Three Elements of Healing

The Shipibo tradition acknowledges three elements within the Ayahuasca healing process: cleaning, healing and protection. This is one of the reasons why it's often recommended to do a run of three ceremonies together for the most complete process, as its said that the first ceremony focuses on cleaning, the second on healing and the third on protection. And where this can come up as a series of general themes across a set of three ceremonies, in my experience, the process is not usually quite so linear - I don't know that Ayahuasca is ever really that straightforward and linear! From my perspective, cleaning, healing and protection are all important elements of healing that weave together and happen simultanously. Whenever we may feel that we're having a clear experience of one of them, the other two also happening alongside it, although perhaps much more subtly. Here I'll give my perspective on each of these elements, and what I've expereinced them to be about, in some more detail:

Cleaning

I think of cleaning as Ayahuasca's number one super power – it's something that she really excels at! The importance of cleansing toxins and unwanted energies from the body is acknowledged throughout many holistic systems of medicine from around the world. Western holistic medicine focuses on detoxification processes to remove physical toxins that may be contributing to illness and dis-ease, Ayurveda has a very complete cleansing process called panchakarma to remove excess energies,  or doshas, from the body, with the understanding that it is the excess of these energies that leads to illness, and many Shamanic traditions utilise techniques to remove spiritual energies from the energy field that are contributing to health problems and other issues.

Ayahuasca is great at cleaning on every level – physically she'll clean out your stomach, digestive organs, and pull toxins from your body for elimination, usually through vomiting, diarrhoea or other ways of purging; and she 'll work her way into the places in your body where old memories, traumas and suppressed emotions have been stored, bringing them up and out physcially and emotionally. She can find her way into the deeper and more subtle layers of your mind, clearing out the thoughts, beliefs and ideas that you're carrying around that weren't even yours to begin with and that aren't contributing to your wellbeing – the things that the world has told you that simply aren't true and are not serving your best interests. And she can clean away any spiritual energies lingering in your field that are negatively affecting you and that don't need to be there. She can work her way through the whole of your system, clearing away illnesses, old traumas and behavioural patterns, including those that you've inherited from previous generations, and she can even clear away the potential for illnesses that haven't happened yet! Essentially, she can give you the deepest and most thorough cleansing that I've found anything in this world to be able to do. This intense purification on every level allows us to clear away anything that isn't essentially 'us' – to liberate ourselves from anything that's come from outside of ourselves that's contributing to our dis-ease or suffering, so that we are left with a much purer understanding and experience of who we are. It is often said that 'cleanliness is next to Godliness' and 'a clean body is a healthy body,' and through the process deep of cleaning we can not only arrive at a deeper realisation of our most authentic selves, but understand just how much we have been carrying around with us that is not genuinely true to us, allowing us to move into the future with much more freedom and authenticity.

Healing

Healing is ususally described as the process of becoming whole, or perhaps more accurately, the process of realising our wholeness. It is when we reclaim the parts of ourselves we have lost, disowned or forgotten, and subsequently realise a deeper truth of who we are. I also recently heard healing described as the process of an individual becoming closer to the Divine. I love this perspective because, at least in my experience, I've observed that healing is not just about finding wholeness within our individual experience as a separate being, but includes the healing of our relationships, of our sense of community, our connection with nature, our place in the world, and our relationship with the Divine, however we relate to that.

My understanding right now is that, as we clear away many of those things that are 'not us', we come to realise where we lost some of the truest parts of ourselves to the ideas and beliefs from the outside - from society, from our upbringing, from the world. As we clear away those external things that don't serve us, we make space to reclaim what is genuinely true for ourselves, to remember the parts of ourselves that life led us to forget, and to find our most authentic way of living. When past trauma has clouded our self perception and our understanding of life, we are able to see ourselves more clearly. The magical process of healing is a process of deep inner exploration, when we remember and re-discover the completeness of who we are, when hidden or forgotten parts of ourselves are re-illuminated, and when all of those fractured parts of ourselves come back together into a whole.

I find healing to be an incredibly mystical and magical process that is unique to every individual, that no one can do for anyone else or even tell anyone else how to do it. Healing with Ayahuasca isn't about the plant spirit healing you, but about the plant's ability to bring those fractured and forgotten parts of yourself back into the light and to remind you of your very natural self-healing abilities. The process of healing is all about you, your experience of being, and your sense of completeness and connection, and ultimately brings you towards a greater feeling of internal peace, freedom and wholeness, along with a deeper realisation of who you are and what your life is truly about.

Protection

I find protection to be an interesting concept because we often think about it as something external: we use an energy outside of ourselves to protect us from unwanted forces and influences. Ultimately, though, as we move through the processes of cleaning and healing, we can be guided to the realisation that our true protection lies within us. That's not to say that external means of protection have no use: there is absolutely a time and place for all kinds of spiritual and energetic protection, including the prayers that hold and protect the space during ceremony, the support and guidance that we receive from our plant dietas, and from the items we may carry with us or place in our homes to bring us a sense of safety and security. But one of Ayahuasca's greatest gifts is her ability to reveal to us the protection that we cultivate within ourselves as we move through the healing process.

With every realisation, understanding and arrival at self acceptance that we have, there comes a lesson. We learn something about what hasn't worked for us or what is no longer true for us. We see where a belief or idea has held us back or made us ill, where someone else's influence over our lives didn't work for our greatest good, or how and why we got stuck in an unhelpful pattern or behaviour; and once we've liberated ourselves from whatever it was that was holding us back, we are given the wonderful gift of wisdom. We know that we won't repeat that old pattern again, we see where we have, consciously or unconsciously, sacrificed ourselves and lost our energy to the external world, and we have the opportunity to learn the actions to take for our best interests and for our optimum wellbeing. True protection comes from the self-understanding that enables us to set healthy personal boundaries, to love ourselves unconditionally and to walk the path in life that aligns with who we are. I've often heard the medicine path be referred to as 'the path of power', and protection is the part where we realise our true personal power and make the choice to live with integrity, taking full responsibility for ourselves and our lives along with the commitment to live our best lives for ourselves.

What has your experience been of these three elements of healing? Have any of your Ayahuasca ceremonies had themes connected to these elements? Have they come up for you in very definite ways or have they all woven together? Or have your experiences been completely different? One of the things I love the most about working with Ayahuasca is how uniquely she works with every person and how all of our processes and experiences can be so incredibly different. I love to hear about your experiences with the medicine and how she's benefitted you and your process. If you have something that you'd like to share, please do leave a comment!