Why I Stopped Using Ayahuasca (Part 1)

I was 25 when I did Ayahuasca for the first time. Up till then, I had never done any drugs or substances, so I was naturally very skeptical. The only reason I did it is because of my friend who had gotten involved with someone who was organizing the ceremonies and I totally trusted her. She was grounded, intelligent, heart-centered and safe.

She told me it was like 10 years of psychotherapy in one night. I was intrigued and very nervous. But my curiosity took over (I must have been a cat in another life) and I signed up for it.

It was truly life-changing. I remember sitting in the circle and when the medicine began working its way through my body I started feeling nauseous. My mind went crazy and I started thinking: I was poisoned, I was tricked, this is a sect! I’m trapped, I will never be the same again!

As time disappears during the ceremony, I was stuck in the endlessness of a living hell. My head over a bucket I was paralyzed with fear and resistance. It was terrifying.

Then my dear friend came up to me, asked me to sit up straight, take some deep breaths…and so I did. I remember the tiny spark of light left in the darkness I was in: she was my friend. I trusted her. She would have never poisoned me.

The moment I remembered that it was as if someone had switched on the light. Literally.

I looked up and the whole story, that had felt so real just a second ago, was totally gone. Disappeared. Puffed into thin air. I looked around and all I saw was love and beauty.

I cracked up laughing! It was the funniest thing that ever happened to me! This realization that my experience had felt SOOOOOO real and it hadn’t been. That it was totally made up. It was totally in my mind. I thought it was the biggest joke anyone had told me. I must have laughed for at least an hour, probably disturbing everyone in their process, but it didn’t matter.

It was such a deep relief and I was incredulous that I could have believed something with all my heart and it was simply not true. Tears were flowing down my face, my body was shaking with the release and relief. My heart was flooded with gratitude.

It was one of the most healing insights of my life.

My mind creates my reality! Why don’t they teach us that at school?

This journey opened me up to a whole new dimension of awareness. I became sensitive to my body’s communication with me. It’s really very simple: if I believe something that is not true, my body will feel uncomfortable.

Like hating someone. It doesn’t feel good to do so. Or believing that I’m not worthy. The body’s response is to feel contracted. Or that I’m alone, fucked up, a loser. All the million ways that we can get down on ourselves: if you feel shit thinking those thoughts, then they are simply not true.

The gift of my experience was that it was visceral, direct. Not a thought or philosophy. My body will never forget it. That insight is forever imprinted in my bones.

And I’m completely humbled by it and grateful.

Read Part 2 here

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Kasia Patzelt works as an Embodiment Coach, helping individuals to let go of trauma and co-create an authentic human reality. She lives with her cat Miss Smokey in Ibiza, Spain, where she also organizes one-on-one retreats.