The irony is that I started finding myself while I was still married.

That’s the part people don’t expect.

We have this story we tell about divorce, that the leaving is the beginning, that the healing starts after. But that’s not how it happened for me. The healing started while I was still inside it. And that’s exactly why I couldn’t stay.

When you start remembering who you are, the gap between her and the life you’re living becomes impossible to ignore.

I had spent years performing. Not lying, performing. Organizing myself around someone else’s needs, someone else’s moods, someone else’s version of who I should be. I was good at it. I showed up. I managed. I held things together.

But somewhere in the middle of the deepest, most confronting personal development work of my life, I started asking questions I couldn’t un-ask. I started seeing things I couldn’t unsee.

What do I actually want? Not what works for both of us. Not what keeps the peace. What do I want?

The answers scared me.

Not because they were dramatic. Because they were so quiet. So simple. And so completely absent from the life I was living.

I wanted silence that felt like mine. I wanted mornings that belonged to me. I wanted to make a choice, any choice, that wasn’t filtered through someone else’s reaction first.

I wanted to stop holding my breath. I wanted to stop walking on egg shells.

I didn’t even know I was doing it until I started paying attention. The constant, low-grade readiness. The way I’d adjust before I even knew what I was adjusting to. I had been so practiced at managing the relationship that I had made myself invisible in it.

At some point I said it out loud. To him, directly, “For the past 11 and a half years, I have been putting our marriage and you before me. I have been last on the list of priorities in my own life. I can’t do that anymore. I’m putting myself first.”

He looked at me and said: “But why? Why can’t you continue to put the marriage first?”

I didn’t have an answer in that moment. I didn’t need one.

That question was the answer.

A man who loved the woman, not the performance of her, would have wanted her back. Would have understood that a woman disappearing inside a marriage isn’t a marriage worth keeping. The question he asked told me everything I needed to know about how long I had been invisible, and how normal that invisibility had become to both of us.

That was the moment I knew I wasn’t just putting myself first.

I was choosing to start living again.

When the marriage ended, I moved into my own place in Las Vegas, the city I have chosen for myself, and the silence was different than I expected. Not empty. Not lonely. Just mine.

For the first time in a long time, there was no audience. And I already knew some of who I was without one, because I had started doing that work before I left. There’s a difference between finding yourself in theory and actually living it. Between knowing you exist and having the space to prove it to yourself every single day.

The music I wanted to listen to. The food I wanted to eat. The hour I wanted to wake up. Small things. They were all finally mine. Every single one, mine.

That’s what I want you to hear, if you’re somewhere in the middle of this right now, still inside something that no longer fits, starting to feel the edges of who you actually are: The awakening doesn’t wait for the right moment. It starts when it starts. And sometimes it’s the very thing that makes staying impossible.

You’re not leaving because things got hard. You’re leaving because you finally got clear.

That’s not a crisis. That’s the work working.

-Soléa

I used to think I was just unlucky.

Things would fall apart; relationships, plans, my own sense of direction, and I would scramble. Fix it. Figure it out. Pull myself through by sheer force of will. And when I came out the other side, I’d feel relief, sure. But also something quieter underneath it.

Something that felt almost like pride: I did that. I got through that. I’m still standing.

It took me a long time to see what I was actually doing. I wasn’t surviving chaos. I was creating it. Unconsciously, yes. However, I was the one who set the fire. And then I’d walk in, rescue myself, and feel whole for a moment. Until the next one.

It sounds almost funny when I say it out loud. If you’re reading this and something in your stomach just moved, you already know this pattern. You’ve lived it too.

It’s not laziness. It’s not self-sabotage in the way people throw that word around. It’s something deeper. It’s what happens when you’ve spent years believing that your value comes from what you can survive. From how much you can carry. From being the woman who figures it out, no matter what it costs her.

The problem with being your own hero is that it requires an ongoing crisis. So unconsciously, you supply one.

For me, it showed up everywhere. In relationships I stayed in longer than I should have. In decisions I made from fear dressed up as logic. In my finances. In the times I waited until something was broken before I finally paid attention to it. I genuinely thought life was just… hard. That hard was normal.

It wasn’t until I started doing the real work, sitting with myself, getting honest, going layer by layer, that I saw it clearly. The chaos wasn’t happening to me. It was coming from me. And underneath it was a question I’d been trying to answer my whole life:

Am I enough?

I had built an entire unconscious system to keep answering yes. But the answer was always temporary because the system required the problem. Remove the problem, and what was left? Just me. And I didn’t know how to trust that that was enough.

This is what the Trilogy is really about. It’s helping you understand what you’ve been running from. What patterns you’ve been living in without realizing it. What stories you’ve been telling yourself about strength and survival that may have actually kept you stuck.

Moving forward isn’t always about adding more. Sometimes it starts with finally seeing clearly.

If you’ve been the one creating fires just so you could put them out, this work is for you.

You don’t have to keep proving you can survive. You’re allowed to just live.

-Soléa

I never wanted to have kids.

Not because I didn’t love children. Because I loved them too much to pass on what I carried.

My relationship with my mother was toxic. I didn’t know the words back then, generational trauma, unconscious patterns, inherited pain. I just knew I didn’t want to do to someone else what had been done to me. So I made a choice.

And then in 1999, someone I knew asked me to donate my eggs. It was her last option before adoption. She wanted to try. I was 23. I said yes.

In 2000, twin girls were born. I met them at three months old and didn’t see them again for over twenty years, until life brought me to America and quietly, almost mysteriously, put us back in the same orbit.

Last year, one of them reached out. She wanted to know about family health history. I told her about the physical stuff, cancer, cardiovascular, the usual. Then she asked about mental health.

I told her the truth. My mother was an alcoholic. Addicted to pills. Severe depression.

She went quiet for a moment. Then she told me she was an alcoholic in recovery. That she struggled with depression too.

I cried. I apologized. I told her I was so sorry for passing on the very genes I had spent my whole life trying to protect the world from.

This weekend, after a leadership training and 17 years of inner work to heal my relationship with my mom, who passed in 2008, I finally understood something I couldn’t have seen before.

We cannot outrun our lessons.

No matter how carefully we plan. No matter how much we sacrifice or protect or avoid. Life will find a way to deliver exactly what we are here to learn.

I tried so hard not to pass on the pain. And I did anyway.

And here’s what I also know now: I healed it. I made peace with my mother. I did the work, the real work, the kind that takes years and breaks you open more than once.

And something tells me these two women are going to need me one day. And because of everything I’ve walked through, I’ll be ready.

Our lessons will always be our lessons.

We can’t outrun ourselves. And maybe, just maybe, we were never supposed to.

-Soléa

I have been thinking about this article for some time now, but only today I might be able to write it, and post it. You see, I like to write about human behavior, not only because I’m obsessed with it, but because I believe I have gone through many painful experiences that have allowed me to learn a bit about how to turn life around when we feel that it’s not going our way.

I had a pretty happy childhood, but I have to tell you that my adolescence was tough. My mother was an alcoholic, and I was extremely overweight. These two things pretty much resulted in me hating who I was, thus constantly sabotaging myself. I was always feeling depressed; many times I felt like I was a victim of circumstances, and I considered killing myself a few times.

There were also days that I would wake up, and snap out of my own self-inflicted misery; during those powerful moments I remember saying to my dad “I have to stop whining, and take my life by its reins because I am tired of feeling like this”. I would start a new diet, get a haircut or something, but after a few days I would fall into my own trap of self-loathing. I grew up believing that I was unworthy of love, and that everyone around me was untrustworthy, and that is why I sabotaged myself so much.

In my mid-twenties I met someone that fell in love with me, despite my obesity, and that changed everything. He looked at me, and saw through those layers of fat, and self-hatred. Because of this guy I fell in love with myself, and my life. I lost over 80 pounds, and started to have a different view of everything. I was no longer the victim here. I could choose to be and do whatever I wanted, and I did. Don’t get me wrong: I still had days where I felt a lot of self-pity, but they weren’t the norm any more. I eventually learned to just let sadness take over me, because I knew it would eventually go away.

Every now and then we all feel like crap, and it’s ok.

The tricky part is to not engage in our self-loathing for too long, think that we are, indeed, victims of our own circumstances, and let ourselves go down that road.

We are not victims of our circumstances; we are what we choose to be.

Over four years ago I moved to the United States because I chose to live my life with a man with whom I had fallen in love. With this decision came several consequences: I was away from my father, whom I love dearly; I was away from all of my friends and family, and I interrupted a career that was skyrocketing.

You might be thinking: You did all of this for a man? NO! I did it for ME.

You see, I had always been: me, myself, my career, and I. Cancer changed that. Life has a way of slapping you in the face very hard every time you need to learn something, and, boy, did I learn my lesson!

Has it been worth it? Hell, yes!

Every now and then I fall into the same trap: I start feeling sorry for myself. Why? Because I forget that I CHOSE to be here. I CHOSE to start over in another country that demands so much of you, if you want to succeed, and have a good life.

So next time you feel like you are a victim of your own life, remember that where you are now is a result of all of the choices you have made until this moment!

You are responsible for creating your reality.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

You have the power to change your life; it takes a lot of hard work, and sacrifice, but how long have you been feeling miserable? How long do you want this feeling to last? How long do you want to watch your life go by without feeling happy?

What are you waiting for?

20 years ago I dropped out of law school and quit my job at Price Waterhouse, put a backpack on my back and left for England… my dad was against it, but I was 22 and had money saved… US$ 7,000.00 … I hadn’t been to London in years, and as soon as I took my first walk through the streets I decided that I wanted to live there. A few days later I found a job as a nanny… a few weeks later I met one of my best friends for life, Maria Zog… I worked as a nanny for almost 2 months, and then left to explore Europe… I bought one of those unlimited train tickets and had absolutely no idea where to go… I just went where life took me… I was going in search of myself, and I had some pretty amazing experiences along the way… I worked at a camp site in Mykonos, where I met another friend for life, David Lade… we jumped off a cliff at 1 am with some other crazy aussies, and I almost crashed into rocks at the bottom of the ocean… In Ankara, Turkey , I stayed at a family’s house overnight… they were strangers I met on the bus from Capadoccia… they didn’t speak English, nor did I speak Turkish … we did however speak the language of kindness and compassion… I also lived in a kibutz in Israel (Mahanaim), and was asked to leave because of my rebellious spirit… I spent more than 8 months traveling around and that changed me forever… in a way that only experiences like these can do… My advice to you is this: live as if you will die tomorrow… put things in perspective… ask yourself: in 5 years, will this really matter? Be kind, be generous, be compassionate… Embrace life and all of its wonders… learn to let go and live with all your might because the only certainty in life is that we will die… nothing else is written in stone… Do your best, and life will take care of the rest… Love life… it’s the only one you got. We are nothing… we are a grain of sand in this vast Universe… be humble… be open… just BE…

When I saw Melania Trump being escorted to witness her husband become the 45th President of The United States my comment was “That’s a woman who had no idea what she was getting into when she married Donald Trump”. And then the idea for this article came alive.

Most people have dreams, set goals for themselves, and execute tasks that might eventually lead them to accomplish such goals, which in the end helps them fulfill their dreams. This doesn’t mean that they are happy; it just means that they followed through with what they initially set themselves to do. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Back to Melania: she got married to a successful businessman, had a private life and looked pretty content with such. Donald, on the other hand, told Oprah in the 80’s that he might run for President one day, if he thought this country wasn’t going the way he thought it should. I am sure that in these almost 40 years no one brought up that interview until he actually won the GOP.

I have no idea what Melania was doing when she met Mr. Trump, what her goals and dreams were, but I am sure being the First Lady was not on her list.

When we pursue our goals sometimes we get “tunnel vision”, which means that all we see is the road in front of us, because we believe it will lead us to our objectives. Sometimes we are so engrossed in ourselves that we miss great opportunities that would give us more joy than our initial goals.

Melania did not fight to stay a private person, she did not tell her husband not to run for President because that was not what she had signed up for. Instead she put on her beautiful blue dress today, stood by her husband with a smile on her face, knowing that her life will have changed forever.

In 2012 I lived in Brazil (where I was born). I had a steady and growing career, published books, my own apartment, a car, and access to the best events and parties in town. My plan was to expand my company and continue to change my clients’ lives through my work. But then something happened: I met an American man, and fell in love. In two months I managed to sell everything I owned and move to the USA. People thought there was something wrong with me, that I had become a fugitive (maybe I’m exaggerating this part), or that I had really lost it. Truth is I trusted the Universe for having put that man in my life; I trusted that what I had planned wasn’t really the path I should follow.

I never looked back.

My point is: there is no problem setting goals, having dreams, and executing tasks that will take you there. What you should do is avoid the infamous “tunnel vision’. Don’t be stubborn and assume that YOU know what’s best for you. Guess what: God laughs when you make plans.

Open your mind. Open your heart. Embrace change. Be happy.

Impact of History upon Addiction: Theory and Treatment

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIIDA) defines addiction as being a chronic illness, such as asthma, diabetes, and hypertension, among others. Addiction occurs when an individual has developed a compulsion towards substance(s) or behaviors (e.g., gambling), and becomes enslaved to the habit of consuming or participating in them, despite its catastrophic consequences (www.drugabuse.gov, n/a).

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th. edition (DSM-5®) has an entire chapter devoted to addiction — Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders — where it explains all of the factors involved when diagnosing it. According to this section of the DSM-5® there are ten separate classes of drugs: alcohol; caffeine; cannabis; hallucinogens (with separate categories for phencyclidine [or similarly acting arylcyclohexylamines] and other hallucinogens); inhalants; opioids; sedatives, hypnotics, and anxiolytics; stimulants (amphetamine-type substances, cocaine, and other stimulants); tobacco; and other (or unknown) substances” (p. 481).

The scientific study of addictive behavior began in the beginning of the twentieth century, when addicts were considered morally flawed individuals who did not have any willpower (moral model of addiction). Back then addiction was viewed as a moral problem, and addicts deserved to be punished; treatment consisted of having the addict stop behaving immorally, and actually quitting his/her substance abuse (NIIDA, 2010).

Other models try to best explain what causes addiction (medical, psychological, public health, and biopsychosocial), but the one that prevails in the United States is the disease model of addiction (Lawrence, Rasinski, Yoon, & Curlin, 2013). This approach claims that addiction is a progressive, deteriorating, long-term, and continuous disease that will eventually result in changes in certain areas of the brain: (1) brain stem, which is associated with basic functioning (heart beat, breathing, and sleeping); (2) cerebral cortex, which is the area that is linked to our ability to experience sensations (see, hear, feel, and taste), and to think, plan, solve problems, and make decisions (frontal cortex); and (3) limbic system, which is responsible for the brain’s reward system. By activating this area people who experience drugs feel pleasure, and are then impelled to take more so that this feeling can be endured. This area of the brain is also the one in charge for regulating people’s moods, and this is why people who use or abuse any of the substances mentioned above such as alcohol, or cocaine, have so many mood-altering moments. The indicated treatment to addiction according to this model is medication that would offset the changes in the brain caused by the continuous use of such substances (NIIDA, 2011; Lewis, 2014).

A more recent, and comprehensive approach to understanding addiction is the biopsychosocial model, which includes analyzing aspects of one’s biological, psychological, cultural, and social aspects to determine what caused the addiction. Adepts of this theory believe that an addict has genetic predisposition, has socially learned how to use drugs, and has experienced some type of trauma. When choosing to work with this model of addiction there are several treatments available that encompass biological cognitive, behavioral, social, and cultural approaches that mental health professionals can choose from; pharmacological, psychoeducational, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Motivational Interview (MI), group therapy, family therapy, and Adlerian, are some of the methodologies that can be integrated when helping substance abusers recover from their disorder (Lewis, 2014; Nolen-Hoeksema, 2014).

DSM-5 Criteria and Severity

As briefly mentioned above addiction is the recurrent compulsion of consuming certain substance, or behaving in a certain way that causes the individual to experience pleasure, despite damaging results. Nolen-Hoeksema (2014) describes substance as “any natural or synthesized product that has psychoactive effects — it changes perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors” (p. 397). These substances are considered illegal depending on its cultural environment, e.g., peyote is considered a narcotic in the United States, but within the Native American communities it is part of one’s spiritual development (Harris, & Gurel, 2012; DSM-5®). Even though the consumption of hallucinogens has been prohibited since the 60’s there are two churches — União do Vegetal (UDV) in New Mexico, and Santo Daime (SD), in Oregon — that can administer ayahuasca to their members due to the Religious Freedom Act of 1978 (Anderson, Labate, Meyer, Tupper, Barbosa, Grob, & McKenna, 2012).

Ayahuasca is a natural blend prepared by some of the South American indigenous population; it derives from the Amazonian flora, specifically Banisteriopsis caapi, a liana, and leaves of Psychotriaviridis; the N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is found in the latter ingredient (Mercante, 2013; Barbosa, Giglio, Dalgalarrondo, 2005; Schenberg, Alexandre, Filev, Cravo, Sato, Muthukumaraswamy, da Silveira, 2015). Even though ayahuasca is a controversial substance in regards to its addictive potential and side effects, it is still classified as a Class A controlled substance, and Schedule I drug (Winstock, Kaar, & Borschmann, 2014), even though it is not mentioned in the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) website (https://www.dea.gov/druginfo/factsheets.shtml).

Just as any other disorder the DSM-5® lists several criteria that individuals who abuse ayahuasca must meet in order to be diagnosed with DMT disorder: criterion 1 refers to the consumption of a larger amount over a long period of time than the one formerly set. In the case of ayahuasca, the administered doses are calculated according to the individual’s weight, which can range from 0.5 to 1 mg DMT/kg body weight (dos Santos, 2013). Based on this information it is possible to conclude that by consuming 2mg DMT/kg of body weight would fit into this criterion. The second and third criteria listed by the DSM-5® determine that the individual has been unable to stop or decrease the use of ayahuasca, even though several attempts have been made overtime, and that he/she will spend most of his/her time getting it, using it, or recovering from the ayahuasca’s effects. The other factor that influences in a diagnosis of ayahuasca’s addiction would be the constant cravings experienced by the individual who thinks that he/she needs ayahuasca regularly to function and live. The following criteria presented by the DSM-5® refer to the user’s social impairment, which involves the inability to fulfill his/her ordinary roles in school, work, socially, or at home due to the use of ayahuasca. Those who even though are experiencing such harmful behaviors continue to abuse ayahuasca, and disengages from their ordinary personal, and professional activities just so he/she can use ayahuasca would meet criteria 5, 6, and 7.

Criteria 8 and 9 examine the risks taken by those who want to abuse ayahuasca; they state that criterion 8 is met when the individual has ayahuasca in physically dangerous situations, and when even knowing about the impairments caused by ayahuasca, the individual persists in the habit (criterion 9). If one shows that one keeps on increasing one’s level of tolerance to ayahuasca, thus needs to take more in order to experience the same effects one will fit into criterion 10, and lastly there is the withdrawal factor that is not applicable to any hallucinogen, therefore not really having any weight in regards to diagnosing someone with addiction to ayahuasca (DSM-5®).

There have been many studies that question if ayahuasca should still be considered an illegal drug for several reasons: (1) hallucinogens are considered to be safe substances that contain low toxicity, are not physiologically addictive, do not appear to produce significant long-term effects when consumed in single doses (Burdick, & Adinoff, 2013; Fábregas, González, Fondevila, Cutchet, Fernández, Barbosa, & Bouso, 2010); (2) DMT when taken orally is not an active ingredient because it is enzymatically destroyed when in combination with the monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI), found in the Banisteriopsis caapi (Fábregas, González, Fondevila, Cutchet, Fernández, Barbosa, & Bouso, 2010; Cakic, Potkonyak, & Marshall, 2010); (3) lack of evidence of any neurological damage caused by the regular intake of ayahuasca during indigenous and shamanic rituals (Labate, & Cavnar, 2011; Fábregas, González, Fondevila, Cutchet, Fernández, Barbosa, & Bouso, 2010; Anderson, Labate, Meyer, Tupper, Barbosa, Grob, & McKenna, 2012); and (d) the consumption of ayahuasca can lead to spiritual and psychological enhancements because it provokes a modified state of consciousness; biologically speaking ayahuasca has alkaloids that have anxiolytical and antidepressive effects.

Social and Cultural Issues — Legal and Social Consequences — Impact Upon the Family and Intimate Relationships

Substance abuse has many negative repercussions in every level of society as verified by the study conducted by Copello, Templeton, and Powell (2010) representing, among other consequences, large losses of money to individuals, families, and communities. NIIDA (2011) details the harmful consequences of drug abuse to: babies who exposed to drugs while in the womb, may be born premature and underweight, and have their intellectual capacity diminished, an impaired behaviors); teenagers who do drugs are likely to drop out of school, are in risk of unwanted and premature pregnancy, violence, and all types of diseases; and adults might have problems with their focus, attention, and memory, and they tend to develop unacceptable behaviors, which affects their personal and professional lives (parents who abuse drugs are likely to neglect and/or abuse their children, which not only encourages them to use drugs by observing their parents, but also in a toxic environment for them).

Harris, and Gurel’s (2012) research showed that individuals who consumed ayahuasca experienced several positive changes in their lives such as feeling calmer, feeling more appreciative towards their lives, developing a greater spiritual awareness, drinking less alcohol (or even stopping), improving their focus, and feeling more connected to their hearts and ability to love among others. In light of the several positive benefits experienced by many people who consumed ayahuasca it is possible to say that the only reason its consumption is still regarded as illegal is due to its current classification as a Class A controlled substance, and Schedule I drug (Winstock, Kaar, & Borschmann, 2014; Harris, & Gurel, 2012; Bouso, González, Fondevila, Cutchet, Fernández, Ribeiro Barbosa, & Riba, 2012). Cakic, Potkonyak, and Marshall’s (2010) study explained that adolescents who have consumed ayahuasca in religious contexts showed significant psychological improvement. The fact that ayahuasca is still classified as a drug in the United States does not stop people from going to South America to take it during shamanic and indigenous ceremonies that have an intention to heal afflictions of their minds, bodies, and souls.

Conclusion

Although ayahuasca is classified as an illicit substance due to the presence of DMT in its ingredients it does not meet the DSM-5® criteria of diagnosis. It has been shown above that ayahuasca does not cause any physical or psychological dependence, and people who take it do not have their lives “interrupted”; on the contrary: they feel psychological, physical, and spiritual enhancement. The use of ayahuasca also does not seem to alter any area of the brain, which is an essential characteristic of illegal drugs, as well as alcohol.

This paper has been able to explain through several scholarly materials that ayahuasca is a hallucinogen, but it should not receive the “illegal drug” designation.

References

Anderson, B. T., Labate, B. C., Meyer, M., Tupper, K. W., Barbosa, P. C. R., Grob, C. S.. . McKenna, D. (2012). Statement on ayahuasca. The International Journal on Drug Policy, 23(3), 173.

Bouso, J. C., González, D., Fondevila, S., Cutchet, M., Fernández, X., Ribeiro Barbosa, P. C.. . Riba, J. (2012). Personality, psychopathology, life attitudes and neuropsychological performance among ritual users of ayahuasca: A longitudinal study. PloS One, 7(8), e42421. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0042421

Burdick, B. V., & Adinoff, B. (2013). A proposal to evaluate mechanistic efficacy of hallucinogens in addiction treatment. The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 39(5), 291–297. doi:10.3109/00952990.2013.811513

Cakic, V., Potkonyak, J., & Marshall, A. (2010). Dimethyltryptamine (DMT): Subjective effects and patterns of use among australian recreational users. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 111(1), 30–37. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2010.03.015

Copello, A., Templeton, L., & Powell, J. (2010). The impact of addiction on the family: Estimates of prevalence and costs. Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy, 1763–74. doi:10.3109/09687637.2010.514798

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5®), 5th Edition. American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc., 05/2013. VitalBook file.

Fábregas, J. M., González, D., Fondevila, S., Cutchet, M., Fernández, X., Barbosa, P. C. R.. . Bouso, J. C. (2010). Assessment of addiction severity among ritual users of ayahuasca. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 111(3), 257–261. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2010.03.024

Harris, R., & Gurel, L. (2012). A study of ayahuasca use in North America. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 44(3), 209–215. doi:10.1080/02791072.2012.703100

Labate, B. C., & Cavnar, C. (2011). The expansion of the field of research on ayahuasca: Some reflections about the ayahuasca track at the 2010 MAPS “Psychedelic science in the 21st century” conference. International Journal of Drug Policy, 22(2), 174–178. doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2010.09.002

Lewis, T. F. (2014). Substance abuse and addiction treatment: Practical application of counseling theory. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. ISBN: 9780132542654.

Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2014). Abnormal psychology (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 9780078035388.

Schenberg, E. E., Alexandre, J. F. M., Filev, R., Cravo, A. M., Sato, J. R., Muthukumaraswamy, S. D.. . da Silveira, D. X. (2015). Acute biphasic effects of ayahuasca. PloS One, 10(9), e0137202. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0137202

Winstock, A. R., Kaar, S., & Borschmann, R. (2014;2013;). Dimethyltryptamine (DMT): Prevalence, user characteristics and abuse liability in a large global sample. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 28(1), 49–54. doi:10.1177/0269881113513852

http://www.dea.gov

I have several friends who have always told me that they would never have kids, and most of them do nowadays have children. I might be one of the few (1 or 2) that stuck to this predicament. So, what makes someone who had the conviction that she would never have children to want to be a mother? Her priorities!

What makes a mother of four want to have a career once again? Her children have left their home, her job as a mom is done, and now she needs to find something that will fulfill her once more. So she starts looking for courses, reconnects with people from her network, and works on her new priority.

Before I had cancer in 2012 my life was all about me, my dog, and my career. After my recovery I realized that my profession wasn’t as important anymore because it didn’t take care of me when I got sick; it didn’t provide me with an income because I had to stop working. My priority became to connect to people on a deeper level, and focus less on my career. When I shifted my priorities I met my husband, and our relationship became my priority. I changed my entire life for him. People called me crazy, but the truth is that it is crazy not to change, not to reevaluate your priorities from time to time, because the only certainty in life is the fact that everything changes all the time. According to Buddhism, “the only permament in life is impermanence”.

Unfortunately people are not aware of their behavioral patterns because people rarely stop to question their actions. When two people come together and engage in a romantic relationship they will bring their formulas to the table, and if they are different, it is likely that they will have a toxic relationship. We sometimes stumble upon couples that in our perspectives must hate each other, can’t stand each other, etc., but they manage to stay together despite all the violence between them. How do they do it? The answer is pretty simple: that’s what their “normal” is, so they stick together.

In order to understand your partner’s behavior you must understand his/her childhood environment. Was it one of love? Deception? Violence? There is a cycle that is passed on from generation to generation, and unfortunately people usually don’t realize that they can change, and that they can be different. They can be healthier. Who wants toxic in their lives? Wouldn’t it be so much better if people in relationships only loved each other, instead of practicing hate?

We live in a world where there is so much hate going on in every society, every level of socio-economic status, every race, etc. The answer is LOVE. We must stop this cycle of violence that exists between people, and the first place we can actually shift from hate to love is in our homes! YOU CAN BREAK THE TOXIC CYCLE, but first must become AWARE of your own behavioral pattern.

Challenge your beliefs, challenge your values, and challenge your behaviors. Question yourself: what kind of environment did I grow up in? How was the relationship between my parents?

Change is always possible, my friends, and it must begin with you. If people start to want to love, and really be loved we might experience a domino-effect, and be able to see more love in the world.

This photo was taken a couple of days before my thyroid cancer had been diagnosed😌 and I had no idea how much my life would change with all that 😳
Learning about people’s issues with their health, and the toxic relationships they are in, with themselves and others, made me want to post about this again, even though I have mentioned it a few times in the past 🙄🙄🙄
A week before my cancer diagnosis was confirmed I discovered the root of my maladaptive behavior having toxic relationships with men (and myself), and it all amounted to the fact that when I was only 10 years-old the person who was supposed to protect💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻, and love 💜 me the most in the world (aka my mother) stated to abuse me physically and verbally, which made me lose trust in everybody I would come in contact with for the next several years. Not only that, but she made me believe that I was not worthy of love unless I were super mega thin 😭😭😭
Forgiving my mother and myself for all the hardship that happened for 25 years between us allowed me to have a second chance in life. After I took that lump off my throat I could hear my heart’s voice and rediscover my soul.💖💖💖💖
A few months Later I met my husband 😍😍😍 and for the first time in my life I am totally happy with person I have become.👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
If you realize that you behave in patterns that hurt you in someway,😳 try to understand and find out the cause of it all, because once you do, you will be set free, and have the opportunity of a second chance just like me ☀️☀️☀️
Trust that what you consider problems are actually opportunities for growth, and when you find out what it is that you have to learn you will definitely move on with an upgrade in your Life! 😌😌
DO NOT BE AFRAID TO FACE THE TRUTH!!!! IT WILL SET YOU FREE!!
Happy weekend everybody. Lots of love and blessings in your life today and always🎈🎈🎈