We met at 8am as usual and drunk as soon as possible. I had the same amount of medicine as the previous ceremony. For the first couple of hours, I was feeling pretty good. No anger, no anxiety, only slightly nauseous. I spent most of the morning just lying in the Maloka and enjoying the experience. I began feeling more and more uncomfortable as time passed. I went over to my usual corner and threw up the fowl green gunk, but as with the last ceremony my levels of nausea just increased. I couldn’t work out if I was hot, cold, tired or full of energy. I just kept throwing up liquid from my stomach. By now I’ve come to realize that the physical discomfort and nausea remains until whatever I need to deal with that ceremony has been released.
I was writhing around in the grass with nausea when Luz Maria came to sing to me and do some energy healing work. I burst into tears afterwards and said to her, “I just want to be loved.” I was so hesitant to say it, as I didn’t feel that I deserved it deep down. I continued vomiting for some time, before Javier arrived. I remember saying to him that I could feel the grass that I was laying on loving and supporting me, so why didn’t I love myself? It just seemed so difficult to do, and I could feel myself holding on to the old story that I was worthless and didn’t deserve it. I loved to make myself suffer.
In that moment I decided I was no longer going to keep suffering and telling myself that story. Javier asked me if it was possible that the story I’d been telling myself all my life might actually be wrong. This was pretty difficult to accept – logically, it seemed quite possible, but deep down and holistically, it seemed impossible. It was just too big to stomach. Again came the reinforcement of my mind, “but this is who I am.” I wasn’t willing to let that story go.
It was me who secretly mocked others over the ridiculous beliefs that they’d formed. I would wonder why it was so hard to accept that their beliefs were false and that they were wrong all along – now I understood just how hard it was to let go of something so entrenched. I knew that I wasn’t finished with this issue, and decided to work on it further in another ceremony.
I eventually used the little strength that I had remaining and crawled back to the Maloka. In a flash of insight, I was shown for the second time that I have very few personal boundaries. I’ve allow myself to get dragged into all sorts of drama either willingly or unwillingly where I’ve wasted my focus and energy. Moving forward, I knew that I needed to be far more selective with where my time and attention went.
I felt pretty empowered once I’d realized that it was me alone who chose what story I was going to tell myself, and that only I was responsible for myself. Despite having lost all control of my throat, stomach and bowels, I managed to eat and drink a little, and enjoyed the rest of the ceremony in relative peace.
There was a moment in the Maloka that I felt a strong wave of sadness come over me as I saw others going through their processes before I realized that I’m at it again – there’s a big difference between true compassion and love for others, and purposely trying to wallow their perceived misery. Indulging in misery or anger is an addiction – it brings with it a certain rush and familiar comfort.
