Grieving Deaths during Iboga

the beginning

In February 2024 on a farm in Middle of Nowhere, Portugal, I embarked on a deep transformational experience using the very intense healing power of the plant medicine: Iboga.

I want to stress the potential danger of Iboga without scaring people away from this deeply healing plant medicine: Iboga is a incredibly powerful and should be approached with care. This blog contains no medical advice and is only my personal experience. Unless proper precautions, such as a medical team and EKG machine constantly monitoring your heartrate, complications and even death can occur.

Iboga is a plant medicine that is known for it’s Grandfather energy; to me it feels very grounded, earthy, accessing ancestral and potentially past life information ingrained your roots. I would compare it to Ayahuasca in the sense that Ayahuasca is equally powerful and is known for it’s Grandmother essence. To me, because Ayahuasca is enlightening and the energy exists up around your head and your upper chakras; where as Iboga is more grounded in your lower chakras and physical body.

The two sacred plant medicines have similar but different energies in many ways. Iboga comes from the root bark of a shrub in Central Africa, whereas Ayahuasca comes from the rainforest of South America and both are used by indigenous people in sacred ceremony.

safety

Before the ceremony we got our blood drawn and the medical staff assessed our weight (for dosing), our blood pressure and our heart rate. During the ceremony we were hooked up to the EKG machine the whole time of 36 hours to make sure we were okay and healthy enough to continue taking the dose. Iboga can cause arrythmia which can lead to death, so if you are considering working with Iboga, take this into consideration in selecting which center you use.

We had a breathwork session before the Iboga and we talked about how using this plant medicine is very much embarking on a Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey was a story-model designed by Joseph Campbell where a normal person goes through something intense, wins and is transformed. We knew that we would be different after this experience.

the ceremony

When the effects of the Iboga began I was mentally and metaphysically preparing to ‘fight’ a monster: I knew that this monster represented all of my doubts, insecurities and fears and in fighting it I was proving my worthiness, my courage and my strength to myself.

Initially, there was fear and doubt in my mind questioning 1. could I win this fight? and 2. would I literally die if I didn’t? This pattern of doubting myself has been present in my past and I decided I was sick and tired of letting it direct my life. Even though I didn’t feel 100% ready I knew I was as ready as I’d ever be, I also knew that when you are afraid is the only time you can be brave and I found comfort in that.

My mind created the fighting arena: there was a bridge I had to cross with a door on the other side into a castle, naturally the monster was on the bridge blocking my path.

I had to jump at bridge, at the monster, kill him and get into the door behind him. He was big and scary but I imagined my brother being in danger behind the door and that gave me the inspiration I needed to begin my attack.

As I jumped toward the monster with all the courage (and a cool sword) I could muster and I suddenly felt this bottomless well of resilience rise up inside me. It began in my solar plexus and my heart moving and flowing throughout my body to my appendages. It was incredibly visceral and my real physical body moved and undulated with this energetic flow. It felt like the deepest strength and loudest courage, like my heart was transforming into a very literal ‘heart of a lion.’

This bottomless well was previously unbeknownst and unfamiliar to me, but I realized it was my birthright and I claimed it. Any doubts that tried to dance through my head like “but what if you can’t,” “what if you fail,” suddenly died, dissolved and turned to ash and I knew these were lies. What was left was an even stronger, tangible and more resonant truth that echoed in my bones: “there’s no way you can fail,” “there is no such thing as failure.” It felt like every cell in my body had turned into sunshine.

Once the monster came to his end with the blade of my sword, I opened the door of the castle and I met Iboga. Telepathically, he spoke to me in a deep voice, and I tumbled even further back into my subconscious, not falling, but weightless. Under the mentorship of Iboga I was able to deep work - it was almost as if my ‘Jess Avatar’ was broken down into the smallest particles and spread throughout the farthest reaches of the known universe so I could see all my parts and components - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, and work with them.

One of the things I learned was Iboga shows you the things that you have been avoiding, for me this looks like 1. sadness, because it reminds me of being depressed in the past so it doesn’t feel safe to access 2. avoiding and suppressing the thoughts that I’m an imposter and not good enough 3. thinking that I’m an failure 4. that everything is my fault and 5. thinking that I’m unworthy and unlovable and 6. that I don’t deserve my wild and abundant life.

feeling myself die

During the experience I felt (knew) I was dying, but I also was deeply aware that I was dying in order to be reborn.

Iboga helped me feel all the things I was afraid of and I died through each emotion I was resisting. I experienced death through sadness, death through being not good enough, death through failure, death because it was my fault, death through my unworthiness and death through being undeserving. I died through embracing and accepting these things; this was so painful and felt awful and like the most suffering I had ever suffered. But it felt like this old Jess had to die through these things in order to be reborn into a new unwavering resiliency and courage. Old Jess couldn’t fathom those things, so she needed to die.

Kill the boy and let the man be born.

This whole ceremony took a day and a half and by the end of my semi-psychedelic journey I walked through hell. The Iboga wasn’t done teaching me yet. In hell I saw the most awful things - my imagination is incredibly vivid but the things I saw in hell were surprising, even for me. Hell was barren and dead and the color was all bleached out, it was bleak, hopeless and reeked of the deepest despair. Just as quickly as I wanted to resist it I realized it was better to surrender and I decided to keep walking - much like the Winston Churchill quote.

If you're going through hell, keep going.

In surrendering to this entire experience, I realized I was okay. Even dead and in hell, I was okay. This was a truly enlightening experience: I was okay in this hell, I sat with the despair, the pain, the suffering, the agony. I didn’t resist what I was feeling, seeing and going through. Through sacred surrender I felt this spark of sunshine and acceptance deep inside myself. I realized I was in hell, and that’s okay. I was suffering, in pain and scared, and that was okay. I was fearful I would never get out, and that was okay. I was afraid I was a failure, and that was okay. I was afraid I was unlovable and unworthy, and that was okay. I felt like I was an imposter and undeserving of my wild and amazing life, and that was okay. Suddenly no matter how negative my brain’s thoughts spiraled, the resonant truth that it was all okay echoed like a heart beat in and around myself.

being rebor

What a revelation it was! Surrendering to every thought of doubt and despair started to shape an innate and immovable self acceptance. I was able to hear the electricity that energized my heart and the blood pumping through my veins.

I realized I was listening to my own aliveness.

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy.

For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger –

something better, pushing right back.

―Albert Camus

I realized at the deepest level of existence there exists incredible pain - however, that pain is paired and indistinguishable from the most orgasmic feeling of love and electricity. The very essence of life itself?! How lucky was I to experience this fantastical and life changing truth?!

Even though I was in pain, dead, in hell and suffering, there was this dogged determination to continue, a passion and zest for life’s juiciness even at rock bottom. Due to my prior work with death and transformation, I am comfortable at rock bottom because I know that it’s where the deepest transformation can occur.

I was being initiated.

My intention before the Iboga was my continued passion, zest and love for life, my desire to go on, live loudly and unapologetically. I have always lived like I was telling the best story ever told and I wanted that magic to be branded on my soul.

Through this activation, I realized there was no such thing as right and wrong, there are only varying perspectives based on the color of our filter of experiences. That we are all one, that we are all different versions of each other, that we are all still twelve years old trying to figure out life, scared and insecure and doing out best. It made me weep tears from the deepest parts of my bones and DNA.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.”

- Rumi

coming back in my body

When I was coming out of the experience I heard Jason crying and ‘knew’ it was because I had died; I was upset because I ‘knew’ he had to call my parents and tell them I was dead and they would be devastated.

Physically, I was feeling horrible and when I told the medical staff the look on their faces was of concern, so that only deepened my conclusion that I was dead - that somehow I did Iboga wrong and it had killed me. Jason came into the room asking for a hug and I ‘knew’ it was because he wanted to see me one last time before my body was taken away.

He came into the room and hugged me and suggested we sit outside in the sunshine and once I was finally able to get up, we sat outside. I told him how much of a failure I was, I didn’t deserve him, everything was my fault and I asked him if he called my parents - to my surprise he laughed and asked what I was talking about - I continued “but I’m dead and someone needs to tell my parents.” He assured me I was not dead and in fact, very much alive as I had been reborn through this process.

We sat in the bright afternoon light of springtime in Portugal looking at the yellow flowers that tumbled out into the field in front of us. We talked, connected, shared insights and vulnerability, cuddled and loved one another without any resistance, hesitation or expectation. The love I felt in these moments exceed any love I’ve ever felt in my life. It was life in the form of love after feeling dead; the most alive and vibrant love I’ve ever experienced.

A day or two later we did 5MeO-DMT which is a very powerful psychedelic to complete the circle of the ceremony. It was the most beautiful DMT experience I have ever had: as I relaxed down to the ground my body wanted to stretch, so I did, and the further I stretched the better it felt. I laughed with the purity, effervescence and unencumberedness of a child’s laugh: a laugh free from the wisdom and pain of life’s experiences. I sobbed and the sobbing felt just as good as the laughter: it felt like I was releasing the deepest sadness that had occupied my internal organs and dwelled in my DNA. I cried for myself, my family, my friends, and my ancestors, I cried for everyone I knew, and then everyone who had ever been.

It felt delicious to allow it to come out, to be expressed, to be witnessed, and to be healed.

the healing process

The healing process continued with similar intensity and took another full week. I was exhausted and felt like a raw nerve walking around; my nervous system felt fried, lights were too bright, any sounds were too loud, people were way to people-y. I found it difficult to interact with my fellow humans. I had just been in hell - it was hard to relate.

During my healing process in this heavy dream-like state, I found out that one of my closest friends died. Tiffany Barsotti was my mentor, medical intuitive, spiritual counselor, roommate, co-worker in the realm of biofield and subtle energy sciences and a light in the life of anyone who was lucky enough to know her.

Because I was feeling dead, it felt impossible that Tif and I were both dead. I felt like I was in the ‘woods between worlds’ so I reached out to Tif through the aether, I felt her presence and energy. She visited, energetically hugged me tightly and assured me that I was not dead and would continue to live; and she shared that she was on the most incredible adventure.

Being in this state of in between life and death felt oddly synchronous because I felt close to her in this nebulous state where nothing and everything was simultaneously real; where everything was impossible and possible at the same time.

waking up into my aliveness

Now that I have fully come back from this experience I feel AMAZING. When I speak, my statements feel more authentic to my truth and my soul. My listening to understand has improved, my desire to connect and understand others has deepened. It feels like the back of my brain woke up.

I am inspired to live deeper, I feel healthy, vibrant and alive. I feel centered in myself, aligned in my soul and grounded in my path, purpose, and mission.

I am so grateful for my courage to work with this plant medicine; I am grateful for this Hero’s Journey through this spiritual ceremony and deep healing process with Iboga.

In this space I realized that grief is a gift and that sitting with grief allows the sadness to become sacred.

Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.

―Jamie Anderson

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I hope you enjoyed my personal journey with Iboga. If you have any questions about it I would love to connect with you. Once again, it’s important to select a good center with a medical team if you decide to take this journey! It’s hard, but worth it!

~

This blog is dedicated to and in honor of the life, the light, the love and the work of Rev. Tiffany Barsotti M.Th, PhD.

Please consider donating to her fund here to continue her work and legacy to advance the field of biofield sciences, and increase collaborations that foster connections between healing practitioners and scientists.

shame

SHAME

Shame is a powerful and often overwhelming emotion that can be difficult to shake off. It is the feeling that we are flawed, inadequate, or unworthy of love and acceptance. Shame can be triggered by a wide range of experiences, from small mistakes to major life events, and it can have a significant impact on our mental and emotional well-being. It's the feeling that we are not good enough or that we have done something wrong, and it often leads to a sense of isolation and disconnection from others.

Shame is an intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging. ~ Brene Brown

When we experience shame, we believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with us, and that we are different or separate from the people around us. This can be incredibly isolating and can lead to feelings of loneliness and despair.

In my opinion, shame and guilt are some of the worst feelings a human can feel because of how sticky they are - they’re like quicksand and the more you feel them the more they suck you under. I believe this happens because of my belief in past lives, and ancestral and intergenerational trauma that goes all the way back in time, but remembered and/or echoed through DNA. Once upon a time when we were in nomadic tribes we depended on community for survival - if you did something bad you were potentially exiled from your community. This exile could have and would have meant death. I think it’s possible shame and guilt feel so awful because they bring up past-life memories and emotions of despair and threaten death.

Luckily for all of us, it IS possible to break the cycle of shame. The first step is to recognize and acknowledge and NAME our feelings of shame. We must be willing to confront our shame head-on and recognize that it is a normal and natural emotion - just like all other emotions. Remember all your Emotions are Like Puppies, and they are all valid.

Another effective approach is to challenge the negative beliefs that underlie our feelings of shame. Remember - we parent ourselves like our parents did when we are stressed. In the absence of our parents, we can become our biggest critic. Question where those internal voices are coming from - see if you can reframe that Critical Judge Self to perhaps a Supportive and Benevolent Coach. By questioning the validity of our negative self-talk and reframing our thoughts in a more positive light, we can begin to shift our perspective and feel more confident in ourselves.

I like to put sticky notes around my house reminding me “I did the best that I could in that moment,” “I can always try better tomorrow,” “I’m doing great.” So that every time my negative self talk may arise there is a sticky note not too far in the distance cheering me on. This begins to create a feedback loop: negative thought arises -> we feel it -> we find it in our body and name it -> we accept and breathe that this is all a part of being human -> we create a new thought -> if the negative thought is still there, that’s okay, -> begin again at step 1.

Forgive yourself for what you didn’t know before you learned it ~ Brene Brown

This is my favorite quote from Brene Brown. I believe there are no such thing as mistakes - only lessons that help us grow into the people we have always been on the inside. Another way to overcome shame is to practice self-compassion. This means treating ourselves with kindness and understanding, rather than judgment and criticism.

Allow yourself to grow through what you go through.

I believe that we are the people we needed when we were younger.

Let that sink in for a second.

We are, in our current self, the exact people we needed when we were younger. Allow yourself to go back in time and give the little version of yourself exactly what they needed. Re-parent yourselves with loving-kindness, listen to your inner self with compassionate understanding.

Ultimately, overcoming shame requires us to be brave and vulnerable. It means acknowledging our flaws and mistakes, and accepting ourselves as we are - beautifully flawed and perfectly imperfect. When we are able to do this, we can break free from the cycle of shame and live a more authentic and fulfilling life.

The fear of judgment and rejection can prevent us from being our authentic selves and can even lead to self-destructive behaviors. It's important to recognize and address feelings of shame in order to live a more fulfilling life. Just like I wrote about in Vulnerability: A Superpower, there is strength and alchemical gold in being vulnerable because it helps you connect more authentically to others.

Alchemy

I believe in the magic of Alchemy, or turning non-gold materials into gold through magic. Circumstances of our life will happen to us and AND for us; it is up to us to extract the gems of truth from these ordinary or unfortunate experiences and transmute them into gold.

I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories... water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom. ~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The story of the lotus in Buddhism reminds me of alchemizing our life experiences and transforming them into enlightenment. The lotus starts its life from the bottom of a dirty pond, it grows upwards towards the light until finally transforming into the beautiful lotus flower that sits above the muddy water, becoming the illuminated flower that we all know and love. This is like us through life - we are born under certain conditions that we must grow upwards and expand beyond. Throughout life we are searching for the light - whether that is love, our purpose, money, etc. We stretch and reach towards this goal until finally achieving it and blossoming open above the mucky muck, reaping all the goodness that we have sown in the sunlight of this awareness.

This is the same with alchemizing our shame and vulnerability into gold for others. Shame thrives in secrecy and isolation, so by sharing our experiences with others, we can begin to build more meaningful connections with the people around us.

don’t ‘should’ on yourself!

There is no such thing as something you should have done. It simply doesn’t exist. What if the only thing that is truly real is this moment we’re having? You did your best at the time, with the knowledge that you had, and regardless of the outcome you have gained wisdom.

This is important: you did not walk away empty handed, you have an expanded awareness of the situation; you have gained wisdom and experience that you can apply to future circumstances.

Everything in your life has lead you to the moment you’re having right now. If you like where you are then nothing you have done can be seen as a mistake. If you don’t like where you are, instead of kicking yourself, focus your energy here in the present moment.

The magic of the present moment is what builds and blossoms your future. Changing your actions right now can create a new path forward. If you tried to plant a garden every year in the same place with the same seeds, and every year it didn’t work - wouldn’t you try changing something? We as humans are just more complex gardens :)

Nothing changes if nothing changes.

I remember going through a difficult break up and thinking “I should have done this,” “if only I did this,” and then having an epiphany that our hearts HAVE to break throughout our life! This happens for us so our hearts can expand and hold more love. This is the whole philosophy of Kintsugi - the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold - making something that broke even more beautiful than it was before it broke.

Everyone has cracks, that’s how the light gets in. ~ Leonard Cohen

Ultimately, the key to overcoming shame lies in cultivating self-compassion and self-love. By recognizing our inherent worth and treating ourselves with kindness and understanding, we can begin to heal the wounds that shame has caused and move towards a more fulfilling and authentic life.

By acknowledging and accepting our experiences and emotions, we can begin to work through them and find ways to move forward. By sitting with our discomfort, and practicing being comfortable being uncomfortable we begin to detach from these emotions. Rather than “I am shameful” we realize “shame is visiting us.” This gives us permission to feel what we feel without judgement.

Once again:

Forgive yourself for what you didn’t know before you learned it ~ Brene Brown

*I highly recommend listening to Brene Brown’s various youtube videos and podcasts on shame! She is highly informative, an amazing and compassionate educator and a deep listener <3

emotions are like puppies

Emotions are like puppies. They all want to be loved and held and cuddled. They are also all worthy of love and cuddles.

In my perspective there is NO SUCH THING as a bad emotion. Anger and sadness deserve as much love and affection as joy and ecstasy. Joy and ecstasy are easy to love because they feel good! Anger and sadness may be harder to love, but they have more to teach us.

Anger Protects

I believe that Anger is a Protector Emotion. Have you ever felt sad or powerless for so long that finally Anger came to protect you? To light a fire under your ass, to initiate and instigate you? To pick you up and out of sadness and depression and throw you into action?

In some schools of thought Anger can live in and around the Solar Plexus Chakra which has to do with our drive, determination, will and ego. It makes sense that Anger can be instigating! It’s literally pushing us forward into our destiny. Ego is not necessarily a bad thing as it’s purpose is to protect the Inner Child. It can be seen as negative if it runs our life without us knowing.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. ~ Dr. Carl Jung

There is no such thing as a bad emotion

Sometimes as children we are taught there are ‘bad’ emotions but this is a lie. When a child is angry or reactive this can mean a boundary is crossed. Sometimes children do not feel comfortable hugging family friends because they can feel like strangers (if there is a lot of time between visits). Parents, sometimes embarrassed by this, will override the child’s boundaries. This can teach a child at young age that their bodies are not their own and they have no bodily autonomy. Obviously this is problematic at the time and later in life when children grow to pre-teens and young adults. If their voices and boundaries didn’t matter then, why would they matter now?

Sometimes parents do not like when children say “no,” as it’s seen as an act of defiance; but it can also be a child setting a boundary. When parents deny a child setting healthy boundaries it strips them of many things. Let’s dive deeper down this rabbit hole: a classmate wants something they have, do they say no? An older person wants to touch them inappropriately, can they say no? Someone hurts them, do they tell? How can they with no voice, no boundaries and no bodily autonomy?

all emotions are valid

Sometimes in childhood when we’re joyful the volume of our voice increases and a parent or peer shushes us and tells us we are “too loud.” This is around the time we learn that our joy isn’t welcome which can cause us to emotionally shut down and physically tighten around the diaphragm. This tightening can cause shallow breathing and a low vagal tone. ‘Vagal tone is a measure of cardiovascular function that facilitates adaptive responses to environmental challenge. Low vagal tone is associated with poor emotional and attentional regulation in children and has been conceptualized as a marker of sensitivity to stress.’

All emotions are valid and the whole point of an emotion is expression. Dr. Candace Pert writes in Molecules of Emotion that an emotion’s full lifespan is a matter of seconds. It begins, climaxes (if allowed) and then resolves itself. By fully experiencing our joy / sadness / anger / ecstasy we are allowing the full expression and complete lifecycle of that emotion.

the only bad emotion is a stuck one

There are many schools of thought on this: Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) believes that certain emotions will cause certain meridians and chakras to become discoherent and/or stagnant; by using herbs and acupuncture you can clear congestion and bring about wellness or ‘balance.’ Grief can sit in the lungs, frustration in the gallbladder, anger in the liver, overthinking in the stomach / spleen, emotional and mental digestion in the stomach / intestines and so on. In my experience, the only ‘bad’ emotion is a stuck one, as stuck emotions can cause physical ailments.

When I went through my healing crisis around 20 years old I was only able to fully heal my physical body by also balancing my mind and emotions. I talk about this often as this is when I came to realize that ‘healing’ comes from integrating the mind, body and soul as they are all interrelated; this is also when I dove much deeper into holistic healing, TCM and Ayurvedic medicine.

Later in life during my Saturn Return (Dark Night of the Soul) I was able to use and benefit from what I had already learned to help heal my 27 year old body from shingles. Shingles generally lasts for 3 months and is super painful as it affects the nerves, mine manifested in my face and neck. Luckily, I only suffered with shingles for a week because I came at it from an emotional and mental perspective, as well as treating it physically.

If you ever need another guide on relating emotions to physical illnesses, Dr. Louise Hay has compiled a list you can find here.

emotions are like puppies

And finally, emotions are like puppies. YOUR puppies. Joy and ecstasy are your adorable clean fluffy puppies and anger and sadness are your adorable fluffy puppies that accidentally got covered in mud. The important truth is that they are the same and they are yours. Your fluffy clean puppies come to you for love and you pick them up and hug them easily without hesitation because they’re clean.

Your silly adorable puppies that fell in mud cannot get the mud off themselves, so they are coming to you for help. They need your love, acceptance, and require more time and patience then your other puppies to remove the mud. Once you remove the mud you see the truth - that they are just as deserving and worthy of your love.

This is the same for your emotions, they are all valid and they deserve acceptance. In accepting your emotions and loving them for who they are and what they’re teaching you reduce resistance, you quicken the healing process, and integrate the lesson quicker.

Healing is not fixing the parts of you that are ‘broken’ - healing is loving all parts of yourself anyways <3

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I dedicate this blog to my adorable fluffy Toby (pictured) when he got sprayed by a skunk twice - in the same week - during the winter - at night - after I had showered and was cozy in bed about to fall asleep :p

Furever Toby <3