[Part 1] Healing My Trauma with Mother Ayahuasca🌱
In April, I went on a profound journey with Mother Ayahuasca at a healing center in Peru. I’ve taken some time to process and integrate so I can share from my heart the vulnerable, raw experience with all of you.
On this journey, I came back to my childhood trauma and was able to hold it all in my body for the first time. Before, I knew what happened to me, yet I couldn’t hold the whole experience in my body…
Over the next few months, I’ll be sharing the journey with you piece by piece… the intense emotions, the deeply soulful insights, the profound physical and spiritual release, and the major integration I’m working on now that I’ve returned home to Portugal.
Coming back from this retreat felt like I came back to a whole new life!
The Call to Journey with Mother Aya
My first Ayahuasca retreat was in 2018, and my second retreat was in 2022.
Since then, I’ve had opportunities to go, but I wasn’t feeling the call. This year, though, I felt a very deep YES in my body. When you’re being called to sit with Mother Aya, the summon is clear.
I’ve had one hell of a year, especially with the constant fear and worry for my friends and family in Israel.
I was overloaded to the limit.
And then a rejection cycle kicked in. It felt like a self-sabotager that could hurt relationships, the business… I knew this rejection trigger was coming from the trauma of my mom’s mental illness and abandonment. Everything was weighing so heavily on me….
And I knew I needed to face it.
I had one specific week booked for vacation that I could go… and this Ayahuasca healing center had availability. My intention was set. I cancelled my week on a beach in Spain, went on a strict cleansing diet to prepare my body and spirit, and booked a flight to Peru.
Arrival in Peru and Ceremony Preparation
I arrived in the Amazonas after more than 24 hours of travel–3 flights, a 2-hour drive to what felt like the end of the world, and a hike in the rain and dark. I smelled so bad, yet all I could do was pass out on my bed. There was nothing left in me.
The next morning, after a cold shower, I met Maestra Matilde and her beautiful and loving family.
What blew me away most about this retreat and this specific shamanic family is their dedication to each and every person’s healing journey. I received personal consultations with the maestra, and the whole family set powerful intentions into the Icaros they sing throughout the night, during ceremonies, to activate the medicine and help you break through. Their loving holding of the space and care made me feel so safe throughout my time with them.
You can check out this video on my Instagram to get a sense of what it all looked and felt like, including meeting Matilde.
On the first day, we sat in the Maloka (the ceremony space) and Matilde gave me tobacco water followed by 4 glasses of water and a type of natural green stick to shove in my throat so I could vomit it all out. This spiritual inner cleanse was preparing me for the ceremony.
Matilde asked me what I wanted to heal. So much has been going on the past year that has challenged me emotionally like never before. I laid out 4 things that were sitting heavily on me.
Yet, I wasn't sure how to cram so much into one week. I was guided to ask Mother Aya to "give me what I need right now" and set one intention per ceremony. I asked if there was enough time to work on all of this, and Matilde replied with wise, loving, smiling eyes, “If not, you can always come back.”
Next, she assigned to me not one, but two plant dieta plants–siqueme siqueme and Ajosacha–based on where I felt blocked. The plant dieta supports the Aya ceremonies and the spirit of the plants that are chosen for you guide you throughout the week.
In the afternoon, I had a flower bath. Matilde washed us with the siqueme siqueme plant to provide more protection during the ceremony. Once this is poured on you, you cannot take a shower till the next day and have to let it dry naturally.
The First Ceremony
At 7 pm, I came to the ceremony room. The medicine was served, and I set the intention for Mother Aya to give me what I need right now and help me heal the rejection cycle that's been there since my mom got mentally sick. Intentions drive the medicine and the shamans aim with the singing of the Icaros to activate the medicine inside your body and help you heal.
I laid in my bed under my blanket and waited for the medicine to kick in, repeating my intentions to Aya so she would guide me. After a while, the medicine kicked in.
I felt a warmth in my heart of feminine divine love, a softening and then my heart expanded rapidly over and over again showing me I needed to let go.
Then the wisdom started to arrive one by one for what I wanted to resolve, showing me what I needed to do.
I revisited my childhood trauma when my mother got mentally sick. I could see that at the core of the rejection cycle is my anger towards the adults who did not protect me and rejected me as I am.
It comes out in my responses to others. It’s subtle. When I get into this rage, I am blind to how others feel.
With the help of Mother Aya, I could feel more deeply than ever before that what happened to me is not because something was wrong with me. I was rejected so much because others lacked compassion and emotional capacity. It reflects on them, not on me.
This realization landing in my body was helping me shift the rejection cycle. When Mother Aya delivers wisdom she makes you feel it in your body. You don’t just understand it in your mind.
Yet, there was just one area I felt I needed help with from the maestras where my body was resisting receiving the wisdom in this area, it felt like a child plugging her ears, not willing to hear the truth…
Yet, the truth is the truth. And there was nothing I could do to open up to hear Mother Aya’s wisdom.
Integration Day
The next day (integration day), when they gave me the two plant dieta to drink, I told them that I couldn’t get past this block myself and they said to both give it time from ceremony to ceremony and that they will help me more with my trauma.
By lunchtime, Matilde signaled for me to come with her. She gave me an extra cup of siqueme siqueme to help with what was blocked. I drank it all. I felt exhausted after that and went back to my Tambo to rest in the middle of the jungle.
Even though there was no ceremony on the second day, the plant dieta was working intensely within me.
I felt a lot of pain in my heart, and my stomach was flipping. I was in bed all afternoon processing. When I came down from the jungle where my cabin was to the kitchen, I could barely walk. I had no energy in my body. They offered me a vegetable and rice soup. This really boosted my energy.
Yet, I was sweating like a pig. I was purging. My body was working hard with the plant dieta and medicine to heal me, scanning for the past, for the source. I was journaling nonstop.
The next morning, I came at 7 am to meet the maestra and drink my plant dieta. I got two glasses to drink rather than 1 mix of both plants. About 15 minutes later she gave me another glass of one plant to drink.
More intense pain came up in my heart and chest. I felt like I would burst.
Matilde said I needed to expand. I asked if this would release, and she said yes and offered to give me a special massage. I accepted.
She went and got something that smelled like mint and massaged my chest. She asked me if I was in my moon cycle, and I said it ended the day of the first ceremony. She said she couldn’t massage my stomach and that she could do it in two days. After this massage, she needed to clean her hands with the plants because my moon cycle was not completely over. She really knew everything!
She then massaged my chest and pushed hard on points where the pain concentrated. She knew exactly where they were. Her pressure on them and massage helped release the pain.
She then got to my heart and pushed on that pain. I have had this deep pain in my heart since my mom got mentally sick when I was 11. As she pushed on it hard like a pressure point. I could barely breathe from the pain. She did it 4 or 5 times.
She then told me to flip over and worked on two points on my back. She knew exactly where to go, where the blocks were located in my body. The whole thing was about 10 minutes long. She told me to remain there and to let it soak in a bit. By the end of it, I felt much better, more expanded.
I went to have breakfast and then to relax in my Tambo. The afternoon was calm. Lunch as usual, then siesta, then a flower bath for protection before the ceremony. The excitement was building….
I had nothing left to integrate. I did the integration work all day yesterday, with the loving guidance and support of the maestra and her family. I was ready for the second ceremony..
In Part 2 of this newsletter series, I will be sharing what happened during the 2nd ceremony which was out of this world!!!
I’ll also be sharing more about my childhood trauma – more than I’ve ever shared before.
And I am excited to say that after this special time spent with this phenomenal healing family, I’ll be taking 10 people with me on an exclusive, transformative new Aya retreat to the healing center in Peru that I went to later this year. It will include preparation and integration support–before, during, and after the retreat.
If this interests you, please send me a message, and I’ll share all the details with you. 💗
With love,
Chen