On September 5th, 2021, under a New Moon in Virgo, I had one of the most transformative and healing experiences, yes, with the help of Mushrooms and MDMA. This was not my first intentional experience with mushrooms, but it was my first fully guided/supported by two experienced therapists as part of my training to step up as a Psychedelic Integration Therapist at Thrive Downtown.

My main intention for this session was to open and expand my heart.

“I want to love and be loved unconditionally, without expectations. I want to allow myself to receive pure love. I want to heal anything that is holding me from experiencing love.”

As a second intention, I had the desire to support the healing of my masculine lineage, allowing the masculine within me to communicate emotions in a healthy and tender way.

Once the intention was set, the next step was showing up and surrendering, surrendering to be seen by two people in a vulnerable and raw state.

Chapter 1.

(Chapters are how I like to describe my psychedelic journeys)

As soon as the medicine kicked in, PAIN was all that I could feel. Apparently, the mushrooms first had to show me the reasons why I closed my heart, limiting myself to feeling.

It all started with embodying my grandpa who died of suicide when I was 5 years old. So much f*king pain. Why? Why would someone have to live with this amount of pain!? So there it was, pain followed by THE moment of silence, the moment of peace he was craving for…

It didn’t take long until I started feeling the amount of pain of my family holding on to him, the unstoppable human emotional pain known as Grief.

“Let me go, let me go. I chose this for a reason!” I kept saying.

Then the healing began, slow and tender compassion; it ended with my hands holding my right collar bone.

Integration.

As a 5 year old, I never got to grieve for him. I never thought I had to. Even if I became him on that part of my trip, it is not that I had to heal him, I had to heal myself. Talking with my mom after the trip, she told me how close my grandpa and I were, so suddenly I understood, my 5-year-old heart thought he left me, but he actually never did; that was never his intention.

Chapter 2.

Now this second chapter might feel a bit out there, past lives, and Twin Flames. But stay with me here.

Suddenly an image of a drawing I made after a meditation the previous summer showed up; this was a drawing of a woman (me) laying on the ground with a dagger in her heart, a man tearing up, holding her, and both souls floating wrapped on flames above them (no mushrooms on this meditation, I promise.) And a song playing in my head (even when there was a different song playing on the headphones) a song that was familiar to me and clearly telling me who my “twin flame” was, someone that I know in this lifetime and that never was. My hands started to float up, I was holding on to him; my attachment to him was the worst pain I have ever felt.

There was a voice telling me, “He is not the one for this lifetime, you have to let him go, you have to let him go…” tears were flowing; both therapists were holding me, supporting me. While I cried like I had never before.

After a few minutes I finally listened to the voice and I let go. I told him, You are not supposed to heal my heart this lifetime. I will. I appeared in a surgery room, and I performed heart surgery on myself; my hands were physically moving, stitching myself up. I had 3 “protectors” on each side of the bed, but I was the surgeon. I finished the surgery, I removed my gloves and we all celebrated!

At that moment I realized I really needed to pee, so I asked them to stop the music and went to the washroom. Why is this important? Because when I was washing my hands after, I was washing them the way doctors do, lots of soap and washing my whole arms, I laughed.

Integration

There is a lot of very personal meaning that I will skip here, but I was able to understand an attachment to a person in this lifetime, a promise that will never happen, and that I needed to let go in order to move on to what does belong in this lifetime.

Yes, I always believed in past lives, but after this experience in particular, I just have no doubt anymore.

Chapter 3 — The New Chapter

Endless choices

And yet there’s one choice.

East Forest song Choice was playing.

There is only one choice, Love. The voice said.

And my life began. They show me the rest of my life. I will skip some details since — Not everything that is sacred is meant to be shared — but I’ll bring you in.

I was shown a new lover, followed by the word patience, and the image of the turtle.

Then pregnancy and birth and the fears that arise with it. All the amazing women in my life started to show up, and all my doula clients, all there for me through my birth and postpartum journey. Then I understood that all the work that I did for them, it was just preparing me for my own journey, and to learn I have to allow myself to receive nurturing love.

The fear of the first child, and the heart expansion that comes with it, the kind of Love only a parent can understand. Followed by a second angel, the sweetest love of all…

After all that love, I could feel life hitting again; it felt like dark times were coming. I took my eye mask off, and I saw my therapist/guide, colleague and now friend, sitting at the end of the couch. I told him, Shit, this is going to be hard, are you ready?

With a kind smile he nodded his head yes, and I went back in; it was all that I needed to know, I was going to be supported through it.

I made it, yes, life is going to be hard, but you are not alone, life it’s easier when you have the right people beside you.

The chapter within the chapter

Images of my son becoming a parent, my brother in law becoming a parent, my dad becoming a grandparent, my granddad holding me, my other grandpa holding his first granddaughter. All of them, all men, all experiencing so much love!

I was the one judging them, categorizing man by Emotional vs Non-Emotional man, but they do not deserve those labels, I had to let that go and see them all as humans who can feel, perhaps just don’t know how to express it. I asked them for forgiveness and promised myself I will stop categorizing them in that way.

After that I removed my eye mask gently just to see if my guide was still sitting close to me and he wasn’t, I freaked out a bit, Why is he not there anymore! Don’t leave me!

My counsellor's mind kicked in and said, Wait a second, it is not about him, you are projecting, it’s not about him, then who?

My dad. The idea of him passing away, and the pain of losing my biggest teacher on this earth. This time, I was being held by my son saying to me, I am your teacher now.

That was it, that was as far as they were going to show me.

They said, Now, remember the choice?

Now you know, fear, pain and love come together, there is no way of separating them. But with the fear and the pain, Love becomes bigger, it expands exponentially!

So now that you felt how Love feels, would you choose Love?

FUCK YES!, I said.

Integration

Holly crap, life is not easy, but it is going to be worth it. So much love, level after level unlocked. That’s the purpose of life, to experience Love in all its forms and to grow from it and with it.

Integration is the MOST important part of any psychedelic journey, and integration lasts a lifetime. It’s been 10 months since that journey and I am just feeling the need to share it, perhaps because I feel my heart wanting to close again. The past 10 months have been of expanding and really actively choosing to keep my heart open.

We lose so much of life when we walk with a closed heart, I get it, we are protecting ourselves from being hurt again, but when we do we miss the little things, we miss the opportunity to truly be touched by expansive love.

So today, I choose to stay open. I choose Love.

What do you choose?

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Originally posted on Jun 13, 2022 on Medium