Breathe-Come back to me-Come back to Center

My biggest personal lesson in nervous system regulation came to me through the beautiful Ancestral Medicine, Ayahuasca.

I was invited to a three day retreat for veterans by the Woke therapist that I give credit to for planting oh so many seeds in my journey, from the first session I had with her.  I hadn’t had a session with her in a few years but, being a veteran herself, she thought of me when she caught wind of the opportunity.  

When she initially reached out and invited me, I told her that I didn’t know if that retreat was in alignment for me, both financially, or for where I was at in my journey.  I was feeling pretty confident in my healing and I told her that maybe there was other veterans that needed the spot more than I did, but I would think about it.  As the days went on, the deadline for registration was closing in.  I prayed about it, meditated about it, tried to come up with every excuse to not go.  Going meant I would have to break some pretty important plans with my partner, as the event occurred over the same weekend as the retreat.  However, as they say, you know when the medicine comes calling for you.  Synchronicity after synchronicity rolled in.  I straight up heard “this is for you.”  The calling was so loud, I couldn’t ignore it, but there was still the financial aspect; I couldn’t afford it at the time.  So I again prayed about it.  Lo and behold, my therapist friend reached out and said she would pay part of the cost for me.  So I talked to my partner about it, talked about just how aligned it felt me for to go, she agreed to go to the plans we had without me, and we scraped up the remaining funds required.

Among many other HUGE experiences I had over that weekend retreat, like connecting with new Brothers and deeper layers of healing with both the Mother wound and the Father wound, came an abundance of lessons, several of them to do with nervous system regulation.  

During the second night’s ceremony, after diving deep with the remaining bits of the Father wound that needed to be released, I heard God’s voice for the first time.  Suddenly, it was as if I was experiencing everything that all the fellow veterans and others in the maloca were experiencing.  Heavy traumas and chaos like I had never experienced in my life were fully in my experience.  Things like overdosing on a bathroom floor and extreme physical abuse, I didn’t know what was going on and started to panic.  I heard “Breathe......Come back to me, come back to center” in the deepest, most masculine voice I had ever heard.  I was sitting up on my mat and it was like the energy of the chaos was circling around me.  I heard it again, took a deep breath, saw and felt some kind of line, center, vertical in my body, much like a plane heading indicator gauge, and I felt the chaotic energy center in my body and there was peace.  I’d relax for a minute and the chaos would return, and again, I’d hear “Breathe, come back to me, come back to center.”  The cycle continued as I learned how to center my energy and regulate my nervous system in the midst of total chaos.  With my regulated deep box breaths, I could feel the energy centering and grounding down the center of my body, to my root chakra.

Next came deeper lessons, learning how to feel, while utilizing my new found centering skills. I was experiencing chaos, on my hands and knees, in the sand, feeling the sand deeply, all up in it.  By close of ceremony, I was a dirty mess, sand in my beard and hair, I needed a shower.  After ceremony and while still slightly with the medicine, I took a shower and was instructed, in that deep masculine voice, to turn the water up to an uncomfortably hot level and stay in it until my body adjusted to the temperature.  I did so, and after a minute or two, the water temp felt okay, because my body had adjusted and regulated.  Then, instructed to do the same with cold water, turn it cold, stay in it until my body regulated.  This was taught to me as a practical application I could use in my daily life for a nervous system reset to start my day centered and grounded.

The lessons I learned in nervous system regulation, through the medicine, are somatic healing tools and can be accomplished through mindfulness, breathwork, and daily routines like the shower method I expressed.  Ice baths and steam rooms have the ability to do the same.  When you feel overwhelmed, pause, close your eyes, take a deep breath in and on the exhale, slightly tense the muscles in your chest, then upper abdomen, lower abdomen, and perineum, seeing and feeling the energy traveling down your body with the muscle tenses.  Repeat this process with multiple breaths until you feel centered and grounded.  

Sometimes we don't even notice when we are dysregulated.  We can ask our bodies, our higher selves, and the Divine for assistance in feeling and to be alerted when dysregulated.  Ask to hear "Come back to me, come back to center."

(Disclaimer: the telling of my personal experiences with plant medicine is strictly for educational purposes and is in no way condoning or advising the use of illegal substances.  Should the reader “hear the calling” it is advised that answering the calling should only be conducted after talking to your medical provider, as a member of a church or organization that is authorized to serve the Ancestral Medicines, under the supervision of a trained, qualified Shaman and medical response team, or in a medical facility authorized to administer alternative medicines under the supervision of Doctors.)