How Psychedelics Changed my Mind and Healed My Heart (1 of 4)

How and Why I Ventured into the World of Ayahuasca Plant Medicine (Part 1 of 4)

To say I’ve been on a journey of self-discovery is an understatement. If you’ve been reading my posts over the last few years, you know that I’ve been exploring all kinds of fascinating new ways to discover my deepest, truest self, conquer my fears and shed my inhibitions.

Among other things, I’ve seen a hypnotherapist, practised the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT, a.k.a. “tapping”), and worked with a functional medicine doctor, a talk therapist, and an acupuncturist, as I talked about in this post . I’ve been learning to let go, to love myself, and to focus on what’s truly important, as I wrote about in this follow-up article . In early 2020, just before the world turned upside down, I went to an incredible five-day “detox” retreat at Yeotown in North Devon, England, that left me feeling healthy and rejuvenated, inside and out. This time last year I was riding high after rediscovering my sense of adventure and conquering my fear of heights to climb the via ferrata up Mt. Nimbus in British Columbia.

Every part of this journey has been inspiring and life changing. I’m truly a whole different person than I was just a few years ago and even last year. A whole different person who, this past summer, set out deliberately and mindfully to discover myself an entirely different way: I went to Costa Rica to explore the world of psychedelics—specifically, the 5,000-year-old traditional plant medicine called ayahuasca.

You read that right. My latest journey into self-discovery and healing involved hallucinogenic drugs. I’m smiling from ear to ear as I write it, but it’s absolutely what I did. And it changed me to my core.

Deciding On This Year’s Life-Changing Adventure

Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic tea made from the leaves of the Psychotria viridis plant and the stalks of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine. It was used by indigenous people in South America for thousands of years, mainly for spiritual and religious purposes, and more recently Westerners have begun to explore it for its healing capabilities and medical benefits.

I had heard about this concept in the media, in investment circles and from various people I knew, and I was intrigued. I’ve been trying to challenge myself every year with a major new experience and open my mind to new things. This certainly seemed like it would fit the bill.

The fact that many Westerners experience ayahuasca by going to a beautiful part of the world and attending a week-long wellness retreat made the concept all the more attractive, and got me excited about the experience. I have been to several wellness retreats and always come away feeling incredible. ?

I had zero experience with any form of psychedelic drugs, but recently, I’d been hearing more and more about the incredible insights, wisdom and transformational power of ayahuasca. I felt called to it and decided I was ready, and eager, to try it.

My kids would be away at camp in the second-last week of August. A friend told me on good authority that one of the most powerful places to experience ayahuasca was in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, at a resort called Rythmia, which bills itself as a “Life Advancement Center.” I purposely didn’t spend too much time researching the experience itself—just enough that I felt safe and comfortable with everything that would happen during my stay. But I did read up on the centre.

I read about its founder, Gerard (Gerry) Powell and his story of how ayahuasca helped him overcome a life of addiction. I learned how ayahuasca can help or significantly advance the healing of people with depression, anxiety, PTSD, trauma and more. I learned that the centre’s board members include human rights advocate Martin Luther King III and 11-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater. Another board member is Reverend Michael Bernard Beckwith, who I’ve heard interviewed several times on Oprah’s SuperSoul Sunday conversations—he founded the Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles and his teachings are infused throughout Rythmia’s methods. I saw that various celebrities raved about the retreat. I was also pleased to learn that Rythmia is medically licensed. I was convinced.

The morning my daughter left for camp, I was gone before she was. I left on a 6 a.m. flight.

A Week of Wellness, Learning and Growth

If you’ve seen Michael Pollan’s Netflix series, How to Change Your Mind, in which he explores the history and uses of psychedelics, you may have an idea of what I was headed into. You may also have seen or heard about last year’s Hulu series called Nine Perfect Strangers, which is about a fictional, high-end wellness retreat at which the owner, played by Nicole Kidman, microdoses her guests with psychedelics without their knowledge or consent. I think of that show as a satire of places like Rythmia, and I can’t stress enough that the lack-of-consent part is entirely fictional—everyone who goes to Rythmia is there, on purpose, to experience the life-changing benefits of ayahuasca.

But the series rings true in that it’s a group of guests (in our case about fifty of us) coming together in a beautiful tropical location for a week of insights and explorations. Rythmia is in a beautiful setting at the northern end of Costa Rica’s Nicoya peninsula, which is one of the world’s five famous “blue zones”— special places on earth where, according to National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner, people live longer than anywhere else. The resort itself is gorgeous and peaceful. The farm-to-table organic cuisine is divine. Everything about your stay is catered toward optimal health.

We all arrived at various times on Saturday or Sunday. Every day began with a 7 a.m. yoga session, and I’m proud to say I made it to every one, even when I’d only slept a few hours after a ceremony the night before. After a nourishing breakfast, we would head to various wellness and classroom sessions.

Deep Physical Cleansing

It’s important that your body be free of toxins so that the plant medicine can be fully absorbed, so I had spent the two weeks leading up to the trip taking in no alcohol, sugar, gluten, or coffee. Then during the week, we each had two colonic cleanses and a full-body massage to really prepare us physically. On days when we were headed into the ceremonies, we only had breakfast and lunch, but no dinner.

?Free Time

There were some chunks of free time, where we could sit by the pool, lie in a hammock, journal, or do whatever else we chose to do. We could partake in hot and cold water therapy, and even bathe in volcanic mud—there was no shortage of ways to relax and rejuvenate. And on Wednesday and Thursday we had the option of taking a shuttle to the JW Marriott Guanacaste Resort’s spectacular beach for an hour, where the water was super inviting and warm.

Breathwork

Over the course of the week we had three sessions of breathwork. We learned that our breath is connected to every part of our wellbeing: the physical, fuelling our brain and improving our sleep; the emotional, helping to calm anxiety and create a sense of joy and love; and the spiritual, connecting us to a life force called prana. Yet despite the importance of our breath, most of us only breathe at 20% of our capacity. These sessions involved facilitated breathing in a specific, deep way that brings more oxygen to the body, connecting all these aspects of our being.

What’s amazing is that breathwork has been found to trigger a natural release of DMT, which is a similar compound to the psychedelics found in ayahuasca—and these sessions really did have similar impacts on us as the plant medicine itself! When I craved more of the visionary experience I got through the ayahuasca ceremonies, breathwork gave me that. Just by breathing (albeit in a very specific way that sometimes even allowed us to hold our breath for close to five minutes, thanks to the abundance of oxygen in our lungs!), I was able to achieve a state of clarity and even hear voices and see images as I did during our ceremonies. These sessions themselves were incredibly insightful and healing.

?Classroom Sessions

We also spent a lot of time in classroom sessions. In one, we met with Dr. Jeff McNairy , Rythmia’s Chief Medical Officer, who shared his very powerful story and described how Rythmia was founded. In others, we spent time learning Michael Bernard Beckwith’s “The Answer is You,” an incredible curriculum all about personal growth. We also learned how to live life with intention with Kim Stanwood Terranova , the author of the Technology of Intentions.

We were given a lot of guidance about simply how to get the most out of our week. Instructors told us to remain open to whatever possibilities might arise, because nothing happens by coincidence. I can confirm this to be true: one of the instructors happened to remind me of a friend I knew and loved when I lived in Paris. I hadn’t connected with him in decades, but here he was, invading my brain during every class because the instructor looked so much like him. When I got back from the trip, I reached out to him. We reconnected and he is coming over for dinner Thanksgiving weekend. It may sound insignificant, but I truly believe it was meant to happen.

Most importantly, we learned all about ayahuasca and the ceremonies we were about to embark on. I’ll tell you all about that in my next post.