The rise of La Serpiente Emplumada- Quetzalcoatl and trauma healing
When I was small I imagined that there was a parallel world to this one, a twin world, I called it, where people were happier than they were in this one and their skins were of all colours, pink and purple.
My family used to think that I had a big imagination, which in fairness, I still do, but only recently, as I get closer to the root of my trauma, I have understood that dissociating from reality is a symptom of abuse as a child and a traumatic event.
The journey to who I’ve become
Things weren’t always this clear, though. I knew that there was something imbalanced within me when I engaged in close relationships and became incredibly triggered when intimate. This drove many of them away, mostly romantic and sexual.
I thought I was anxious, given that my mom’s mom was and my grandparents had a troubled past. I thought that maybe the death of my mom’s dad had affected me greatly when I was a child. I also had started to accept that I was born like this, that I had bad genes and was sick somehow, like some people made me believe that I was.
In the process of getting to the bottom of this, like in all legends and films, there was a moment in which everything fell apart and made me dig even deeper into my soul in order to discover whatever it was that felt wrong with me. That moment came to me through losing a few tough and also toxic relationships, which despite all their toxicity, helped me transform into a healthier and more stable version of myself.
Prior to that, I had a curiosity for growing and getting my mind in order. It has been 15 years since I started investigating my mind. I did what I thought was good for me, from spiritual traditions to conventional therapy.
I will list all the things that I have done, if someone needs them as a frame of reference and will explain the ones that have worked the best for me.
A spiritual path
I started with buddhism because it made sense to me. I meditated at a centre once a week and did retreats occasionally. It wasn’t a regular practice but it was helpful, specially in times of distress.
I noticed that longer and silent retreats were the most helpful , but inevitably, old patterns of behaviour would creep in after a couple of months, such as drinking alcohol and partying, but also my uncontrollable anger over things that didn’t deserve such a reaction.
The most effective of them was Vipassana or insight meditation, a traditional Buddhist technique, which I talk about extensively in other posts of mine here
I found this effective because in its strictness of not talking, acknowledging the present constantly and meditating for many hours a day for various days, the mind, indeed starts shifting and quieting down. In this quietness, one can work with the present moment, drifting less into the past and the future, which is what we all naturally do.
I maintained this practice for a few years at home and after retreats, I was able to hold a more or less peaceful state of mind, but again, after a couple of months the effects would start fading.
At the time, my environment at home was very triggering, which made it hard for me to regulate my emotions and remain calm when difficulties arose.
It is something to try for anyone interested in how their own minds work, as one can gradually see it shifting and in that process, get to understand it better.
Mother Ayahuasca
I combined buddhism with ayahuasca retreats, which I have had access to since I was 27 years old. The medicine has been a journey for me. My relationship with it has been painful and still is a little. I barely see beautiful visions and happy scenes. While on ritual I work on my own demons and beyond, in a way that, similar to my personality, stubbornly shows me, sometimes in a loop, the messages that I need to hear. They feel repetitive and almost psychotic, to the degree of me wanting to leave my last ceremony half way, which is not even possible as one is dizzy, nauseous and half there.
Ayahuasca has been effective in showing me spiritual and psychological areas of work, it has helped my anxiety and sadness for months at a time and it has helped me sober up, with the last time, being the longest one that I’ve been able to hold.
For me, the Mother is very powerful and effective with addictions, anxiety and depression. But once again, similar to meditation, it does fade away and an environmental change is required to maintain the effects for longer, plus the mental clarity of wanting to transform. For me, that clarity is enhanced by staying sober.
I don’t believe this in itself is enough to heal. People who have done 10 day plant dietas in Peru, say that the longer ingestion of the plant combined with others can be helpful in reaching deeper places within oneself. I haven’t done one myself, although I am interested.
Talking therapy
I started 6 years ago and I am just finishing for a while. It has been very helpful in getting my thoughts in order, in reflecting on patterns of behaviour and in hearing myself make sense of my life over time.
Like any relationship, there needs to be chemistry with the therapist for it to work. I went through 4 different ones before finding the one I still see and the right clinic for me.
There’s nothing fancy here, other than a sounding board but also one that challenges me when needed. I find therapy is a good support system for integration after practicing the above and throughout the year, mostly in challenging times.
After all that I have gone through, I think it is less effective in dealing with post-traumatic stress distress disorder, given that the latest research explains that this is stored in the body, thus, can only be dealt with on the body, not the pre-frontal cortex of our brain.
I am incredibly grateful to my therapist and my psychiatrist, who helped me through my main crisis. I also had very bad ones and I was wrongly misdiagnosed as something that right now, I know for sure, I don’t have.
Trauma healing with psilocybin, journaling, movement and somatic therapy
As I mentioned earlier, I only understood fully, a couple of months ago, what is going on with me.
I did so with the help of a few people, but mostly by sobering up, journaling and ayahuasca retreats. It seems that all this time my body had memory and recollection of me being sexually abused when I was very small, so much so, that my brain completely forgot about it.
Because I knew that I had a big trauma, for some time now, I started researching trauma healing. My two references were, The body keeps the score by Besser van del Kolk and any of Gabor Mate’s talks and books on trauma and compassionate enquiry.
In this research, it was brought to my attention that psilocybin was helpful in trauma healing, although I only knew that it was also helpful with depression. I had experimented with it by micro-dosing but never could fully tell if this was effective or not.
I booked a trauma healing psilocybin retreat this year prior to finding out what truly happened to me. The retreat took place last week, so my memories are fresh but also raw and maybe not very coherent.
I was glad that I didn’t have to deal with uncovering what happened and had more space to heal instead of doing discovery work.
I am in awe at how powerful psilocybin was for me, from a body, spiritual and mind perspective. I felt that I could work with it more dialectically and less forcefully than I did with ayahuasca. I felt that it pierced corners of my soul that I wasn’t aware existed still, it saw me bare naked and open as if I had no secrets anymore and it was incredibly tender and scary to be put in front of who I have been in this lifetime in such a way.
This retreat taught me a lot about the areas of my body in which my trauma is stored and all the healing that I need to do in order to not somatize pain, such as a recurrent urinal infection I get every time that I have sex with someone.
I felt energy in ways that I hadn’t before, maybe because my body and mind weren’t clean at the time, or because I wasn’t ready and was blocked.
In my visions and supporting me through my transformation process, I saw and felt the indigenous Central American God-like creature, Quetzalcoal, also called The feathered snake. I have always had an interest in this myth and it felt as if I could rise and fly from my mortal condition into a higher state of consciousness similar to the indigenous feathered snake.
My process was also supported by movement techniques and breathing exercises, which I found very helpful in ceremony and afterwards.
I am only starting to understand somatic techniques, but as far as I know they are helpful to manage trauma stored in the body and stimulate different parts of the nervous system.
Yoga has been the most accessible and helpful to me in terms of combining movement awareness and breathwork. There are other techniques to stimulate the vagus nerve, which helps regulate emotions, all related to breathing and movement.
Journaling has been incredibly revealing for me as well, and I write my dreams every morning when I get up. At this time, half asleep, my conscious mind hasn’t taken over fully yet and I can tap into my subconscious more easily. Thanks to my writings, I managed to understand the abuse that I was a victim of, amongst other things. If someone can’t access therapy, or natural medicine right now, I highly recommend starting here.
Last, but not least, all of this work has been more effective as I feel part of a wider community. I attend regular meetings for codependency and the retreat group holds a weekly sharing circle as well. A shared experience, makes it all much better and vulnerability much easier to access.
What’s next
Right now, what’s the most present for me is to help people who don’t have the means to access this type of therapy, as I believe that we all, culturally, have trauma to be healed in one way or another.
I am re-assessing components of my life, similar to what I would do at work and seeing where I can continue shifting my energy to align with who I am and aspire to be. It is a process that I am trying not to rush. I want to focus on my triggers and delaying my traumatic reactions to them, my anger and impatience. I would like with this to create the space to receive a healthy and loving relationship with another human, which prior to this year, I found very challenging.
Beyond this, I truly hope that I can reach out to people in and outside my circles, for curiosity or inspiration, or to start their own healing. I would like for whoever is reading this post and needs to hear what I have to say, access the healing that we all deserve. If I can somehow impact this, I will be grateful and content.
