Ayahuasca: The Medicine That Gives You What You Need
The medicine doesn't give you what you want. The medicine gives you what you need.
This is the first truth I learned about plant medicine, and it's the one that keeps revealing itself in deeper and deeper layers.
I've been on a journey of deep healing for almost three years now. I've worked with ayahuasca, I've done the shadow work, I've sat in ceremony, I've journaled, I've meditated, I've done the therapy. I thought I had moved through so much. And I had.
But this week, I found myself calling a friend—a therapist—to help me move through a core wound so deep, so hidden, so fundamental to my entire existence that I couldn't see it on my own. Even after all this work. Even after all this healing.
It was a wound created when I was so young that it became the foundation of how I moved through the world. It lived so deep within me that I had normalized it, built my entire life around it, and couldn't see it until I was ready.
That's what the medicine does.
It doesn't give you the answers you're looking for. It shows you how to find your own answers. And often, finding your own answers means stepping straight into the shadows you've been avoiding your whole life.
THE SHADOWS ARE WHERE THE MEDICINE LIVES
When people come to plant medicine, they're often looking for something: healing, answers, clarity, peace, connection, enlightenment. And the medicine will give you all of that—but not in the way you expect.
Mother Ayahuasca doesn't hand you a neat package of answers. She shows you the door to the basement you've been avoiding. She says, "Go down there. Look around. Get comfortable in the uncomfortable. See what you've been hiding from yourself."
The shadows aren't punishment. They're not something to be afraid of. They're the parts of you that got pushed down, hidden away, deemed "too much" or "not enough" or "unsafe to feel." They're the wounds that got created when you were too young to process them, so you just... held them. Buried them. Built your life around them.
And the medicine says: "It's time to see them now."
THE SPIRAL OF HEALING
Healing isn't linear. It's a spiral.
You think you've moved through something, and then it shows up again—but deeper. You think you've released a pattern, and then you find another layer underneath. You think you've arrived, and then the medicine shows you there's more.
This week, I found myself at what felt like the final layer of a spiral I've been moving through for years. A core wound around abandonment, around seeking attention from men, around abandoning myself to try to get others to see me.
I thought I had moved through this. I thought I understood it. But the medicine—and life itself is medicine when you're awake to it—showed me I was finally ready to fully see it, fully feel it, and fully let it go.
But I couldn't do it alone.
Even after almost three years of deep, deep healing work, I needed support. I needed someone to hold space for me while I went into the basement and looked at what was there.
YOU WILL NEED SUPPORT
This is the most important thing I can tell you about plant medicine:
The ceremony is just the opening. The real work happens after.
The medicine cracks you open. It shows you what needs to be seen. It pulls the emotions to the surface—emotions that have been stuck, buried, held for years or decades.
But then you have to do something with what you've seen.
You have to integrate it. You have to move through it. You have to alchemize it.
And you cannot do that alone.
You need:
Therapists who understand trauma and shadow work
Friends who can hold space without trying to fix you
Practices like journaling, meditation, movement
Time and space to process
Patience with yourself
Courage to keep going when it gets hard
The medicine is the opening. The integration is the work.
And the integration doesn't happen in ceremony. It happens in your daily life. It happens when you go back to your habits, your relationships, your patterns, and suddenly you're seeing them through a different lens.
You're asking: "Why am I doing this? What's the energy I'm putting into this? What wound created this pattern?"
And then you get to choose differently.
EMOTIONS ARE ENERGY IN MOTION
One of the most profound teachings I've received is this:
Emotions are just energy in motion.
They want to move. They want to be seen, felt, understood, and released.
But when we're young, we don't always have the capacity or the safety to feel our emotions fully. So we push them down. We hold them. We bury them.
And they get stuck.
Plant medicine—ayahuasca, psilocybin, whatever medicine calls to you—pulls those stuck emotions to the surface. It says, "Look at this. Feel this. Understand this."
Not every emotion needs this level of work. But those deep core wounds that got created when you were young, that got buried so deep you forgot they were there—those need to be seen.
And when they're seen, when they're felt, when they're understood—they can be alchemized. They can be released.
They can transform from wound to wisdom.
THE MEDICINE IS A GIFT
Plant medicine is put here by consciousness, by Mother Earth, as a gift.
When you feel called to it—and I mean truly called, not just curious or looking for a quick fix—it's because your soul knows you're ready.
Ready to see what you haven't been able to see.
Ready to feel what you haven't been able to feel.
Ready to remember the parts of yourself you've forgotten.
The medicine reminds us that we are whole.
Not that we need to become whole. Not that we're broken and need fixing.
But that we are whole, and we've just forgotten. We've covered our wholeness with wounds, with patterns, with stories that aren't true.
And the medicine pulls those coverings away—sometimes gently, sometimes not—so we can see what was always there underneath.
IT'S NOT AN EASY ROAD HOME
I won't lie to you: this journey is not easy.
The road to finding yourself, to letting go of all the things you were never meant to hold, to releasing the patterns that have kept you small—it's not easy.
It's the most courageous journey anyone can go on.
To see your shadows. To sit with them. To understand them. To love them. To release them.
It's not pretty. It's not comfortable. It's not what you expect.
But it is so, so worth it.
The road to finding yourself is worth every uncomfortable moment, every tear, every time you think you can't go deeper and then you do anyway.
The road to letting go of what you were never meant to hold—the trauma, the wounds, the patterns, the stories—is worth every moment of discomfort.
Because on the other side is freedom.
Not the absence of pain. Not the absence of challenge.
But the freedom to be yourself. Fully. Without apology. Without abandoning yourself for anyone.
The freedom to see yourself clearly—not just the light, but the shadows too—and love all of it.
IF YOU FEEL CALLED
If you feel called to plant medicine, honor that call.
But do it sacredly. Do it with intention. Do it with support.
Make sure you have:
A trusted guide or shaman who holds space with integrity
Therapists or healers who can help you integrate
Practices that ground you (journaling, meditation, movement)
People who can hold you when it gets hard
Time and space to process what comes up
The medicine will not give you what you want.
It will give you what you need.
And what you need might be uncomfortable. It might be challenging. It might crack you open in ways you didn't expect.
But it will also set you free.
THE WORK CONTINUES
Even now, after almost three years of deep healing, I'm still in it.
I'm still seeing new layers. I'm still releasing old patterns. I'm still learning how to not abandon myself.
And I'm grateful for every moment of it.
Because this is the most courageous journey I've ever been on.
And if you're on this journey too—if you're doing the work, facing the shadows, integrating the medicine—I see you.
I honor you.
And I'm walking this road with you.
The medicine gives you what you need.
And what you need is to remember:
You are whole.
You always have been.