Even we live in an era when you can check your information with a click of a button, misconceptions still develop.
With none of the conventional rehab programs being capable of healing all patients the same, it makes sense that people would turn to other methods. Alternative medicine and holistic therapies claim to improve one’s body, mind, and spirit, which is something that we’d all enjoy (no matter if we have addictions or not).
You can get in touch with your inner-self and heal of addiction when taking some ayahuasca. Sometimes, the best way to understand how something works is to go over the misconceptions, so keep reading to see what people wrongfully think of Ayahuasca.
1.Ayahuasca is a drug
Despite your cousin or know-it-all neighbor told you, Ayahuasca isn’t a drug. In all fairness, not even people participating in a ayahuasca ceremony cannot tell you for sure what it is. Most of us think of drugs in the wrong way, which isn’t right about Ayahuasca.
What it’s true is that Ayahuasca is a natural psychoactive medicine capable of improving the quality of your life. It can change the way you see life, pushing you to have a healthier and happier life.
Professionals admit that the stigma around Ayahuasca doesn’t do it any justice, but we can tell for sure that Ayahuasca isn’t a drug.
2.It leads to addiction
It would help if you took Ayahuasca once to understand why Ayahuasca may never give you a craving. We know that it’s psychedelic, which is all nice and blissful sometimes, but there’s also a lot of pain and darkness involved in it as well.
Most of the time, the dark experiences turn out fine, leading to the cathartic release and pushing one to change. After all, it’s why holistic practitioners use ayahuasca for healing addiction. It’s a fantastic tool to take another look at our behaviors and move toward a better and healthier life.
3.It’s only about love and light
It all depends on who you’re asking, but many people taking Ayahuasca talked about beautiful and loving feelings. After all, we tend to talk about our lovely experiences a lot more than about the darker ones.
For whatever the reason, not many people would share about the painful and unpleasant parts of Ayahuasca ceremonies. It’s only for the better, though, as people grow when dealing and understanding the darkest parts of themselves. The best way to look for and embrace the light is when you’re in complete darkness, so to speak.
Ayahuasca teaches us about the duality of life, more than anything else. The lesson can be both physical and emotional, so make sure you go prepared.
4.Visions are always included
Ayahuasca is indeed an ancient medicinal brew, and people do have visions at times. However, there are plenty of people that have no visions at all. As it works on a deeply intuitive level, Ayahuasca will give participants whatever they need the most.
The process can be exclusively emotional, whereas sometimes, it is a less noticeable shift in thoughts. And there’s always the category of people not feeling anything.
However, just because you don’t have visions, it doesn’t mean that Ayahuasca isn’t working for you. You may still benefit from deep and profound experience without having any visions or any other psychedelic feelings.
5.Vomit and diarrhea are always present
Truth be told, the chance of vomiting or diarrhea is quite high during an ayahuasca ceremony, but nobody can say for sure until you try it. Some purge will happen when taking Ayahuasca, though.
The purging process has excellent value for the entire experience, and it’s an effective way of cleansing your body on an emotional and physical level.
However, the purge can take various forms. Sweating, yawning, crying, moaning, shaking, laughing- our body has so many ways of expressing itself! We know that vomiting and diarrhea are the most unpleasant reactions, but they’re a small price to pay when the whole experience changes you for the better forever.
6.Only shamans from Amazon can conduct the ceremony
With Ayahuasca being originated in Amazon, it doesn’t surprise us that people are skeptical when the shaman isn’t from the Amazon. However, it would help if you focused on the level of experience and professionalism rather than the place of birth. After all, you may very well end up dead in the middle of the jungle where a young Amazonian shaman couldn’t help you during the ceremony!
More and more people are trying to experience Ayahuasca where it was born, so plenty of inexperienced indigenous people dress up and play the shaman role. You have to do your homework and recognize a charlatan from a distance.
On the other hand, someone conducting Ayahuasca ceremonies around the world will be thoroughly verified, no matter for how long he/she has been in this domain. Most westerners need to learn and to work a lot more than people from the Amazon for being taking seriously.
For Johnny Tabaie, the leader of a healing center based on Ayahuasca and Ibogaine, the use of sacred plant therapy is at the core of an entire range of treatment methods. While in his centers, many cutting-edge medical therapies are also used, it is the Ayahuasca ceremony that is the catalyst of a deeper process of regeneration.
7.It’s always intense
This one is kind of true as one ayahuasca experience can be like several years of therapy in just one night. Sometimes, you only need one session to feel re-born and get a better and fresher view of life and things.
However, it’s not common for people to have this kind of insight from the first time. On the contrary, it may take them even more than a couple of sessions to feel enlightened and re-born.
What you can do instead is to turn every experience into an opportunity for learning something new. The “ah-ha” moment may never come for you, but you should take every little new thing that you learn and apply it to your life for future changes, explains Johnny Tabaie.
People are so different, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that we don’t react the same when taking Ayahuasca. It’s great if you only need one session to become a new man. But don’t lose hope if it doesn’t happen after the first experience- Juts give it time!
8.It can be lethal
Let’s make it clear: as long as it’s prepared correctly, and you’re healthy, Ayahuasca isn’t going to kill you. The problem only develops if you’re combining it with some specific medications or you’re dealing with specific medical issues.
It also matters which plants are added to the brew (a good and reliable shaman won’t improvise, though). Knowing what’s inside the brew can make the difference between life and death, at times, especially when you’re in the middle of nowhere.
