Lessons from Two Years of Psychedelic Assisted Therapy

This share requires head gear, kidding – kind of…And what a long strange trip it’s been…” Two weeks ago marked two years since accidentally jumping into psychedelic t assisted therapy and since, healing. When Covid shut the world down, I was called to open. I had no idea what that meant at the time, what any of this meant, really. Two years of introspection, uprooting and integrating, burning and building, sounds easy, but it’s the hardest work I’ve ever done – and made no sense consciously. Healing? What did I need to heal? Hard work often comes easier for me, but “normalcy,” like human connection that always felt most challenging: But why? Why wasn’t I capable of a healthy relationship? Why did I always choose what didn’t choose me? For the past two years, I’ve journeyed into me, to remember that I’ve been operating with complex PTSD and learn how to integrate the sad, angry, lonely, facing the dark shut down parts of me, to embrace and integrate all of me: habits, patterns, and conditioning but that’s not my story, not what happened but how I’ve chosen to bring myself back to life. At times I’ve felt incredible gratitude for being led to blow up everything and given new lease on life, healed, Fine! And at times like the now conscious memories would swallow me alive -- lonely, exhausted, shocked, empty. But I realized this week yet again,
I’M NOT LOST. I NEVER WAS. I’VE JUST BEEN LEARNING.
None of us are lost. We’re all just learning how to be more ourselves, moment to moment, day by day, year by year. Life has dips, twists, turns and sometimes coasts for a while, like all rides and waves do. Highs and lows come and go but I’ve been learning to trust that no matter how dark, there is always light, we choose our perspective: flow instead of fight. In two years, with incredible support I’ve acquired tools to surf without falling for longer stretches of time and when I fall, to get up quicker and keep going. The past two years, and call it first monthly therapies, stretched now every few months, I’ve dug into the depths of me and concluded that like everything, Perspective is a powerful thing and blowing up your life--
ISN’T EASY BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE SO HARD.
Sounds extreme: whelp, that’s putting it lightly. Two years ago, my restless intuition guided me to plant medicine, without acknowledging that I’d long suffered from some form of untreated depression and anxiety -- which I’d come to learn was PTSD -- masked by efficiency, success, privilege and medicated by daily movement. Before I found plants, I opted into colon hydrotherapy, clearing my gut to create more space for self-trust, unknowingly. Trauma is stored in our bodies. My holistic wipe out and rebuild began from inside out– brain, gut, heart, body, physically, mentally, spiritually. I also didn’t realize I’d began self-healing years prior, but no amount of training could have prepared me for my self induced life implosion. Sometimes we must stop everything, crack ourselves open and dig into the depths of our being to realize the strength we carry. This is what worked for me. It wasn’t gently, but I required extreme to heal me. Healing is not a one size fits all thing.
WE ARE OUR OWN HEALERS.
It began as a series of synchronicities. First my then boyfriend asked me after intimacy, “Did something happen to you?” This shocked me. I denied, vehemently, but then began worrying. “Did something happen to me?” Later that week I was mid colonic when Cassie mentioned 5MEO-DMT. 5MEO-DMT promotes ego death. You smoke it and your ego dies. Sounds scary, but not if you don’t know what that means. I didn’t. It’s said the medicine calls you when you’re ready. I showed up at Janis Joplin’s old apartment at the Chelsea Hotel, with freshly blown hair because if I wanted the toad to show up for me, I was going to show up for him, fully, hair clean, and with intention: To “Open my heart and reconnect to my body…” I do not recommend this for a first-time psychedelic experience, but it worked for me to break through the egoic walls I’d built over a lifetime to protect me. I said a prayer before smoking the crystalized sap from the Sonoran Toad’s body and coughed voraciously before falling back into the sea of pillows behind me. My heart skipped a beat and my brain revealed fractals -- a sea of fuzzy memories. Faces and places whose memories all but escaped me. Colors, yellow, egg yolks, the Honey colored dress I wore to my grandmother Honey’s funeral, a yellow Porsche, emotions and energy. The 20-minute psychoactive experience was quick and confusing but energy clearing. I clutched my Solar Plexus, the chakra that holds our confidence, self-trust and knowing, where I’d long felt lacking and awoke to mascara bleeding down my eyes, buzzing, drained but inspired, enlivened. What do these faces mean? Did something happen to me? I was an over-achiever sure, deep down insecure, but successful enough, grew up with love and things. But internally, I’d always felt lonely, dying to be seen, chasing challenge, overcompensating. I grabbed my things, Venmo’d the Shaman, texted a friend proof of life and ordered dinner to coat my empty belly. I didn’t realize the Pandora’s Box of my subconscious was just blown wide open.

A week later I was invited to a more formal ceremony to ring in Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year and declined, afraid, “I’m good, thanks,” ego still protecting me. But a deeper knowing was urging me, so I confirmed and showed up at 5P to a loft in Brooklyn with a pillow and my mat. I greeted the group of strangers, and the Shaman I’d met before briefly. He gave me my dose of MDMA and psylocibin – both new for me. Drugs (besides alcohol) were never my thing, as if my intuition knew they were meant to save me eventually. Before we began, I caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror, “No matter what happens tonight, Olivia, just know it will all be ok.” I’d never seen myself in light before, void of fight, not picking at my lack but with love for me. “You’re beautiful,” my gut told me. I laid on my mat, eye mask on and after a quick bout with anxiety, I remembered to breathe and surrendered into the ceremony. Once I let go, suppressed memories began unfolding— just at the surface, “It was _____. He raped you at 17.” Like watching a movie: My mind blacked out the memory to protect me, but my body remembered. He left me for dead in a shower, that part I remembered, but didn’t remember how I got there. At first, denial -- that couldn’t be me … Only to realize in later therapies that this was the beginning of a two-year journey of uprooting decades of near-death memories. I’d eventually understand more reason why I began fighting, physically via boxing but Moreso fighting me. When the ceremony ended at 3AM, shocked and alone, I called an Uber to take me home frightened. Little did I know that healing myself would become my focus for the next two years and save my life.

FACE YOURSELF TO FREE YOURSELF: EVERYTHING WE NEED IS INSIDE.
I couldn’t sleep but my anxiety led me out of bed the next morning. Because what do you do when you suddenly start remembering violent events that have shifted and shaped your life? I did what I always did. I moved, from the fear in my mind, back into my body. Nearly debilitated by shock and exhaustion, I walked to my new but never really opened studio on Spring Street to box + flow yoga, my daily practice, which I’d later understand was my first acquired tool in healing the PTSD I didn’t consciously remember carrying. Plant medicine called me when the trauma caught up with me, when I could no longer keep running, fighting or freezing. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, I just wanted to go hit something.
Who do you call to tell you spent all night in psychedelic assisted therapy with strangers and started uncovering memories of being raped at 17? Talk about feeling lonely!
FOR THE FIRST TIME, I HAD TO LEARN TO TRULY HOLD MYSELF, COMPASSIONATELY.
Walking up Spring Street with tears streaming down my face and the sun beaming down on me, I prayed for God’s help. Miraculously, the Shaman from the previous evening, was having breakfast at Jacks Wife Freda, tapped me on the shoulder and comforted me. Fast forward two years and countless therapies – talk therapy first. I had no clue this was just the tip of the iceberg, that I’d blow up my life for the next two years: close the business I’d devoted everything, leave New York City, move to Texas and eventually save myself. I had no idea that I’d need to lose me to find me. It didn’t matter how great my life looked externally, I needed to build a foundation of self-trust and self-love in me. But initially I had no intention to keep digging remembering one rape felt like enough: the shock and heartbreak was overwhelming. But I never asked WHY ME? After shock cleared, I found gratitude for being alive, and understanding why I’d always felt isolated, untrusting of friends, family, men, me – fighting my unworthy. That is the mark trauma leaves. But that isn’t my story. Victimhood is boring. And plant medicine kept calling, and so I answered, with the help of incredible guides, into my subconscious with love and trust in me and that which is bigger than me, guiding me home to me: the universe, spirit, source, mother earth, God. Without which, I wouldn’t be… here.
THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD WASN’T F’ING AROUND.
IF YOU THINK YOU CAN, YOU CAN. Keep going.
I am NOT suggesting you jump into psychedelic assisted therapy. It isn’t legal, it’s intense and expensive, but I’m evidence that it will save lives. Integration is as important as the therapy, the space between sessions when you take what you’ve learned or remembered and put it into practice. I’ve been learning a new way of being, acknowledging my triggers, and rewiring my brain. For most of my life I’ve operated in a post-traumatic state: run, fight, freeze, overreacting or controlling, because if I’m in control “nothing bad can happen,” --a Lie. My daily movement practice for the past two decades was my pre-integration, really, and yet, how I began healing, and self-medicated until I required a stronger prescription, psychedelics to uproot “why” I was suffering. My brain protected me from remembering, everything. My control and isolation, disguised as overcompensating, was the cry for help I didn’t know I was crying.
I woke up last week with clarity that the only reason I’m still alive is because I’ve been held devoutly by the universe on my side: what has been done to my near lifeless body, the places I’ve frozen without the ability to fight back, There is no reason I should still be here, because even if those traumas didn’t kill me, the darkness I’ve felt over the years, self-hate, isolation, I would have likely killed me. But given that I’m here, It's my duty to live and love fully and provide hope: IF you’re suffering, you too can find light. Truth is, NO ONE KNOWS What anyone else is feeling, regardless of how well they “hide it.” BE KIND. And if you’re in pain, I feel you deeply. I was living in grief which scarified my ability to trust, commit, connect, love, because I wasn’t committed to me. I missed weddings, ended friendships-- If I’ve wronged you, I’m sorry. I was stuck in my own suffering. PTSD is like reliving a bad dream, constantly. And while I no longer shut down to protect me, I’m still triggered spontaneously.
GROWTH IS NOT LINEAR. HEALING IS A FOREVER THING.
When I feel unsafe, I still run occasionally, shared in my recent intimacy diary, and pick fights when I feel angry (at the patriarchy) from past memory. And I freeze occasionally. In the boxing gym the other week when a man there blocked me from leaving, stuck his crotch at me, I shut down emotionally. I didn’t realize until the next psychedelic assisted therapy, why I cut my hair shorter two days following. The encounter froze me, and I was unable to fight back or speak. Cutting my hair was my subconscious’ way of protecting me, of making myself less feminine so that I wouldn’t be targeted. And realizing, really saddened me.
And yet these instances are proof of my growth: I used to shut down for weeks or months, and now it’s days, I bounce back quicker, same as in the boxing ring. For decades I ran every morning to outrun my anxiety. Now I run every few weeks. But this recent freeze scared me, it shed light on decades of my inability to fight back or use my voice to protect me when I’ve been violated, which was a tool to protect me, but not indefinitely. I felt severe shame acknowledging that for the past three decades, when scared, or threatened, I shrink to the scared little girl in me – motionless, silent and dissociated. She’s still part of me. Trauma freezes you. But for years I’ve lived frozen -- hardening my body, strengthening so no one could hurt me, but dying to feel something. My most recent work has been shaking the trauma out physically, thawing, so that I can trust me fully, and feel everything. I’m reorganizing and rebuilding me, via functional medicine, diet, exercise, relationships, my relationship to me. Only choosing what fuels me forward instead of fills my time or energy:
ARE YOU FUELING YOUR LIFE OR FILLING YOUR TIME and YOUR BODY?
I used to choose mostly veggies but now feed my body what it wants, intuitively: fats, carbs, protein. Daily runs, bouncing my joints and organs, don’t serve me, and when I run sporadically, I forget my apple watch, the Universe reminding me, less end game, how fast or how far, trust divine timing: PACE OVER, RACE. KEEP GOING.
HERE IS WHAT I KNOW: It’s not easy to blow up your life, move from your home, close a dream studio 3 weeks after opening. It’s not easy to embark on countless 8-hour day/therapies with hope that you’ll see love and light and instead uncover more painful memories and keep going …It’s not easy to fly home and tell your family why for your entire life you’ve been shut down, angry and felt alone. It’s not easy to engage in intimacy when you’ve never been able to trust love fully. It’s not easy to make sense of decades of traumatic memories you didn’t remember and rebuild a new life, to admit or face your unworthy, self-doubt, and own that you’ve always needed to be seen because you didn’t see yourself. It’s not easy to understand that it wasn’t your fault, but own that what happened doesn’t define you. And own that no matter how bruised you were never broken. It’s not easy to forgive yourself, BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE SO HARD --
Denial would be harder, going through the motions, autopilot. That life is no longer for me. I did my most recent psychedelic therapy at home. And for five hours, I went into labor, literally -- spiritually. The medicine told me, “You have to bring yourself to life before you bring life into this world.” I brought myself to life, legs spread wide, shrieking and howling, breathing deeper than I’ve ever breathed. Nearly two years after my first ceremony, I rebirthed myself.This sounds crazy, IT WAS WILD! I’ve been healing to bring myself back to life. You can too. But you must be willing to go deep into the darkness of yourself to reach into the depth of your being, your body, your heart, your psyche and find your own light. We all have parts of us that need healing.
THE WOUND IS WHERE THE LIGHT ENTERS – Rumi
After my re-birthing, in quiet, I’m left wondering: but WHO AM I? without the story, the wounding, the fear, the anxiety, the trauma. This sounds like the fun part: I GET TO CHOOSE MY NEW LIFE, exciting, but truth is, I’m terrified. Why?Because I’ve always known my dark side more intimately, the struggle, the fight, in the throes of intensity. And I don’t know what’s on the other side. Void of struggle, WHO AM I? In the light. No longer dead inside. alive. Olivia. Me. My mentor reminds me that we take back our power by acknowledging there is choice in everything. This is when I TRUST fall into ME.
A friend said, “You don’t have to share the progress. You can show the finished product.” What does that mean? We are all works in progress. In two years in, I’ve grown, changed, softened, faced my fears, owned my anxiety, found more love of life, self, body, family, compassion for the hurt little girl in me. I get loud less often when I’m angry or run or hide when I’m scared. I face my feelings. Flashbacks still appear sporadically, but I remind myself “I’m safe, here.” And only because I’ve been divinely guided am I still here -- which is even more reason to celebrate the little things and choose love over fear. We are given this life, and so, with a new lease on life, I am committed to create and share hope that: You too have the opportunity to change course, to choose love no matter what, A NEW BEGINNING BEGINS WITH YOU,
We are as strong as we choose, have the choice to stay stuck or face ourselves to set us free, use our voices to speak, and be willing to receive. Healing is about committing. And I’m committed to being a lighthouse to help guide others home. HOME ISN’T A PLACE. IT’S A FEELING. These are the tools that have helped me find more self-love and self-trust within me.
Daily movement,
heathy food / fuel
plant medicine,
breathwork,
meditation,
integration therapy,
colonics,
functional medicine,
bloodwork
Energy work
Journaling,
Intimacy.
CONSISTENSY CREATES COMMITMENT. COMMITMENT CREATES CHANGE.
IF YOU’VE been told you’re too much --- They are revealing their inadequacy. IF YOU GET LOUD, in fear of not being heard or seen: You are seen, you are loved, you are worthy. IF YOU FEEL ALONE, scared, hiding behind ego afraid of opening your heart: I FEEL YOU. LET GO: Crack Yourself Wide Open. YOU GOTTA FEEL IT TO HEAL IT. YOU are lovable! Don’t hide YOU. IF YOU FEEL MISUNDERSTOOD: The only one that needs to understand you, IS YOU. IF YOU’ RE LONELY: You’re not alone if you have you. If YOU’VE been victimized, traumatized by bullying, violence or otherwise – hurt people, hurt people. It was never about you. Re-Write Your Story. The Best Revenge Is SELF REDEMPTION. Use your voice. Own your boundaries. IF I can do it, You can too. Flow thru the fight! Bring yourself back to life. Everything WE Need is Inside. If I can be helpful, questions welcome, hit reply.
Love always,
Olivia

(**and all the taglines in CAPS I’ve been preaching for years — telling myself and others what I needed to learn). Now I get it. TRUST YOURSELF.