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GABOR: Thank you. Okay, now, um… Who else would like to share?

REBECCA: I’ll share.

GABOR: Okay, Rebecca.

REBECCA: Uh…. It was, in the beginning it was really great.

GABOR: Great.

REBECCA: Beautiful.

GABOR: Yeah?

REBECCA: It was – like so what I take from the whole thing, what I want to take from it, is just that really good stuff that I got.

GABOR: Are you saying that the negative stuff, the difficult stuff, you don’t want to take?

REBECCA: No, I want to take that too, I do, I do. Because there was lessons in that too. But I have a lot of gratitude for what I, the beautiful stuff that I got.

RONIN: Sure. Yes, but can you have gratitude for the other stuff?

REBECCA: [Laughs] Yeah. It takes a little more work. Yeah, it takes a little more work to have gratitude for that, Ronin.

RONIN: “I’ll take this little piece of reality, but not that bit of reality. “

GABOR: And that’s what your mind is doing. Just notice that it’s doing that.

REBECCA: Oh yeah. Um, there was a point at which Carl was working with me and he was playing the flute. And I had just this overwhelming sense of, I just saw the beauty; the beauty was just so overwhelmingly beautiful. And just the tears just started pouring and pouring. And then I was able to see the reason I recognize that beauty, is because it’s within me. And I started seeing it in me.

GABOR: It seems like you’re with that right now.

REBECCA: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was just overwhelmingly beautiful. And…

GABOR: Well, think on that for a minute. It was beautiful?

REBECCA: It is beautiful.

GABOR: Yeah.

REBECCA: It is beautiful, yeah. Wow. It was just so intense. And then it got very difficult after that. And I did not know how to be with that intensity. I just really didn’t.

GABOR: So what did you do instead?

REBECCA: I fought it.

GABOR: Yeah.

REBECCA: Yeah. I cursed it. Yeah.

GABOR: That’s what the mind does.

REBECCA: Yeah. I can’t handle this, I can’t handle it, I was swearing. Pardon my foul mouth last night.

GABOR: What was the difficult part for you? Can you say more about that?

REBECCA: Um… The sensation overload.   I was actually getting auditory, like buzzing; the most intense I’ve ever experienced it. And I thought I was going to die. So I came right to a place where, uh…. I thought I was going to die. And I just kind of…-

GABOR: You know, Jesus says that if you want to live, you have to give up your life. Do you understand that?

REBECCA: Yeah.

GABOR: So who’s afraid of that death?

REBECCA: I know. Yeah. And I just got to this place where I kind of went, I give up. I surrender.

REBECCA: I don’t know if I actually – I did not embrace it.

GABOR: Then you didn’t surrender. Then you just resigned.

REBECCA: But I didn’t fight it anymore either.

GABOR: You became passive around it.

REBECCA: Yeah. What I always do.

GABOR: Yeah. So that’s okay, but notice that that’s what you did. Now…. As one specialist has said, the most difficult things that happen to us are also the most compassionate things. Do you understand that?

REBECCA: Not really.

GABOR: No? What are you here to do?

REBECCA: Learn how to love myself.

GABOR: Yeah. More generally what are you here to do?

REBECCA: To heal.

GABOR: And what does that take?

REBECCA: Forgiveness.

GABOR: Well, go back to Jesus again. He says, “You shall know the truth and the truth will save you.” Okay? So the beauty and the healing and everything else, that’s secondary to the truth. You get that?

REBECCA: Yeah.

GABOR: Now do you see why those difficult things are the most compassionate things?

REBECCA: Yes.

GABOR: Why?

REBECCA: Because they…. It’s what I need.

GABOR: Because they’re here to teach you, right?

REBECCA: They’re here to teach me, yeah.

GABOR: So they’re the most compassionate thing.

REBECCA: Uh-huh.

GABOR: Can you be grateful for that?

REBECCA: Yeah. Yeah.

GABOR: Great. That’s all it takes.

REBECCA: Yeah. And I am, I am grateful for that. It wasn’t easy at all.

GABOR: No it wasn’t. And the mind, what the personality does is it just gets tighter, it constricts. Your voice constricts. And your whole body tightens up against it. You know? And the reality is that there’s a kind of death of the ego, that the ego fights.

REBECCA: It–

GABOR: But there’s that line by St. Francis where he says, you know, “It’s when you die to the self that you’re born to eternal life.”

REBECCA: Eternal life, yeah.

GABOR: Okay, in other words, what’s really true here and can come alive, like –

SCOTT: Something came really alive in him, something that was there, but it just expressed itself all of a sudden.

REBECCA: Yeah, yeah.

GABOR: That’s the eternal life. It’s not that the body will live forever, but the love will live forever.

REBECCA: Yeah.

GABOR: So yeah, that’s why it’s – it’s great. And also, you came to it, didn’t you?

REBECCA: Yeah, and I feel very – I feel very content.

GABOR: Very content, great.

REBECCA: Yeah, I just feel very peaceful and content and…

GABOR: So these three bozos here…

REBECCA: Yeah, what are they talking about?

GABOR: Did you get any of it?

RONIN: What’s that?

GABOR: Did you get any of it?

RONIN: No, I heard it.

GABOR: Okay, great. So can you take that pressure off yourself?

REBECCA: I just wanted to say too to you guys, like I completely felt your, uh, presence.

RONIN: We’re good actors.

GABOR: Don’t even say that.

REBECCA: No, I felt that, I really did.

GABOR: It seems like your presence was present, even when you’re not. Thank you, Rebecca.

REBECCA: You’re welcome. Thank you, everyone. And yeah, it was a pretty interesting night.

* * *

GABOR: Lisa.

LISA: Yes. My… First of all I’m very grateful that I went through this. I no longer feel that dis-ease.

GABOR: You no longer feel…

LISA: Dis-ease.

GABOR: Okay.

LISA: It was horrific.

GABOR: Horrific?

LISA: The stuff that I seen was pretty traumatic. Um… [Long pause] I always, um – I always knew I blocked out from the age of seven and under. And tonight I was shown a why. Um…

GABOR: Now Lisa, it’s up to you totally, but I invite you to talk about it. To actually share it.

LISA: Okay.

GABOR: As much as you feel comfortable in saying. It just gets it out of you.

LISA: Um…. [Sighs] The uh….Tonight I found out why I didn’t have a bond with my mother. Um… And I’m really having a hard time believing the images that I seen. Having a hard time understanding why when somebody loved you so much, that they could take so much innocence from you. And I don’t…understand why I was shown this, when my question was self-love. [Struggling not to cry]

GABOR: You don’t understand that? You don’t understand why you were shown this? Okay.

LISA: It’s… And it’s very strange because I don’t feel anger. I don’t – I almost feel more at peace that I know, because I’ve carried it for so long. And the great thing is, I mean now I know, and now I can start to work with it.

So many emotions to feel right now, it’s… And for a long time I was never, I can’t show emotion.

GABOR: What’s there for you now emotionally? What’s the emotion that’s there for you?

LISA: I feel extremely lost right now.

GABOR: No, stop it. That’s not an emotion.

LISA: I’m very hurt.

GABOR: Pain, right?

LISA: The feelings are, very hurt and painful feeling.

GABOR: Right. [pause]

LISA: But I guess that as much as I was a very traumatized individual, I think it’s going to be a great gift in the end.

GABOR: That’s great, but that’s only a thought. Okay? Just be with the emotion. Now look, I think the key here is your question about, why was I shown this when I was asking about self-love. Now what do you think the answer to that is? Remember what I said to Rebecca that the most difficult things that happen to you, are also the most compassionate things. So you had a very difficult experience last night. So why do you suppose that’s what you were shown, when you were asking about self-love?

GABOR: Okay, so it went on for three, four years? Maybe five? Okay. What I’m looking at here is why you were shown this, okay? When you wanted to find out about self-love. Now… [Lisa sniffs] Lisa, I just want you to know that everybody here is completely present with your pain right now and we’re deeply respectful of it. So you can just let it be.

LISA: In my um…in my process I noticed that I had stopped breathing a few times. And there was a couple of times that I didn’t want to start breathing again.

GABOR: You know what that is? That’s a direct memory. That’s your memory of how it was. Because I was saying to you earlier, like when you’re being traumatized and you can’t escape or fight back, you just want to disappear. And not only to disappear, not even to breathe. It’s a completely basic response that’s triggered deep, deep down in the brain.

LISA: I keep trying to convince myself the visions I seen weren’t what I seen. That I seen them wrong or…. [Crying.]

GABOR: Okay, tell me about self-love.

LISA: I have absolutely no—

WOMAN: Lisa, I just want to tell you that your courage and your strength are very inspiring to me. How you’re able to open that up and share that. Thank you.

GABOR: I can’t find the exact quote now, but here’s what it says, okay? That – again, the most difficult things that happen to you are the most compassionate things. I’m not talking about what happened to you as a child, I’m talking about the experience of last night, okay? That part loved you so much that it’ll do whatever it has to to teach you something. Even if it causes you pain. Because it wants you to heal and to grow. And what else can it do but to show you exactly how it is?

That’s what it’s there to do. But it loves you so much that it wants you to really get it, to really see it. Now, the part that’s showing you that, what they said last night, the spirit of the ayahuasca working with the spirit of you, the spirit of you, it loves you so much that it brought you here. And it loves you so much that it wanted you to see what you needed to see.

Now do you understand what I’m saying? And that means you don’t have to work so hard at loving yourself. It’s way too much work.

LISA: It’s very emotionally draining.

GABOR: Yeah.

LISA: This was the most amazing experience I’ve ever had. I’ve worked for years to try and find out what the blockage was. I’ve gone to counselors, numerous counselors. And it’s, it’s been quite an amazing ride. I don’t regret a single moment of it.

GABOR: What are you feeling right now?

LISA: Now that I’ve been able to share I feel lots of peace.

GABOR: Great.

* * *

GORDON: So I’m, I’m good. Oh, and I love all of you guys. I do, because it’s true, I did, and one thing I did, I walked through the…the valley of the shadow of death, and I did not fear the evil. But the evil’s everywhere, right? And I didn’t fear it because I knew that here I was safe and there was no shame here. And I was safe.

* * *

GABOR: Speaking of beautiful women, Tracy, is there anything you want to say?

TRACY: Um, I feel really good, I feel just like I, when I went in. I feel really like calm and clear. I did experience lots of help from Lana and your beautiful chanting, it’s so nice. Like – yeah, it’s lovely. Um, actually when you did some work on me, it brought up something like, you know, it’s not – yeah, something that happened to me when I was a kid.

I – I used to like stay up late reading. I was reading under my sheets with a flashlight. And my dad came in and – yeah, I was pretty innocent. I know. I don’t know if he was drinking. Probably. Yeah, he must have been. He like, totally flew off the handle and like fuckin’ destroyed me.

GABOR: Physically?

TRACY: Uh yeah, a bit. Not, not that hard, though, like, but more, it was more –

GABOR: Emotional.

TRACY: Yeah, yeah. Like he, like he was just so roughing me up and dragging me around, and then like – I must have been like seven – kicked me out of the house. [Laughs]. I know. And I ran to my mom and she kind of just did this – what’s that?

GABOR: What did you expect?

TRACY: Yeah, yeah, totally. Reading. Probably comics. It wasn’t even porn or anything. [Laughter]

TRACY: Yeah, and I went, you know, I went to my mom and she was on the couch and she just sort of verbally tried to stop him but didn’t protect me any more than that. Like, you know, she was just like, Oh B., don’t. It wasn’t that meek, but like she was sort of asking him not to do that, and he just like grabbed me and threw me out of the house and shut the door. And just – I mean, it’s not funny, it’s like the worst day of my life, like standing in the driveway just like crying and crying and crying.

GABOR: What are you fighting right now?

TRACY: Huh?

GABOR: What are you fighting?

TRACY: Oh, to feel that whole thing again.

GABOR: What is the feeling? Not the whole thing again but just whatever’s there right now.

TRACY: I know. I know what you mean, like I use that sense of humour to sort of protect myself too. Just so much, so much shock and anger that, that he – I mean what, over what? Like even if I was doing the worst thing, I don’t even know what a seven-year-old could do. You know, and that my mom couldn’t be a little stronger about it, you know? Like don’t, don’t let somebody push your kids around.

GABOR: You know, my wife once said to me, and it was a wake-up call, that the next time you do that, me and the kids are gone. And not even necessarily forever, but just, we will not be here when you do that. We will simply not stand for it. We will not stand with it.

TRACY: Yeah and I always admire that in people, like that mama bear reflex, I love those families. I think they’re amazing, I love seeing moms like dads, and dads like that too.

GABOR: But it took that to wake me up.

TRACY: Yeah.

GABOR: So it was frightening for you.

TRACY: So much like pent-up anger. Like, you know, the anger of the little child just has nowhere to go. Yeah, nowhere to go but inside, and just feels so – just that moment in my core. Yeah.

GABOR: Well, why don’t you give some words to that anger. If the anger could speak, what would it say right now?

TRACY: Thank you… I don’t know, fuck you, Dad. Yeah.

GABOR: You’re laughing.

TRACY: Just…

GABOR: How about actually saying it?

TRACY: Huh?

GABOR: How about actually saying it like you mean it?

TRACY: Fuck you. [Crying] I didn’t do anything to deserve this.

GABOR: And Tracy, what’s behind the anger?

TRACY: Hurt.

GABOR: Are you asking me or telling me?

TRACY: Yeah I’m very hurt.

GABOR: Say again?

TRACY: Yeah, I’m very hurt.

GABOR: Even the anger, legitimate as it is, is only an attempt not to feel the hurt.

TRACY: Yeah, exactly, yeah, I realize that too. And all my little ways of being, now…so stemmed from that. You know, just that laugh, that sarcasm, that barrier, is so…yeah.

GABOR: So that’s how you keep people out.

TRACY: Yeah, exactly.

GABOR: Well, as Winnicott said, he said, “It’s a joy to hide and it’s hell not to be found.” So you hide out and then people don’t find you and you’re devastated and alone, which is your way of being, right? Loneliness is your constant theme.

TRACY: Yeah.

GABOR: Guess who creates it? Yeah, look around; maybe you’ll see her. Where is she? Yeah, and even that’s not to be scorned at or to be judged. It is simply, it was simply how you learned to survive.

TRACY: Yeah, yeah, I felt that all along, like, that was just, that just happened, and, you know, I mean I’m kind of proud of my survival skills.

GABOR: Then you came to realize that you don’t…you already survived. You don’t need it anymore.

TRACY: Yeah.

GABOR: Do you?

TRACY: No, no. I feel super-confident in who I am.

GABOR: Okay.

TRACY: Yeah. Yeah, and then the rest of my night was really, really good, really calm. I don’t know how long that sort of lasted.

GABOR: Well, look, the reality is that it will not last. And it will not last because the mind will come in with its particular stories, which are always about the past. So you’re attached to, not trying to hold on to anything, but just to notice when this stuff gets in the way. There’s the mind again, doing its thing.

TRACY: Yeah.

GABOR: And you catch yourself in that humour, I mean you’ve got a great sense of humour–

TRACY: Yeah, yeah, and it’s a fine line when it’s, when is it just that, or when it’s masking, right? Because obviously I’m not going to give up. I think that is who I am, right? But, to find the clarity to know when I’m using it as a shield. Yeah. And I can see it, I can see it already, before I came here, like I can, I can see myself do that. But it’s after the fact, it’s already out of my mouth and I’m like, Oh, why did I say that?

GABOR: If you begin a mindfulness practice, which actually is all about being aware of what’s in the mind before it enters the realm of speech/action, speech as an action…

TRACY: Think before I speak?

GABOR: So if you develop an awareness, you will catch yourself beforehand. Or when it happens you’ll catch yourself very soon afterwards, and you can actually repair it if you need to. Like you did here. With some invitation, but you did, you know, you said actually behind the humour there’s anger.

TRACY: Yeah.

GABOR: So that’s great. That’s all you’ve got to do, is to keep noticing.

: * * *

JASON: And… and tonight, you know, I expressed that I had a little bit of anxiety, a little bit of fear and stuff, and you made a really good point, in that there’s no such thing as a bad experience, right? It just is. That didn’t stop me like when I went to drink it, but I said kind of out loud, kind of under my breath to myself – I didn’t ask for anything, I pretty much begged, you know, for her to go easy on me.

And, and I got that. And I didn’t get any, any visuals, either, you know, that were, you know, that were either tough or easy. I got no visuals…well, some, but more like feelings and a calmness, and with the chanting, again, but it was different this time. Last night I was so, there were so many things going on that it was hard for me to focus on that. And this time I was just, I was just able to be at ease and just, feel the chants with me, I guess you could say.

I don’t know how to explain it properly.

GABOR: You just did.

JASON: Yeah? And it was, it was phenomenal. And it just, it seemed like my heartbeat slowed and everything slowed down for me, it was just like…I didn’t purge, I didn’t feel sick. I just, I felt like, kind of like a blanket of just nurturing, kind of? And…

GABOR: So pause there for a moment. Whose nurturing was that?

JASON: I guess it was hers. I don’t know.

GABOR: Who do you think was giving that to you?

JASON: Um, I don’t know. I didn’t look at it that far.

GABOR: Consider the possibility, just consider it, that what the plant does is to open you up to your own nurturing.

JASON: Okay.

GABOR: That’s actually–

JASON: Yeah, I guess, you know, and I’m kind of new at even thinking of myself as a nurturing person, so it didn’t even cross my mind.

GABOR: That’s how your mind thinks about it. But the reality is, it’s right there.

JASON: Yeah.

GABOR: And it doesn’t depend on any particular scenario. It’s just there. It’s not conditional. It’s not situational. It’s just there.

JASON: That’s amazing, it really is. And, you know, I just thought I’d kind of ask, well, what do I kind of take away from that? And I’d never even thought of that, of course. But, you know, like just…I have a general distrust for, you know, everything and everyone. Which is what I’m working on, which is one of the reasons that I went to a treatment centre, you know, is to work on those sort of things.

GABOR: Well, that distrust became your survival mechanism.

JASON: Yeah, I tend to turn, you know, even – when I say distrust I really mean, ah, paranoid to the point of conspiracy against me, kind of distrust. Yeah. And, you know, I think…

JASON: I think that it just kind of, you know, she was just kind of showing me, because I really, I had to trust the process…and even at the last moment, I looked at the drink and I was like, oh my God, here we go. And, you know, she just kind of showed me that, I mean, that I can trust in the truth, I think. And that, you know, kind of left it open for – because I really want to do this again at some point. And ah, it was kind of left open that, you know, like whatever happens, you know, that I’ll be taken care of through the process, I think.

And that was, that was an amazing feeling. I ended up just going to sleep, eventually my, I was listening to the chants and stuff, and the more I listened to the chants–

GABOR: They were lullabies.

JASON: They really were.