeless. After almost two years, I felt I needed to go on a shamanic journey to get out of the dead end I found myself. We had received an application through Philia of a local Ayahuasca shaman so I invited him and his wife to meet with Teal & I. Teal instantly connected with him and felt guided to take this journey too but the shaman recommended that we do it on different days as some of our struggles related to our relationship. She had decided to go one day before. When she came back, she had difficulty walking, crashed with the intensity of everything she saw but relieved in many ways. We only had one hour together before I had to leave to my own journey. I remember her eyes full of love as she saw through her third eye what Ayahuasca would teach me by crashing me too. However, she was not allowed to share anything yet about her own experience and what would unfold for me.

Four other friends decided to join me for this Ayahuasca journey. For three of them, it was the first time taking it. It was only my second time. I had taken it previously 6 years ago with a Hispanic group and it had been a hard but very important learning experience. While I was the last one to take a cup of the sacred mixture early evening, I was the first to feel the effect of the sacred mixture and started to vomit only after a couple of minutes while it was only the first round even though I had fasted the last two days. The rest of the group took three turns and a friend even had four rounds and hardly felt anything. There is a saying that Ayahuasca always gives you what you need. Every person experience of Ayahuasca is unique. I started to purge heavily and hallucinate. My head was buzzing in an uncomfortable way. The surrounding shamanic music and the Costa Rica constant background of secators were being amplified to a state of discomfort. I was able not to go into panic, simply allowing the various fears to run their course while enduring the physical, emotional and mental pain of the experience. Teal had recommended me not to resist the place where Ayahuasca wanted to bring me. It took me two hours of torment & confusion to finally get to that place while the Shaman and his friend were attentive to all my needs while I was expressing distress as continued to purged. But when Ayahuasca came to finally take me, it hit me hard. An immense grief took possession of every cell of my body and I started sobbing uncontrollably. I saw my children. At that time, I had not seen them for a year (and it was at the court) and I have not talked to them for nine months as they refused to have any connection with me. Losing one’s children is probably one of most brutal experience one could ever experience. All this time, I had blocked the grief and the pain of this loss. I stayed in this grief space for about 14 hours simply feeling and sobbing. It was emotional painful however the release felt good too. I had told Teal & Mark (Teal’s ex husband) a week before that collapsing emotionally served no purpose. I realized that I was completely wrong as the crashing I was experiencing was healing me. I had so much grief accumulated in my body that I had become fully toxic to my extra sensory wife and I was more often than not choosing to dismiss her instead of acknowledging her distress or worse deflect my pain back to her. During the journey, I realized that at the same time I was grieving my children, my inner child was also grieving the fact that he did not have parents that were emotionally present to him. I was also grieving the fact that my personality had abandoned my inner child at a very early age that I had to be strong and to deal with childhood trauma on my own as I became a parentified child. I remembered myself not crying at all after the divorce of my parents when I was eleven, or my mother telling me that only me was capable of taking myself of the anxiety attacks I was susceptible as a young teenager. I remember learning to deal with my emotional pain alone because no one could be present with me during these times. I realized I had been abusing my inner child for over 40 years too. As is the case for development trauma, I gave myself the right to adopt new parents that could be fully present to my emotional needs. I saw clearly my coping mechanism to disconnect under pressure in order to do what I have to do. This state of disconnection had only increased Teal’s torment about our relationship. As this happened, the intentional community became more weary which increased the pressure on me and consequently on Teal which created a vicious circle. This vicious cycle was exacerbated as Teal’s outburst would make me shut down even further. I realized I needed more support from the team through a reliable management layer so that I could be the nurturing and attentive husband that my wife deserves. I saw my tendency to assume that something is wrong with her or try to fix her instead of acknowledging my responsibility in her distressed state. Regrets came through. I felt my lack of compassion towards her while holding her to very high personal behavioral standards that are not aligned to the extreme childhood traumas she endured. I also remember how Teal had shared with me so many words of wisdom or accurate explanation of what she and I were going through that I had completely dismissed. I saw clearly my resistance to her. As I suffered in the hands of a megalomaniac guru between 20 and 23 year old, I have used my logical mind as my safeguard and I have refused to take anyone on faith since. I have a need to understand to an extreme, and assume a position that other people are wrong unless they can prove me otherwise, which is a stress on relationships. I also saw my tendency to discount and dismiss other people. From four in the morning to noon, I continued to sob and experience my irrepressible grief. During that time, neither the shaman nor any of my friends came to support me. Because I was in an altered state of consciousness, I was as incapable as an infant to express the emotional need that I needed someone to hold my hand and to be present emotionally with me in this process. I had finally realized my need to feel supported and cherished by others instead of making it on my own, which I had done all my life. This time spent alone in my own torment seemed to feel like an eternity. I knew that I needed to have someone next to me and care for me to heal my development trauma to always do it on my own. Before that time, I did not really understand Teal’s words that the only way to heal from a development trauma is to meet the need that was not met in the first place. I had involuntarily inflicted a lot of pain on her through the trips to California I had to take from professional obligations last year not fully understanding her separation anxiety and not realizing that these separations were re-traumatizing to her as I thought she would simply get used to them as I felt I was doing the right and responsible thing. During these eight excruciable hours, I had to taste my own medicine and I had to deal with grief and isolation combined, and undergo the same ordeal that I had prescribed Teal a year ago. I stayed there for hours that seemed like months waiting to be liberated. While this was pure torture, I felt intuitively that this experience was brought to me so that I could feel her pain, which was one of the intentions I had set for this journey. All of my friends were done with their journey by early morning. They chatted, exchanged jokes and went for a nearby hike to a waterfall while I stayed suspended in limbo waiting, not knowing when I would be freed. Finally, around noon, the shaman came to me. I found the strength to make him understand that I need to feel his love and care as I finally get him to hold my hand. He gave me his unconditional presence but then start sharing with me some positive spiritual principles such as “there is only light and love”. This hurt me as I felt he did not see me or wanted to be with me in my pain. I start talking to him painfully to explain my need not to receive spiritual bypassing and I only wanted him to stay with me in my grief without trying to change or fix anything. I wanted to be loved unconditionally by him through his full presence, I wanted my deep sadness acknowledged, I wanted his empathy and compassion on how cruel the situation with my children had been. He got it. According the law of attraction, the painful reflection I am getting in my life is perfect but it is heartless and not conducive to healing when people reflect that high level abstract truth. Only a human perspective that is full of empathy, concern and compassion with all its raw emotions may bring healing. I only managed to start walking around 2 PM, about 20 hours after the start of the ceremony. The shaman brought me to walk into the river close to the property. He looked at me in the eyes and thanked me for the words I had shared with him. It really felt he brought a new understanding to support people even more deeply into their shamanic journeys. We looked at each other in the eyes and connected with profound love & respect. It is ironic that I managed to teach a Shaman a truth that I have been resisting so much to learn from Teal as my spiritual journey before her had been mostly about positive focus, spiritual bypassing and avoiding pain through filters and manipulating reality through my mind.

When I came back home, it felt good to be back and reconnecting with my beloved wife and share our mutual realizations from the journey. As I was now more aware that I have been disconnected, we decided that I should open to the community and ask for their help to provide their candid feedback if they find me insensitive so that I can be more aware of some of my coping mechanism to build a sincere desire for change. Unfortunately, it did not go as well as I expected. Eric shared his frustration that he is not yet in the place to help me because of accumulated resentment. The next morning, when we stopped by Graciela’s house, she announced that she is done with me that she is tired of getting hurt and does not want to support our relationship anymore without explaining what it meant in actual terms. Graciela’s face was marked with shock, anger and pain as she expressed her feelings. I was in disbelief not understanding how she could have built so much resentment and not even noticing it. This situation became unbearable for Teal as she was now put in the position to choose between her husband and best friend. Five members of the community spent the full day working on my difficult personality. I felt humiliated. This felt so unfair that everyone seemed to see that I was the only guilty one, but fault of another alternative I had to swallow to a full day of painful feedback, horrified by the picture held about me.

While I was hopeful that the Ayahuasca would heal Teal & I relationship, the opposite seemed to be happening. All the accumulated resentment built by the custody court case and my company transition that had translated into Teal’s worst possible nightmare were now all in the open and put considerable stress into our relationship. Over the next following days, some difficult arguments took place that made me feel more and more powerless, not really understanding the animosity towards me while I felt I did the best I could do every step of the way, always convinced I was doing the right thing.

Graciela had to withdraw for a couple of days from Teal & I to deal with the intensity of her emotions towards me. Graciela is a very conscious young woman fully committed to her personal development. Though it was clear my insensitivities and disconnection was a big part of the blow-up, she was able to acknowledge her own shadow and childhood traumas that I reflected back to her. She came to me with a pure and beautiful spirit of resolution. She had decided to come to me with an offering that will help me open my heart. Graciela is a woman working with Kambo and suggested she could help me through this modality to open my heart and let go of my protective narcissistic bubble. While my ego had resistance as I had to admit my own flaws, I know her ability and gift as a facilitator and decided to accept her present, especially that I was feeling again at a loss to create a beautiful relationship with the woman of my dreams. It would be a series a three sessions. Because of my schedule, we spread it out over a period of weeks.

The day before the first Kambo ceremony that I scheduled with Graciela, Teal was quite busy during the day and I was looking forward to reconnect with her in the evening. Unfortunately, when she came, Teal was very irritated towards me and I became the target of her anger and resentment. Our discussion went quickly downhill from there, so much that I asked her to practice silence together until we were able to express words that were conducive to resolution. Ten minutes of painful silence followed. Teal felt very resentful of two traumatic events that happened to us in 2016 when I had to make some difficult decisions that made her suffer though I stayed convinced this was the right decision. I started to explain to her the conundrum that I faced by using a simple example as the two other situations were too painful for a construction discussion. We brought a beautiful chime from Park City and Teal had hung it outside below our bedroom at Philia as it looked great there. Unfortunately, Costa Rica can have very windy nights and the chime would wake me up at night. I asked her if we could hang it somewhere else but she felt rightly so that was the best place for it. She suggested to tie it at night with a ribbon but I told it was unnecessary as I did not want to impose on her to do this every night as I felt she has way more important things to do. This example illustrated perfectly my coping strategy. I lived all my life as there is only two ways to deal with an unpleasant situation: you either cope by making the thing you do not like OK, or I change externally. Overtime, I managed to educate my willpower and endurance to such a degree that coping is typically my favorite option as I take the burden upon myself and do not need to create a conflict, however often at the expense of parts of myself. Also, to compensate for the fact that I can be more flexible on many small things, I developed a very strong core that is unmovable. Therefore, I would take sometimes a very strong stand and be extremely stubborn about it no matter what is the consequence to keep some form of identity. All of my life, I basically only gave myself two options. Either I cope by repressing my own needs and wants, or bulldoze my needs over others, which then forces me to cope to not care about the resentment of others. It never occurred to me before that there could be a third solution where I could consider a solution where both my needs and the other person needs would be addressed at the same time! It seemed obvious however it never occurred to me until that discussion with Teal. I suddenly realized how much damage this limited belief had done to my life and people close to me. That night, Teal actually put a ribbon around the chime and both of our needs were met easily. We practiced a role-play where we went back to the events where I imposed my needs over her, with this time the desire to consider both of us at the same time. To my surprise, this was actually possible but now it stopped building resentment and built trust instead as I actually showed genuine concern for her best interests. When a need conflict happens, the partners would need to express both of their needs and wants in a vulnerable way and start exploring out a solution together that could work for both. This may seem simple but I had never done this before. It was only either suppressing my needs or discounting the ones of others. It was always a lose-lose. Also, I realized that I used my spiritual practice all of my life to cope. I had become a master at filtering and altering reality, creating positive meaning to painful situations in order to feel better. This pattern runs in my family. My grandmother who is soon 101 year old is the happiest in her nursery home. She is surrounded by people who are dying, miserable and in pain most of the time and she only sees the positive. My father has no real relationship with his children, and a difficult marriage with heavy resentment but thinks his wife is too perfect. By being in denial, and making a painful and unacceptable situation OK, we actually make change impossible. Our filters will stop making reality painful, however unfortunately we then become enablers of very dysfunctional patterns and the repressed negative emotions find their reflection in the immediate environment. If a wife copes with the abuse of her husband, she accepts it and do not then try to change an ugly reality. By coping, adapting to our circumstances and to our world, we actually make things worse instead of better as we allow the dysfunction to continue. This intense realization had come just before the first Kambo ceremony just as the frog had started working on me.

I am now in front of Graciela before we start the Kambo ceremony. She asks me if I have an intention. Kambo is a hard process as the frog poison you absorb makes you vomit and purge in the most unpleasant ways. I call Kambo a mini Ayahuasca as it makes you purge in the same way but the journey lasts only one hour instead of a full night. These are medicines that are hard to get addicted to, as the purging is so unpleasant. I really did not feel at that moment to go through this experience again. I then looked at my present life and I realized the horror of my situation. The 3 people I love the most in this world resent me also the most also: my wife Teal and my 2 children from my previous marriage. I have had a disgruntled wife telling me she is not happy. I had the same situation in my previous marriage. I can feel the love nevertheless of Teal and my two children. I realize in this moment that I could not have dreamt of a more perfect wife. Even in my wildest dreams, I could not have wished for someone like Teal who is so spiritual, smart, beautiful, creative with a grand purpose. My children are also great kids: smart, gifted in so many ways with a big heart. At that moment, I decide to dedicate my Kambo session with Graciela to Love. I am doing this to bring back the flow of Love in my life for these 3 people. In this space, I can finally let go of my fear, take a leap of faith, as I have known for a long time that a life without Love is not worth living. Graciela now asks me to drink 1.5 liters of water. This is not easy and I feel bloated by the water. She then proceeds to burn my skin with a small wooden skin on my heart shakra where she decided to apply the Kambo. While unpleasant, this pain is nothing in comparison to the emotional pain I have just contemplated. She now spread the frog poison on my burns. After less than a minute, my heart starts beating intensely. I see the fear in some of my thoughts that my heart would stop beating. I let go of the resistance. I start vomiting, mostly water, as I fasted in the morning. It feels awful and deeply humbling as I keep purging. Fortunately, after only a couple of minutes, I vomit a core belief from my childhood called “Personne ne n’aime” which means “no one loves me”. It is hard to explain but it feels like this French sentence was physical and I actually spit out from my body at that time. I reflect and see the truth of this statement. I do not mean to put my parents under the bus as they did what they could with what they had. My father did not have parents until he was 10 year old and my mother lost her mum when she was 3 and she does not even remember any contact with her father. Because of their own family traumas, they simply could not give me what I was longing so much for, because they never received it in the first place: love, closeness and nurturing. The belief that “no one loves me” crystallized the harsh reality of how I was feeling as a child and stayed with me for almost the next 40 years. Core beliefs are so strong that your whole reality will actually get organized around them and create misery when it is a limited belief like this one. Following Teal’s core teaching, I stayed with the feeling, became fully present to my inner child holding this belief and validated him. I realized that even my external and worldly success was simply a coping mechanism for the fact I did not think I could be loved for who I was, and only performance could give me love. When I was six, my father gave me money as I brought back straight As from school. Therefore, I thought that if I were a good enough student, I would have love. At age 20, I passed the exam of one of the best school of France but crashed a couple of months after the admission when I realized that this accomplishment would not give me what I was so desperately looking without knowing: love. As a result, I joined a spiritual group, which ended up being a cult a couple of months later as I was desperately trying to find a way out of my emotional torment. I thought this spiritual group was everything I had always looked for. However, I left disillusioned 3 years later after realizing all the corruption and abuse orchestrated from the leader. I had been used and not loved. At 26, I entered a 15-year relationship & marriage, which brought two wonderful children in a course for status, success and money in the heart of the Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, when we mutually decided to part, I was ostracized by my ex wife and her parents and lost my children as a result. At that moment, I saw that my marriage had been more a contract based on mutual benefits than a relationship based on real love. In order for me to heal the child that believes that no one loves him, I need to give him what he truly wants: Love & Appreciation. Even at Philia, I had created a situation where team members would resent me because of my domineering attitudes that were focused on execution rather than connection. I also made it OK for people to resent me as long as they do their job. I have watched Teal do the opposite, something spending up to a full day to solve a problem with a person. I thought initially it was a complete waste of time not realizing she was working on alignment, and once people are fully aligned they will go the extra mile, be proactive and amaze you with the quality of their work. I made a commitment at that moment that it was not OK for me to be resented anymore. I had to stop this especially that our retreat center is based on connection. I felt I understood authenticity for the first time. I cannot be authentic by coping or imposing my needs above others. Instead, I need to focus on a third alternative that can only come through when I interiorize the other person needs. I saw the community too. I saw clearly in my medicine journey that one of our team members with responsibilities had been resentful towards me. To heal my inner child, I became apparent to me I had to stop making it OK for me to be resented. I put my life savings in this property and enormous efforts both for the move and property. I have not done that to get people to resent me. It felt very unfair. While I understood I created this situation to prove the belief “no one loves me”, I had to put a clear stop to this to start healing this destructive belief. I decided to meet with this person the same day. It did not matter anymore how long it would take to solve our difference and I made the commitment to live an environment where I am liked instead of feared. I can still be true to my own needs and their needs at the same time. I committed to do what it takes for people to like me. I have had the attitude that I do not care what people think about it as long as things get done.

Ten days have passed and it is now the time for the second Kambo with Graciela. The positions of the burns are typically intuitively felt by the shaman just before the ceremony. But the night before, I had woken up Teal by talking in my sleep saying very clearly “6 points in the palindrome”. While I did not this before, a palindrome is a word that reads the same backward and forward such as “madam”. While at breakfast, we felt intuitively that it is a message for the Kambo ceremony as “points” are another word for the burn marks used to absorb the frog medicine. Graciela does a Google and tells us that “eye” is the only body part that is a palindrome. This discovery triggers me. After I started dating Teal, I had told her I did not need to take Kambo because she was my medicine. While this is true, the other reason I did not want to do Kambo because it makes marks on the body and all my life, I have been uncomfortable with anything that alters the original nature of the body. Now, they are talking about a burning stick in the eye! Teal asked me to think what it would really mean. I feel intuitively that it must be the third eye however I am thinking that the last thing I want to do is to have burn marks on my forehead especially that I am an important upcoming business meeting in the US. I start to complaint, revolt and state clearly that I do not want to do it. Teal looks at it and she starts experiencing genuine sadness and she shed a couple of tears. She said “How ironic” as, in the same token, I would rather look good than love her. Over the last previous days, we had a couple of arguments where I deflected my shame into her and made her feel like the one with problems while I was actually the one creating the trigger in the first place. During these times, I had chosen to defend my self-concept and look good instead of seeing the truth. I started to feel her pain, disappointment and sadness about me. At that moment, I remember the time where I would have given everything just for the opportunity to have a date with her. I reminded myself of my commitment to remove any wall that stands between me and her, and my promise to her that as long as I can breath, I will always choose to love her. Her Love had defeated me and I accepted reluctantly to get Kambo from my forehead as I reminded myself that my relationship with her is to me so much more important than looking good. I started thinking about wearing a hat, or put my hair in front of the marks to get more comfortable about the idea and get into acceptance with this higher guidance. She re-assures me that she can make them look good. An hour later, I am laying down ready for the application of Kambo, I remind myself of my intention “I want to see” focusing on my 3rd eye chakra. Six burns are applied on my forehead. Shortly after, I experience a faster heartbeat, and I start to emit some tones to clear energy in my throat chakra that is between my heart and third eye. The medicine takes much more time to work on me than the previous session. It took at least ten minutes before the need to purge. Teal is in the room typing on her computer writing her next Ask Teal episode. I reach out to her in a vulnerable to stop doing it, as I really need her undivided attention. This is ironic too as I am typically the one absorbed on my computer tuning other people out. A vision starts coming through. My consciousness becomes Teal as a child on a table. I am in the process of being tortured by Doc. He shows absolutely no empathy like he is working on a robot. I experience unbearable pain. On the other side of Doc comes the spirit of Teal’s mother. She does not see Teal’s pain and push it back onto her not understanding why her daughter is acting so uncontrollably and wondering what is wrong with her. She gets angry with her. Back on the table, I feel like I am made to swallow my own vomit. I am in pain as I purge but I realize suddenly that I am so lucky that I am able to scream or vomit. It feels like such a good release and I receive the loving attention of both Teal and Graciela in the room. When Teal was tortured, she did not have the luxury of any form of release. Doc would put something in her mouth to prevent her from screaming. The torture experienced felt so much more horrific when there is not even a possibility to release and to witness the complete emotional disconnection from Doc. I am now transported into a different mindscape that I see is connected to a vision I had 5 years previously during a breathwork facilitated by Todd Zimmerman (Todd came to Philia from March 11th to 18th 2017). At that time, five years ago, one of the women breathing in the room was reliving a rape she had experienced as a teenager. She yelled from such a profound part of her being that it started to affect me and I relived intuitively a sensation of a past life where I was a father where my father got raped and I made it worse through my own behavior. Now, under Kambo, what was an alluring feeling 5 years ago during that breathwork session appears as a very clear past life in high definition. We are back in time and I am a spiritual teacher in India with an important following. I am a scholar, I hold an impressive spiritual knowledge of the scriptures. I think I know everything, and I have always a response to any of my followers’ questions. My ego is huge and I am full of myself. I am respected and feared, and some of my domineering and inflexible attitudes create antagonism too. Through unfortunate circumstances, my only daughter gets raped by some of my enemies as they try to hurt me through her. I see myself being furious at my daughter telling her how she brought ridicule and dishonor onto our family and my reputation. I shun her and punish her. I make it all her fault. Because of my hardness, cold and cruel behavior, she commits suicide and dies. When my followers inquiry about this tragic event, I tell them with utter certainty as someone believing his own lies, that a life had come where she would awaken so she decided to take the opportunity and exit her body. Deep down, I know I am the one responsible for the death of my only daughter because I kept spreading shame on her open wound. During that life, I never let myself experience consciously the responsibility for her death. From that point on, I went downhill and created a lot of damage among my followers. I see how my cult experience in this life was a direct consequence of this karma. I see clearly who is the reincarnation of my daughter in this life. I experience sincere regrets towards this person and I got to better understand her antagonistic behavior towards me that never seemed to make sense. I experience a desire to make it better, and can now more easily let go of her behavior that I judged as unfair. I understand that lack of empathy is the most dangerous thing of the world. If every one of us could feel each other pain, the world would be so different. Family quarrels, work oppression, crime, wars would end immediately. I decide to make a total commitment to allow myself to feel. I realize that I used the tools of self-development and spirituality to make myself comfortable and avoid pain no matter what are the circumstances and I became a “master coper” as a result. I now consciously choose to feel in full awareness even if it involves pain in order to become fully alive.

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