Relaunch My Life Radio

220. Experiencing ego death with Ayahuasca

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Welcome to this month’s episode of Relaunch My Life Radio.

Dream – Juliet shares an update or a story from her life
Life – Juliet shares a tool or tip to help you transform your perspective
Diary – Juliet shares 3 journaling prompts for self-reflection and growth

DREAM

In this section I share a small snippet or update from my life to share some learnings

Welcome to this month’s episode of Relaunch My Life Radio. This is a special episode as I’ll be doing a behind the scenes tell all of my experience with plant medicine. Specifically ayahuasca. This wise medicine has been a big part of my healing journey over the past 12 months. BUT I believe having tools and skills to help integrate this powerful medicine is just as important. I’ve been dedicated to personal development for over a decade and only recently felt ready to sit with the medicine.

I’m an eternal seeker, a curious spirit. In my day to day life I’m fortunate to co-own Evolve and Relaunch Education with my partner in business and life (and soulmate Paul) and I also help coaches and entrepreneurs self-publish their own self help or teaching memoir books. Last month I ran my annual 3 night writing retreat here in South Australia and it was incredible. Honestly the incredible books that will be birthed from this writing retreat and the picturesque scenery was breathtaking. I’ll be opening applications for my 2025 retreat soon, so be sure to subscribe to my mailing list via the link in my bio if you’d like to be on the VIP list.

This episode is sponsored by my Birth Your Book course. A hub for aspiring authors to walk you through every step of the way to self-publishing your own best-selling book on Amazon. From conception to creation, I’ve helped over 10 authors self-publish now, and I’d love to help you!

Last month we also graduated our 2024 class of Master Practitioner of NLP. This training is a massive identity shift. It’s an overhaul of values, beliefs and habitual unconscious systems. The entire training culminates in the students completing 8 hour Breakthrough coaching sessions and the change in the students after such a profound experience is nothing short of inspiring.

I also have another exciting update that I will share at the end of my Podcast, and it’s HOW I came to book myself a week solo in Paris later this year to work on my book! The way it all came about is such a beautiful story and I can’t wait to share that with you so stick around to the end…

OK, let’s dive in to my experience with ayahuasca. I have a few key points I’m going to cover and I asked Paul to interview me to make this part of the episode a little more conversational:

What is Ayahuasca?

A sacred Amazonian brew of vines and leaves of a plant traditionally drunk in ceremonies believed capable of expanding one’s consciousness. Some individuals experience extreme alterations of reality, such as synesthesia, which is a mixed sensory experience where the individual perceives that they can see sounds or hear color.

Some studies suggest that use of the drug may increase the number of serotonin receptors in the central nervous system, and this may contribute to these antidepressant effects.

I suppose with anything in life I believe it’s powerful to have your own direct experience. I truly believe that ignorance is judging something without having your own direct experience.

So here are some of the key points from my experience:

My first ceremony was spent learning how to get out of my head and into my body. My second ceremony involved a lot of flying.. I actually watched myself die. It was profound to experience. I had realisations galore… for HOURS. I was able to journal and go to the bathroom, then get back into ceremony. Layers and layers of truth. There is freedom in feeling your mortality in your very bones. I had lots of personal realisations.
I used my ability to guide hypnosis symbolic journeys in the ayahuasca journey on the third ceremony. This was profound as you really can communicate with yourself at such a deeper level. I also found I could communicate with the medicine similar to how I communicate to the unconscious mind during hypnosis.
My biggest learning is that it’s all you. There is nothing to fear.
Did I “purge”? In my third ceremony I had to purge, I vomited out doubt from my body. It actually felt so good!
So many more things. Felt the deep pure unconditional love for our child. Sounds strange, but feels amazing. I can imagine the medicine would be very confronting if you don’t have a deep sense of self-awareness and could really shake up your model of the world… as it shows you YOU in all aspects. The dark and light, the parts of you that you don’t want to see.
My advice would be that the medicine will find you when you’re ready. You’ll know. If you’re still scared, you’re not ready. The ego protects. I do a lot of inner work, regular Hypnotherapy and NLP sessions, I continue to live in a space of self reflection and self enquiry, as well as see a psychologist so I have someone neutral to talk things through with. This keeps my relationship and friendships quite clean as I’m not expecting others to process me.
There is an element of ego death when you decide to sit. BUT. I will add, I had people say to me “oh you’re so lucky, you had experiences on your first sit that I have never had! The medicine has never spoken to me.” I believe the medicine can only connect with you as deeply as you’re willing to connect with yourself. I don’t believe it’s luck – I felt it was symbolic for my connection with my unconscious. I wanted to go deep. I wanted to surrender as much as I could.

LIFE

In this section, usually I guide you through an NLP, Coaching or Hypnotherapy tool to help you apply to your life.

That’s an insight into my experience with Ayahuasca and why I think it’s vital to have done a deep dive beforehand. Also in terms of the integration, it can be a huge shake up of one’s reality. So I would encourage you to be working with a coach or therapist to support you in the integration such as one of our coaches at Evolve and Relaunch.

Our next Evolved NLP training is happening 30 September – 6 October and there is still time to join us.

DIARY

In this section, I provide some journaling and self-reflection activities:

What fears do I have about my future?
What am I stressed about right now?
What does my heart know to be true about these things?

Thanks for tuning into this month’s episode!

Learn more about my courses, book and Birth Your Book program.

Juliet Lever is an NLP Trainer & best selling author.

She specialises in working with people who want to make a difference in the world build skills to help others either in a coaching context or by following their dreams themselves.