5 Ways Plant Medicine Changed My Life
Before the summer of 2022, my only interaction with psychedelics was a last minute decision to take a small dose of acid at a Phish show in October 2014. Let’s just say, that wasn’t the most ideal situation to be dabbling with psychedelics, it was Halloween night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and everyone was in Halloween costumes.
As the acid started to kick in, I could feel myself going deeper in my own mind to escape how overwhelming the environment was around me. To my surprise, it felt like an inner dialogue with myself, talking about the one thing I had been trying to avoid for the last couple of months. My relationship, one that I had been in for years but knew it needed to end. I kept making excuses to myself but in that moment I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. Seven months later, we broke up and I moved on with my life. I never really understood what that experience was until 8 years later when I’d start working with psychedelic plant medicines.
These altered states of consciousness that you enter allows you to go deep in your minds and see the things that are not working, the things you’ve been avoiding and it helps cut through the noise for you to finally see it all more clearly.
The first way plant medicine changed my life was reminding me to be kinder to myself.
I went on my very first trip to Peru in the summer of 2022 to work with the sacred plant Wachuma better known as San Pedro. I was introduced to Wachuma, as a gentle, heart-opening plant medicine. Our ceremony was held in these secluded gardens at this beautiful retreat center in the Sacred Valley, we were surrounded by the Andes mountains. Wachuma is served as a fermented tea and it taste quite tangy. As the medicine started to kick in, I could feel my whole body getting lighter and everything around me felt like it was coming alive, especially the plants. It was a very euphoric feeling and throughout the day our curandera (traditional medicine healer) had us connect with the different elements of earth, water, wind, and fire. It felt like everything was slowing down and I could notice all the little things I’d usually just rush right by. Even the thoughts and feelings I had coming up. Wachuma was constantly referred to as the ‘grandfather’ which felt interesting to me for someone who never grew up with either of mine. During our ceremony, I kept feeling both of mine near, although I never met them, that day they felt close by. My biggest lesson from that ceremony was the moment where our curandera had us stand with our eye closed facing the sun and as I standing there I could feel all the ways I’ve always been so hard on myself. I had tears streaming down my face because I could feel how much I deserved to be kinder to myself and how sad I was for how I had treated myself all of these years.
The messages you can get from plant medicine can be so simple and yet quite profound. This subtle message of being kinder to myself, had a ripple effect in my life. I started to treat myself with more kindness, respect, love which started to make an impact in the way I was showing up in my life and my relationships.
The second way plant medicine changed my life was learning to see things from more than one perspective.
I went to a plant medicine ceremony in Florida with a community that I had been introduced to by a friend, I was so nervous going to the ceremony because I was going to work with a different heart-opening plant medicine that I hadn’t worked with before and I didn’t know anyone at this particular ceremony. At the time, I had been in acting classes and had a teacher that was quite intimating to me. I felt like she was always hard on me in class, which made me feel like I wasn’t doing it right. The first person I saw when I walked into this ceremony was my acting teacher, which was a shock to me. Out of all places, why would I run into her here? I remember feeling even more nervous but tried to keep to myself and avoid her. About half way through the ceremony, I ended up sitting down and talking with her. She kept telling everyone how I was such a wonderful actress and I was so confused because how could she think this, she was always so hard on me? We ended up talking and she explained she was hard on me because she could see how much potential I had. It was in that moment, I realized how often I created stories and narratives that weren’t always true. This blew my mind, how often had I been making meaning out of things that weren’t even true. This lesson helped bring awareness to the pattern of me only seeing things from one perspective. Example, my teacher was hard on me, so I must not be doing the class wrong, therefore I’m not a good actress. See how I made so much meaning out of her being hard on me. This is why I love plant medicine because it quite literally opens your mind to see things from different perspectives, in different ways. (There’s actual science to prove this with how it makes your brain more malleable which helps forge new neural pathways.)
The third way plant medicine changed my life was learning to surrender and stop controlling everything.
My second trip to Peru was in the fall of 2023, when I felt the call to go work with Ayahuasca. This decision wasn’t one I took lightly, I talked with friends and took some time to really decide if going to work with this plant medicine was going to really serve me. (Which is how everyone should approach working with Ayahuasca in my opinion) I was a bit terrified because it is quite literally one of the strongest psychedelics on the plant and I knew the experience would change me. I went on this retreat alone, so once again I didn’t know anyone. We had a small group of only five which in my opinion was a great number for how intense the retreat was. We had three ceremonies throughout our week and it felt like each ceremony would build onto next. The over arching theme for me that week was how to surrender and let go. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to control, control how people perceive me, control aspects of my life, control what I put in my body, so much control.
Ayahuasca is known for humbling you, teaching you that you don’t actually have control. We only think we have control. It was our last ceremony and before drinking my first cup, I asked Ayahuasca to go easy on me that night. Let’s just say, the joke was on me. Our facilitator mentioned that they had gotten a new batch that we’d be drinking that night and our curandero warned it was much stronger than the previous ceremonies. After I drank my first cup, I sat there for what felt like hours and nothing was happening. About an hour in, our facilitator offered a second cup because he too, felt like nothing was happening. This is the point in the story where you hear the narrator say, it was in fact strong. After drinking the second cup, the medicine immediately kicked in and I started to feel more intense than any of the other nights. I’m not going to lie, it felt scary and intense and I wanted to freak out but then I remembered to surrender. All the other nights leading up to that last ceremony, I kept learning the lesson to surrender. Now, I had to put it into practice. Once I surrendered, the medicine softened and felt more manageable. This is something I continue to come back to in my life when I’m trying to squeeze too tight and control. I remember to soften and surrender.
The fourth way plant medicine changed my life was teaching me that I can do hard things.
My third trip to Peru was in the winter of 2024, I had been in a six month psychedelic mentorship and it peaked my interest to learn even more about working with plants. This time, I ended up in the Amazon jungle outside of Iquitos working with the Shipbo lineage which are one of the oldest, if not the oldest lineage of people who have been working with Ayahuasca and other sacred plants. This retreat was about devoting yourself to working with one particular plant (usually a jungle plant of your choice). While in devotion you are asked to abstain from a long list of things, to name a few salt, sugar, meat, dairy, fermented foods, sex, communication with the outside world (the list goes on). It’s an opportunity for you to take away all distractions and get quiet with yourself and the plant you’re connecting with so you can really listen. To create space in yourself so you can hear whatever wants to come through. This was by far the most challenged I’ve ever felt maybe in my entire life. When you take away so many of the things you usually use to distract yourself, all you’re left with are the feelings and thoughts you’re usually running from. Which was my big lesson there, to come up against my edge of feeling challenged and uncomfortable which in turn highlighted so much for me about how I show up in the world. After getting back from this retreat I felt like if I can do what I did in the jungle, I know I can do anything.
