Surrender, Trust, And Unmasked Religion

I just reread my last post and felt inspired to share my update. Three months. A lot happens in three months when you live with a fervor like what was ignited in me when beginning on my spiritual path. Enough that makes writing an update feel increasingly daunting but here we are at last.

I met a therapist on my second trip to Costa Rica in June. There are certain moments and interactions in life that are a fork in the road. The impact not obvious at first but later you realize that it set you down a new path, one that splits life between before that moment and after. One that a whole new journey unfolds from that you couldn’t have envisioned. Meeting Salimeh was one of those.

We immediately connected. I felt seen more quickly than I ever had by a stranger, especially a woman. It’d been over a year since I’d met with a therapist, and ones I’d tried in the past weren’t fits. I was unable to connect with any at the depths I was seeking, and few had an understanding of psychedelic medicine. So, I resorted to navigating this path on my own—learning from bumbling trial and error (which you’ve had the luxury of witnessing on this blog…), challenging psychedelic experiences and integration attempts through my own reading, research, and self inquiry.

Salimeh met me in my depths in our first conversation, I immediately saw we would go where I was headed and further, saw that she is a rare combination of experienced guide, licensed therapist, and wise spiritual teacher.

I began meeting with her weekly. We started with the standards. Talk therapy stuff, weaving through unprocessed trauma and emotions. Suppressed memories from childhood that were still unconsciously driving me, many that had been uprooted from psychedelic journeys after which I never got the full integration support to process.

I now realize these were still surface layers, and that much of talk therapy is that—analyzing stories associated with the past and with identity, i.e. ego gripping. It’s worthwhile to go through these for the same reason we call it a journey. This stage is a milestone needed to cross. To get where? Enlightenment. Awakening. Consciousness. Awareness. Satori. Moksha. No-self. There are many words for it, all just signposts for a way of living that is liberated from mind-made conditioning and ego-driven suffering.

After a few weeks, the next stage was letting these layers go. She helped me to transcend identity stories, take ownership of resentments, release memories of past, and connect with a deeper, bigger truth. The Truth that makes childhood memories or even a relationship to a parent or sibling or partner feel small. The Truth that began at the dawn of time and will continue to live far beyond when my physical form gives out. The Truth that is in me, that I am a manifestation of, that words can only feebly point towards, that one must let themselves feel to know.

It was our ayahuasca journey that really took me there. She offers a rare format in which her client’s healing is the focus, so I had the opportunity to sit with and receive guidance two-on-one from her and her co-facilitator, Melchor, a gentle and kind medicine man from Sound of Light in Florestral.

Sidenote: Most ayahuasca ceremonies take place with a group, including the ones I experienced earlier this year. As a hypersensitive empath, trying to go inward amidst the energy of 10 or more people going through an aya experience was a feat for me. This intimate, personalized setting with Salimeh and Melchor enabled an opening and depth that I didn’t get in past experiences. However, it’s not the traditional way of working with this medicine, which I believe is important to remember when choosing psychedelics and the setting. To receive and honor the thousands of years of Indigenous wisdom that this work comes from, I’d endeavor to experience that format if you feel called. This was specifically designed for me at this stage in my journey and for empowering the work with Salimeh.

I learned many things from that experience, and more from my time with Salimeh in preparation and integration. But two words capture the essence.

Trust and surrender.

To what? This is where it gets difficult to put in words. Partially because there aren’t words for it, partially because it’s for you to uncover for yourself. If and when inclined, we all find our own version of spiritual connection that resonates. God or Goddess, Universe or Source or Consciousness, Mother Earth or Spirit or Soul, Brahma or Buddha, the list is endless, and the answer is yours. More, the answer doesn’t matter. What matters is where it comes from. Ideologies, books, media, peers, parents, or inner being? Detached unconsciousness, or your present intuition?

My parents took me to church every Sunday growing up, Christian Methodist. I hated it. The scratchy white dresses on my skin, repetitive chants in my ear, and rows of glazed eyes glued to a guy at a podium, molding like warm clay to his words.

It all seemed so odd and unnatural and rigid to me. Mostly I saw it as a bunch of rules to follow and I was never good with those, especially after asking ‘why’ and not hearing a clear answer. So, when my mom gave us the choice to continue going or not come age 15, I swung in the opposite direction. Atheist, non-church-going, judging and resisting anything with simply a drop of religion from then on.

What I realize now is I was rightly running from the shadow of religion: divisive dogma that represents misinterpretations of the great Truth. A set of ideologies and belief systems that instead of helping us transcend the collective human insanity, has contributed to it for centuries. Has participated in a long period of patriarchy, violence, and divisiveness that is at last beginning to shift.

Setting that rabbit hole aside for another day…a fascinating realization I came to is the great Truth that lives under all religions: the fundamental oneness we all share. The unwavering light and unconditional love that connects us, holds us, is us. The inexplicable depth and complexity that is life, to which we are witnesses, and creators. The timeless eternity that is this moment, that is every moment. The window into that Truth that we can find in stillness, presence, and deep consciousness, when we make space to tune into it.

This is what I’ve connected to since my last post. A post about the fear that comes from venturing into the caves of shadow work and ego death, and attempting to integrate what had dissolved, what I now realize never existed. When you experience losing yourself (your idea of yourself) it’s scary. Die before you die as the saying goes. At that time, my next question was the common integration follow-up—who am I now? Ah, the insatiable ego simply returning for a new identity, not knowing how to live in this world without one. It’s a question that answering would just bring me back to the same origin. Instead, I’m now learning to surrender and trust.

The responding work I’m amidst now is letting go of the incessant questions my type-A, achievement-driven mind so loves to ask, that I imagine are playing in your mind as well as you read this:

If I live in full surrender,

Will things still get done?

Will I be as productive?

How will I meet all my goals?

Will I still create for the world what I’m meant to?

Eckhart does a better job than any in responding to this:

“Whatever action you take from a state of inner resistance (which we may also call negativity, anxiety, fear) will create more outer resistance, and the universe will not be on your side; life will not be helpful. If the shutters are closed, the sunlight cannot come in. When you yield internally, when you surrender, a new dimension of consciousness opens up. If action is possible or necessary, your action will be in alignment with the whole and supported by creative intelligence, the unconditioned consciousness which in a state of inner openness you become one with. Circumstance and people then become helpful, cooperate in the peace of inner stillness that come with surrender. You rest in God (or insert your own word here).”

My lifelong aversion to religion is what kept me stagnant and confused, hitting a wall in my growth journey as I sought something new to grip onto to replace what was released.

The pinnacle of spirituality, the real gateway to nirvana, is opened through a connection with something bigger and greater than words, definitions, explanations, the mind-made self. With something that can only be felt. Surrendering to the potent truth that I am nothing and I am everything—that is, the egoic me, the ideas about who I am, is illusory, and the spiritual me, the consciousness and awareness I bring to this life, is everything.

What has the impact been so far on my life? I’ve tapped into a new level of clarity and intuition, making decisions in moments of ease vs. weeks of intellectualizing. The biggest—moving out of Los Angeles after just a year, leaving California behind after a beautiful and formative 6 years, and taking off to travel for a while. Stay tuned for how it flows from here.

The Dark Side Of Integration

I just got back this week after another formative, beautiful month in Costa Rica. It hasn’t been easy. Leaving one jungle for another, one green and peaceful the other concrete and loud. It’s odd, feeling foreign in the country I’ve called home all my life. Something deep has shifted this year. My orientation to what home is, where I feel most natural. Like a lost puzzle piece that was jammed somewhere wrong, and now found its fit.

You can’t go back, you know now. My guide said to me. A true statement that I hear and feel so often on this journey. This path of deep inner work that is about discovering, peeling, uncovering and learning your truth. What’s always been there, but shaded by stories and shields and habits and fears.

And once you know, once who you really are comes into focus after years of hiding behind dust-shaded lenses, what do you do? What if that new person no longer fits in your current life? What if returning home, to your house or city or habits or job or relationships now feels like a stranger in a strange land?

You can accept the new disconnect, doing your best to smush your puzzle piece back in, passively feebly dully hope that one day you’ll forget the beauty you got a peek into, or you can change your life. The latter can be painful, but I can’t imagine why a moment of pain wouldn’t be worth a lifetime of feeling good.

For me, that’s been realizing I belong in the wild. I’m meant to wake with the sun and fall with the sun. To know when the moon is full and then dance under it, lay in the grass and count the stars that surround it. To meditate with trees and birds and monkeys and flowers as if I am them, and know I am them. To run barefoot through the mud, climb the rocks to waterfalls. I am meant to be surrounded by souls who feel similarly. Who hold hands in gratitude to Mother Earth at meals, who treat every living being with equal compassion and love. Who put others and their mission above themselves. I am meant to live a conscious, awake, heart-centered existence connected to our truth and to help others find the same.

This collective truth that we all share but are asleep to, in our cities, in concrete, stories above Earth. In boardrooms and subways and uncomfortable clothes and shoes and makeup. With processed, harm-sourced food and noise and stress and pressure.

I was there for too long. I didn’t know anything else, many of us don’t. I’ve now seen though, there’s more. And it feels so much better. And more importantly, that we’re meant to follow that. Follow what feels good. That’s the point. Why else would we have this potent guiding system in us? Emotions, these are our teachers. Our energetic connection and directive toward that truth. They tell us where to go and where to not go, who with and who not with. Most of the time we don’t listen. The world is full of chaos and pain and stress as a result of people not listening to this inner guiding system. The innate compass we’ve been gifted with.

So many of us live our lives spending a lot of time on things that don’t feel good…and then they die. That’s the tough reality. That’s the waking up that needs to happen. And it is. More and more people are seeing the power in looking inward through psychedelic medicine, meditation, or otherwise, for seeking more. Seeking the joy, love, peace that is not only possible, it is our core truth and purpose in this life—simply to be, and revel in that being. This absurd, mystifying, magnificent beingness we all share.

“When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky” - Siddhārtha Gautama

But let’s get back to where I’m at…as I’m writing all this I’m shaking my head a bit as it compares to my right Now. It’s really easy for me to write and speak about this work. I read all the things, do all the psychedelics, listen to all the teachers. Alan Watts, Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle, and Abraham Hicks have been my rotating squad lately. I have my morning and evening rituals and meditations. I’m grateful and fortunate I get to think about this daily with the work I do at Field Trip and our mission to empower the world with these experiences.

The words are there, the awareness is there. Of what to do, how to move forward. But feeling it in myself more than just my throat when I speak the words or hands as I type this is sometimes easier said than done.

Growth has always been an obsession. When I see an opportunity for growth, when I witness a bar higher than where I am, I spearhead toward it. I experienced that with exercise and my body, then tech and business, now here we are with self-actualization…3 years ago I had my first guided psychedelic experience, and within 6 months it was: Ok enlightenment here we come!! Since then it’s been deep deep upheaving with transformational discoveries and insights along the way without having much time to integrate. It’s led to many moments sitting with dug-up life dirt that pervaded my senses, weighed heavy on my heart and mind. Painful memories, self-realizations, patterns and habits being brought to the surface with a new clarity and potency, all at once.

I don’t recommend this to everyone, I recommend the work but not necessarily at this speed and depth. This is my path. Quick and dirty…I’m ready to get through my stuff and live my best life. I feel it around the corner, have gotten tastes of it, and know the difficulty in the meantime will be worth it both for myself and others. Because it’s not just for me anymore. What’s become glaringly clear to me through my work at Field Trip is that my mission in life, my purpose for being, is to empower others to find their heart again, to awaken to their truth. I write here as a small piece towards that mission.

So yeah, some days I really don’t feel good. Today’s one of them. I feel plopped back in a city I technically call home, that I used to think was home, that very much no longer feels like home. I feel bubbling questions arising as a result of that. Big questions, life-upheaving questions. Relationship losing and changing, logistics heavy questions. But I also know that whenever I’m in that space, that burn the forest down kinda space, flowers always come. Change is cool and inevitable. Time to roll and dance with it.