A (4:23)
Hello, is this Bobby? Yes, it is, at its core, the science you can't argue with. I'm so worried about up in the Sky. It's almost frustrating that it's happening to die. Its limbs were just, like, wrong. Everybody moves back into the mind, even if it takes them a minute. My name is Jake. I'm a pretty private person, so I'll probably keep most of my personal details to myself, but I will, you know, tell what's needed for the story. Despite being pretty private and keeping stuff to myself, everybody who I've told this story to has told me that, you know, it's. It's something that I need to tell more people. It's been made apparent to me that there's new options out there for people struggling with mental health, ptsd, traumatic brain injury, addiction. And that stuff greatly helped me. So I want to, you know, tell that story and help as many people as I can. And also, I just think it's a pretty good story. So I'm from Cincinnati, Ohio. Grew up a pretty normal childhood. A little. A little rough at the beginning, just, you know, socioeconomic things. But my parents have always been amazing. My family's always been amazing. So pretty great childhood. Nothing to complain about. And then sometime around 17, I was kind of. I won't say lost, but just absolutely no direction. I started kind of looking at the military, but I didn't want to just do anything, I guess, in particular, until I found. So I just decided that I wanted to do something really, really hard. I didn't know what it was. So I ended up signing up for Special Operations and got my contract, went out to selection, made it through, went to the teams, and that was, you know, that was great. By all accounts, I had a pretty lackluster career. No Hollywood deployments or anything. I got in after the global war on terrorism was over. But I still, you know, I did my deployments, I did my job. And just from the nature of that job, because of my Expertise. I ended up with the tbi A traumatic brain injury. So I was a Navy swcc. I went to so and it's not, you know, none of this is like classified or anything. It's more just personal preference. My team was just outside of New Orleans, Louisiana and then. So our inherent job is being the best in the world at shooting heavy weapons. 50 cal machine guns, miniguns, 240s, everything like that. So the big guns that shoot a lot of rounds and we're just finding out now do a lot of damage. The average gun you're going to see in a movie is going to shoot a 5.56 round which is smaller than anything coming out of a minigun or a 50 cal. When you see, I guess one of those massive sniper rifles in a movie is the best way I can explain it. And you can assume because of how big the rifle is that it's longer than the person shooting it. That's a 50 cal round and that's what these machine guns are shooting hundreds of every minute, multiple of them a second. The minigun is shooting around slightly smaller than that, but still a pretty massive round. And you're shooting 3,000 of those a minute. So 50 of those a second are coming out of that gun. Yeah, it's pretty, it's a pretty, it's a pretty. Like when you hold a 50 cal round, you feel like you're holding something pretty crazy. You don't feel like you're holding a bullet like you. There's, there's heft to it. It's actually almost impossible to explain how loud they are. A minigun is so loud that if you're not wearing hear protection, it is going to, it's going to ruin your hearing. I had, we always were hearing protection. Our communications, the way that we communicated through radios and stuff have built in hearing protection. But if that would slip off while I was shooting, it was a wrap. Like it would ruin my hearing for at least the rest of the day. And obviously that's taken a toll on me hearing wise. So yeah, I was a mini gunner. That was what I was. That was my expertise and that's what I'd worked on the whole time. And putting all those rounds through that gun definitely left a mark on my brain. And then besides that, you know, knocked out a few times. Normal things that I guess come with any job in the military. So yeah, that's kind of, that's kind of the conditions I was put in and they're trying to take care of guys. The teams are Doing what they need to. But the new science is coming out that you know, naturally doing that stuff isn't good for you. Which it's, you know, it's. We kind of always knew that, but now we're kind of proven that, unfortunately. So it's not just, it's, it's not just what's actually happening to you. There's a new term for this overall condition called operator syndrome, which is super easy to look up now. They have medical journals and everything on it. And essentially it's when you're putting your body under constant stress and having these things happen to your head at the same time, it's taking a toll on every part of you. It's taking a toll on your hormones, on the way your brain works, just. And it's doing a lot of bad things. And then guys end up with not just traumatic brain injuries, but other things that are hard to track. Like I said, trying to track the hormones. Muscular, skeletal injuries, like just everything throughout the body that's a cause of this stuff. Lead in the blood. And it's just, you know, it's. It's taken a toll on guys. I was about two weeks from getting out and there was a static shoot, so teaching and teaching, you know, some younger guys how to operate the guns at a high level. And I wanted to go help teach it because, you know, I was getting out. I didn't have to go on that trip and I chose to as a trainer. And I went up and I spent the whole week between a minigun and a 50 caliber machine gun training guys. And I could just feel my head getting, you know, turned inside out. So I left the shooting line a couple times and I would take my helmet off and I would, I would shake my head and it was almost like I was shaking my brain back into place. I went through a whole bottle of Excedrin in one week and I threw up a couple times after coming off the line as well. And that's really, you know, that's really when it set in that. Because I would leave from shooting before and be like, oh, I've got a headache, or oh, I feel dizzy or, you know, something like that. But that was the first time where I came off the line and I was like, holy shit. Like, this is. I'm not supposed to feel like. I can't speak for everybody, but I know that I got out, got ready for college, thought that, you know, I was going to live this great life. And then all of a sudden I had a headache. Every day I had A migraine every week. I had blurry vision. And again, I'm just. I'm just one small example. But the jobs are absolutely necessary, and they're doing their best to take care of us, but there's inherent injuries that come with it, and we're trying to navigate and figure out how to. How to get better. So I actually remember I was probably a year from getting out, and I was walking on a bike path with my wife, and I felt something wrong in my head, and we went to sit down at lunch, and I'd never had a migraine before, so we went sit down at lunch, and it wasn't just a normal headache. It was. It. When it came on, it felt like something was just really weird in my head. And so we're at lunch, and about halfway through, I tell her, we've got to go. I can't do anything happening right now. And she's like, what's wrong? And I'm like, I don't know. I have no idea, because that's never happened. So we walked on the bike path, went back to the house. I laid down and got introduced to what a migraine is. No light, no sound. I had a washcloth on my face that my wife got for me, and literally any sensory that came in was excruciating. And the best way I can explain it is it's a heartbeat in your head, but every time your heart beats, it hurts. So you get a second of relief, and then you get a second of this excruciating pain, and then that kind of just beats until you can get rid of it. That was when I knew something was wrong. Initially, looking back, that's when it started. All the other symptoms started setting in, probably in college. So I've always had adhd, but it set in to where my ADHD by itself became a legitimate disability. I couldn't focus on anything. I would have to leave class early. I started, actually, at one point, started failing my classes because there was just no way that I could handle the workload that I was getting in conjunction with the other things that were going on, which I started getting double vision. Like, my vision became blurry. My mental health started taking a turn. Depression, anxiety came on. And then later down the line, I developed an actual twitch because of it. So I developed a physical twitch where I would shake my head multiple times a minute, which started taking its toll on my neck. I wasn't able to properly meet with people. I ended up getting a great job after college that I love, but you can't really do a professional meeting while you're sitting there tweaking the whole time. So, yeah, I mean, these things just start setting in. Whatever you can think of going on, the head started, you know, going on. I've, they diagnosed me with more than I, I can count on my papers at the VA and the brain clinics that I went to. But at the end of the day it's, it's all just a TBI to me. It was, it's all under one umbrella. So they said that I had, you know, from normal concussions and stuff like that, people who play football, people who box and then people who do our job. When you get concussions and you get knocked out, you're naturally going to have some issues. We're seeing that in the NFL with cte. And the brain clinic that I went to was actually for us, it was for special operators, ex NFL players. So it was great that we were there together so that they, you know, they said that that's possible. But then also because of the inherent nature of our job, we have these low grade blast waves that come out of the ammo and every time, every time a round goes off and you know, again, we're shooting way more of these than we can count, that wave is going through your brain and it's doing some damage with every single round. So when you're shooting tens of millions of those, that's just going to add up and add up and add up. But yeah, so that's kind of what they're figuring out now. That's kind of what the science is showing, is that these rounds aren't just going off and disappearing. They're sending something out that goes through you and does some damage. I don't know how many people know this statistic. I don't know how famous it is outside the military, but the statistic has been for about a decade now that 22 veterans a day kill themselves. And that number is only going up. And I mean, that is beyond alarming. I mean, the first time I heard that, I 100% thought that was wrong. I spent like a day researching to prove to myself that that was a real number because I just didn't believe it. And that's the number. So I mean, I'm not shy about it at all because I'm proud of where I am now. And I, you know, I want to share with everybody that there's a way out of that dark place. But I was bad for years. But the thing keeping me from doing the worst thing and hurting myself was that I never wanted to hurt my family. And I don't know when it. I don't know when it was. I can't pinpoint it at the moment, but my mind finally played the trick on me that my family would be better off without me. And I got pretty close to being a part of that statistic. I can't possibly emphasize that I thought about it every single day just because it gave me power over what I was experiencing. So I would drive into school and I remember coming over the hill and seeing the mountains as I drove down into campus and, you know, seeing all this beauty and listening to my favorite music and then just. But just being in utter despair inside and simultaneously having a headache and simultaneously having my vision blurred and my neck hurting and my back hurting and all of this. And even if you're not planning on doing. Just feels really, really nice to know that you're in control when you're in that spot. So, yeah, I mean, I thought about it dozens of times a day because it gave me control. And I absolutely have the insight now. And I know, you know, there's got to, you know, I know plenty of guys who are going through it and unfortunately, I've got to sit here and know that that's going through their head because, you know, it went through mine. And thank goodness the voice of reason came through at the last second and was like, pretty much said, you know, your family, you will destroy your family if you do this. And that was enough for me to simultaneously make the decision that, first of all, I'm not doing this. And second of all, you know, I gotta. I'm not gonna be this miserable burden, so I gotta pick myself up off the mat and I've. I've gotta get better. So I was in therapy and I mean, I had exhausted everything western medicine had to offer. At this point, I'm privileged enough to have good health care. I have VA health care. And then I also, from being in special operations, have access to foundations that most people don't have access to. And the only reason I'm saying that is because I was able to use everything western medicine could give me. And not only did none of it work, I only got worse. I tried an antidepressant and anti anxiety, which were both absolutely terrible antidepressant I got off of within a week because it just, it destroyed me. The anti anxiety, they believe, is what gave me the twitch. I tried restless leg medication which did nothing, sleep medication which made me sleepwalk, so had to get off that. I tried traditional therapy, Emdr therapy, psychedelic assisted therapy with psilocybin, which is magic mushrooms, which that was the only thing that gave me any relief at all. And it's kind of why I got pushed towards this is because that wasn't a lasting relief. But for the first time in years I had a couple days where I didn't have a headache, I could sleep and I felt okay. But I mean, on top of everything else, I already kind of mentioned it, but I went to a three week outpatient clinic at a brain institute with the most amazing doctors in the world, the most amazing people that I'm extremely grateful for. But I only got worse. Western medicine just wasn't answering the question. So I was in therapy in Colorado where a lot of the psychedelic assisted stuff is legal, and I had tried the psilocybin and felt a little bit better for a couple days and that kind of gave me some hope that there, you know, there is something out there that's going to help. And I was in therapy and I got to a point where my, where my doctor said, you know, you're not getting any better, you're getting worse, you're in a really, really dangerous spot right now, so you need, you need to go do something drastic. And she introduced me to ibogaine. And right now there are a handful of retreats going on where you can legally do the substance ibogaine and 5 Meo DMT, which is kind of a compliment to ibogaine. I prefer to call these things, you know, sacred medicine or medicine because drugs, the word drug gives it a stigma and it is, I mean these things are put here on this planet to heal us, like they're nothing short of a miracle. So ibogaine is the alkaloid that is derived from the iboga plant which grows only in Gabon, Africa. So ibogaine was used by, I might butcher it, but I believe the Bawidi tribe B W I T I they're from Gabon and they used it for generations for their traditional purposes. So ibogaine puts you into something similar to a REM state but where you're awake at the same time and cognizant and consciousness. And so yeah, that's where it's from and that's what they've used it for. I can't speak to their exact traditions or rituals, but you can look it up right now. And Ohio State, University of Texas and especially Stanford did the big one. They've all done multi year studies on this. And even in medicine, even in western medicine, looking at this from an academic point of view, it's doing unbelievable things that, you know, seem impossible. They say that it's reopening neural pathways. It completely, it resets your receptors in your brain. So that's actually how where ibogaine started is it was being used to treat people with addiction because it completely resets your opioid receptors. So if you're addicted to heroin and instead of taking a year of the most horrific withdrawals that you know you can possibly go through, you go do this, you know, you go to ibogaine and you're cured in, you know, a day or two. That being said, the particular reason that I've, you know, I, I encourage people if, if anybody seeks this stuff out to go to reputable retreats. Ibogaine does come with health risks and you'll see that if you read the Stanford study, it affects the QT interval of the heart. So if you don't get pre screened, if you don't have health oversight, it, it is possible to get hurt. And people have died from ibogaine. The passed, unfortunately, from what I understand, were doing it in settings where they had no health protocols whatsoever. The retreats that I'm talking about, that doesn't happen because you're getting screened beforehand for pre existing conditions and then you have medical personnel there the entire time. I mean, when you're going through your journey, you're literally hooked up to an ekg. So they're not cutting any corners there. The actual journey itself, you'll hear during my story that mine was very different. But ibogaine is not supposed to be a pleasant experience. You're supposed to be faced with your worst traumas. You're supposed to, you know, purge, throw up throughout the night. Your body goes ataxic. You're supposed to be pretty washed the next day. Like supposed to have a pretty bad hangover for the whole day. They call it gray day. They call it the strongest psychedelic in the world. It's not something that, you know, people would do recreationally. It also lasts a long time. I think they say it lasts between 8 and 16 hours. I've heard stories of it going much longer. So I mean, this is something like when you take this stuff, you're in it, you're not, you know, you're not coming out anytime soon. Yeah, so she tells me, you know, you've got to go do this. She pretty much told me that we can't do any more therapy until I go do this. Actually, like she took care of me and we still had our meetings and stuff, but she literally told me, you know, we're not building on anything or fixing anything because you can't focus on anything except what's wrong with you right now. So she recommends it. I do the call. And this is another point I want to bring out to the people, to the veterans and first responders and stuff that are going through it is, I could have done this two years ago and been better all this time. And I got on the call, everything sounded amazing, I signed up. And that typical, I don't know how to put it, that typical attitude of somebody in the military is somebody else needs it more than I do. At least I know in the special operations community, that's how most of us feel. And that's what went through my mind is somebody needs this more than me, so I'm not going to do it. And I chose not to go for two years, which I won't call it a mistake, because the retreat I ended up going on was I was supposed to meet the guys that were there. I was supposed to be with the providers that were there. And it came at a time in my life that was right. So it was supposed to happen that way. But if you go into this call and you think to yourself, you know, somebody else needs this more than I do, shut that voice off, because it's lying to you. You need this. You deserve this. Go, go do it and go get better. So, yeah, I could have done it two years ago, ended up not doing it. And then finally, you know what I talked about a couple minutes ago? When I finally got to my darkest place, I made the decision that I have to go get better. I can't let this keep happening. So I got on the call, got my retreat scheduled, got the, got the scholarship and headed out there. So I went to Mexico, on the Pacific coast, flew into San Diego, went across the border after multiple health screenings beforehand and after six weeks of pre integration work, and also by this point, I had spent about three months before the retreat really getting into meditation and yoga. I started reading Eastern philosophy, Eastern religion, alternative psychology. I started kind of getting other views besides Western medicine. And so by the time I got down there, I was already in a pretty, in a better spiritual place than I had been in a long time already. And that's another thing, man, if, if anybody's going through it, even if you don't believe in the teachings of meditation, like the, the Eastern philosophy, the, the chakras, the different states of consciousness, at the very least you're taking 10 minutes a day to yourself, which we just don't get in this world anymore. And it made me. I'm not going to say that it fixed me, but it made me exponentially better. I was better after three months of than I had been in the last five years. After the pre screenings, we stop at a cardiology clinic in Tijuana and get checked again, get all kinds of heart tests and make sure that we're good to go and that there's not going to be any health risks. Get cleared, head down to the house. You get there, you've been fasting for 24 hours at this point. It's this beautiful mansion that is perfectly decorated and covered in art, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. And the way that I describe it is it felt against nature to do anything negative in that home. So I couldn't have yelled at somebody or said something like terrible any more than I could have jumped up and flown. The healing energy in that house exists and it's real. And the retreat I went to as well, because I wanted to give them a major shout out as the mission within. I got permission from them to give the shout out. And if you are a vet, a first responder, I can't recommend, recommend them enough. I mean, they, you know, nothing short of saved my life. So after we get set in, we spend a day there, we don't eat because you, you do have to fast before the medicine. There were six veterans total there, including myself. There were two guys that ran the retreat, a psychologist and then the ops lead. And they're both, you know, very credentialed western medicine guys. There was the corn Andera and then we had, we had chefs and tons of nurses rolling throughout the weekend to help us out. And every single person there was one of the best people that I've ever met. Again, I don't know if it's energy in the house or if they're finding these people somehow, but everybody there might as well have been an angel on earth. I mean, their demeanor, the way that they treat you, the way that they talk to you, everything there was perfect. Even if I didn't do the medicine, that would have still been a helpful retreat because of how amazing it was. And yeah, the other, the other guys that were there with me, they tell you that when you go. So I got kind of nervous because they tell you that you're going to do, you're going to do this in a group. And I'm sitting there kind of abrasive to that idea because I don't want to, I don't want to Trip and go on a journey around strangers. That sounds terrible, but they tell you that you're supposed to be there with who you're with and you're going to have a give and take from them and they're going to learn things from you that they didn't know they needed to know and vice versa. And that's exactly what happened. We spend the day there, all get to know each other. We do, you know, a share circle and intro circle. And then that night around 8pm, it's time for the medicine. So we all get in a circle and they give you the medicine and it's in pill form, so you get these two pills and it's based off your height weight to make sure that it's the right dose for you, obviously. And they tell you say a prayer to your God and then they also tell you to say a prayer to the medicine because the providers and pretty much anyone who's done this, and there's going to be a lot of things I say through this that are going to sound insane, but I'm telling you that I'm not going to say I know, because I hate to say that I don't know anything, but I'm going to tell you what I experienced and what I believe. So pretty much everybody that's done this stuff believes that the medicine is sentient. You can talk to it, you can ask it questions, you can ask it to turn up the intensity, turn down the intensity. It's not always going to listen, but you can ask. And so I said, you know, I said my prayer to the medicine, I grabbed my pills, I wrapped up my hands and I said, if tonight has to be a battle, you know, I trust you, let it, you know, bring it on, let it be that. But if you can come gently to me, please do, because I'm really sick of fighting. And so we stood up, went up a spiral staircase, got blessed with. They use Palo Santo and I think White Sage is the other thing, but Palo Santo is a Peruvian Hollywood. And so they have a, they have a Corindera there. She's a female shaman who has spent decades learning this medicine in its native lands. That and the 5 Meo DMT. And she was, she was the thing that put the whole experience over the top. She truly put, you know, spiritual is not even the word. Whatever's above spiritual, divine. You know, she, she put that on this experience. So having her there was, you know, just brought it to that next level. And so they say a prayer, they bless you and you go and lay down in your bed. Once you get in your bed, you put on an eye mask. I began super weird. At least for me. I could lift my eye mask at any point. And I was completely clear in the real world. No issues whatsoever. Like not even drunk, like, no blurriness, no, just normal. The normal world. But then as soon as you pull your eye mask back down, you are somewhere else in the universe. And so you wear this eye mask. They give you these headphones with music playing. And it's this beautiful dreamscape music that I still actually use a lot when I meditate. They say that the point of the music is so that you don't get stuck in one spot. So the medicine changes in tempo, beat. Like it changes to a whole new song. Every. Whatever song is three to five minutes. And the intention is so that you don't get stuck in one place. If you are kind of getting stuck in your journey, it'll push you into somewhere else. So all that and then they hook you up with the medical stuff. So they put an EKG on you, they hook you up to a magnesium drip IV to, you know, alleviate the. Or help out your heart while you're under. They check your blood pressure and they put a heart rate monitor on you. So you are all hooked up for this experience. So I laid down, nurse hooked me all up, and pretty much immediately I fell asleep. And I wake up and there's. There's no clocks in the room or any way to tell what time it is, but my internal clock is telling me it's been about three hours, so the medicine should be kicked in again. They. I think they said the average is between an hour to an hour and a half for it to kick in, but it shouldn't take any longer than three hours. And I'm sitting there after three hours and nothing's happened at all. And I take my mask off, I look up, and everybody else is clearly going through it. Some people are throwing up, some people are going to the bathroom and their legs are shaking. So they're clearly, you know, like they're clearly in the medicine. The legs are shaking because of ataxia. Like when you kind of. You start to lose control of your physical body. Everyone else is clearly in it and nothing's happening to me. And so I called the nurse over and I asked to go to the bathroom. And he goes to help me up. And I'm like, no, I'm good, I'm good. So I jump right up and walk to the bathroom. After I unhooked from the ekg, go to the bathroom. I even do, like. I do, like, a little spin. I give myself, like, my own DUI test. I'm like, you know, checking my dexterity on my fingers. And I walk back out and I look at the nurse and I give him this, I guess, like, John Cena hand signal. Like, I wave my hand in front of my face and I just whisper. I'm like, nothing. And he's like, you don't feel anything? And I'm like, nothing at all. And so he lays me back down, hooks me back up, and walks away for a second. And he comes back and he goes. He goes, do you want a bus dose? And I'm like, what? What is that? And he says that it's. It's an extra dose to kind of bust you through to the other side. And I'm. You know, I'm very abrasive to this idea because I'm like, okay, this is the strongest psychedelic known to man. It can last for a day. And, you know, I'm already behind everybody else, and all of a sudden I'm thinking of taking more and lasting. So the idea did not sound great to me. And so I told him, if nothing happens, I'm going to call you back over. And if I do, just bring the bus dose with you. If I don't call you back over, that means I'm in it and I'm good to go. And he says, okay. So he leaves, sits back down, and there's always a nurse watching. So everybody's in the same room doing this at the same time, and there's always a nurse watching you. So he goes and sits back down, and I fall asleep again. And I wake up, and at this point, my internal clock is telling me it's been like six to seven hours. And as soon as I wake up, I realize that still nothing's happening. And I start to. I start to get really upset. At this point, I think I'm in the medicine. I think this is when it started, but I just didn't know it yet. I'm in complete blackness. And I'm just standing there, and all of a sudden, all the bad voices that I had kind of already started to beat. So, like I said, I really got into meditation and trying new things and getting back in touch with my spirituality about three months out from the retreat. And I had. I had really started making some progress and had shut a lot of these bad things off. You know, the depression, the anxiety, the voices and the arguments that you get in your head. And I'M standing there in blackness and all of a sudden they all come back and they're louder than ever. They're just booming. And they start telling me everything that I didn't want to hear. They start telling me that, you know, the medicine rejected you, the universe rejected you. You're worthless. And at that point, I turned to where the voices were coming from and I just yelled as loud as I could and I just yelled at him. I said, we're done. I was like, this is it. You're. I, I beat you myself. I don't need the medicine. We're done with this. And they shut off. They went quiet and they went away. And then I turned around the other way and just into the darkness, I just yelled at the medicine. And I was like, if you're real, I need you to show me right now. Like, time's winding down. If you're real, now's. It's now or never. And at that point, a silver stream of light came down and I got lifted up to. I. I don't know what to call it. Like, I don't know what to call it without sounding too woo woo. But it was, it was a different plane of existence. It was a different realm. Whatever it was was just completely somewhere else. So yeah, I get, I get lifted up and I get brought to this place. And this is kind of the, I've got to go through a lot of different places in this story, but the, the entire experience was in the same plane of existence and throughout a lot of the story. One of the big reasons I wanted to talk about this on this show is because there's these insane parallels between everybody doing the medicine and people doing the gateway tapes and different states of consciousness and out of body experiences. And these parallels are just so strange to me. And so the whole experience for me happened in this plane that was like, it had this tint of gray and it was, it was foggy. There was this persistent fog, which I've read about in a ton of, you know, people talk about astral projection. And then also I've heard many people who've done ibogaine say the same thing. And actually, if you, if you watch the In Waves and War documentary, they do an illustration of, of where the guy is at and in that illustration he's in this fog. And I actually, the first time I watched it, I like hit my wife on the shoulder and I was like, that's it. I was like, that's where I was like, that's crazy. So I get, I get pulled up and I'm standing in front of this tribunal right away. So like it's like a court. There's like this 12 foot judge's desk that or judge's bench, whatever it's called. And it's in a horseshoe shape so you. And it's like jet black, like made of obsidian. Like the black is black. And I'm standing on a, a pedestal that's like three feet tall. So, you know, way below this thing in the middle. And there's 12 shadow figures presiding over me. And they're all looking down at me like they're judging me. And I just stand there for like 10 minutes or what felt like 10 minutes time did not really exist. And I'm standing there and nothing happens. I. I don't know what to do. I'm not scared at all. That was the other thing. Like, I didn't have, I didn't have a single negative emotion throughout this entire experience. I never felt threatened, I never felt scared. I just, I felt intuition, I guess. And so I'm just standing there and all of a sudden I just blurt out, am I worthy? And they all simultaneously yell worthy. And I get transported to another place and I'm still on the same plane, but I'm somewhere else. And so I'm standing in this like open area. It's, it's all black with the fog, and I can see like stars and universes in the background. And there's a shadow figure standing in front of me. And he's, he's jet black, staticky, and he kind of like has the universe in him. So like there's like stars and galaxies like in him as well. And he never says a word. But as soon as I looked at him, my intuition told me that he was my spirit guide, which is another crazy one because, you know, I've talked to a bunch of people who have had guides and it's just, it's. It's weird to me. You know, why, why are these guides popping up and why are they always like, kind of similar to like these shadow figures that are just guiding us through this? Before you started, they told you that. They told us to set intentions and questions. So intentions on what you want to work on. Because again, this isn't some magic bullet that you just take and you're better. You, you have to fix yourself, but it allows you to fix yourself. So you go with these intentions and then you also go in with questions because again, the medicine is supposed to be sentient. You're supposed to be able to Talk to it. And so as soon as I knew he was my spirit guide, I started asking my questions that I had prepared. So first I asked him, will I ever be able to truly love myself? Because that's a problem that I've always had. And he said, you've already answered that. And they also tell you that. So some people don't even have an experience at first, which is crazy, right? Some people just wake up the next morning and are pissed. They're like nothing happened. But then over the next couple days, weeks, even months, the answers and the experiences come to you to where the providers are literally. Like if somebody says that they're not even worried because they know because they've seen it so many times that these people are going to get what they came for. So my spirit guide says, you've already answered this. And it's cryptic, but I'm like, okay, well maybe that's an answer I'll get later. So then I ask, what's next? So my entire life I've had an accolade to chase, a reason to do or to exist. I guess even when I didn't have an accolade to chase, I just decided that I was going to start alpining. So I just started climbing mountains out west because I told myself that I needed to do something and I had nothing. At this point, I got the job I always wanted. I had the degrees, the best wife in the world. I had a brand new. And so I asked what's next? And my spirit guide shows me my wife and I in a loving embrace. And then he shows me two children that you know, only time's gonna tell. But I'm pretty positive they were my kids because I have no possible way of knowing what a father's love feels like. And I am completely certain that these were my kids. I mean, I just like basked in their glory for a few minutes. I just stood there and stared at him and smiled. So it was one boy and one girl. And I'm not positive, but I think the girl was a little bit older. Besides that, the vision has gotten kind of blurry. It was shown to me in like a purple haze almost. That was the other thing within this whole journey. Purple was a very common color that kept coming up with a lot of this stuff. Yeah, so he showed me that in a haze. And I believe I saw my kids. And I'm really excited to figure out if that's correct because that obviously by, you know, by the time I'm older will be something that I can Verify or not. So that happens, and it's amazing and wonderful. And then I ask him, can I ever reconcile with my past and be okay, you know, with the things I've done? The special operations community is wonderful, and I owe it everything, but if you allow yourself to, you can let it become very, very toxic. You can let it turn you into that. That toxic masculine thing that is just awful to everybody around you. And I let it do that to me for a couple years. You're going out to the bars all the time. You're. You're shooting big guns. You. You made it through something tough, and you're literally 21 years old. You. You think you're. You think you're hot and you're not, but it gets in your head and it lets you become. It makes you become a bad person if you let it. And I certainly let that happen for a few years, and it weighed on me a lot. And so I asked, you know, can. Can I ever get around that? Can I ever forgive myself? And he told me, you've already answered that as well. And I started getting a little irritated because I'm like, okay, I really don't want this whole thing to be cryptic. And that's when he drew a door in the fog and he walked through it. And so I. Again, everything's intuition. Like, when I say. He says things, he's not saying them. I just hear them in my mind. So I walk up or I follow him, and I walk through the door, and I'm back in the tribunal, and I'm standing behind the bench this time, and I see that all the shadow figures are me. And I had deemed myself worthy when I first got there. And that answered the first two questions that I had asked and was, you know, a pretty profound moment for me. And it was. It was kind of strange. As I got answers to these, I could almost feel like energy entering my body or chakras being unblocked or whatever you want to call it. But in that moment when I realized I had already deemed myself worthy, I felt just this rush of energy that was. It was healing is what it was. And so next I ask him, so this was one. So they say that some people can talk to their ancestors, their dead relatives, stuff like that. And I didn't believe that. But I've always thought that if you have. If there's nothing to lose with something, why not just try it? You know, like, if nothing bad is going to happen, just give it a go. And so my grandpa passed when I was going through the worst of my TBI issues. He was my best friend growing up, but I was in such a bad place at the time that I didn't get to properly mourn him. And so I asked if I could talk to my grandpa, and he said, we can try. And he put me in the cosmos by myself. So I'm floating in the stars. There's this super thick fog around me at this point. It was almost like. It felt like we went to the edge of whatever this place was because the fog was so thick. It was like we were going somewhere else that we couldn't quite get to. It was just. It was a very unique feeling. And I could feel all that. And I'm floating there. I'm in this very thick fog. And I hear Jake, Jake. And I hear my grandpa's voice and I start to feel really weird. And I'm just like, no, no way. That's no way. And he goes, that's my boy. And my entire life, whenever I would walk into my grandfather's house, he would say that from wherever he was in the house, I would just hear that ring out. And I heard that and I just lost it. I just. But ever again, zero negative emotions. Like, every tear that fell was a happy tear. And I just bawled my eyes out. And again, this is all happening in my mind, by the way. My physical body is just laying in bed. And so, like, it almost felt like at this point that the body in the journey was my main body and my physical body was just this. This thing that I. I guess was there. So anyways, I. I'm. I'm bawling my eyes out and I tell him I miss him. I tell him I love him, and I tell him we're taking care of Grandma. And I'm just so happy because I know my grandpa's somewhere and I know that I'm getting closure. And that finishes up. And when it does, I get transported again and I go to somewhere else this time. So this time I'm looking at a. And also, I guess it's important for the story. The whole time this is happening, I'm seeing my body in third person. So I'm in complete control. I'm, you know, I'm completely in that body, but I'm seeing it in third person from above a little bit. So the next place I see is this big field with the softest green grass I've ever seen. And in the center of it, there's a pool of water about 6 inches deep with purple flowers all around it. And I'm laying in it face up with my eyes closed. And before I explain this next part, I have to explain one of my intentions. So I had read a lot of books going in, and one of the most profound ones was the King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. And the book is essentially about how in today's world, we don't. Our men don't access man psychology, where you are strong and decisive and protective, but you're also loving and caring and sensitive, and you can uplift those around you. All we do in this society is build up on boy psychology. So the worst parts of us, the most toxic parts of our men, we just build on that psychology. And the book goes on to talk about how ancient civilizations had these rites of passage where a boy would. Would theoretically die. Like, hypoth, sorry, hypothetically die, but quite literally in their sense. So the boy would die whether the, you know, the ritual was psychedelics, something with the tribe, war, whatever it may be, and the man would be born. And at that point, the boy could access man psychology and the man, you know, was born and came to exist. And the book even went on to talk about it, went on to specifically cite the military and be like, you know, the military is one of the worst abusers of this. They're not necessarily making men. They're building on the parts of boy psychology that are best to harness for war. And so a big intention of mine was that I wanted this to be my rite of passage. I wanted the boy to die, and I wanted the man to be born. And so I see myself laying in this pool of water face up, but I don't have any connection to this body. Like, I can't control it. I can't under. I can't see what it's. I can't understand what it's thinking. I'm completely disconnected from it. It's just like seeing any other body. And then 12 shadow figures come into view, and they all go up to the pool of water and they kneel beside it. And then finally me and. Me and my spirit guide come into view. And this is the body that I'm connected to. I'm connected to this body. This is me. And I walk up to the pool of water with my spirit guide. And again, this is all intuition. I immediately know that the me that's in the pool was the boy. So the boy died. He's dead. And now that the man is being born and, you know, hopefully I'm able to start accessing that psychology and being the best version of me for the people I love. And I kneel beside him, and I just start bawling again. I just start losing it. And I just started thanking him profusely. I thanked him for, you know, everything he's done for me, for the accolades, for the life we've lived, for the memories where he left me in life. But then I end it, you know, I go, it's my turn. And when I stood up from that, that was another point when I was just overcome with this energy, like something had changed in me. And then I stood up, and I'll never forget this part. I stood up, I had this new energy, and I turned and I looked at my guide, and I was like, all right, we got the serious stuff out of the way. Can we go have some fun? And he was like, yeah, come on. And so we left that place, and we just started, like, running through the cosmos. Like, this is where. It sounds insane, but this is what happened in my journey, in my head, in that realm, whatever you want to believe. I'm running through the cosmos with my guide. And he punches the ground like. Like a Superman punch. Like when, you know, when a superhero does their landing and their fist is in the ground, he does that, and an entire universe gets created. Like, I watched an entire universe get made. And it was in that moment that, like, that was when another form of energy, like, came through me, and I felt it. That that moment is why I don't believe any of this happened in my head. Because whatever I witnessed was divine. Like, he was showing me what he can do and what exists out there. And I'm not naive enough to say I couldn't have made it up in my head, but in my belief that that happened somewhere else. And then I asked him, I was like, why are you so kind? I was like, this is. I've heard the worst things about this. I've heard that this is supposed to be a horrible experience. I was preparing for this for months. Why are you so awesome? And he goes, well, you know, you meditated a bunch. You really got yourself in the right head space for this. You're on good standing with the universe, and you did everything you did to get here. And he goes, but also, you asked. He goes, nobody asked. I said that prayer at the beginning that said, come gently if you can. And he literally said, nobody asks. So everybody who I've told to go do this after I went, like all my veteran friends and stuff, I'm absolutely telling them that they need to ask for a job. Gentle journey. Because I'm really curious how that's going to go.
