IBOGA: Death & dying PT1
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.
In this blog I want to stress the intensity of Iboga without scaring people away from this deeply healing plant medicine: Iboga is 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 heart rate, 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 in my root chakra, in the very marrow of my bones. I would compare it to Ayahuasca ONLY in the sense that Ayahuasca is equally powerful and is known for it’s Grandmother essence. To me, Ayahuasca is enlightening and therefore the energy exists up around your head and your upper chakras; whereas Iboga is grounded in your lower chakras and physical body. Ayahuasca goes up, Iboga goes down.
The two sacred plant medicines have similar and 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: 36 hours. This was to make sure we were healthy enough to continue taking the dose. Iboga can cause arrhythmia which can lead to death, so if you are considering working with Iboga, take this into consideration in selecting which center you use.
We prepped our mind and bodies before the experience with breathwork and yoga. We discussed how using this plant medicine is very much like 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, succeeds and is thereby transformed forever. We (my boyfriend and I) 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’ something. They told us to create a scary monster in our mind that represented all of my doubts, insecurities and fears; in fighting and winning 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?
2. What if I do it ‘wrong?’
3. 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 that led into a castle, naturally the monster was on the bridge blocking my path.
I had to jump at the monster on the bridge, 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 like an earthly flame. 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 in tandem 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 of resilience was previously unbeknownst and unfamiliar to me, but I realized in this moment it was my birthright and I claimed it with all the courage I had. Any doubts that danced through my head like “but what if you can’t,” “what if you fail,” were revealed as lies and suddenly died, dissolved and turned to ash. 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. He was African with one green eye and one yellow eye, I only ever saw the top half of his face and he spoke telepathically to me and a rumbling gravelly deep voice. His voice guided me to tumble further back into my subconscious, not falling, but supported somehow and weightless. Under the mentorship of Iboga I was able to begin this deep healing 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 individually.
As Iboga guided me I saw the things that I had 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 because I don’t want to get sucked in ever again
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 and knew (?) I was dying, but I also was deeply aware that I had to die 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 process wasn’t fun - it was so painful and felt awful and like the most torturous suffering I had ever suffered!!!
AND
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.
Iboga was still not done teaching me yet: I arrived in hell and I witnessed 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 and hate it, I realized it was better to surrender so 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 a 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 coming from inside and outside of myself.
being reborn
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 is one of life’s biggest catalysts for change…
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
Continue reading in iboga: death & dying pt 2
As an eternal student
I know enough to know I can always learn more.
That is why it is so important to me to continue my education learning new ways to best support you on your healing journey. My eternal mission and my responsibility to my clients is to provide them with the utmost care.
In 2023 I did two massive 7 day intensive trainings. One with BioCybernaut in Sedona in March and one with the Hoffman Institute in Chester, Connecticut in November. Warning: these trainings are not retreats, and they are not easy. You have to fully commit to yourself and be your own accountabilty buddy. You have to seriously want to change.
At my Biocybernaut Training I not only learned how to train my brain, I learned how to alter it in real time. During the training I was hooked up to an EEG which uses Biofeedback to show your brainwaves (represented by numbers) as they are happening. Watching my brainwaves shift based on what I was thinking about enabled me to change the way I think, react, feel and heal.
For 7 full days I was in a cold dark room (seriously!) just learning how to train my brain and focus my thoughts to achieve alpha state. An unfocused-focus or a focused-unfocused is the best way I can describe alpha although google describes it as ‘a wakeful relaxation.’
Consistent practicing throughout 7 days and and constant biofeedback from my brain waves helped root this change deep inside myself. As you all know how I feel about Forgiveness - I am happy to say that my view of forgiveness has expanded! This is wholly due to my time at BioCybernaut and the Hoffman Institute!
I have had trouble with forgiveness in the past and have written about ‘hacking forgiveness.’ The techniques used in BioCybernaut and Hoffman helped me discover forgiveness from a deep internal and highly expansive way. I truly feel like a new Jess.
The Hoffman Process works on forgiveness between yourself, your inner child and your relationships with your family, and how that influences your current relationship dynamics. Do you ever get sick of being yourself sometimes? With the same patterns coming up over and over again in relationships? There comes a point where you’re like okayyyyyy…. maybe its not everyone else when the common denominator is ME. (ha!)
Both BioCybernaut and Hoffman work to honor exactly how you felt at the time, they allow you to express, to be angry, to be hurt, to feel that rage, resentment, to feel that betrayal, that sticky shame and horrible guilt. In doing so, you are deeply honoring how your Inner Child felt at the time and you are allowed to point the finger at those around you who you perceived were ‘guilty’ for causing this pain. One of my favorite quotes from Hoffman is:
Everyone is guilty, and no one is to blame.
This sentence exploded my brain. Everyone is guilty…. and no one is to blame. How painfully poetic and beautifully true.
I, we, you, they, us are all guilty, but we’re not to blame.
After allowing yourself to feel the hurt and the pain you start to understand that the people around you who caused you pain were only trying to avoid their own pain.
Now, of course we all know this logically, but through the techniques used in BioCybernaut and Hoffman you are going through and growing through a spiritual pilgrimage and building up a Hero’s Journey to get to these places. Remember both of these programs are 7 days fully intensive. At Hoffman they take your phone for this whole time (eeeek!) You have to fully commit to yourself, to heal, for your future self, to save yourself and the way you relate to others.
In these programs you are receiving feedback from how you feel about these situations and circumstances and healing them from the perspective of the subconscious mind. These two programs are absolutely INCREDIBLE and I would highly recommend them.
I did BioCybernaut first, in March of 2023 and Hoffman second in October 2023. I liked the way I did these programs because they 100% build off one another. After Hoffman I went back to Michigan and spent a whole fucking week with my parents! If you know, you know :p
Since then, I feel more aligned in myself, I blame people less for things that have happened and I have been able to be so me-y it’s been so full of bliss and so fantastic. I feel so aligned in my center and my truth and I have been able to speak it from such a grounded and diplomatic way. I have been able to see people from their wounded Inner Child and the amount of compassion I have for everyone around me is magnificently overwhelmning.
I am finally free from my patterns - whether they were passed down from generations or created by Inner Child me to avoid pain.
If you have any questions about these programs please feel free to message me as I would love to share more!
xoxox
