I Didn't Expect Ibogaine to Show Me This

Summary

Healing + Human Potential with Alyssa Nobriga

Episode: I Didn't Expect Ibogaine to Show Me This
Date: August 4, 2026
Host: Alyssa Nobriga

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Brief Overview

In this deeply personal episode, Alyssa Nobriga shares her transformative experience with the psychedelic compound ibogaine, used medicinally and in sacred indigenous ceremonies. Alyssa discusses the intricacies of her three fractional-dose journeys and the profound insights they brought, particularly regarding the nature of emotions, self-abandonment, pleasure, and self-advocacy. The conversation interweaves scientific context, personal storytelling, practical takeaways, and actionable wisdom for any listener seeking healing or greater self-connection, whether or not they ever pursue psychedelic work.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to Ibogaine & Disclaimers

• [00:00] Alyssa introduces ibogaine, its traditional use among the Bwiti people, and its emerging presence in Western medicine for trauma and addiction.
  • Scientific updates: Recent Stanford study showing up to 88% reduction in PTSD symptoms and significant improvements in depression and anxiety after one month ([00:54]).
  • Context: Texas invested $50 million into ibogaine research, marking unprecedented federal attention.
• Alyssa clarifies: This episode is her personal experience, not medical advice. Ibogaine carries medical risks and demands proper supervision.
• She chose a fractional dosing regimen (three smaller journeys), not a single "flood dose" often used for substance dependencies ([01:40]).

2. Preparation and Setting

• [03:17] Alyssa describes her motivation: personal curiosity, desire to heal, and to serve by later sharing her learnings.
  • Influence from friends and Mark Hyman, who described significant brain changes and transformative effects.
• [04:31] She recounts arriving at "Beyond" medical center in Cancun:
  • She felt incredibly cared for—“I literally have never been more cared for in my life.” ([04:37])
  • Medical protocol: Extensive screening, 24-hour nurse care, fasted state, IV and EKG monitoring.
  • Each journey lasted ~6 hours, followed by days for integration and reflection.
  • She strongly recommends taking more post-journey integration time than she did.

3. Journey 1: The Optimizer & Emotional Mastery

• [08:31] Alyssa enters her first journey feeling excited and prepared, with many written questions for the medicine.
• Unique clarity: Compared to ayahuasca or psilocybin, ibogaine provided more direct, interactive answers—“as if I could just plug in or tap into a memory… and it would reveal any question I had.” ([08:31])
  • Visual and heart-opening sensations, similar to psilocybin and MDMA.
• First revelation: The “optimizer” (her inner Monica from ‘Friends’) led the way, seeking productivity.
• Chakra clearing: The journey began with “the medicine clearing my chakras,” with vivid colors and spinning sensations.
  • Notably, the answers mirrored her subconscious—not always objective truth. “Everywhere that I was blocked in my own life it also had some kind of a block.” ([11:33])
• Life Review: Visual experiences of meaningful relationships and opportunities for both gratitude and clearing emotional residue ([12:47]).
• Emotional insight: Confronted with shame, she realized some emotions (joy, gratitude) were easy, but shame, frustration, fear, and desperation were hard due to over-identification.
  • “I was shameful, not I'm experiencing shame—very different. And I think the language is important around that.” ([15:27], Alyssa)
  • Distinguishing feeling an emotion from believing it is your identity is a powerful “life hack.”
• Major learning: True healing is to fully feel and "digest" emotions without an agenda. “Emotions were teaching me they just want to be honored, they just want to be met, they want to be allowed.” ([17:29], Alyssa)

4. Journey 2: Meeting Fear & Allowing Pleasure

• [22:31] Alyssa describes entering the second journey with more fear, partly triggered by the traditional Bwiti music, which felt chaotic to her system.
  • A conversation with a staff member helps her shift perspective: “I just imagine that I'm dancing around the fire with them,” showing that fear wants to be "joined" and met compassionately ([23:11]).
• On emotional safety: “Thoughts and feelings speak a different language... You can't convince yourself out of feelings. You need to meet it emotionally.” ([25:47])
• Facing fear: She discovers the story of fear can be bigger than the emotion itself, and meeting it directly allows it to dissipate.
  • Notable quote: “Fear, that little fucker... the more you run from it, the louder it gets, the bigger it feels. And then you just... open the curtain and it's a small little guy.” ([26:18], Alyssa)
• Key practice: Enlist support (friend, pet, etc.) in presence—not fixing or distracting—to help process big emotions: “Just to presence it. Yeah. And that can just be even 90 seconds to fully open to and allow without an agenda.” ([30:13])
• Unexpected gift: When she surrenders her agenda, she unexpectedly accesses a new capacity to feel pleasure: “I started to feel pleasure in a way that I hadn't realized.” ([31:07])
• Big question: Is life’s intelligence better than her own preferences? This becomes the central inquiry.

5. Journey 3: Reclaiming Self, Self-Advocacy, & Integration

• [33:34] The third journey is marked by a feeling of "coming home" to herself.
  • Prompted by another participant’s statement: “I really have my own back,” she recognizes this is what she seeks, too.
• Insight on work & support: Alyssa sees her team dynamic reflects her boundary issues and self-abandonment:
  • “My business was a reflection of me... I was ignoring my own needs.” ([34:59])
  • Realizes a pattern rooted in "authoritarian parenting": doing what she was told, not honoring her pleasure or desires.
  • Sees the value of nurturing the part of herself that truly acknowledges others—her inner “CEO” is the part that can see and honor, not just optimize.
• Immediate integration: The medicine allows for actionable change in the moment. When overwhelmed during recovery, she finds her voice: “I'm still very much in the medicine. Can we do this tomorrow?” ([40:41])
• Resolving childhood fairness narratives: Alyssa recognizes limitations of old belief systems—such as the need for fairness—and opens to greater trust in life’s intelligence ([41:47]).

6. Agency, Wisdom, and Ongoing Integration

• Alyssa reflects on the feeling of communicating with different parts of herself—sometimes using “we” or different gendered inner voices ([43:23]).
• The medicine provides a “freeze frame” ability to explore any life memory, and she finds this kind of reflective agency remains accessible to her in integration ([44:55]).
• She reclaims her “Phoebe” side—creativity, pleasure, playfulness—and commits to nurturing that part by slowing down, listening to desires, and journaling.
• Challenge to ego-judgment: Desires are not inherently bad; integrating all parts of the self—including egoic or childish parts—is true wholeness.
  • Memorable quote: “To not necessarily let [the ego] drive the car, but it gets to be included, that feels like the right relationship to be with.” ([47:10], Alyssa)

7. Universal Takeaways for Listeners

• [48:21] The medicine “revealed to me myself.” The key is always available: creating space, slowing down, and listening to inner wisdom.
• Anyone can cultivate this connection without psychedelics: “You have more wisdom available for you than you are probably listening to. And if you create space to not be distracted to ask life, you will be shown.” ([49:43], Alyssa)
• Healing is an ongoing process that continues in the “open” window of neuroplasticity after the journey—true integration happens over months.

8. Final Reflections and Practical Guidance

• [53:43] If she could speak to Ibogaine directly: “Thank you. Thank you for helping me see myself and hear my own wisdom.”
• Core message: The great paradox of transformation is that feeling what you’ve avoided (shame, fear, frustration, etc.) is the key to everything you’ve wanted: “When you open to the feeling that you've avoided, it actually, ironically holds the key to everything you've deeply desired.” ([56:31])
• New work ahead: She plans to create tools and guided practices for feeling and processing emotions somatically for her community.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On intention and agency:

  “You could ask any question and it would show you and reveal to you your own wisdom and your own insights.” (Alyssa, [08:31])

• On self-identification with emotions:

  “I was shameful, not I'm experiencing shame—very different.” (Alyssa, [15:27])

• On the essence of emotional healing:

  “Emotions were teaching me they just want to be honored, they just want to be met, they want to be allowed. And that was a really powerful shift for me.” (Alyssa, [17:29])

• On meeting fear:

  “Thoughts and feelings speak a different language... You can't convince yourself out of feelings. You need to meet it emotionally.” (Alyssa, [25:47])
  “Fear... the more you run from it, the louder it gets, the bigger it feels. And then you just... open the curtain and it's a small little guy.” (Alyssa, [26:18])

• On integration and reclaiming self:

  “It feels like this reclamation of who I am. ... I'm like, who do I want to lead? ... I want her to lead. ... the one that's present enough to truly see others.” (Alyssa, [38:53])

• On universal wisdom:

  “You have more wisdom available for you than you are probably listening to. And if you create space... you will be shown.” (Alyssa, [49:43])

• On the paradox of transformation:

  “When you open to the feeling that you've avoided, it actually, ironically holds the key to everything you've deeply desired. So in feeling unworthy, you open to worthiness. When you feel stress, it opens you to peace. When you feel stuck, you experience freedom.” (Alyssa, [56:31])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00–04:31] — Introduction to ibogaine, research highlights, personal intention, and preparation
• [08:31–15:40] — Journey 1: Interactive visionary experience, emotional digestion, and the optimizer
• [17:29–21:46] — Shame, emotional mastery, and the importance of “digesting” emotions
• [22:31–27:25] — Journey 2: Confronting fear, chaos of music, reframing fear, surrender
• [31:02–33:21] — Journey 2 continued: Unexpected pleasure, letting go of agenda
• [33:34–40:41] — Journey 3: Team/work reflection, self-abandonment, self-advocacy
• [44:55–47:10] — Integrating agency, reclaiming “Phoebe,” rethinking ego
• [48:21–50:25] — How to access wisdom without psychedelics
• [53:43–59:21] — Closing insights, gratitude to ibogaine, paradox of transformation, future offerings

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In Summary

Alyssa’s ibogaine experience is less about altered states or exotic visions and more about coming home to herself, honoring every feeling, and integrating all parts of her being. Her central message: true healing—and human potential—comes from a courageous willingness to feel, to listen inward, and to reclaim both our vulnerability and our desires. These tools, she insists, are available to everyone, in every moment, with or without a psychedelic catalyst.

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For more resources or to join Alyssa’s community, visit her website or the links in the show notes.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome back to the Healing and Human Potential podcast. Today's episode is going to be a little bit different, so I'm sharing one of the most profound experiences of my life, my ibogaine journey. Deep in the rainforests of Gabon in Central Africa grows a shrub called iboga. And hidden within this root bark is ibogaine. This is a powerful active alkaloid that the Bawiti people have used for generations in sacred initiation ceremonies. And today, this ancient medicine is being administered in clinical settings, with researchers studying the potential to help people overcome addiction, trauma, depression, anxiety, ptsd, and traumatic brain injury, with some reporting that profound shifts after just one journey. Research from a 2024 Stanford study with veterans reported just after one month of treatment. Participants reported an average of 88% reduction in PTSD symptoms, 87% in depression, 81% in anxiety, along with improvements of overall quality of life. And this year, it has moved further into the spotlight than ever before because Texas has put around $50 million into ibogaine research. With the increasing federal attention behind it, the science is moving faster than it has in decades. And just to give you a sense, there are different ways people work with this medicine. So iboga is more intense. This experience can last anywhere from 12 to 24 hours. And you can think of iboga like cannabis and ibogaine like thc. With ibogaine, some people experience a flood dose, which is more like a hero's dose, and those journeys last around 12 to 18 hours, where others, like me, did a fractional dose, meaning three smaller journeys that lasted around six hours each. So during these journeys, a lot of people experience intense visionary states, often including a life review, which I'll share about mine in a moment. And so today I want to take you inside my experience. But before we get started, I just want to share an important disclaimer. So, obviously this is not medical advice or recommendation. It's important to know that ibogaine carries serious medical risks, especially because of heart conditions. So people have died from this. So it does require proper medical screening and supervision, and it isn't appropriate for everyone. I'm also not an expert in ibogaine. I'm just simply sharing my personal experience. And each of my three journeys were totally different. I had different dosages and I had different intentions with each one. So I. While parts of my story may resonate, your experience would probably be totally different, and I do recommend doing your own research and consulting with qualified professionals. But overall, my experience was incredibly beautiful. It was heart opening and deeply clarifying, and it didn't feel like the medicine was giving me answers, it was more so accessing my own inner wisdom and knowing. And I've heard from other people whose experiences were confronting. Maybe that's because I've spent years doing a lot of inner work or maybe because I genuinely want to know the truth, even when it's uncomfortable. I honestly don't know. But what I do know is that the medicine seems to to mirror you. So if you're serious, it'll be serious. If you're playful, it's going to be playful. And so staying open to whatever the medicine wants to show you is part of the magic. And I really do believe that this has the potential to accelerate healing and trauma for many people when approached with the right medical care, respect and intention. And so with that, let's take you into my three journeys.

[B]

Hypogaine. What's up with that?

[A]

Who knew?

[B]

Yeah, what? Why ibogaine? Why now?

[A]

Yeah, I had actually not heard of it before and our dear friend Mark Hyman was such a advocate about it and was talking about how you have more white matter in the brain and how it was just one of the most healing experiences he had ever done, along with maybe eight other friends who had done this specifically at this medical clinic that I went to. And I love the healing arts. I love experiencing things and then sharing with others what I find, what I find valuable and how to use it. I went in for my own intentions, but I also went in as a scientist to share with people. I like doing the edgy, exploratory, curious thing and I've just been hurt hearing really beautiful things about it. And so it was for myself, but it was also to serve and share with people what I found.

[B]

Yeah, it was surprising to me just given how much work you've done, that there was still something that was calling you towards this.

[A]

I think that there's always going to be something. I kind of hope that there's never not. I love the experience of continuing to open my heart and mind and that is a goal that I never want to end.

[B]

What was it like getting ready for it? Like what was the process?

[A]

I wanted to have one journey on my own, which was really beautiful because I think every ceremony I've ever done in my life was showing me about my over responsibility, but just to give people context. So I went to Cancun, Mexico and I went to a place called Beyond. This is a medical treatment center. And I literally have never been more cared for in my life and I had no idea it was going to be that experience. So they have different facilities, some for vets, some for people that do the flood dose. The flood dose is like a 18, 17 hour journey. And that a lot of the time people that have they're dealing with substance abuse do the one big dose because that wasn't my experience. I did the fractional dose. So I did one day. You know, you do so much monitoring beforehand and I had 24 hour care the whole time. So I did some of the heart monitoring, the blood work, make sure I was screened and approved. And then I did my first experience. You fast that day. And I'm hooked up to an iv, an ekg, watching my heart and I have one nurse with me the whole time. And my journey was about six hours the first day. And then you have one day integration. I was just taking notes, notes, notes, notes to integrate and drawing what I was seeing. And then there was another day where I would go in and then again a day off and integrate and then one more journey and then I went home. One thing I wish I had done was I wish I had more time afterwards to integrate because they said there wasn't a lot of side effects. I didn't really plan, I kind of came back. We are going to Bali tomorrow and I'm going to take a lot of time there. But I just would recommend if people do this to take time because I found that it was really easy to change behaviors right afterwards and also during. But the medicine compound. So your first dose, you know, they're kind of figuring out dosing and then the second one, it's even more. And actually doing the three fractional doses, you have more of the ibogaine in your system than if you just did one flood dose. But my nervous system, I wanted something more gentle and I had an eye mask on. I'm in a medical kind of. It's a home, but it looks like a hospital. And there were. The first day was my by myself. And then other days there were other people that were there in their own space. We each had a nurse watching us and monitoring us the whole time. But I had an eye mask and a playlist. I had ear. It's like a solo journey. And the music really affected me. And at points I could open my eyes and I was seeing the stars and I could also see in the room. So I really understood remote viewing. And if I followed the visuals because it was very visual, I could see music, then I would get a little dizzy. And I didn't take some people purge, I didn't take any of the anti nausea because I had a fractional dose and I just told them to put it in the IV if I needed it, but I didn't seem to need that. All three journeys were incredibly different because I took a different dose and I had a different intention going in, which I'll share about. But that was kind of the set and setting and I did go in with a lot of intention.

[B]

Yeah. What was that like? Sometimes I know that when you go in with intention into a particular journey.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

There's a lesson within.

[A]

Yeah. So the first journey I wasn't nervous at all. I was really curious and excited and I. The person that was picking me up, I stayed at something called the beach house. It was, it was my birthday gift to myself. It was kind of like a upgrade and they had a private chef and it was really lovely experience. I really appreciate beyond and what they offered me in that. And the driver was a little late so I was just looking at my intentions and because I had spoken to somebody at the house before and he was saying that the medicine reveals to you any answer, any question you have. Whereas say psilocybin or ayahuasca. Sometimes you need time to integrate the work and it's not really clear. It's kind of like dreams, it's your subconscious. But my experience with the ibogaine, it was very clear. You could ask any question and it would show you and reveal to you your own wisdom and your own insights.

[B]

It sounds like the difference between sort of other journeys you've had and this one is that there was more of an executive function online.

[A]

Yeah. I had agency. I could choose my own adventure, I could highlight. It was almost like I could just plug in or I could tap into a memory or an experience and zoom in and then it would reveal any question I had. And it did feel like my higher self. I had not really connected with that word before, but it felt I could see my higher self. Everything was visual, almost similar visuals to psilocybin, but I had a very heart opening experience. I don't know if that was because the music was heart opening or just because that's the way I operate in my life, but it felt like an mdma. Very heart opening. A lot of heat, a lot of fire in my heart, the back of my neck and my head.

[B]

Was it embodied?

[A]

It was embodied. Although the first journey was more heady, but also I think the medicine mirrors me. So anyway, I had written down different intentions because the guy before me had shared that it's. It felt like he Was saying it was like a genie, you could ask any question it would reveal. So I was like, oh, I have a question about this and that. And so I wrote down different questions, maybe eight to 10. And because the guy that was taking me to the, to the ceremony space was late, I was really reading my intentions. I didn't realize that the medicine actually gave me a photographic memory where I could read my journal and, and see my handwriting even in the medicine. So I didn't really need to over prepare, but I did and that was perfect for my journey. And so my journey, one, let's call it the optimizer. So I have two parts of my personality, two main parts of my personality. There's the Phoebe and the Monica from Friends. And I would say that the first journey for me, Monica the optimizer, the one that wants to take advantage of every situation and produce or be productive and maximize this part of me that's very capable has really driven my life for the last few years. And she was on it in the session. And so in the very beginning I started asking for insights and I also had. I'm not sure if the music was reflecting if the music was higher, faster paced or not. But I just started getting answers and a lot was starting to be revealed to me. But it was a lot and it was a bit heady the first time.

[B]

So what were some of the questions you brought to that first journey?

[A]

Well, it was interesting. The very first thing that started happening when the medicine came on was that it cleared my chakras. And I was like that's fantastic because

[B]

you know it's clearing your chakras because

[A]

it, it showed me and it was, it was just taking over the whole process. And so it was, I saw colors, I saw that it's spinning and I'm like that's fantastic. Because I actually wanted to clear my chakras. I'm like thank you. But I as a scientist wanted, you know, in my mind was like testing out the medicine. Is this a higher intelligence? Is this my own subconscious? I was wondering if I asked the question, is the red, is the first chakra red or orange? And it said orange very confidently. And that was perfect because later the next day I got to look it up and it was actually red. So I was like, oh, everywhere that I was blocked in my own life it also had some kind of a block.

[B]

So you're saying that, that the answer was coming from you and from your mind and your recollection, not from some

[A]

higher something beyond my own self consciousness that's what it felt like for me from my experience. And also the first journey started showing me how important it was to celebrate the progress in my life in the healing journey. And it. I felt deeply embodied in that knowing. And I was like that's fascinating because I was just talking about that, the importance of that in my certification program of celebrating myself, of noticing progress, not just where the lack was but just. And I. And so I got curious about oh, I would just had that insight in my certification program. I just wanted to clear my second chakra. So the next day when I looked it up I was like, oh this, these were some of the subconscious intentions that I had had. The things that were. It's almost like because the subconscious felt so open, things that I had known were. Were reprogramming and landing deeper in my subconscious, if that makes sense. So I ended up being. So after the clearing of the chakras I ended up still day one, day one, journey one. I mean this was a six hour. There was a lot in there and it actually spiked quite High, was 90 minutes to two hours. And then it just the dropped off quite a bit. And I had a life review. So I felt myself in this black tomb and I saw different faces in my life come up and most of them are really beautiful, heart opening moments of gratitude to clearing conversations, things that I felt. But I had agency, I could go deeper into understanding situations.

[B]

We were actually having conversations real time as images were coming forward with things that needed clearing.

[A]

That's right. Either clearing or gratitudes. Most of them are gratitudes. But also I had like a feeling of shame came up and that's actually when I stopped the first journey because it spiked and then came off and then some actual. Because the music really influences me in life but also influenced my journey. And so some, I think it was sad music or some heavier music came up. And then I started feeling those feelings of shame, of shame. And I couldn't actually digest shame. So what the medicine showed me was it asked me to clarify what emotions are easy for me. And I found that joy, sadness, gratitude, grief, those were easy for me. And then it asked me to clarify what emotions were hard for me. And I got to see that shame was hard. Fear was hard, frustration was hard, desperation was hard. And so the next guilt. Guilt was okay. Guilt was okay. Shame was harder. And what I noticed the next day when I was journaling about this was that all of those emotions were hard because I either believed them and or identified with them. And so it was being kind of apprenticed about how to be with emotions. And one of the questions that I had had and I think why I was shown this was what' my next body of work? What's the next way I can serve in the world? I can feel I'm on the precipice of something else. And it was showing me that the power of teaching people how to feel and if they feel. And I'll do a whole other podcast around this and being seen, which is another aspect of my first journey. If I teach people how to feel, they won't have so much challenge in their life. They can navigate it much more easily. And I have always said, why do I learn this in grad school and not grade school? And so anyways, with the harder feelings, I realized when frustration comes up, I go to strategy instead of just feeling it as a sensation somatically, not a story. I also saw that shame, there was a lot of identity in it. And I didn't ever have a relationship with shame.

[B]

What do you mean a lot of identity with it?

[A]

It was just who I thought I was. I was shameful, not I'm experiencing shame very different. And I think the language is important around that.

[B]

So it's easier to feel it when it was an experience of shame as opposed to I am shameful.

[A]

That's right. It's harder to change something you're identified with. And so. And then I also realized fear was similar. I just believed the story of fear rather than being in relationship with it, which was one of the greatest unlocks like that's a life hack. Not just believing the story of fear or thinking I am fearful. It's like, no fear's here or I'm experiencing fear. It's not who I am. Have you ever felt like there's something more you're meant to do? Like you've outgrown the life that you're living, but you don't know what comes next. Maybe you've checked all the boxes and still something inside whispers this isn't it. What if that whisper is actually a calling, A sign that you're here to do something meaningful, something that lights you up and serves others in the process. After two decades of experience as a psychotherapist and coach running a multiple seven figure business, I've seen what's possible when people fully step into their purpose. And that's why I've created my ICF accredited coach certification program to help people like you turn their natural gifts into a fulfilling career and life that feels fully aligned. It's for brand new and experienced coaches working in any niche inside. You'll learn powerful tools to not just transform your life, but feel confident in deeply and profoundly helping others change theirs. You'll also learn practical strategies to build a purpose led business and implementation. Embody your inherent worth so you can show up authentically feeling supported to really have a natural abundance in your life. You'll also join a supportive, heart centered community of people who, like you, have decided to stop settling and start living their purpose. And so if you're ready to feel clear, confident and connected to finally align with the freedom and fulfillment that you've been seeking, I want to invite you to take the next step. The link is in the show notes to learn more and apply today or go to alyssnobriga.com I would be honored to support you on this journey.

[B]

Earlier you mentioned you stopped it when shame came up. What does that mean?

[A]

So when shame came up, I didn't feel like I could fully presence and digest that emotion. And what I was being invited to do was to enjoy the meal of shame, to actually taste the flavors of this emotion and let it move through my nervous system. Not to get rid of it. Because sometimes we can use the word healing, AKA get rid of or change. But emotions were teaching me they just want to be honored, they just want to be met, they want to be allowed. And that was a really powerful shift for me. Not just in my mind, but in my whole somatic being.

[B]

I've heard you speak of this before. What changed? What's different from what you're saying now, from what you've said before?

[A]

I've said it before, but there's a deeper embodied knowing around it. And I could feel the subtlety of still sometimes wanting it to change rather than just being with it, than just enjoying the meal of shame. And I know it doesn't. That sounds crazy, but actually when you fully enjoy, does settle, but it's not a problem anymore. It's not something to get rid of. And when we honor and we hear what it's trying to share with us, it feels like every part of us, every emotion just wants to be seen. And another part of this journey was about this, about being seen. And I realized when I was younger, in middle school, I developed hyper vigilance because I was being fully, authentically expressed. And I felt, well, I started getting bullied for about a year and a half and that's when my unconscious mind said let me be hypervigilant to always look at what other people are thinking so that I could Protect myself and not feel like the rug got pulled out from under me. And I was. And I have so much to share. More about this fear being seen, which I know is a big, common topic for people, so I'll do another episode on that because there's too much for just this podcast. But I went just really quickly, what

[B]

was the emotion behind the fear of being seen that you needed to feel?

[A]

Fear. Fear, yeah. And I'll talk about fear in a moment. And how. What I learned about fear, which was really powerful, which was. It led me into my second journey, but it was almost like, how am I perceived? Created a lot of anxiety. And you were shown in my journey. And I feel deeply seen by you, deeply accepted by you. And I let that wash through my body, and I let it heal some part of me. And I just was like, I want. I think that's the greatest gift we can offer people is to truly see them, like, beyond these illusions of hierarchy, along, like, even this, because I was also inquiring into worthiness, and it was showing me levels, like the illusion of better than and worse than. And these. It's all created in our mind moment to moment. We can wake up out of that. And by being seen by you, it helped me see myself more fully. And I went from. I wrote down something like, I want people to feel seen by me. Like, I was like, that's the greatest gift that you can offer them, to see them in their wholeness. And then I crossed that out. This is the next day journaling, and I was like, I want to see people. It was about the integrity with myself, whether they receive it or not. That's what my truth is. And so it's kind of reoriented me to what's my truth and how do I want to move through the world rather than if they receive it or not. And it's not like, what do they think? It's like, what do I think? What's my truth? Like, coming back to a deeper integrity with myself.

[B]

We are. We're in day two now.

[A]

Okay. So, yeah, so let's move to day two.

[B]

This is day two of the. The dose, not day two of the in between. Right. Because my understanding is you have dose. Rest dose.

[A]

Yes. So this was my first journey, and then I started integrating some of the insights, and they started drawing. And I would highly recommend people. I mean, I have, like, 50 pages of notes just to. And there's so much more. That's why I'm trying to share the. The top three lessons in all of this.

[B]

Yeah. You have this day one. You come in with all these questions, all this agenda. You get incredible insights. The real lesson that I'm hearing is it's about feeling and digesting your emotions fully without an agenda. And it showed you what emotions you were more comfortable experiencing and which ones you weren't.

[A]

Yeah. Not identifying with them, developing a relationship with it. And because in the last. The first journey, I hit up again shame that I couldn't fully digest or I wasn't ready to meet. I. And I know I'm so affected by the music. And actually I wanted to connect with the Bueti people, the tribal people, where this met medicine comes from. And it felt like it was honoring to connect with them. But when I listened to the music, it really rocked my nervous system. It felt very chaotic. And I was the second journey I knew I wanted to because I was being guided to feel the emotions. I wanted to really use the medicine to stretch my capacity to be with the range of things that I've avoided. And I could feel, honestly, a bit more fear going into the second journey because of that.

[B]

Because of the music.

[A]

Because of the music. Because I knew that the music was going to influence fear coming up. And part of what I felt.

[B]

You were afraid of fear.

[A]

I was afraid of fear, yeah. And I was afraid of actually meeting. I was afraid of my. The story that the fear was saying is because the neuroplasticity is so open and this is really going to reprogram. I didn't want to loop in fear. And that was perfect. So I ended up saying, I ended up listening to the playlist that the beyond created, and it had 25 minutes of what I would say is kind of chaotic, like. Like tribal music. And I'm here for my freedom, you know? And so I had this, like, should I do it? Like, no. My life is about letting it be easy. Now. I do. I've done the hard. So I really got caught up. It was perfect. I could see my patterns. And because Monaco, the optimizer, was really sort of leading the first journey, I got curious about what happens if. What happens when I'm not leading, when I'm not trying to make something happen. And so the second journey, I had my first journey day off, integration, my second journey, it felt more like a surrender. It felt more like an inquiry of what happens when I'm not trying to make something happen and just to allow the music and just to go with what was being offered. And so before you, my experience, before I went into the second journey, there was this Beautiful woman named Lena who was doing a smudge, a clearing of my aura before I go to sit it. And I talked to a few different people the day between my journeys, asking about should I listen to the music, should I not? I really got caught up in my head about it, and I ended up putting the music in or just surrendering to it. And I was telling Lena, like, just casually that she's like, how are you feeling today about the journey? And I said, I'm a little bit worried about putting on this music because I'm so affected by it. And she's like, oh, that music. She's like, I just imagine that I'm dancing around the fire with them. And it was so casual and it was so profound because it was life showing me how to meet fear. And what that means is fear wants to be joined in its reality, even though it's not true, it feels true when you're believing fear. And I realized that I'd never actually been in relationship with fear. I had just believed fear and I froze. And so of course I wouldn't have wanted to do a journey like that. And her just off the cusp saying that gave me a reference point to learn how to be with fear the way I was learning how to be with shame and these other feelings that it was showing me that I hadn't actually fully digested and met. And it was profound for me. And. But because I had an orientation around, you know, it's sort of like if a little kid is saying, there's a monster under the bed, you don't say, you don't need to feel that way. Like, thoughts and feelings speak a different language. And so you would just tell the little child, you would say, here's a flashlight. If you get scared, just shine this flashlight and you'll be safe. And so you join into fear's reality and you. You have agency to change the story the same way she was saying, I was just dancing around the fire. And that felt safe to a part of me.

[B]

Can I double click on the Thoughts and feelings don't speak the same language.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Tell me more about what that means.

[A]

So you can't tell yourself not to feel something. Thoughts are.

[B]

So you don't convince yourself out of feelings.

[A]

You can't convince. It's not going to work from the mind. You need to meet it emotionally. It's like it's okay to feel fe, but when you're not identified with it and when it's in relationship, it's a lot easier to presence it to Be with it. And so either to question the fear or to give it agency within the fearful story is the way I was being taught to work with fear.

[B]

Giving agency meaning, change the story.

[A]

Now you have a flashlight. Now I can dance around. Yeah, now you can dance around the fire. But fear, that little fucker, I was realizing, like the voice of Oz, the more you run from it, the louder it gets, the bigger it feels. And then you just. Just open the curtain and it's a small little guy. And so fear, it's. It. It gets bigger when you run from it.

[B]

Yeah. And I'm hearing once you meet it, you can then inquire and question the stories behind the fear or even change the story.

[A]

Yes, that's right. That's how fear.

[B]

It needs to be met first.

[A]

It needs to be met, but they need to feel safe enough to meet it or be in relationship with it. Not being fear.

[B]

How does someone feel safe enough outside of the ibogaine journey to meet something like that?

[A]

Well, for me, I felt safe in that moment by. By feeling like I could have the choice to dance around the fire. That actually gave me more permission to say, oh, I have choice. I don't feel frozen in it. And then also just knowing that it's a feeling, not a fact, even though it seems real, like it's not loving to say someone. That's not true. To join, to meet it with compassion.

[B]

So you're actually having almost like a dialogue with fear as it arises.

[A]

I was having a dialogue. So the Bueti music came up. It was 25 minutes, and I just got to breathe into and welcome with an open heart what I was feeling. And actually there was no fear in my direct experience. The fear was beforehand.

[B]

It was the story.

[A]

It was the story. But it was perfect because even before the ibogaine, my experience is that we're in constant dialogue with life. And if we're present enough, if we're not distracted, we can hear what life is teaching us and showing us. And the journey isn't just these three journeys. It's before, it's after. It's always happening. And so I was being apprenticed by life around how to meet fear. And I'm listening, and I'm so grateful for that.

[B]

It seems very much like your teaching that I've always heard you speak of, but it just seems like it gave you a bigger aperture and a deeper

[A]

direct experience, because these things were already things that I had been inquiring into and living. But it feels more embodied and a deeper knowing. I. It's Almost like when we're tested in life. This is why I love coaching. It's like when we're tested, it really roots that, that teaching in a deeper way. So I know I've been saying this and I know I live this, but it feels even more embodied and rooted now. Yeah.

[B]

Is there an emotion that still feels unwelcomed in your system?

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

Which one?

[A]

Well, let, let's see. Like I, I. There's a greater willingness to feel and to learn how to meet life instead of run away from it because I know that just postpones it. Or then it gets bigger. It feels like the emotions are welcomed and having presence within myself and also having somebody help hold while I feel and to co regulate with does support greater freedom, greater capacity to meet whatever I thought I was scared of.

[B]

What would it sound like if someone was asking for someone to hold for them?

[A]

Like for example, I would ask you, are you open to holding me physically while I feel this sensation that I've been running from? Can you hold presence with me? Because sometimes when it gets big, it can seem overwhelming or I might want to distract. And so if somebody has a friend, an animal, you know, whoever's in their world to just hold and be in presence with them, I think it can help regulate and digest the emotion or the experience that to me, obviously thoughts create the sensation and sometimes it's preverbal, but you want to feel it somatically and through the body.

[B]

So someone to just not fix you, not direct you, just be there, not try to get you to stop feeling fear or whatever the emotion is.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Just to sit with you as you feel it.

[A]

That's right. Just to presence it. Yeah. And that can just be even 90 seconds to fully open to and allow without an agenda.

[B]

Yeah, because I've heard you say that, Right. That sensations move through the body relatively quickly when you're not telling a story. How do you catch yourself when you're telling a story versus when you're actually feeling it? Like how do you distinguish between?

[A]

Sometimes my experience with emotional mastery is sometimes telling the story can bring it up and out a little bit more fully. And you're using the mind rather than the mind using you. So sometimes it's a pure sensation and an energy that moves through, but sometimes I will use a story to elicit it. Elicit the emotion so that it can grieve or it can.

[B]

Then you let go of the story.

[A]

But then you let go as long as soon as the energy is activated in the body. You let go of the story and

[B]

you stay in the body and you

[A]

stay present with the sensations. Let go of the story. That's right.

[B]

Great. Tell me about day three.

[A]

No, wait, there's more. There's more on day two. Yeah. So as soon as the Bueti music came up and then I had already got the lesson and I had tested that, and again I was in this surrender. It was like, what wants to happen? And the music was, after that, very calm and relaxing. And I just. I started to feel pleasure in a way that I hadn't realized. I hadn't fully let myself feel pleasure for very long. So I've normally looked at how do I feel the things that I've avoided in the hard ways. But I also could see that there's more capacity for me to stretch feeling pleasure for longer. And that was just what was wanting to happen. So I could visually see music and I saw my mom, who I feel like embodies pleasure really easily. And so I was seeing these wavelengths of the music. It was her for me. The color for her was teal. And it was just these long wavelengths that were wavelengths that were smooth. And I could feel like my cells were drinking in pleasure. And I can still feel somatically how important that is for me. I was just going very slow. I actually didn't feel a lot of the medicine. So if Journey one was a spike and then dropped off Journey two, it was kind of in the middle, but longer, More of a plateau. More of a plateau, but longer. And the pleasure just letting myself not fix, not produce. And I think when the optimizer, when Monica was leading, I couldn't feel more of this. And so really letting my cells drink in and just feel pleasure felt incredibly important and not something that I would have seen if I was trying to had an agenda and some intentions to heal or look at certain things or get insight.

[B]

So it sounds like in not having an agenda, you were surprised with things you weren't even expecting.

[A]

That's right. And then the inquiry that I started sitting with was, is life better than my preferences? Is the intelligence of what wants to happen actually better than anything I could create? And so that became the inquiry of journey 2. Meeting the fear, experiencing pleasure, and a deeper trust in the intelligence of life. Life.

[B]

Wonderful.

[A]

So it was important that I got that.

[B]

Yeah. So how did having Journey 1 optimizer full on. These are my questions. I know what I want out of this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Day two is like, okay, I have no idea. I'm just going to let go and surrender what happens day three?

[A]

So then after I integrate one day, it felt perfect in the sense where Journey 3 was a real homecoming. I really got to come home to myself. And what was interesting is right before I went into the journey, I was talking to another gentleman who had done a flood dose before and was about to do a fractional dose. And I was asking him before we went in to what his experience was like, and he was like, I really have my own back. And I was so happy for him. He was talking about how he was depressed for six years and just numb and just. He was a vet and he's like, I have aliveness. This changed my life and I really have my own back. I'm like, good for you. I went into my journey with the intention of both journeys of being intentional, but also being surrendered because this medicine feels like agency. I had a few things I was curious about that I wanted. Insight that I hadn't been able to access inside myself. And who knew that my journey was also going to be about coming home to myself, having my own back. I had no conscious idea that that was going to happen, but it was almost like life was winking and showing me before my next ceremony, what does

[B]

that mean, having your own back?

[A]

So how that came forward, I had questions about my team and about letting myself feel supported. So when I was. So I was asking about, show me about my team and what the medicine started.

[B]

You say my team, you mean show me about work?

[A]

Work? Yeah, my. My company. I wanted more insight about how could I really let myself be set up to. To receive support and to birth this new body of work. And like, I really love creating and serving. I know how to create programs that change people's lives. I know how to sell them. But I don't love running team. I love people being taken care of, but I can't do it all. And I wanted to have greater insight into. It felt like a blind spot around this. And actually so in the journey and this feels a little bit more vulnerable and you know, I'll share in service to. If somebody's doing ibogaine or having a journey like this and it feels like something's blocked, stay with it. Because my experience was I was asking about this and it started showing me that my feet were cold. And then I said, okay. And then it said, your body works as a team. And I'm like, oh, I don't mean team ship. Like I was. I thought the medicine was just being very literal. I was like, no, I'm actually asking about my team. And it was kind of like, yeah, so we're telling you. And I'm like, oh, okay, so let me just listen. So it was telling me how my feet were cold and that my arms were cold, my neck was hot, my head was hot, but I wasn't paying attention to my body. And then it visually showed me that my team was on my right side and I wasn't in the center of it. And I realized I was ignoring my own needs. And that was being reflected, that my business was a reflection of me. And I got to see how, when I was young, I was raised with more authoritarian parenting from my mom's generation. That's how she was raised, which is like, do as I am told. I'm the mom. That's why. And so I learned to abandon a part of myself, my pleasure, and my desire to do what I thought I should do. And that I unconsciously created the same dynamic on my team. Even though I'm the owner, founder, I was still creating all these things that I had to do so that I could see that pattern and heal it. And I hadn't seen that before.

[B]

And what was the resolution like if the pattern was standing to the side?

[A]

So then I started to come home to myself. That's where I started to see where I was abandoning my needs. And it started physically. I started to make my warm, my feet warm. I started holding my arms. I started thanking my body. I really got to offer. I had an IV in for six hours each journey, and then it would. And I was just talking to my body to say thank you for tolerating this. And then. And there was just a lot of reverence. And then I visually saw myself standing as the CEO in the company. And I'm calling in a CEO right now. I'm ready to let myself be supported in a greater way, having more pleasure in my life. And I realized the same way that I had done in the past, where 20 years ago, I used to teach people about writing the qualities of your ideal partner, and then living that and being that, I started writing the qualities of an ideal deal CEO and really looking at how do I want to lead my life and my company. And it was so sweet. I saw a part of me, and I was like, not the optimizer, because the optimizer is very fast. It's not people first. I like that part of me, but not as a leader. And I was having this whole ceremony with. It was beautiful. Coming home to myself, and I felt like this reclamation of who I am. And I was like, who do I want to lead? And what surprised me was the part of me that said, thank you, Michelle. And Michelle was one of two of the days, my nurse. And it was the one who saw her, the one who was present with her, and the one who really acknowledges people. And I'm like, I want her to lead. And so I got to really.

[B]

When you say I want her to lead, the one inside of you that acknowledges people, that sees people. Back to day one.

[A]

That's right. Right back to day one. Seeing people and the one that's present enough to truly see others. And. And now I'm clear on the requirements of who I'm calling in as a CEO.

[B]

It sounds like in the same way that you did for partnership, where you're like, I'm going to be the partner that I want to show up for me. I want to be the CEO now. I'm going to embody those qualities and mirror those back in the CEO of my company.

[A]

That's right. That's right.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And this Journey, Journey three, I. Because Journey two was lighter. I. And I wanted to really have. I wasn't sure if I just had less medicine, and so I asked for a little bit more medicine. And I journeyed a lot longer, and it was a lot slower in terms of the recovery. I was still in it after six hours, and I started advocating for myself. It was. So. It's one of the things I love about this medicine as you get an insight. I said, slow down. And then I would take a breath and slow down right then and there. It's not like, as a concept. Yeah, okay. Yeah. The medicine is immediate. It's not a concept in the. In the future. And because I was six hours in, still journeying, and I wanted just to go back to Journey in my room and have a conversation with you and share all the nuggets and insights sites and integrate. And one of the doctors started talking to me while I was laying on the couch waiting to go back to my. To the beach house. And he was talking to me about logistical things. And normally I would have people pleased and been polite, but it was about five minutes and I'm tripping at this point. And I just said, thank you so much for taking care of me. I'm still very much in the medicine. Can we do this tomorrow? And he's like, absolutely, no problem. So it was me having a voice.

[B]

You may not know that, but that's huge.

[A]

Me having a voice, just speaking up for my needs and myself real time in the moment, which was incredibly it's not the kind of medicine that you plan for later. You can change patterns more quickly. But again, I want it to be really clear that it's not about just the journey, it's about also the three or four months afterwards where the neuroplasticity is so open that we can take the insights that we've seen and really live them in our lives as a result. And one of the questions, because my mind really works, works in. I love inquiry, I love asking open ended questions and that the medicine was mirroring me so it was asking me questions. Oh, I have a really, I have another story I want to share that I thought was really powerful. I forgot about this one. So there's so much there's. I mean it was such a rich experience. So I was raised for things to be fair. Right. So meaning equal between me and my brothers and clearly life's not fair. So that set up a really weird dynamic. And I was asking the medicine to show me based on my younger self because that's where I was raised at like I don't know, maybe six years old. So the medicine was teaching me like

[B]

speaking to the younger.

[A]

Younger. Yeah, it was like the medicine was teaching, teaching a six year old in six year old language and visuals and it said you, there's one, there's one candy, one gummy, you want it but so does your friend. It doesn't feel good for you just to have it and it doesn't feel good to just give it away. So cut it in half and you both share in it and it's better. And I was like, that's beautiful, I love that. And then my kind of not skeptical but like science oriented was like, just like, okay, well how does that work? If I have one home and there's two families that want that home, they're not going to share the home or

[B]

split the home in half.

[A]

Yeah, it's not going to work that way. And then it shifted my consciousness to an adult self and it said how do you know what fairness. And I really sat with how can I know what's fair? How do I know? And then it started showing me. You don't know where you came from, you don't know where you're going, you don't even know how to have a baby. But your, your belly, your body does. You're flying on a rock in the middle of nowhere with a fireball next to you. How do you pretend to be in control and how to know anything? And I was like, I have no idea what fair Is I don't know what lessons, what would be best? I don't know if that house, somebody got that house and something bad would happen for one family. I can't pretend to know. And it was just questions like that where I could ask something and I was revealed greater insight and wisdom around it.

[B]

I want to touch on something you said earlier. Sometimes you ask the medicine. And when you're responding on behalf of the medicine, you say it. And sometimes you said, we. Oh, one time you said, we're showing you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I'm curious, when you say we're showing you, what does that mean? Like, how many people are in there?

[A]

It feels like it accesses my subconscious more easily. So when maybe when I'm saying we, I haven't consciously seen that. So maybe when I'm saying we, it's just parts of my own self.

[B]

Okay. Does it have a gender?

[A]

No. Because when I connected with my little one, it was a little boy wearing red boots and like a fire truck. So actually I have different genders and different parts of myself.

[B]

So the medicine is speaking in just different visual voices. Whatever connects to the appropriate part that needs to hear it.

[A]

That's right. Yeah. I felt like I really could ask any question and it would reveal wisdom and share with me what was what it wanted me to see. Although the thing around work was a little harder, I just needed to stay with it. I wish I could show a visual of. Almost like you remember those movie, those film slides. If you have older movies that are projected onto a screen, 8 millimeter or the 8 millimeter. Sure. So you don't remember. So imagine that there's a strip of those movies and that's your life. You could go freeze frame on one of those strips and then go into that. To the movie of that scene. Or you could just keep going. And you have my experiences. You have agency to. With your own curiosity to punch in on the areas or the film that you're interested in seeing.

[B]

Is that something that in integration, you still have access to?

[A]

I still have access. I. Part of the reason that we're going to Bali is to really integrate more deeply. Also feeding the part of me that's. Phoebe. Because when in my third journey I really asked, I never. I literally could see my writing in my journal that said self abandonment. Which I knew that I had abandoned a part of myself at work. I hadn't seen where it had came from. And I got clarity about that and that it was just part of my mom and her mom and that lineage of just doing What I was told rather than what I wanted, I also got to see. So, but first I really asked, what part of me had I abandoned? I hadn't asked that question before. And I had abandoned Phoebe, who is more pleasure, who is more creativity, who is more. More smelly cat and just like playful and funny. And really she slows down. And so I get to nurture her. Her favorite place in the world is Bali. And I get to just slow down and really listen to what my desires are. And one of my practices now is to. Is to journal every night to do a Staying true to myself rating scale from 1 to 10. How true am I being to myself? But as I do a nightly journal, my intention to. Is to really listen to my desires. Because one of the things I think I misunderstood or that I think is a shadow of some spiritual teachings is that the ego is bad and that desires aren't to be honored. And that's not my experience at all. That all of it is the one. All of it is sacred. It doesn't mean that you live out of egoic desires or that it's really the attachment that hurts. But desire is fine. And so if I'm not honoring my desires, if I'm not listening to myself, who is? And so it's a re. You know. And I love Eckhart Tolle. One of my favorite book in the world is A New Earth. I can't listen to it anymore because the way that I hear it feels like there's a lot of judgment of the ego. And I know the ego judges the ego. I think of it as an undeveloped younger kid. And so to really hear it and to honor it, to not necessarily let it drive the car, but it gets to be included, that feels like the right relationship to be with.

[B]

It feels loving.

[A]

It feels loving. It feels true. And so I get to reclaim the part of me that is slower, is softer, is, you know, that Monica, who has done a fantastic job over the last nine years, really finding her power. There's more integration. And this has been a conversation that I've been wanting to integrate for a while. And you know, between the head and the heart and this is where the thyroid is. And at one point I was asking my body to heal my thyroid, right? And the doctor came and interrupted something and I allowed it. And so then I went back in to ask and it didn't feel like that was what was wanting to happen. And so I also trust that, like, I trust the wisdom of all of it. And doesn't mean I couldn't ask or see if there was any medicine or gifts for me to be revealed in that.

[B]

Yeah. I'm curious if you could just summarize for someone that maybe won't go and help have ibogaine.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like what. What are those nuggets? What are those sort of ABCs of what's really alive in you that somebody could do regardless of whether they find themselves in their home or in some retreat center doing medicine work.

[A]

I really got because even before the ibogaine and I've known like there's a sacred sequence in life that this is an intentional universe that you can ask a question and life will show you through a conversation, through a song, through an inner knowing. And this medicine revealed to me myself. It did not feel like it was some other intelligence. It felt like I met myself and came home to myself more deeply. I know the booty people I looked at up afterwards that oftentimes there is a life review, that it is a. They call it a soul retrieval. You retrieve parts of yourself. And so the medicine gave me time and I gave myself space to not work for the most part while I was there. I did work at the very end to see if any work stuff came up so I could actually look at it. And that was intentional. And I asked the medicine about it, so it felt clean for me. But the medicine helped me, and me creating this experience helped me slow down to listen and look and really not be distracted so that I could more easily hear. But it wasn't the medicine in. Yes, that was a beautiful part of it. But that's always available to us. And whoever's listening to this, you have more wisdom available for you than you are probably listening to. And if you create space to not be distracted to ask life, you will be shown.

[B]

It's so hard sometimes in society in sort of this world to slow down. And yeah, I hear the invitation. It's like just. Just. It can be easier than it's imagined at times.

[A]

And one of the things that I got was that because of my middle school trauma, I was looking outside of myself instead of. And in that pattern, I would ask other people about, you know, if I'm moving fast in my life, which I had been act. I have a big capacity and I run a company in it. And. And so. But any. I was being shown that as I ask other people, it was just because I hadn't taken the time just to be in my own energy.

[B]

It sounds like you were optimizing so that you could then slow down.

[A]

Yes, that's Right. And so by feeling into what's my truth? Not how do people like this? It's like do I like this? How do I see this? That, that integrity with myself, that coming home to myself. And I, I, I can close my eyes and ask my body and have. And it feels like a muscle that we all have this muscle memory. It's that wisdom is inside of us. But it's kind of like dreams where some people may think that they don't remember their dreams. But if you start a dream journal and you write it, first thing it starts appearing more. That's my experience with your own. It nurtures the pathway. It's there and available but just take some time to tend to it. And I know for me every journey that I'd ever done in my life. So I had done ayahuasca when I was 20 in Peru with my dad, never done it before, after. And I had done some psilocybin journeys. I've done different experiences and just as a reminder, the medicine physically for me felt like very heart opening, like MDMA in a way. But the visuals of psilocybin and every journey I'd ever done with different medicines was always showing me my over responsibility because I had abandoned myself to care for others in their journeys. And that's why I intentionally went, went solo on this trip so that I could have my own experience. And somehow I ended up in a six bedroom villa on the beach with by myself with 24 hour staff. And normally I would have felt guilty and like sent people home. You don't need like I don't want to be a burden. And I delighted in the experience. Five days, I just was like some people had canceled and I just, the more I delighted in it, the more the caretakers were delighting in my experience. It was. And it was part of the pleasure that was getting reprogrammed. And I really got to heal that self abandonment pattern. And now the work is to really honor the part of me that is Phoebe that has desires and pleasure and forgive any of the judgments and to keep listening. So this is just the beginning of the real work. The integration which the neuroplasticity. I think they said 120 days of the neuroplasticity, that window being open, open and the research money stops. So it could even be more. But I don't have substance abuse. We all have addictions and I didn't do the flood dose so. But I can't quite see how that works in terms of having people. But maybe if I had gone in with a particular intention around healing addiction then I would have been revealed and shown that information. But I have seen and heard so much of the research around that. So I would encourage people that if they have that experience. Experience to really do the research on it and tune in.

[B]

Yeah. Because I also hear that it's. It isn't a clinical setting. Right. This is. This needs to be monitored. There's. There's obviously as with anything implications with. With going down this path 100 they're in a way that is incredibly safe. Yeah.

[A]

Safe and knowing who is it for and who. Who it's not for.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I recommend people get monitored and get proper care around it just because of the risks with it.

[B]

It's not for everyone.

[A]

I don't know. It's not for everyone. Everyone. And not everyone has to do it.

[B]

Yeah. So in closing. Any. Anything that. That remains to be said. Any. I'm actually curious if you were to speak to Ibogaine right now, what would you tell it?

[A]

Thank you. Thank you for helping me see myself and hear my own wisdom. It feels, you know, some of the bigger takeaways that I got from this that I will take with me and continue deepening in which one of the questions was about. About this body of work that I feel like I'm here to help. Birth is teaching people how to feel. And I. And I don't know why we don't teach that when we're kids. Like feelings are here to be heard, to be met. Not to be fixed, not to be improved, not even to be healed. Sometimes that means changed people are coming with an agenda to fix it or get rid of it. But shame just wants to be met. Fear wants to be met. And when we're in relationship with it, it's not who we are. We have greater capacity to be with it as a sensation. That's why we meet it somatically in the body and it starts integrating in our nervous system and we feel like we can change our lives more easily as a result. I was really starting to see how like for me actually I didn't loop this earlier, but the ways that I avoid frustration, I go to optimization or if I felt desperate, I would go to a strategy. That's just how I'm wired. So after I wrote the feelings that are harder for me me to feel, I wrote down next to it, how do I avoid those emotions? And actually what I avoid, I create. And so when you can see that more clearly, you're more willing to test it or try something different. And Emotions don't want to be changed. They just want to be allowed. And when we fully make space for them, it's so much easier. And then, you know, for example, like, if. If somebody's trying to make more money and they feel shame about money, money that's going to hit up against their sense of self, and they're not going to actually be able to take action to create more wealth or change their financial situation. And so I also got to see that when we are in a pattern in our life, oftentimes we unconsciously recreate patterns from our past so that we can see them and heal them now by feeling them, by having the mystic spirit.

[B]

It's almost like this feeling's been wanting to be felt for this long.

[A]

That's it. It's just been wanting to be felt. So, for example, my mom telling me what to do, because that's what her mom did, and she didn't know how to take her power back from that. And I wanted to attach. So I conformed and started telling my. I internalized that parental voice of telling myself what to do in my business. I had created that so that I could see it and then feel powerlessness consciously, fully. And as I feel that, then I have greater dominion to see that I have choice, that I can now do something different, that I can hire a CEO, that I can.

[B]

The paradox of transformation.

[A]

That's right. That's right. This is one of my terms of my certification program. The paradox of transformation, that when you open to the feeling that you've avoided, it actually, ironically holds the key to everything you've deeply desired. So in feeling unworthy, you open to worthiness. When you feel stress, it opens you to peace. When you feel stuck, you experience freedom. But I think that when people get. If I'm creating, if I'm in a pattern that I'm stuck in, quote, unquote, in my life, it's like how you can ask the pattern to show you, like, what's this construct? How. How is it similar to my past? You can go back to that original experience. What am I avoiding feeling? Can I fully feel it as a sensation and as not a story? And as you do, it starts to move through your nervous system. And so now this. I'm going to do a whole nother podcast because there's so much about this being seen pattern around. I also, I'm going to do a podcast to guide people emotionally and somatically to actually presence the emotions. They've been avoided because I love having you in my life. And I love having these tools and it completely changed my journey having that. And for people that don't have that available or somebody doesn't know how to guide, I want to offer them a guided audio practice that they can just come back to for free and just be supported to hold presence with what may feel like bigger than what they can, they can hold. And of course, if it's big T trauma, work with a trained professional. But these like daily digestible feelings when it's almost like a teapot, if it's that kettle is just like starting to boil, you let out a little bit of the steam and it feels way more digestible. So if you do like a daily practice. So I'll offer some of those things for people to take this into their life with or without ibogaine.

[B]

Wonderful. Sign me up.

[A]

Yeah. So I hope that this serves people. This is just my experience, but follow your instincts and you already have all the answers. Just slow down enough to hear them and let go of the distractions to really honor whatever your truth is. Thank you for your willingness to just love me through this and to ask me questions so that I could share with people in service. I love you so much.

[B]

I love you too.

[A]

Thank you, baby. Thank you so much for doing this work that changes the world world starting with yourself. It truly does make a difference. And if this podcast has supported you, one of the most impactful ways to help us reach more people is to simply press the follow button. It really does help us grow and we are so grateful. I just want to say thank you for being a living example of what it means to walk through the world with an open heart and mind.

[B]

Sam.