Ayahuasca 101: a personal introduction to shadow work

So, what is all the hype about Ayauasca?

When I say I’m who I am today — doing what I love — thanks to her, it’s not an understatement.

How did I get here?

I was suicidal because the pain in my body was too much to handle.

I was high on cannabis by 12 pm most days.

I lived for the weekends as my job was sucking life out of me.

My marriage was falling apart.

I couldn’t do life like this anymore. So I looked for a way to change.

People don’t come to this work because they’re curious. Often, it’s because they’ve hit rock bottom and there was nothing western medicine could do.

I know this way isn’t for everyone. It’s just one of the many tools available for healing. And there’s a lot of fear and stigma around it. So if you’re not familiar with any of this work, let me explain the basis of it.

We live in a world of duality:  darkness created light, silence created sound, the void gave birth to everything that it is not. This duality exists within us too. Every moment of our life we make a choice. Continuous Yes and no. So we have conscious and subconscious mind.

While we think that it’s our mind driving this vehicle, it’s not entirely true.  we put all kinds of things into our subconscious - emotions that we’re not able to process, belief systems, memories that are too painful to witness, behavioral patterns.

We carry lots of programming installed by our parents when we were children.

What’s good and bad, how we are supposed to behave, what to do to deserve love, be good enough etc.

These become our unconscious operating systems. In the shadow, outside of our awareness, they are running the show.

So much of what triggers us in life isn’t actually about the present moment. It’s old emotions reactivated by something that feels similar.  In that moment, the mind kicks in to make sense of what’s going on, creating a story that fits the current moment - to support our feelings.

Suddenly we start spiraling into a cycle of feeling-thinking-blaming, and never get to the root of it. Mind clouded, racing in circles, emotions much bigger than a reasonable response to what’s going on.

We walk around wounded, thinking this is normal. Thinking this is life. But in actuality, we just forgot how to relate with ourselves and process our stories and feelings. And often, we’re not able to do it alone. So many of us seek help.

Therapy and other healing modalities are helpful. But many of them don’t reach the subconscious — the root.

That’s where tools like plant medicines come into play. They literally shine light on our shadow, the unconscious spaces where our pain hides. And when something previously unconscious becomes conscious, it no longer has power over us. Shadow becomes light. We start being aware of the cause of our pain. We are able to receive the lesson that it carries and transmute it into useful information to start acting or thinking differently. Wounding becomes wisdom.

It’s important to know, that the medicine will not do the work for us. And unlike synthetic substances, it has consciousness. It never goes against our free will. It only shows us where change needs to happen, where repair is due. And it’s up to us to make that choice to let go of what’s not serving us.

Plant medicines work gradually. Our psyche is delicate and healing needs to be done layer by layer, so our ego (persona) can handle the change. Because it will do anything not to change. It will throw us into fear, doubt, create excuses and obstacles, to avoid going into the unknown. Why? Because for ego change means death.

But death is an illusion. Our spirit always was, always is, and always will be. We die and are born anew all the time. With each breath. With each decision. Every change.

This work is delicate. It requires integration and adaptation in between. That’s why people return to it. Not to chase visions, but to step deeper into the process.

Step by step, we heal. And as we do, we become better human beings. To support happier life for ourselves, those around us. To become free. To hear the voice of our hearts and follow it.

And the ripples of our healing start spreading to our families, friends and inherently the world. And that’s how we change the world for the better. We start with ourselves.

There’s a bit of a catch here. When people go through the experiences of working with their shadow, a very important period comes after. Integration.

We use word integration but don’t talk enough about what it means.

You’ve become aware of the pattern. Now what? You must choose differently. Again. And again. Until the new way becomes second nature.

It’s easy to fall back into old habits. Even when the root cause is gone, the pattern can linger. The good news? Without the root feeding it, it becomes easier to release. But it still requires awareness, patience, and practice.

Unfortunately, a lot of people go through these big experiences with medicines and WOW moments, thinking that this is the reason and the goal of this work. So called trendy enlightenment. It is not. It is NOT the mushroom trip you had with your buddies, where Jesus told you you’re a chosen one.

It is how you walk after.

How you catch an old thought and change it, it no longer has power over you.

It’s when you feel a trigger and respond with grace instead of reactivity.

How you are able to slow down and be present.

It’s how you’re able to create better habits in your life.

It’s when you can breathe deeper, because you’re not as weighted down by the baggage you’ve been carrying.

Sometimes, it can feel like the medicine breaks you, like you’re falling apart. and it takes time to piece yourself back together.

But what’s actually breaking is the false self — the version of you built from trauma and programming. You’re being reshaped. And that takes time.

We must allow ourselves to be in the goo of the in-between. To not rush the becoming.

To allow ourselves to become a little more of what we always dreamt to be. Little by little. We heal. And sometimes we need support through this process of becoming, because first comes the shedding and letting go. And it can be very dark in there until we finally find a light switch in the room.

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This is a time of great awakening and people are seeking healing from things that have been going on for too long. For generations on end. So I’d like to touch upon one more aspect of this.

Physical dis-ease.

In ancient times human beings understood that we consist of body-mind-spirit. When organized religion came in, as a measure of control, the matters of spirit were only allowed for the church people to deal with. Our direct connection to spirit - creator was forcefully stripped from us and taken under control.

Eventually, we got used to this structure and started operating based on our mind and logic only, shutting down other aspects of our being. Western medicine still operates from this fragmented model — treating the body like a machine, disconnected from the emotional and energetic realms.

But true healing must account for the whole being.

When we don’t understand that everything in our system is connected and corresponds to each other, we are being dissected into parts and treated separately. So we end up putting bandaids on our problems, like a dam on a river, water still needs to go somewhere, it will find another way to break through. That’s how western medicine works. Never looking at the root.

So where is the root ? Most of the time, unless directly caused by harmful environmental factors, we are the ones creating disease.

It starts with an emotion that we couldn’t process. That emotion created a thought pattern. That thought becomes a subconscious program. And over time, that energy becomes stuck in the body.

Our cells, reacting to this energy, begin to change. They lose light. They start holding shadow instead.

This is what creates imbalance, tension, and disease. The pain isn’t random — it’s a message.

So when we process out that energy - we release the so called disease from our body. All it does is signals us that there’s something within us that is not flowing freely, that needs to be looked at.

But nobody taught us that. Because it is not profitable.

Pharmaceuticals are.

Bandaid treatments that keep you coming for more.

But we were never taught to listen. We were taught to numb, to silence, to suppress.

That is why this is not common knowledge and we so are deeply  programmed to believe that is the way, that we reject even the thought of it being otherwise.

I pray that things are changing and therefore am sharing this with you.

I pray that we are able to open our minds and allow another point of understanding in, with curiosity and hope, instead of judgment and denial.

Let’s go even deeper: healing doesn’t stop with you. It goes back through the lineage.

Let’s talk about genetic disease. Aka generational trauma.

Because our bodies remember everything.

The good and the bad.

The wisdom and the hurt.

All that our ancestors have been through is stored in our dna. And believe it or not (this is scientifically proven) we are capable of turning our DNA strands on and off. Changing our cellular memory.

So every trauma and significant emotional event our ancestors been though is reflected in our body. But it’s not a sentence. With the right knowledge and a well of patience, we have the power to change that.

So when we speak of “healing the lineage,” we mean this: feeling the grief your grandmother wasn’t allowed to feel. Processing the rage your father buried deep. Sitting with the sorrow your great-grandmother swallowed in silence.

Because it’s not about getting rid of anything, it’s about acknowledging the part of us that has been hurt.

So it can reconcile and heal.

So our body can hold the light again.

So we don’t pass it on to our children.

So they can be healthy and free.

This is another way of healing the world.

Ayahuasca is not the only way. But it is a powerful one. It is a mirror, a teacher, a portal to the deepest parts of ourselves. It asks us to face what we fear. To see what we’ve hidden. And to choose love anyway.

This work is not easy. It requires courage. Patience. Surrender.

But the reward is freedom.

And so I pray, you find your way. Whatever route you choose.

Take these writings as a sharing of personal experience. All I know is that I know nothing and I’m only here to learn. I have a long way to go, but I will do my best to share the path I have walked, for the highest good of All.

Big gratitude to my teachers Qispi and Tony D’Angelo for twisdom they continue to share and the work they do.

Con todo mi amor, Alina