I and many others feel the same way — those of us who feel we’ve received some sort of mission from Grandmother Ayahuasca and that she’s guiding and helping us rise to the challenge she’s assigned.
Perhaps that’s too strong a claim — that a plant has intentionally selected certain people to carry out a small aspect of her plan, to contribute to her larger cause. Perhaps I should say that, because of ayahuasca, some of us are rising up to accept the challenges we’ve imagined for ourselves. The truth is that I don’t know how to differentiate between an inner inspiration and a message from a plant teacher that I’m not sure I believe in, even though I’ve heard her voice loud and clear. This is the recurring symptom of my ontological crisis, which is the most powerful way I’ve changed since drinking ayahuasca. More about that later.
Nancy, a forty-two-year-old college graduate and farmer, had attended seventy-five ceremonies during the six years before the study. She’d tried a number of different therapies on and off for ten years, from talk therapy to somatic therapy. She wrote that as a result of her ayahuasca experiences: “I’m more stable and grounded, less likely to get swept up in my own dramas. I’m more willing to allow my feelings, but differentiate them from ‘moods,’ which can be caused by an imbalanced brain/body chemistry. I’m a better listener and more patient. I have more awareness of what I’m doing and as a result am not so self-destructive. I no longer drink alcohol. Weight loss. Asthma gone. Junk food doesn’t seem so appealing. I now love myself. I have compassion for myself. I relate to my inner selves as parts of myself, not as enemies.” After all that, Nancy still felt compelled to add an additional note: “It’s not an overstatement to say ayahuasca saved my life — more than once.”
Lewis was a fifty-three-year-old college grad working as a telecom technician who’d never had therapy. At the time of the study, Lewis had been a member of the Santo Daime Church for three years and had about eighty experiences with ayahuasca — or the “Daime,” as the medicine is known in the church, where it’s revered as a sacrament. Lewis wrote, “I’m more socially outgoing, more attentive to others, and less self-absorbed; more open, spontaneous, and expressive. I’m less self-critical, more accepting with a better understanding of who I am as opposed to who I thought I was. I feel much less sadness, less anxiety and gloomy thoughts. I have flashes of joy and hope, the possibility of being alive. I’m aware of the possibility of transcendence. I want to live before I die.”
Lewis is certainly quite expressive now. If we listen between the lines, we can hear how depressed he must have been before embarking on his journey with the Daime. Previous to my own experiences with ayahuasca, I would’ve thought, Here’s a guy in desperate need of therapy. Now, however, I appreciate the therapeutic potential in this ancient medicine to relieve major, lifelong depression. This is just one of the ways I’ve changed my thinking since embarking on my own ayahuasca journey.
Lewis also had someone close to him describe the changes they’ve noticed, which provides an outside perspective on the drastic changes Lewis has experienced. The person wrote: “I have noticed a great change. Where before he didn’t share his personal feelings, he has become increasingly open, confident, and communicative concerning personal feelings and his self-discoveries. He is much happier. He smiles far more often and expresses joy in his day-today life. I have noticed a great opening up and acceptance accompanied by a releasing of pent-up worries, fears, and other unpleasant preoccupying emotions. He has also become more social, including himself in numerous group activities and making new, good friends. Very positive overall.”
This description confirms Lewis’s self-report. However, it’s fair to wonder, were Lewis’s changes a result of the ayahuasca he ingested or from his new identity since joining the Santo Daime Church? Only three people in this study were members of an ayahuasca church, which is too few to separate into their own group, one distinct from those drinking ayahuasca in a shamanic context. Thus, I have no way to tease out the effects of the medicine from the social experience of joining a church and all the interpersonal benefits of belonging to a group. Many of us have either experienced or witnessed others who joined a new social group and benefited from that involvement, but the dramatic and extensive changes that Lewis described seem due to more than just church membership.
For instance, Lewis wrote about his diet: “Less crap, less sugar, less pigging out, more veggies. I’m slimmer, feel younger, and appear younger, or so say others.”
The self-reports describe the therapeutic benefits of ayahuasca: better sense of self, improved interpersonal relationships, less depression and anxiety, healthier lifestyle, and relief from addictions. These are also the central themes in psychotherapy, regardless of theoretical model or practical technique. What therapist doesn’t want to hear that his or her clients feel better and have more positive thoughts and moods? That their inner critic is less harsh, and they feel more accepting and loving toward themselves and their close relationships? Or that clients are taking better care of themselves, eating healthier, exercising more, and stopping addictive behaviors? These central themes are the bedrock of personal well-being and the hallmarks of a meaningful life. Accordingly, each merits greater consideration.
Self-Acceptance and Love
The questionnaire asked participants to describe any changes in attitude toward themselves as a result of their ayahuasca experiences. The most common responses were, to paraphrase: “I’m more accepting of myself, more loving, kind, and patient. I have more self-confidence, take better care of myself, and have greater understanding. I’m less critical.” This last statement is clinically important, since a harsh inner critic can be constantly demoralizing in daily life. The therapeutic approaches most commonly used to treat negative self-tapes include disputing them (“I’m not always wrong”) and using positive affirmations (“I make good decisions”). That’s not what’s happening here. The effects of ayahuasca are completely radical.
“I was caught in a hell realm, stuck in my self-hatred loops,” said Steve, a seventy-year-old somatic therapist in private practice. He quoted this loop as saying, You’re not good enough, not smart enough, not successful enough, not anything enough. We all know these inner-critic tapes and how hard it is to escape their destructive messages. Can you imagine having to listen to such a toxic rant while under the influence of a medicine that amplifies everything? Steve was stuck, and this was not a new experience. He’d been there and done that throughout his lifetime.
During his ayahuasca experience, Steve heard a voice asking, Who is doing this to you? Steve was sure the voice was Grandmother Ayahuasca, who can be therapeutic in astonishingly surprising ways. Steve told me, “She taught me a big lesson — how to stop my inner critic.” Steve realized that these critical messages were remnants from his childhood that no longer held sway over him as an adult. Did the tapes come back? He said they didn’t during the ceremony, but they could reemerge afterward, albeit with less intensity. The difference was that Steve now had the power to silence these destructive messages.
One of the most powerful barriers to self-acceptance, these demeaning messages are relentless and reinforce criticisms we heard during our vulnerable growing-up years. I had a strikingly beautiful client who heard, You’re not pretty enough. I didn’t understand the origin of this message until she explained, “I have an older sister who’s the pretty one. That role was taken. I had to be the smart one, the popular one, or the athletic one. Things were worse for my younger sister — she had fewer options.” Somehow this was the rule in that family, never explicitly stated but powerful nonetheless, or perhaps even more powerful for being unspoken.
In my psychotherapy practice, I divided clients into two categories: those who did or did not feel loved as a child. This is not the same as, “Did your parents love you?” It’s whether you felt loved. I could pretty much divide my clients into yes or no categories. While I had a boutique private practice in which everyone was well-educated and professional, so that I didn’t face a wide array of psychiatric diagnoses, this one question
