After reading the book, “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel Van Der Kolk, I realized I had trauma stored in my body. There were certain times throughout my everyday life where it would really bother me and held me back in ways. This book was an AHA moment for me where I realized I really needed to focus on my trauma and healing if I wanted to be the healthiest version of me possible. Anyone with a high ACE score (adverse childhood experiences) has an increased chance of developing chronic disease.
I came upon this Iboga retreat on the Aubrey Marcus podcast and had heard of Iboga on Joe Rogan’s podcast. In order to get accepted you had to have a liver panel ran and an EKG – I signed up, passed the tests and was good to go!
The retreat location was absolutely perfect. It was at an eco lodge in a remote location with no electricity, so we lived by candlelight in the evening. We were right on the beach where I fell asleep to the sound of the waves every night. It was the perfect temperature there and felt so good with the constant breeze.Much more went on besides the “death ceremony”, but this ceremony was the most life changing. We were told we would be having six spoons of iboga spaced 45 minutes apart during this ceremony. By the third spoon, the tears started flowing and would not stop. Around the 4th spoon visions started flashing across my mind. They weren’t necessarily scary, but I had a deep apprehension about what was to come. At the 6th spoon, I was a little girl again. I was in the past reliving what seemed like the worst nightmare I could ever have. Thoughts that I had repressed came to the surface. Auditory hallucinations, hearing people saying negative things about me, were constant. Eventually, a lightning bolt appeared and I knew it symbolized the pent up emotion stored in my body. The emotion broke into a million pieces and shot down through my body and out of my feet. All of a sudden the movie reel was over. My mind was blown. I had literally gotten everything I had asked for plus more. As we were leaving the temple, my friend said to me, “you know you’re the only one who did six spoons right?” I actually had no idea! I thought everyone was doing every spoon with me! The tears didn’t stop for over a day. The doctor of psychiatry checked on me and I asked him if I was ever going to stop crying. My pain felt so raw and deep and like it was never going to end. A few days later, when he asked me how I was doing, my reply was HAPPY. And I was. I had a complete emotional release and it felt so good and free.
I know I still have more work to do. This experience isn’t going to heal me from everything, but I am beyond grateful for this opportunity to work with Iboga! There is no way that talk therapy alone could have helped me reach this kind of emotional release. This was one of the most powerful, life changing experiences of my life. I wanted to share this with everyone to encourage people to get to the root cause- and that root cause is often trauma.