Iboga: Death & Dying Pt 2

Read iboga: death & dying pt 1 here

Returning to life

When I was coming out of the experience 36 hours later, I heard Jason (my boyfriend in the next room) 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 I ‘knew’ they would be devastated.

I was feeling horrible physically which deepened the idea that I was dead and when I told the medical staff they gave me concerned looks. Naturally I became even more convinced I was deceased. 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.

When Jason came into the room he hugged me and it felt like life itself. He suggested we sit outside in the sunshine and once I was finally able to get up, we sat outside. My experience tumbled out of my mouth in discoherent fragments and 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 to clarify what the heck I was talking about - I continued almost drunkenly: “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. You can only imagine the relief I felt!

We sat in the bright afternoon light of springtime in Portugal looking at the yellow flowers that reached and stretched 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 exceeds any love I’ve ever felt in my life. It was love in the form of life after death; 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 and it was the most beautiful DMT experience I have ever had: I inhaled the medicine and a whole universe of experiences tumbled out of my mouth as I exhaled, and my body relaxed down to the ground. I began to stretch, and the further I stretched the better it felt, I stretched so big that to this day I believe I’m an inch taller!

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 or better than the laughter: it felt like I was releasing the deepest sadness that had occupied my internal organs and dwelled in my DNA. I laughed and cried for myself, my family, my friends, and my ancestors, I laughed and cried for everyone I knew, and then everyone who had ever been known.

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 felt like something immortal had just been demoted to mortality. 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 drug-like, 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 myself and anyone who was lucky enough to know her.

It felt physically unbelievable: because I was feeling dead, it was impossible that Tif and I were both dead. Leaning into to the drug like dream-like state I felt like I was in the ‘woods between worlds’ I was transitioning from death to life and she was passing by going the opposite direction. In this nebulous space in between time I reached out to Tif, 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 through her passing. As I continue to edit this blog months later, she visits me often in meditation and dreams and I am forever blessed with the memories I have with her, and in heightened states of awareness when I feel her sitting next to me and jokingly pointing out a pattern of mine I was previously unaware of.

Being in this state of in between life and death felt oddly synchronous because I felt she was near me in this 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

~

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!

Please enjoy my Free Grief Sound Healing Session inspired by Tiffany’s love and light by clicking here.

~

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.

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

how to hack forgiveness

For over 10 years I have worked with a lot of people sharing their life stories with me. A lot of times people say what they are sharing is things they’ve never shared before, to anyone, ever. A couple patterns I notice about forgiveness is people wanting to forgive and being unable to, or jumping to forgiveness without being ready, or punishing themselves for not being able to forgive. This is common, but it’s something we need to unpack.

As humans we feel a full spectrum of emotions from sadness and anger, and jealousy to joy, happiness and ecstasy. For our time here and now as humans, all of these emotions are valid, as I’ve written about before in Emotions are like Puppies. You are allowed to feel anyway you want. If someone did something to you that is beyond forgiveness (which I have heard many stories where this could be the case) - it is okay to be unable to forgive them.

I know that might sound weird at first - but hear me out for a second. Forgiveness is amazing, it’s releasing, it burns the ties that bind, it’s incredible!

But!

Sometimes it takes time to fully achieve forgiveness and sometimes it is impossible to get there. If you punish yourself your whole life for being unable to forgive, you are suffering twice - once with the trauma and again torturing yourself for not being able to forgive; this is, of course, even worse for your mental and emotional well-being.

To get to true forgiveness, you have to feel ALL THE THINGS: the hatred, resentment, disgust, shame etc. because! jumping too quickly to forgiveness could be spiritually bypassing (i.e. ‘I need to forgive because I’m spiritual, woke, etc…’) or gaslighting yourself (i.e. ‘It wasn’t that bad, other people have it worse, I’m overreacting, etc.’)

Your feelings are valid. You don’t need to do anything. You are the main character in your own life.

It’s also possible if you jump too quickly to false forgiveness, later in life these unprocessed emotions like the unfelt anger, hatred and/or resentment could bubble up again when their effects are more intense. In my opinion, the reasons these emotions can be more intense than the initial ones is because they’ve become infected and irritated from being shut down and compartmentalized. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘what we resist, persists!’ In this case, falsely-forgiving emotions that have not properly gone through their entire life cycle (from birth to resolution) can become exaggerated and more aggressive from not being witnessed. We see the ill effects of this process when we witness projection - when we ‘project’ or overlay past hurts from past events on to current people in our current life.

So!

Here’s my secret hack to forgiveness*:

Instead of trying to forgive the other person for what they did to you - what if you forgave yourself for not being able to forgive the other person?

Interesting right?

In my mind, forgiveness works both ways. You can try and forgive the other person, but if that doesn’t work, why not switch the direction of the forgiveness. Maybe try this on and practice some self compassion and self mercy?

What does it feel like to forgive yourself for not being able to forgive?

What if you chose yourself first?

*Disclaimer: you do not have to agree :) this blog is written with the same philosophy of trying on a T-shirt - if it fits, great; if it doesn’t, take it off and try a new one ;)

The Dark Night of the Soul

What is the Dark Night of the Soul?

The Dark Night of the Soul generally refers to a period in your life around 27-30 years old (and around 55 ish and 86ish) when Saturn returns to it’s natal placement in your astrological chart. It takes this long because of how far away Saturn is from the sun. Saturn is known as the strict disciplinarian of the zodiac, so when Saturn returns back to his original placement in your natal chart - he’s checking up on you. He wants to know if you’re living the life you’re supposed to - if yes, then great, your Saturn Return will be easy, but if not, you will experience Saturn’s wrath (for your own good) through the Dark Night of the Soul.

The Dark Night of the Soul is when Saturn returns only to witness you not living your life in alignment with your path of who you are and why you came. He will shake you emotionally, physically, emotionally and spiritually until you have no choice but to let go of everything that you’ve been holding onto, in order to make room for your soul’s purpose, your true life path, your destiny.

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. ~ Joseph Campbell

Before I go into my story, please note that what happened to me is mine, not yours :) I am not saying our Dark Night of the Soul will be the same as we are on our own unique path :)

My Dark Night of the Soul (trigger warning: SA)

My Dark Night of the Soul started around 27 years old. I remember it clearly because of how traumatizing it was (*laughs in hindsight). I had never experienced such intense anxiety in my entire life; depression - yes, but constant panic attacks - no. At the time I was living in California and working a lot - around 40-50+ hours at my subtle energy laboratory job, I was going through Yoga Teacher Training at Corepower, and I was learning Pranic Healing and Biofield Tuning all at the same time. It was a time of great mental expansion, busyness but complete overwhelm and emotional exhaustion.

I was unhappy with my job. Even though the job itself was amazing, there was a lot going on in the background that made me very uncomfortable. I was tired, and between the panic attacks and having trouble sleeping, I kept feeling this constant ‘doom’ on the horizon. I was afraid for the future because I knew I was not showing up for myself, and I knew enough to know that meant trouble. At this moment in my life I was also trying to be raw vegan / vegetarian, which is the opposite of what I should eat based on my Ayurvedic Dosha (Vata) but I did not have this wisdom until later.

There was a very specific chronology of what began to unfold. At the time, on top of everything I was learning, I was also trying to date - because as a Vata, ADHD person, why NOT try to do everything, all at once! I met a man I was interested in, he was very intelligent, charming, and in alignment with my career path. I thought I could trust him, but this was a lie and I was eventually was raped by him.

A few nights later, San Diego was experiencing one of the heaviest thunder, lightening and rainstorms we had in a very long time. I love thunder, lightening and rain so I decided to take a yoga class and stretch while the sky was expressing itself. As I left the studio there were two beautiful golden retrievers that had been left by their (irresponsible) owner to suffer in the storm. Unfortunately, these gorgeous doggos had been outside for at least an hour so they were very scared and super anxious. I could feel their stress in my own body, but I had to walk past them to get to my car, so as I walked by I put my hand up separating them from my body, and one of them jumped up and bit my hand.

When the he bit me, it felt like it hit a nerve and shot all the way up my arm, through my shoulder and into my neck (C1) and the word BETRAYAL screamed loudly in my mind. It wasn’t a bad bite, but because I had just come from a hot yoga class my hand started bleeding everywhere. I went back inside and cleaned off in the sink. Everyone in the yoga studio was super concerned but to me, it wasn’t THAT big of a deal. It wasn’t a bad bite, the dogs were scared because their dad abandoned them in the thunder and rain outside, and they were sharing a message. I shared their message with the owner and went home.

Reflecting on this event later in the evening, the word BETRAYAL resonated so deeply with me, being that I had just undergone an intense betrayal and so had the dogs; we resonated at these nodes and (in my mind) that’s why they felt safe to share this message with me.

A few days later I was in a Biofield Tuning class with Eileen playing with my hair (it helps me focus) and I touched the back of my head... When I tell you the lymph nodes on the bottom back of my head were the size of tennis balls I mean it. I was absolutely terrified. Not wanting to interrupt class and alarm the other students I waited to talk to Eileen and have her assess my head. I had already shared the recent events with her so together we were solving the puzzle as to why this happened and what this was.

My mind was very activate with fear - because I had gotten bit by an animal, a small part of me was afraid it was rabies and I counted that I had 7 days left to live (as rabies in humans is fatal). I also knew that the SA had something to do with it, which deepened my fear. Even though I perceive physical ailments the result of emotional / mental / spiritual things suddenly for the first time in a long time, my body didn’t feel safe, and that was terrifying.

I called my friend Tiffany Barsotti who is my spiritual counselor, medical medium, one of my best friends and the most in-tune people I’ve ever met in my life. I told her everything and over the phone, she tapped into my body and felt “shingles.” I told her there was no way, as I was young - and wasn’t shingles an old person’s disease??

A few days later I went to my Naturopath and got a blood test and, low and behold, Tiffany was right- it was shingles. A little patch had started to form in my neck, and then the pain in my shoulder, neck and face began. The pain was one of the worse pains I’ve ever had in my life, every time I spoke, yawned, sneezed or moved there would be a sharp pain from my shoulder that radiated electrically all the way up into the entire side of my face. It felt like someone was taking a cleaver to my nerve endings. It was awful.

The Naturopath I trusted put me on homeopathic remedies, natural topical pain-relief creams and for the next two weeks I smoked a lot of weed, rested, journaled, meditated, and reflected. I learned that shingles, according to Dr. Louise Hay means, “waiting for the other shoe to drop. Fear and tension, too sensitive.” This resonated deeply with me as I knew I wasn’t living my true path and that I was being called away to a different life but I wasn’t listening.

Saturn was shaking me by the shoulders, and in my weakened state I was finally listening. Saturn had made me let go of everything that I was holding (yoga, work, social life, school) so I could finally hear the song of my soul. I thought about the first trauma, perhaps too easily trusting and lack of boundaries (not victim blaming or gaslighting myself, just considering a different maneuver in the future). I thought about the second trauma with the dog yelling BETRAYAL with that shockwave going up my arm: was I betraying myself? My truth? My path? I thought about the shingles - waiting for the other shoe to drop… If I didn’t leave this life that was no longer serving me, while this other life was pulling my hair, screaming at me to do so, what else was my physical body going to have to go through?

I healed surprisingly fast, or maybe not so surprisingly as all my friends in California are healers of different kinds; they cooked me food, they let me use their energy healing devices, they did distance sessions on me and I was able to heal myself by getting to the root of why this happened in in the first place.

After completely surrendering to this pain and to my Dark Night I was ready to live my most authentic life that was waiting for me on the other side; so I decided to leave my job and travel the world.

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. ~ Rumi

I started in Bali with my best friend Laura with no plan and I ended up traveling for 9 months. Through synchronicity I met my best friend David in Bali, with whom I adventured with throughout the entire island. I went to Borneo because as a child I was obsessed with Duck Tales (Duck Tales fans understand).

I went to India and worked the International Yoga Festival in Rishikesh and while living there I urban explored the Beatles Ashram (#lifegoal) and later found another best friend, Leah. Together, Leah and I went to one of the first Hindu temples for sunrise and the Taj Mahal together.

I left India for Nepal also by synchronicity (Read my Everest Blog here) and solo Hiked Mount Everest for my 30th birthday (#soulactivation) and fell in love in Pokhara, a lakeside village. After Nepal, I went to live in Ireland with Gillian, a best friend I had met through synchronicity on the plane to Nepal.

I traveled to Switzerland teaching Biofield Tuning and then to Spain with the other friends I made along the way (through synchronicity of course). I went cliff jumping and island hopping in Croatia, visited the small beaches of Bosnia Herzegovina and ate my way through Italy.

The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed. ~ Joseph Campbell

It was the most magical trip of my life and the best thing I’ve ever done for myself (besides doing Ayahuasca in Peru). Before I left, the only countries planned were Bali, Malaysia and India; the rest I left up to the universe. On this trip I lost myself, I found myself, I discovered and uncovered aspects of myself that I could only find by being alone with myself. I became braver, more curious, my intuition expanded, my heart and international family grew. The world became smaller and more friendly as I walked around it.

The moral of this story is - live your life the way YOU want to. No one else knows your path except you. If something is calling to you, it’s calling to you for a reason. If there is something that you’ve always wanted to do, do it! There is no time like the present.

Listen to your inner voice and follow your heart.