120 | A Step by Step Guide to Prepare for Iboga (Or Any Big Psychedelic Experience)
“We approach Iboga with the understanding that it can provide us with direct answers to our questions, and we keep this in mind throughout the entire preparation process.”
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In this episode, I walk you through a step-by-step guide on how to prepare for an Iboga ceremony (or any big psychedelic experience). Drawing from my own experience and preparation for my second Iboga journey, I share how to navigate the process leading up to your ceremony, including setting intentions, writing questions for Iboga, and connecting your healing work with the Seven Chakras.
I also talk about the importance of the energetic preparation and how to integrate emotional and psychological content as you get ready for this transformative experience. Whether you're new to psychedelics or preparing for another journey, this episode provides valuable insights to ensure you approach your ceremony with clarity and focus.
What You’ll Learn:
Step 1: Answering the call: The moment you commit to your Iboga journey and what starts shifting energetically.
Step 2: Awareness of thoughts, emotions, and suppressed memories: How to notice triggers, unresolved relationships, and new desires as they surface in preparation.
Step 3: Setting energetic hygiene ground rules: How to ensure you're physically and mentally strong going into the ceremony.
Step 4: Identifying themes and narrowing focus: How to review your notes and identify major themes you're working on.
Step 5: Connecting themes to the Seven Chakras: A unique approach to aligning your work with the body’s power centers for deeper healing.
Step 6: Creating your list of questions and intentions for Iboga: How to craft open-ended questions that will guide you to the answers you seek during ceremony.
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Things Mentioned In This Episode:
Show Links:
Core Energy Coaching – My Coaching Program
Becoming an Empowered Empath by Wendy De Rosa [book]
Episode 118 on Psychedelic Pre-Work (Apple | Spotify | YouTube)
Where to find Lana:
I was introduced to psychedelics in my early 20s within rave culture, and few years later I began to use plant medicine ceremonially.
Many circumstances aligned leaving me shattered, and I began the journey of putting myself back together. Plant medicine & psychedelics saved me from depression, anxiety, and a life of feeling unworthy. This is now my life’s work and I have devoted myself to sharing psychedelics and plant medicines with others because I have personally experienced how effectively they can catalyze growth, healing and connection.
This idea for Modern Psychedelics came to me during a journaling session in early 2020. I was learning so much about psychedelics at the time (while experiencing the benefits firsthand), and I had a deep desire to talk about these topics with people in the field. Upon launching the Instagram community, the page grew tremendously over a short period of time and continues to have high levels of engagement.
I am a 3x certified professional life coach, and I work with people who want to better their lives by deeply integrating insights from their psychedelic experiences. I believe that we don’t have to spend our entire lives healing, and that the purpose of life is to live in the present moment.
Looking for a professional coach to support you on your psychedelic path?
Look no further! Along with being the host of the Modern Psychedelics Podcast, Lana is a 3x certified professional coach who works with people on the psychedelic path.
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120 - Solo
Speaker: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode 120 of the podcast. My name's Lana. I'm your host, your guide, your person who's here to chat with you about all things, personal growth and psychedelics, and also a lot of energy because I am a core energy coach. So today, if you guys haven't noticed, we're kind of getting into the Iboga world a little bit slowly.
Here on the podcast, last week's episode was all about Ibogaine and Iboga, safety, ethics, harm reduction with the wonderful Juliana Mulligan. And today, since I am so deep in my prep process for Iboga, I wanted to make an episode for you guys about how to prepare step by step for your upcoming Iboga journey.
And while some of the tips and points made here today will be specifically about Iboga, and this episode is tailored towards that, I do want to say that even if [00:01:00] you're not doing Iboga, maybe you have an upcoming ayahuasca or mushroom journey coming up. I think this process can still apply for any kind of big medicine journey where you have a good amount of time to prepare and that you really want to use as a transformational period in your life.
So for some background, I'm going back to Iboga after about two and a half years from my first experience at Iboga Wellness Center. I will be Going to a new place this time, which I'm really excited to check out. And I'll be sharing all about it here with you. So I thought, you know, why not, let's just extend the series that is coming up and do a little episode today on the prep process.
I've done a few episodes before on preparation for psychedelic experiences and I think I've learned a lot. In the year or so since that episode was released. So here's an updated step by step guide for preparing for a big medicine [00:02:00] experience, specifically Iboga. So I think it's worth repeating. I've said this before, but your journey does not begin or end with the ceremony or the experience.
In fact, your journey begins that moment, the energetic commitment. is made. So that moment that you send the deposit that you fill in the intake form, the moment that you energetically commit to the experience, the process already begins. And I've seen this to be true in my process time and time again. This is what we call the psychedelic preparation stage or phase.
And I want to walk you through a step by step guide on how to do this. So by the end of this episode, I hope that you will have a framework for bringing deeper awareness to your preparation process. I'm going to help you make a list of questions for Iboga. So one of the very unique aspects of working with Iboga is that you are supposed to come with a list of questions that you [00:03:00] want answered. And this episode will also help you in setting the intentions, identifying themes that you're working with, and also connecting your healing journey to the Seven different chakras or power centers . This is something that I am a very new student of, and I have to tell you guys what I've been learning about the power centers in the body as it relates to psychedelics and the healing journey is just massive.
And so that's what I really want to bring to this episode. That's a little bit unique is how can we connect the seven chakras to our healing journey. And I promise this is going to be a big unlock for you too. So lots to look forward to. So as I'm preparing for my second set with Iboga, I have been going.
through a pretty thorough preparation process. If you've been listening to the podcast, I've been sharing a little bit about that. I shared more deeply about it in the subscribers only podcast in January, but you know, it's been a lot. it's been well over a [00:04:00] year since I've done big medicine work.
And so, A lot has been coming to the surface and I mean a lot, like I have a working document with everything that I'm working on right now and it's good. It's helpful. I I'm not a Virgo, but sometimes I feel like I am cause I love to be organized, but I have a lot of Capricorn in my chart.
So I love to have things outlined and clear. One of the things I didn't mention is that at the end of the episode, there's also going to be a free downloadable for you so that you can have a bit of a template with some prompts and things like that to put a document together for your own upcoming Iboga journey.
And this is the exact document that I am using for my upcoming journey. So as I was saying, psychedelics work with us before we even sit in ceremony and these themes are going to be revealed, emotions come to the surface, suppressed memories may start resurfacing and we start to identify [00:05:00] areas of our life that need attention.
And ways that we might be dragging ourselves down and inhibiting ourselves. So Iboga in particular is honestly the most powerful mirror that I have encountered when it comes to taking a really good hard look at yourself and getting insights and truths into the truth of the matter, into the truth of who you are and for me, from my experience and something that is pretty common with Iboga is that it does give you a direct link to your intuition, to truth, to capital T truth, to also your own truth within yourself.
And so we want to take advantage of the direct nature. of this medicine. We want to work with this medicine, knowing that we can have direct answers to our questions and keeping this in mind throughout our preparation process. So that as confusion comes up, we want to make note of all of these things so that we can go into [00:06:00] our Iboga ceremony with these questions.
And we'll talk more specifically about how to form these questions later on. Let's get into these steps. I forget how many steps I have. I think there's five or so, but let's get into it. Step one is pretty simple. You're answering the call. All right. This is the moment that you sign up for a retreat or commit to working with Iboga.
Things start shifting and your job from here on out is to start noticing the shifts to start making note of them. But this first step, while it's not very long, it is a crucial first step. . It is that moment that you make an energetic commitment to yourself to start really cultivating self awareness and to start noticing things as they come up.
In addition to that, in this first step, we really want to own this decision. We want to own the fact that we are going to be sitting with a master plant teacher, that we are going to be merging our consciousness with the consciousness of a master plant that has been [00:07:00] around for time unknown, potentially since the beginning of earth and since the beginning of.
Trees, Iboga may very well be one of the most ancient trees on the planet. At least the Bwiti people seem to think so. So this is a very ancient plant that you're going to be experiencing through the lens of yourself, right? So own that and recognize with reverence. The serious nature of this work, it is a great honor and a great privilege to be able to experience Iboga in your life.
So in this first step, you're going to. acknowledge that the next period of time before ceremony will be a time of heightened awareness and that your job is to notice and to note down whatever is coming up for you.
And it's also a time to start cultivating respect, reverence, and honour for this opportunity to sit with this medicine and to start connecting [00:08:00] with it in that way.
So step two that we want to get started on pretty much right after slash during step one is to bring awareness to thoughts, triggers, emotions, themes, suppressed memories. Basically at this point you are going into detective mode, and you are basically going to be the detective of your own life.
And while this may seem daunting and hard, there's a really easy way for you to do this, which I'm going to tell you about in a second. But really, what this means is to start noticing what comes up in daily life for you. How are you speaking to yourself? What is triggering you? What emotional patterns are surfacing?
What relationships in your life are feeling Sticky, funky, catabolic, not flowing. What's coming up for you around those relationships? Are there any past memories or past relationships that are surfacing? [00:09:00] What specifically about that relationship is resurfacing, right? What is it that remains unresolved about that person in your life that may not even be in your life anymore?
What resentments? Are you holding on to, are you pissed off at someone a little bit? Do you feel like someone owes you something? Do you feel any sort of resentment or slight towards anyone in your life or towards you? What judgments come up for you against yourself, against others, against The world that we live in, are there limiting beliefs, patterns, thoughts that are coming up?
And in what ways are you limiting yourself? What is that glass ceiling that you have put on yourself, And as much as we want to bring into awareness, all of these blockages and these things that are holding us down and these things that are unhealed with Iboga, specifically, there's an amazing opportunity to also call in the things that you desire in [00:10:00] life. So as much as we want to start paying attention to the things that are funky and catabolic and dragging us down and things that are unhealed, we also want to start noticing our desires.
And start taking note of what it is that we want, whether or not we believe it is possible for us currently. We really want to start taking note of what is on your heart. What does your heart desire? What do you not have in your life? What have you not accomplished in your life?
What are you calling in for yourself? What dreams do you still have that are unfulfilled? What direction do you want to go in? If things went your way, where would you be in a year, or five, or ten? Again, just as equally as important to look at and note these things. And so how do we keep track of all of these emotions and experiences and thoughts and feelings that come up for us?
[00:11:00] Listen, I want this to be as easy. and messy as possible for you. We are not looking for perfection. We are just jotting things down free form as they come up. Messy, the spelling doesn't matter, the grammar doesn't matter. What's important is that you have a method and a system to write things down and to take note of them as they come up.
Don't trust yourself to remember what's important at this point. That's fine advice for the actual journey itself, but at this point in the prep process, we want to actually write things down. You can do this in whatever way you want, but the easiest, simplest way for most of us is going to be
having a note on our phone and just having a place to capture those notes in the messiest way, in the easiest way possible. You can review these notes and look at them but resist the urge to tweak them [00:12:00] or change them really capture what comes up for you in that moment.
If you want to expand on a note later on, that's okay, but resist the urge to tweak them and fix them and make them more perfect. We really want to capture our consciousness and our thoughts as they come up. That's very important because we're capturing the energy and the essence of that thing as it comes up rather than.
Curating it to what we think it should be or sound like. So another important note here is to lean on allies and support. There's two types of allies and support that I can tell you guys about here today. So one is. A coach, a therapist, a support system, a mentor, a group, a person in your life who you can talk to about things as they start surfacing for you.
I'll give you an example. As soon as I signed up for this Iboga retreat, and this has been bubbling up after 5meo, a lot of suppressed memories. [00:13:00] And experiences around a specific relationship started surfacing for me. And this was a friendship that was like from high school and early university.
I'm 34 now. So, you know, The stuff's. pretty old. And it's stuff that I glazed over and didn't really give much thought to. I didn't really go as deep with it as I could have, and I didn't go as deep with it as is required to fully heal and release it. So as soon as these memories started coming up, I actually Reached out to my old therapist and I told her that I wanted to start working with her again.
It was very clear to me at that point that what I needed was a therapeutic process around processing some of this stuff and that this was very much an important factor in my Iboga preparation. So that's the first support system. Therapist, a coach, as you guys know, I'm a trained core energy coach.
I work with a map of consciousness. So if you're looking for [00:14:00] support during prep integration, hit me up. I am onboarding new clients right now and there will be a price increase. Coming soon. So if you're interested in working with me check out the link below. The second type of ally that I want to talk to you about is a plant ally or a fungi ally working with micro doses, low doses of any type of medicine might be useful for you in this prep stage.
As you process some of the content that's coming up for you. And I'm telling you guys, the more work that we do on this before the ceremony itself. It will pay off. If you want to hear more about this, actually check out the previous solo episode that I released, which was episode 118 and it's called psychedelic pre work navigating the chaos before the ceremony.
And I talk a little bit more in depth and specifically about the. What I call pre work, which is actually [00:15:00] navigating and dealing with the psychological, emotional, mental, energetic content that is coming up for you before a ceremony. In working with plant allies, maybe you find a micro dose of mushrooms or a daily dose of Kona or.
Or you enjoy consuming cannabis at night, these are all okay in moderation. Of course, speak to your facilitator guide about like how much space should be given between them. But I find that working with low doses of different medicines during this time can be very powerful in bringing more of this content to the surface.
And then also in processing it, navigating it and bringing some depth and nuance into it. So yeah, this is probably the most significant step. Step two is this piece around bringing awareness to what's surfacing for you. And I want to give you guys some [00:16:00] examples from my own life and from my own process so that you have an idea of what this might look like. So I'll maybe look at my note here.
And I'll choose a couple of, a couple of, a couple of takes to share with you guys. I'm not going to share everything because it's very personal. But yeah, so some of what these notes sound like are to heal my mom's cough. Can this be done with ancestral healing? I want to devote at least one ceremony to my mom's health.
Um, And then. What do I need to know about my ear, throat and nose struggles? What's the connection to my mom here? Guidance on how to become a more impactful practitioner or coach. What's next for me? I made a note here, phone slash social media slash screen addiction. It can be as messy and as.
deep or as surface level as it needs to be. Let's scroll down a little bit here. How can I create [00:17:00] space to live a creative life? Uh, Validation and what ways am I still seeking validation outside of myself and how can I release that? How am I seeking validation through my online presence? How do I want to show up?
Where do I focus my energy? The sounds really messy and a lot, but like these are all things that have been coming up for me. And so I wrote them down. I wrote down blocks around intimacy, sexuality, sexual repression, and expression overeating. I'm happy where I'm at, but I just eat too much and can't stop sometimes.
Cannabis use. Is it problematic? What needs to be pulled back? Am I doing too much ancestral scarcity? So as you can see, like it, I have notes and notes, and this is from, months of. Collection, I would be out on a walk and something would drop in and I would put it in this note. I would be hanging out at night after consuming cannabis and something would come through.
I would be hanging out and having a conversation and something would come [00:18:00] together and I would jot it down. You can also write down just insights that you have like this is so random but one thing I wrote down here was food and fashion are my favorite hobbies because they're pretty much offline hobbies.
Both are also about playing. One is in the kitchen and one is in the closet. It's like, what do we do with that? I don't know. I don't know. I just, I found it interesting. I found it very interesting that I had that insight. And so I wrote it down. I also wrote down, how do I go from sharing about an experience to making art out of the experience?
Creating art is the next level of mastery for me. So as you can see here, this was a much more recent note that I wrote down, but going all the way back to the beginning, I wrote something about living a creative life and connecting to my inner artist. So some of these insights will just naturally disappear.
Deepen and develop as time goes on. What else do I have here? I feel like I am a victim to money. There's a lot of stress and anxiety that's coming up for me, especially around money and success.
When I am stressed out, I do things that drain my life force. [00:19:00] Sugar and gluten binges, getting really high, eating garbage food that I can feel being so acidic in my body. Okay, I'm gonna stop here. And then under my kind of free form notes, I started a list of questions. So anytime a question that I might want to ask Iboga came up for me, I just wrote it down on this list.
Again, not striving for perfection. This isn't my final list. I'm just keeping track of everything that's coming up for me. Okay. And so as you do this, you can give this anywhere from A month before ceremony to four months before ceremony. I think I started doing this and I don't know, maybe November, December when it started becoming very clear to me that I am going to be sitting with Iboga again.
I just started this note. So you can start this as soon as you realize that you're going to be sitting with the medicine and as soon as things start coming up for you.
Another example of working with [00:20:00] plant medicine is in low dose experiences. So I recently did a low dose five MEO experience with a protocol called the stepwise. It was really interesting. Definitely nothing near. The experience that I had at unfold, but it was a step for me to reintroduce myself into the medicine space.
And so I actually used this low dose five MEO experience with the intention of remembering to surrender, coming back into my heart and just easing myself into medicine work. I'm going to share a little bit more about that in the. March subscribers only podcast. So you can look forward to hearing a little bit about that low dose five experience in that.
But these are just ways that we can start to use allies in helping us with this process of awareness. So as you go on and as you start bringing all of this stuff to the surface, you will probably reach a point where you're like, okay, I think there's a lot here for me to work with and I'm ready to [00:21:00] start focusing in on what the major themes are around this work that I am doing right now.
So we're going to do that in step 4, but first I want to talk about step 3 and step 3. It's listed at step 3, but I actually recommend doing step 2 and step 3 at the same time simultaneously. So step 3 is to set ground rules for energetic hygiene. energy maintenance, self care, whatever the heck you want to call it.
What is your preparation protocol? Now, your facilitator or Iboga provider should have some suggestions for you on lifestyle things and habits and substance use and things like that, but What you really want to tune into is what you need at this time to feel very grounded going into this experience and also to feel strong [00:22:00] going into iboga actually on the prep call that I just had with where I'm going for my experience Paige, who is the, who's the Iboga provider, talked about how when we meet Iboga, we want to be strong in the mind and in the body because Iboga is such a big medicine and such a big consciousness.
The stronger that we are, the more grounded we are in the body, the more that we can receive everything that it has to tell us. So just ask yourself what it is that you need to ground yourself and to feel strong. You know yourself better than anyone else. So you know what's best for you. But it's just really important to note here that preparation is not just about what you do.
It's about how you show up for yourself in the weeks and months leading up to your ceremony. And so setting ground rules for yourself helps you really. Maintain strong, energetic hygiene. And what I mean by that is just keeping your energy grounded, [00:23:00] clean, untriggered. And even as you are being triggered and as content is coming up, you can hold that and receive it in a way that is grounded and strong and confident that Everything that's coming up here is part of the process.
And if things start to feel like they're starting to disturb your frequency or disturb your life, recognizing it and noticing it, and then also noticing it as one step, but also recognizing that this is part of the process is going to really help you. So what that looks like is as triggers come up, maybe you feel really irritated or annoyed about something.
Okay. Be with that. Be with that irritation, be with that annoyance, experience it, be with it. But also from a higher perspective, know that this is coming to the surface because there's something here for you to look at and to work through. [00:24:00] I know for myself, there's been an immense amount of stress and anxiety that has been surfacing for me in the last As the ceremony approaches, and this is really uncomfortable for me.
My ego is having a really hard time being anxious and being stressed because that's my old identity. That's who I was before. Anxiety was my mental health condition that I struggled with before plant medicine. So my ego is really struggling with being someone who is actually currently experiencing anxiety because that just has not been my lived experience for a very long time.
Knock on wood, but it is right now. I'm really stressed. I'm really anxious. I just, there's I've had a few breakouts on my face recently. Thanks to that. And. It's been really cool to also be in the stress and anxiety from the perspective of, okay, what am I stressed about? What am I anxious about?
What is Iboga [00:25:00] bringing to the surface for me right now so that I can look at? It's pretty clear to me that all of the stress and anxiety. is around finances, money, my ability to be successful, and what success means. That is everything that is coming up for me around this anxiety and around the stress, which is perfect.
And it's right on time because one of my intentions. Which I'll talk to you guys about in the next step is around abundance, releasing ancestral scarcity from my lineage and opening myself up to a new level of success and abundance. So it's like, of course, of course, the stress and anxiety is being so magnified right now, it's coming to the surface so that I can fully.
Connect with it and hold it and be with it so that when the time comes to release it and work with it, I'm already there. I'm already connected with it. I've already examined all of the stuff that is [00:26:00] around that and all of the ways that it's holding me down and all of the ways that this isn't who I really am.
So this is really powerful. So these energetic ground rules. Wow. We got really off topic there. These energetic ground rules are meant to support this process that can be very challenging. So what is it that you need to feel grounded and rooted within yourself?
So I can share with you guys a few of the ground rules that I have set for myself and my preparation practice. I set a rule for myself. No getting high three weeks before ceremony. So for me, this is really about.
Cannabis and not consuming cannabis three weeks before the ceremony. So that's actually going to start tomorrow for me. So I'm cutting myself off after tomorrow and that is really just about keeping my consciousness clear of other plant medicines. And of course, I want to avoid anything that's going to.
Interact with Iboga. So Kana, [00:27:00] not necessarily something that alters my consciousness, but it definitely has a consciousness of its own. So Kana is something that I'm also not going to be partaking in. And those are pretty much my day to day substances, Kana and cannabis. But I will also not be partaking in micro dosing.
Obviously, no big plant medicine or psychedelic experiences leading up to that. So sobriety is a big focus for me.
So after, no, getting high um, moving at least three times a week, so right now I am committed to two yoga pilates classes, yoga latis, did anyone ever watch the OC? Yoga latis? Yoga latis. Two yoga latis classes per week. Plus at least one long walk. So moving at least three times a week and just trying to get outside as much as possible.
Meditating for 10 minutes every morning. No turning my phone off before I meditate. Eating, grounding whole nutritious foods, focusing [00:28:00] on nourishment and just being extra cautious with allergen foods for me. So that's gluten processed foods, high sugar, high dairy, things like that.
Just really focusing on grounding, nourishing foods not being a victim to money , paying the parking ticket. If I. I need to pay a bill or something just doing it with ease and not being a victim to it and just really paying attention to how much I feel like I am a victim to money in this life because that is a big part of my process coming up.
So these ground rules should be tailored to also what you're working on. And then I have listened to your body, observe your mind, be gentle, cultivate peace, slow down and be kind to yourself. Am I going to meditate every single day for the next month? Probably not, but I'm going to try my best.
I'm going to be, I'm going to be kind to myself if I miss a day, I missed a day yesterday and that's okay, but I got back to it [00:29:00] today. So those are some of the ground rules. It's good to have a list for yourself that is really tailored to not just what you're working on, but also to what your energy body needs at that time.
These ground rules are not restrictions, they're acts of self love and remember that iboga is an intensely powerful medicine and meeting it with a very clear nourished and prepared energetic system Physical system will allow you to go deeper in your healing because you'll be able to receive the medicine in a profound way.
So just follow simple, consistent practices before your ceremony and create a strong foundation for yourself to experience healing and transformation. Doesn't have to be fancy. It doesn't have to be complicated. Just focus on really simple, easily accessible things and you will be good to go. Okay. This is really where we get into the juice of it.
We're going to start reviewing [00:30:00] our notes and identifying themes. So since you've committed to the journey ahead, right, you're noticing things, you're writing them down, maybe it's a month or a few weeks before your ceremony. At this point, we want to start narrowing our focus.
In for doing this work. So after collecting notes for a period of time, start reviewing themes. So these are the questions that you can , ask yourself, as you're going through all of your notes that you've been taking, what do you want to be different in your life? What keeps showing up that feels unresolved?
What connections are there between the notes that you've made? As it relates to these bigger pillars in your life, finances, family, relationships, career, purpose, spirituality, right? What are those main kind of pillars that are showing up for you that you're currently working on? What's causing stress or holding you back?
What's disrupting your energetic frequency? Where are you giving your [00:31:00] power away? What are you afraid to step into? What are you afraid of? Where do you feel stuck or incapable? I'm going to give you guys a hot little tip here for this phase. You can actually use chat GPT to help you identify themes.
So this is what I did the other day and it was really helpful for giving me a blueprint. A chat GPT is not my master at the end of the day. Like it's a tool that is helpful in removing some friction between, sitting down and going through all the notes and identifying themes. But then I also. am, The one who makes the final call on what's true, what's not true and how well did it organize my themes for me. So just use caution and remember that like you're the boss at the end of the day. So I gave it the prompt that I am preparing for an Iboga retreat that is coming up in one month. I have been taking notes for a few months now around what's been coming up for me.
Here are my private notes. [00:32:00] Please keep them private here. Help me make connections and identify themes of what I am currently working on. And then after that, I just pasted all of my notes into chat GP team. And this was really helpful. This was really helpful. I think it identified about eight or nine themes for me that were.
Pretty much spot on and that makes sense because it's just using the information that I fed it and it's drawing connections between all of your different notes. So, um, It helped me to get started and I took it as a skeleton and shifted things around to come up with 6 themes that I'm currently working on that just feel really good for me and.
I will share with you the six themes that I am currently working on and a little bit about them. Theme number one, root chakra healing. We're going to the root medicine to heal the root chakra. This,
this has been a long time coming. I have really bypassed my root chakra in my healing and it's time. So this is [00:33:00] about breaking cycles that have existed in my lineage, particularly around health, abundance and self worth. The second theme here is related to the solar plexus, which is identity and self worth wanting to move away from external validation to an even deeper sense of worth and self expression and that just comes from noticing the fact that.
As much as I've grown and as much as I've matured and as much as I've really stepped into myself There are still ways that I seek external validation from other people And I want to release that and take a look at that The third is the sacral chakra healing which is around intimacy relationships and sexuality , so stepping into a deeper embodiment of my feminine energy which includes receiving Intimacy and true connection.
Number four, creativity and expression versus energy drains and distractions. So this was interesting [00:34:00] because chat GPT kind of separated these two, but I decided that they actually go together because creativity and expression are actually being held back by things that are draining my energy and distractions in my life.
So this one is about releasing energy drains that are in the way of Pressing the artist that is within me and that wants to create. And number five is all about financial growth and my career path. So how I'm relating to money and success is changing. And I desire to be wealthy and resourced in this life.
And I desire to not have to worry about money. I do not want to have that worry in my life anymore. My energy is too precious to be held up in worrying about money. And so I'm really ready to release that and it's going to take a lot of release and reprogramming to get there. And of course this one is related to that first root chakra healing one, but I really thought [00:35:00] that it deserved its own mention here.
So this step is, again, all about coming up with these themes and patterns that you're working with and putting them into kind of categories that make sense to you. Now that you've identified each theme, what I did was I actually went through all of my notes and I started putting things into the theme that they belong to.
And from there I was able to come up with this really nice clean document of things that I'm working on. So let's see, which one do I want to share with you?
Let's do the financial growth and career path. So That's what I wrote here. So how I'm relating to money and success is changing and I desire to be wealthy and resourced. So that is the main theme and then under that I wrote Four kind of patterns that relate to this theme, which I pulled directly from my notes.
So, Note one, [00:36:00] money is a major source of stress, anxiety, worry, and fear for me. Two, scarcity around money, fears around not having enough, being a victim to money, and this expensive world that we live in. Number three, The trajectory of kanna wellness, scaling it with intention and love and number four, what's next for the podcast, for my coaching practice, pivoting away from sharing online and how I share and just gaining clarity on next steps.
And then below that, I actually pulled questions as they came up in my like master document, but then also. This was when I really was able to start coming up with questions to ask Iboga. So questions that are related to financial growth and career path for me are, how can I best serve humanity with my work?
What medicine should I devote my life and work to? How do I increase my income while [00:37:00] maintaining integrity and alignment? What should kanna wellness be built upon? What is my goal in life? And what pattern in business am I repeating that is no longer working?
So I hope that gives you a good idea of that step and how we're going to work with these themes. Next step is a bonus step. So step five is to connect your themes to the chakra energy system. So you guys, this might sound a little woo, but wow, trust me just listen to this next step because I have recently been reading this book called becoming an empowered empath, how to clear energy set boundaries and embody your intuition by Wendy DeRosa.
It's amazing. I'm going to be pulling some quotes as I share this next section with you, but it's really making me realize the importance of actually knowing what the energetic system is in the body and knowing about our power centers if we are on our healing journey. So upon reviewing my themes in [00:38:00] conjunction to reading this book, I had a massive breakthrough and unlock where I realized that all of the work that I'm currently doing right now is related to my root chakra, my sacral chakra, and a little bit my solar plexus.
And you know what? This makes so much sense because. In the past, my healing has been focused on my heart, my throat and my third eye and my solar plexus. So it's yes, of course we are focusing on the things that have not been addressed. So this was so massively helpful for me. And I think it's going to be really helpful for you, especially if you're advanced on your path and you're feeling confusion about.
What needs to be addressed next this is major. Like I said, root, sacral and solar plexus are where most of my work is right now. So root chakra off, of course, like family of origin healing scarcity and security about money, my health issues. Sacral is about creativity and expression, [00:39:00] intimacy, sexuality, femininity, and the solar plexus as it relates to my current work is around identity, developing a healthy ego, it's about self worth, and everything that I'm calling in right now is also related to these chakras, root chakra.
Stable family relationships, stable finances, abundance sacral chakra, romantic love and living a creative life. Solar plexus addressing any ways that I'm still seeking validation outside of myself. This was major for me. So that's why I want to share it with you guys.
Now that you've identified your themes. You have an idea of what you're working on connecting them to the seven chakras to understand where healing may be needed is really going to be powerful. So let's go over the seven chakras and their role in healing work. And I'm just going to give a really brief introduction, but I'm definitely going to be talking about this more because it's giving a whole new perspective and lens on.
My work as an energy coach, but [00:40:00] also my work with psychedelics. So the chakras are an ancient energetic system that you will definitely have heard of before. If you've been in the world of psychedelics and spirituality, and they were written about in ancient Hindu texts called the Vedas.
The chakras are referred to as wheels of energy or power centers in the subtle body. So the subtle body is also known as your energy body or your energy field and whether you believe in them or not, I know that it's hard for people to believe in things that we can't necessarily feel.
Whether you believe in them or not, it doesn't really matter. Because it's a system and a framework that provides us with a lot of valuable information for our healing journey and for our prep work with psychedelics. So they're linked to your health and well being
The chakras also carry information about your existence and your way of operating in the world and chakras are a very deep study and I am very new, [00:41:00] but let's review the 7 chakras what each of them are responsible for and how to tell what chakra your current work is related to.
The first chakra is your root chakra, right? So this one is all about safety and stability. It's located in the tailbone. Right? Like the subtle energy body is found along the tailbone. And so the root chakra governs survival, security, safety, trust, grounding, nurturing, and strength. And signs of an imbalanced root chakra are feeling unsafe, ungrounded, anxious, or having a scarcity mindset.
The second Is the sacral chakra, which is all about emotions and pleasure. So this is located in the pelvic bone. The sacral governs creativity, sexuality, emotions, empathetic intuition, which is also referred to as clairsentience, which I am learning that I [00:42:00] have femininity, sweetness and mothering
and signs of imbalance are suppressed emotions,
Creative blocks, fear or shame around pleasure. The third is the solar plexus and this one's all about confidence and personal power. I have to say the solar plexus chakra was probably the one that I had been working on the most when I first started plant medicine, the solar and heart because I was just not confident at all.
I didn't know myself at all. I thought I had to be everything but myself and I was really heartbroken. So these next two have been major areas of focus for me in the past. So the solar plexus is located in the digestive system
and guys, I'm taking this directly from this book, which I highly recommend checking out.
So it's located from the navel to the diaphragm, The solar plexus chakra governs will, identity, digestion, instincts, or sense of knowing, manifesting, taking [00:43:00] action. And signs of imbalance are self doubt, people pleasing, and lack of motivation. Ooh, I've been there before! Um, Fourth is the heart chakra. This is located in the center of the chest, The heart chakra governs human and spiritual love, kindness, generosity, self love, compassion, joy, and purpose. Signs of imbalance are walls around the heart, fears of intimacy, and self criticism.
The fifth chakra is the throat chakra. This is located in the throat, neck, thyroid, it governs speaking truth, communication, self expression, intuitive listening, and discernment. Signs of imbalance in the throat chakra are fear of speaking your truth and dishonesty with yourself or others.
The sixth chakra is the third eye chakra, which is located in the center of the forehead. In the pituitary gland, the pineal gland, skull, [00:44:00] eyes, brain, nervous system, and the senses. And. It governs higher knowing perception, intuition, imagination, and wisdom. And signs of imbalance in the third eye are disconnection from intuition and indecisiveness.
Speaker: And finally, the seventh chakra is the crown chakra. This is located at the top of the head the brain, the cranial nerves, and this one governs faith, spiritual connection, divine love, and infinite potential and signs of imbalance in the. Crown chakra are feeling disconnected from purpose and over reliance on logic.
So there you have it. So you can take a look at that and really start to identify what are the power centers that are not balanced as it relates to the themes that you're working on. And this can just bring another level of understanding. for you. I was so [00:45:00] excited when I realized that all of the themes that I'm working on are actually in the lower body power centers and that I have not really worked on these in my years with medicine work.
And I also realized that it's a perfect compliment to stepping into my power as an empathetic intuitive, which is a whole other thing I will talk about at some point, which is not today. But I'm just really excited about this and I hope that it helps you in your prep process.
And finally, step six, we want to create our questions and intentions for Iboga.
So I touched on this already before, but under each of those themes and your observations around the themes, simply come up with questions that you would Ask yourself if you had a direct link, a direct phone line to your intuition. And if you were told that you would be given answers from a place of truth and [00:46:00] clarity.
Right, because that's what Iboga can provide for some people. Now, this doesn't happen all the time and that's okay. It doesn't mean that you're a failure, but in case we are able to get to that place with you, in case we do enter that space with Iboga during the ceremony, it's nice to have these questions.
Questions for Iboga should be open ended because we want them to be open ended, the best way to phrase questions for Iboga are with what and how, in my opinion anyways, so that will help you keep them open ended, instead of asking, am I a failure? Maybe you could ask,
What makes me feel like a failure or how can I release feeling like a failure or how can I release the idea that I am a failure? You see how one is more open ended and allows for more than just a yes or no . That's really the space that we want Iboga. So having these very [00:47:00] clear and intentional well thought out questions will give Iboga a blueprint to work with you. So that's all I have for you today. I actually have a downloadable PDF for you at modern psychedelics net slash free slash Iboga prep and you can download that and it'll actually Be like a workbook where you can go through this whole step by step Process and get ready for your Iboga journey, and it'll include some examples of what filling out that journal might look like so go ahead and download that
And with that, just remember you guys that prep is not just about the physical preparation, but also about the energetic preparation. And when we're doing energetic prep work, it means looking at our emotions, our state of mind, the energy behind what we do. The energy behind our memories, the energy behind our trauma, the energy behind what we're calling in and what we're wanting to release.
So stay [00:48:00] focused on that and you will be sure to have a very beautiful and successful journey with Iboga. And if you are preparing for an Iboga journey or any big psychedelic experience, or maybe you are off of it and you are seeking integration support, I would absolutely love to work with you in my one on one coaching.
Container I am going into my third year now of full time coaching and working with people on the psychedelic path. So I am very well equipped to hold you through a transformation that is ignited by the consciousness of these powerful, beautiful plants that we love. So if you're interested in that, it's a modern psychedelics.
net slash apply and my prices will be increasing very soon. So if you're interested, I definitely recommend sending that application in today. today so that you can lock in these 2024 rates. And if this episode resonated with you, if it helped you, please share it out, share it with a friend [00:49:00] or drop me a line on Instagram or over email.
I absolutely love to hear from you and I wish you the most beautiful journey coming up. And thank you so much for listening. I'll catch you in the next episode. Bye.
