Conclusions: Did Ayahuasca fix me? Am I Healed?

“Healed?” What does that mean?

Healing isn’t the absence of pain. Just like health isn’t merely the absence of disease. Getting control of anxiety, depression, and anger doesn’t automatically create joy, purpose, or light.

I used my ayahuasca machete to clear a path. Cut through the emotional debris. But the work doesn’t disappear. It’s not linear. I still get triggered. I still have to choose, over and over again, to let it go and move forward. There’s no question that I’m better off than I was six months ago. But I’m not finished.

I don’t think healing is a destination you arrive at one day. It’s a dynamic process.

You reach a level of understanding, maybe even self-awareness, self-actualization, and then you work to maintain it. Every day. Because the old pathways are still there, just under the surface. And it’s easy to slip back into old patterns. Old reactions. Old ways of thinking.

There’s a reason people call it a healing journey.

What I am is unstuck. I figured out that I wasn’t trying to heal from a few semi-scary months and a handful mass casualty events. It was a lifetime of stacked and intertwined events. What I now understand as complex PTSD. Compounded by enough anger for multiple people over multiple lifetimes.

For the past few months, I’ve been internally focused. Doing the work. And I still have more to do. I’ll drink ayahuasca again. Because I know I can go further. There are levels beyond “less fucked up.” And I intend to find them.

But right now, I need a break.

During the second ceremony, I had this vision: I was traveling, meeting new people. Not just meeting them—connecting with them. Feeling the experience. Laughing. Moving. Living. Dancing like nobody’s watching. Freedom.

And I think I’ve reached a point where that’s possible now. It’s time to find out.

Time to go traveling.