Tantra Diaries: Unearthing Shadows
Beyond Stories: Iboga and the Tantric Search for Truth
We were facing each other: my inner child and I. A fragment of it. A part of me that embodied the story that nobody was listening to my needs.
It went like this: he left to take my son to school, and before that, he set up the lawnmowing machine in the front garden. When I came downstairs for my tea, the first thing I noticed was an open window. He had run the electricity cable through it.
I froze.
The window was open, and I was alone upstairs with my noise-cancelling headphones on. Someone could enter, and I wouldn’t even hear it. I could be robbed. Or worse… My mind is very good at projecting vivid images of bad things that could happen.
I closed the window and went upstairs. When I heard him coming up, I rushed out of the room and asked him to always close the windows and doors when he leaves. He gave me a peculiar look. He couldn’t believe such an action was necessary. He said it went against his beliefs — that we should be able to leave our home with doors or windows open, trusting that nothing will happen.
I wish I could be that trusting of human nature. But I wasn’t. I felt unheard. I felt like the little child who felt deeply unsafe. And the reason for this feeling was my parents, the very caretakers who should have ensured I grew up in a safe and loving environment. But they didn’t.
We were in a week-long tantra retreat, engaged in an inner child exercise. That’s why I was confronting that aspect of myself, the inner child who felt unseen, unsafe, unheard. I listened to her, to her pain. I acknowledged it. I felt profound compassion for that little girl and her experience. Then, from my adult perspective, I followed the exercise’s script, asking, “Child, what is it that you need to be happy and to flourish?”. I anticipated the usual answers: “I want to be listened to, to feel safe”. And then, according to the script, to turn to my adult self and provide what this part of me needed most.
And yet, I heard my inner part speaking: “I need you to set me free. I want to be free, to return to the source, to the light. Every time you cling to me, revisit this story, I feel pain. I feel anguish. Over and over again. Please, set me free. Let me find my peace. That’s all I want — to find my peace.”
I returned to the adult spot, still in shock. What did this mean? I tuned to my body, trying to sense my feelings. And there it was — fear. Immense fear: “But… if I let you go, then who am I? What remains of the ‘me’ I thought I knew?”
It was the fear of someone facing death.
The fear of the unknown.
The fear of structures crumbling, of that moment when the ground is swept from beneath one’s feet, that moment of having nothing to cling to. And then, where does one land?
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I cried. For that part of me that I clung to, because of this attachment, for decades, it lived in a Groundhog Day-like loop, reliving and re-experiencing that pain again and again. I did that. To it. To myself. Because the more I engaged with it, the more its pain became my pain. I was both the torturer and the victim simultaneously.
Then, it hit me. My pain body, the sum of all these wounded parts of me — I kept it in place, feeding it with my insistence that those thought forms and experiences were real. They were not. Not in the present reality, but just in my head. I made them real by constantly revisiting them, playing that story in my mind, and the emotions they embodied. I fed them, and I wallowed in their pain and sorrow.
And there was more… I realized that I was addicted to their pain… but why? How is it possible to do this to myself, to create my own suffering and torment? What kind of creature does that to itself? Why? Just why?
During my first iboga ceremony, I saw a vision of a little girl with a sad face, carrying a backpack. My ex-husband once used the phrase, “she has a backpack, like everyone else,” referring to the common traumas and troubles in life. And my family was laden with those: addiction, mental illness, domestic violence. It wasn’t just in my immediate family but in every family I knew as a child.
I looked at the vision and recognized it: it was the embodiment of the belief that I was a victim, that innocent, sad child who suffered so much, who never asked to be born. Oh, how attached I was to that thought form! How attached I was to that feeling of being an innocent victim! It was so painfully sweet! It was indeed such an intoxicating addictive feeling to hold onto, and a gripping story to recount.
But why? How could this be? And again, the realization shocked me: because it served as a fantastic story… for my advantage. To get compassion, understanding, love, attention, and admiration, and sometimes even respite. “Poor thing. She has endured so much! And look at her now! Against all odds, she made it! She made something of her life! Sure, she is still sensitive to certain things, but it’s understandable. Let’s excuse her outbursts, her externalized anger. Lets accept her appologies because she didn’t intend harm… she wouldn’t have reacted that way if only her parents had loved her more.”
What a bulshit! What a manipulation! I could not believe I was doing that…
My practice in the iboga ceremony, as Sean, the ceremony leader, had taught us was clear-cut. Acknowledge what you see and refrain from doing: “Ah, I see you. So what that you are here? Whether you’re here or not, whether you stay or leave, I don’t mind. Whatever.”
And indeed, visions would manifest: some horrific and scary, some showcasing loved ones, and others painfully resonant. Yet, the practice remains unchanged: acknowledge but don’t engage with them. Don’t. Just dont’t. Even if it’s a familiar mental loop, the vision of your beloved child or partner, a heart-wrenching memory, or what seems to be the answer to your life’s most urgent question. Just dont’t.
I have faith in the wood. I have faith in the practice. Throughout all five ceremonies, I followed the practice no matter which aspect of me, which fragment of my mind emerged. My faith and my experience was that these arising thought forms came up to die. And with their death, I found freedom. Their death signified the loosening of their hold on me.
Or, perhaps it was the inverse: in their death, my attachment to them waned and I could finally let them go.
So many parts of me have died this year. So many thought forms that I sustained by engaging with them, by judging them, either rejecting or showing preference for them. And always the underlying fear: “If I let this one go, who will I become? What remains of me?”
I would be free. I would be joyful. I would be in the present moment. I would face life for what it truly is and act based on what life asks from me, not based on what I demand from life. Because honestly, LIFE could not care less about what anyone wants or demands from it.
But acknowledging that I’ve used stories to avoid taking full responsibility for my experience? Taking the decision to stop using stories to evade feeling fear or discomfort, or to influence others to give me love and attention? Fully accepting that I am the creator of my own reality and that happiness is a choice? That is indeed radical.
I would then be exposed, with nowhere to hide, no excuses, and no pretense to prevent me from living my truth, to embody who I truly am.
It’s only natural that I was feeling fear.
A dear and wise friend has read this passage from Marianne Williamson to me:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
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This story marks the beginning of a series capturing the profound insights at the crossroads of my tantra and plant medicine journey. My deepest gratitude goes out to Alexa from the Temple of Tantric Arts, Sean from Still Nothingness, and my cherished friend B.M.R. Heijligers for their insightful guidance along this transformative path.
