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We aren’t afraid of life. We are afraid of our emotions.

Once we can get to a place in life where we can fully feel fear, shame, guilt, anxiety, and once we can let our emotions move through us, release them, and be replaced by higher vibrations like love, peace, joy, and contentment, we can find true freedom.

Imagine what it would feel like to be able to handle anything you are feeling in a moment—to know how to release it immediately and move on to the next inner experience.

Unfortunately, we resist feeling denser emotions like fear, shame, and guilt because they don’t feel good to our bodies, keeping them trapped inside of us. This causes a buildup of emotions in our nervous system because we haven’t let ourselves fully express them in order to truly release them from our lives. Our emotions are holding us hostage.

What is the secret to emotional freedom?

Learning how to truly accept whatever we are feeling, shattering every part of ourselves that we repress, and acknowledging it with unconditional love. This is the ultimate goal.

However, this is extremely challenging, especially if we have accumulated a lot of trauma and suppressed pain. If you were never shown love, acceptance, patience, or generosity, how are you supposed to give it to yourself? That is why I think an imperative starting place to healing is to be exposed to unconditional love from other humans.

This is what my experience with Ayahuasca provided for me. It was the start of my journey toward finding true emotional freedom and unconditional love. I sought out Ayahuasca after delving into a million different healing modalities and not finding the relief my being was craving. My being was craving an unconditional love none of these therapies were nurturing and definitely something I couldn’t provide myself.

My first experience with this medicine was hands down the most profound experience of my life. I initially went in for the medicine but came out getting so so much more: unconditional love from other humans. I had never experienced this in my life.

During my weekend Ayahuasca retreat, I unleashed a ravished beast that I had been storing inside me all my life. I screamed, I cried, I tried to run outside and escape from the world. I said things and did things that conscious, controlled Rachael would never unleash.

I felt the most disgusted with myself that I had ever felt. I felt ashamed for purely existing. I got stuck in loops where I felt an amount of fear that I sincerely thought would never end. I felt a level of confusion—so insanely trapped in my mind, not willing to accept the not knowing and not understanding.

And you know what? Throughout this entire experience, I was given nothing but unconditional love, support, encouragement, patience, and acceptance by the guardians of the ceremony.

Guardians are trained facilitators who help assist the shaman. These angels provided me with unwavering support through my night of true hell on earth. They stuck with me when I was throwing a tantrum like a five-year-old, instead of laughing at me like my parents had when I was little.

They held my hand while I was puking out my self-disgust (purging emotions and stuck energy physically is part of the healing process with Ayahuasca). After the first night, I sincerely thought I was going to get kicked out from how insane my experience was and what they had to “put up with,” but instead, they told me how beautiful it was to witness me allowing myself to truly surrender and allow myself to fully feel everything I had been storing in my subconscious.

I was rewriting my past and my life story that weekend, processing what I had never fully dealt with.

After my ceremony, I was sincerely never the same. This unconditional love I received left me feeling more accepting and connected to myself as a result. I woke up from that experience feeling healed—something I never thought was possible to feel. I left the space with this shame for existence lifted from my being, leaving me feeling more connected to every human I encountered. The depths of the empty, lonely void that used to be present in my heart never returned. The deep, dark depression lifted. I was reconnected.

This level of human connection is what we are missing in society—especially here in this individualistic Western culture.

So yes, I initially went for the medicine, but what I ended up getting was human connection. And the reconnection to humanity was probably more healing than the medicine itself. The medicine just enabled me to unleash this beast that was starving to be accepted.

Since my initial ceremony, I’ve slowly learned how to hold more and more space for myself, making the shift from desiring to get support and love from others to learning how to truly give it to myself.

This journey has led to so much freedom in life. I no longer feel attached to human beings anymore because I know how to handle my own emotions and how to give myself the love that I need.

I’ve learned how to never feel lonely again through the power of meditation and connecting with my spirit guides.

I’ve learned how to release the guilt that I used to subconsciously hold onto before I sat with the medicine. I know how to comfort my inner child when she is feeling anxious.

I’ve learned how to decipher fear from when it’s something that is protecting me and when it’s something I need to overcome in order to push myself and grow.

But most of all, I’ve learned that unconditional love is the ultimate healer that can wash away everything else in a split second, if necessary.

How can you unconditionally love yourself more today?