Ugh. I have a cold and stomach trouble this week, and the cold just finally hit me full force this morning. The whole deal–sneezes, runny nose, headache, sore throat. It’s awesome.
In other news, I am almost exactly 3 months away from flying back to the US. Everyone who asks me about how much time I have left or who somehow hears that I have three months left says something like “wow, time flies, doesn’t it?” But you know, it really hasn’t flown this year. It hasn’t dragged either, but it’s just been so full of things, I think I have felt it pass in real time. What I mean to say is that it’s been 9 months that I’ve been here, and it feels like it’s been 9 months.
When I think about that in terms of how time tends to fly by when you’re having a really good time, and that it drags when things are awful, I think that should mean that up to now, this year has been either somewhere in the middle, or a little bit of both. That rings pretty true. There have been some wonderful moments this year. There have been some big lessons. There has been some important growth and change and learning in my life. There have been some laughs and some joyful tears. But there has also been some struggle. Some deep self-questioning, shaken inner peace and fights with self-love. There have been some tears of deep emotional and psychological pain. And you know where most of that has come from? My own head.
I’m thinking that one of the biggest lessons I’m coming away with from this year’s experience is how deeply I rely on external sources for validation, for self-assurance, and for determining my own worth. This is not new information, of course, but it’s the hardest year I’ve had in awhile because I haven’t had any consistent close friends or lovers in my life this year, which is, I’ve come to realize, where I usually get a lot of that affirmation. And coming off of the previous year being the most abundant in my life in those terms, it was sort of a double-whammy.
I don’t like that I rely so much on external validation. But I know that it will not help me at all to beat myself up for that. I need to work on accepting that this is something I struggle with, and I need to work on loving my whole self, insecurities and all. This year has been a big reality check. And what I mean by that, is it’s easy for me to say that I know that I’m smart, beautiful, strong, etc. But I don’t know that I really believe it, deep deep down. This year, in hard moments, I felt all of that completely leave me, and I felt so much self loathing and self hate. I struggle so much with thinking about how I’m not a good enough person–that I’m selfish and ego-centric. And I feel I have more proof for that than the positive things sometimes. And I know, because of all this, that my ego is so, so, so strong. I want to work on breaking it down. Helping it to crumble. But I’m not sure how.
I’m trying to meditate daily, but it’s a real struggle. I’m also trying to listen to audio books that can help me with self-love and forgiveness. But that can only go so far. When I get back home, I really want to start going to therapy again. I think that could make a real difference. Fingers crossed I get job that either A) pays me well enough to afford it or B) has decent insurance that covers it.
There’s one more thing I plan to do soon that I hope will help, but I don’t know if that’s a weird thing to hope for. In 3 weeks, I’m going to Machu Picchu. I’m over the moon about it. I have heard that Machu Picchu is one of the energy centers of the earth. And apparently, lake Titicaca, on the Isla del Sol (which I will visit along the way) is one of the “Chakras of the Earth.” I am traveling alone for this trip, to celebrate my 30th birthday, and hoping to spend some real time in reflection and meditation, embracing the sacred energy of those places (as new-agey tourist as that sounds). I want to spend time thinking about my life up to now, and where it will lead in the future. But the real thing that I think I may be building up too much in my mind, is that I plan to try ayahuasca. It’s a hallucinogenic brew containing DMT, and which comes from an andean vine, traditionally used in ceremonies as religious sacrament, but also for medicinal purposes. It’s in the same family of drugs as peyote, mescaline, san pedro, and mushrooms (though mushrooms are the weakest of those).
Now, why I’m feeling like this is a special opportunity, and that I may be putting too much emphasis on it, is because from all the reading I’ve done on ayahuasca in the past few weeks, I feel like it could actually truly help me with the self-love challenges I’m having. To think that about a drug seems sort of ridiculous at first, but then I get to thinking about anti-depressants and anti-psychotics and how much they help people, and those are drugs, of course. And at any rate, apparently, ayahuasca has been used medically to help people break out of severe depression, and it’s the only thing that has been proved medically effective for treating veterans with PTSD. It has actually been shown to sometimes cure people of these things, in ONE session. There are other studies that show an array of positive effects on all kinds of ego problems like body image perception, anxiety, and attention disorders. A lot of users report being able to see themselves and the world around them more clearly; gaining a profound sense of perspective and the smallness of ego-driven problems. And the most amazing thing is, they’re able to retain that experience and that knowledge after the high is gone.
Since I’ve been reading about ayahuasca and reflecting on the challenges I’ve had this year, what I’d ideally like to get out of the experience is pretty clear. I want to see, much more deeply, what I know on a mental level. That I am worthy of love, that I am a beautiful, holy creature, and that I can forgive myself, deeply, for my flaws. I am hoping that since I already have that knowledge on some level, the drug experience might be able to help the knowledge sink in to a deeper level of my consciousness, to the point that I can forgive myself more easily, and judge myself less. I don’t know if that’s going to happen, but I think it’s worth a try. Here’s hoping. And either way, it will be an interesting experience.
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