Seeking validation will keep you trapped. You don’t need anything or anyone to approve of your worth. When you understand this, you will be free.

The good quote

I have spent much of my life seeking validation from others. I don’t think I’m alone in this, but my journey this far has been shaped and defined by my addiction to the opinion of others. On some level I’ve always known it, but it really came up in vivid shape and form when I experienced my first (and last) Ayahuasca journey. It shook me to my core.

April 2017, 8 months after I had left my marriage, I was completely lost. I had made such a mammoth decision and was riddled in doubt. I wanted answers. I asked a friend what the most profound key to his own personal development had been, and he told me about Ayahuasca – he is a regular student.

Ayahuasca is a psychoactive beverage containing dimethyltryptamine that is prepared especially from the bark of a woody vine (Banisteriopsis caapi of the family Malpighiaceae) and the leaves of a shrubby plant (Psychotria viridis of the family Rubiaceae) of South America.

merriam webster

Ayahuasca has been traditionally used by indigenous groups and mestizo populations for getting in contact with the sacred or supernatural world, for political and artistic purposes, and also for healing.

Rafael Guimarães dos Santos et al

I did the research (hours and hours of it, trawling through blogs and personal accounts), and the most common feedback in others was that they had felt love. True, unconditional love. This is what drew me to trying it. And of course, answers to the many open-ended questions and doubts in my mind.

i found a Shaman who conducted workshops, and planned for a weekend in Magaliesburg with about 10 strangers – most of whom had done it before. I did the prep work of detoxing, and took myself off to the retreat on a Friday afternoon, armed with my mattress, bucket (for purging – yes, you vomit like you’ve never vomited before), and prepared to be enlightened.

This is a truly sacred experience, and I have much respect for those who choose to face themselves – shadow and light. What I learned after my own journey is that this is more about feeling love. It is about facing the very things that do not serve you in your life. My only council to anyone curious to do this themselves – be prepared to face whatever may come. It’s not for the feint hearted.

10 of us got comfortable on our mattresses, positioned around a candle lit stone-walled room. It was so quiet, but for my pounding heart. The space was sealed and protected (TRUST ME on this… you are going to want to do it with someone who has experience, and who can hold the space. Who can guide you through your journey, and protect you). Gentle Lucas – trained with his own Shaman in the Amazon over years – explained how things would work. We would come up one at a time, and swallow a glass of sap from the sacred vines cultivated from the Amazon. This is no sweet nectar. It is possibly the vilest tasting substance I’ve had. As you hold it in your hands, you set your intention for the experience you wish to have. I wish I had spent a little more time refining mine – but I was a novice and just wanted to feel that love, and to find my way.

We were warned that it would take around 20 – 40 minutes for the medicine to take effect, and that we should focus on our own spaces, not getting connected to the experiences of others around us. Everyone’s journey is unique. Bar the vomiting – everyone purges. We would be invited to take a second dose should we feel the need.

And then we sat, in quiet, nervous anticipation.

It wasn’t long before the retching started. Some moaned. Some cried. Some laughed. One girl across the room sounded particularly bad, and to be honest – I felt like I was in purgatory. I wanted to escape, but when you have entered the space, there you pledge to remain until the journey is over for everyone. I felt nothing, but an intense discomfort and fear. I could not imagine sitting like this for another many hours, so when the invitation to have a second dose came around, I did not hesitate. Patience has never been my strongpoint…

It took maybe ten minutes before I started to feel sick, and the urge to vomit became intense. I leaned over my bucket, and as my stomach let go of its contents, my journey began.

I know that to those who have never experienced this, it must all sound profoundly ridiculous. Why put oneself through this madness? Read on…

I was catapulted into another reality. I had imagined meeting Mother Ayahuasca face to face. I’d visualised her teaching me and loving me. Softly giving me answers I so desperately sought. But no. It was me, myself and I. Alone. I found myself trapped a spiralling vortex, spinning round and round, faster and faster. On the periphery were all the faces and people I had looked to for my own self worth. Do you see me? Do I look ok? Am I clever? Am I a good human? Am I special? Am I good enough? Am I going to survive in this world? Do you love me? And as the questions churned out on repeat, the many familiar and foreign faces looked at me in silence – there were no answers. Just a faster spinning vortex that I could not get out of.

All I could hear… ‘CAN YOU SEE THE MADNESS, MICHELLE? THERE IS NEVER AN END! THIS WILL GO ON FOREVER!

the sound of my own voice screaming

And as I spun and spun, I vomited. It was the most cathartic feeling, which is hard to describe. I felt like I was purging this obsessive need in me from somewhere very very deep. I was ridding myself of it in wave after wave.

And suddenly, there was the most wonderful peace. The picture in my mind changed to Spiro’s (my ex-husband) face. My daughter’s face. My son’s face. There was such peace in their expressions – such love in their eyes. I felt an intense sorrow, as I’d had what I needed right in front of me all along. They looked so beautiful – the three people I cherished most in this world.

I had more insights, perhaps the subject of another piece. But my 8 hour journey yielded this one great revelation. The need for validation is an ugly beast that will trap you in your own purgatory.

Our ceremony ended, and I stumbled outside into the fresh air. I felt like a squid that had been beaten and tenderised on a craggy dry rock for hours.

But mostly, I felt like I had made the biggest mistake of my life.

You see, this is the danger of Ayahuasca. Once can take an insight as the absolute and immediate truth. I am still – 3-odd years later – taking new learnings from my experience as I grow and move through my life, getting to know myself better.

I have come to accept my obsession with validation, and where it came from (as with most things, our issues have their roots in our childhoods). I understand the responsibility I hold for the demise of my marriage. I have accepted this as a part of me, and i have forgiven myself. But I also know that there was so much more to its ending – there were two of us who made mistakes, and who took our eyes off the ball of US. We forgot to take care of each other, and took our marriage for granted. By the time the clock struck 19 years from saying “I do”, it was too late.

Did my Ayahuascan insight cure me completely of my need to please? Of course not. But it made me aware. And it also started me on my journey of self-love. Learning to see myself, shadow and light, and to accept both equally. This is ongoing, but is now the grand theme of my life.

By recognising and stepping out of the trap, I have made myself accountable to just one person…. ME.

I am enough. By turning my gaze inward, I have come to understand that I am so much more than the shape, the identity, the personality, the successes and the failures that are wrapped up in the name Michelle. I am an infinite being of pure consciousness, who has chosen to learn and grow from this experience of life.

I believe that there is only thing that really matters is LOVE. And it has to start with the real self which lies beneath all the things that life tells you that you are, and should be.