The Profile
Name: Christine
Nationality: Kenyan, brought up in London
Lives in: Arizona, USA
Age when taken psychedelics: 31
Job: Actress / Model / Childbirth Hypnotist
Psychedelic of choice: Ayahuasca & Psilocybin
Place of ceremony: Arizona, USA
What was your intention?
My intentions were:
- to heal
- to release anything I might be holding onto
- to forgive anyone that might have harmed me.
Why did you take it?
I was on a spiritual path, questioning everything I knew and at place where I needed something to help me get through some of the life setbacks.
I was born in Kenya, brought up in London and then went to America in 1999. My dad was a pastor. I grew up in an extremely strict, religious home. I was also religious myself even as an adult. I used be hardcore going around knocking on people’s doors telling them about Jesus and that if they were not saved, they were going to go to hell or if they were gay, the same thing would happen.
Then, 9 years ago, I started to question religion. When one of the very close friends who was a church member got really sick and suffered a stroke. The doctors said there was nothing they could do. The pastor was like “Hey everybody, let’s just pray to God to heal him”. And the miracle did happen: the stroke was reversed, he was completely healed and the doctors could not explain what happened. But a few months later, his house caught on fire and he died. It was him and his wife in the house – she was able to escape but he wasn’t.
That was a moment I thought “So, life just happens to you whether you are a Christian, a Muslim or an Atheist – whatever you are, things just happen” because before that I was under the impression that if you are saved, you are covered by the blood and God is going to protect you and no harm will come your way. With my friend dying though, I started to question everything I knew.
Fast forward to a year and a half ago, I started chatting to an old church friend. It turned out he and his wife got onto a spiritual path. Even though we hadn’t talked for about 10 years, we ended up realising we were going through the same thing. He started talking about Ayahuasca – I didn’t know what that was, couldn’t spell it. I had never heard of psychedelics and plant medicines. I didn’t know that people could alter their consciousness. I didn’t even believe him when he said that he would see these visions after drinking that medicine. I thought he was too far out there.
He kept telling me about these different experiences and one day, it was my birthday and he said “Look, I really want you to experience this – I’m going to gift to you 2 nights of the ceremony”. It was his birthday weekend as well and I felt comfortable going because he was going to be there with his wife and their children. And that’s how I went. All in all, I never looked for it – it found me.
I guess I was also in a place where I felt I needed something else. I used to live in LA and was pursuing acting and modelling, but I had to leave. I was very depressed about having to leave my dreams and what I had been working so hard for.
Being back in Arizona was very depressing – I was living with my sister. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have a car. Nothing. I felt like a failure. My ex husband would also make me feel like I wasn’t a good enough mother. So, I was in a very sad and depressed place – that also made me want to take the medicine because I started reading about it and how people were healing and felt I could benefit from that as well.
What were you most afraid of?
Gosh, I read so many things and couldn’t sleep for the week before. It was so hard.
I was scared of being taken to other dimensions and seeing crazy visuals. Also, my religious programming made me think of the fact I may be opening a portal to demons or letting the devil possess me.
I told my parents I was going to do this. They were still very strict Christians and were very concerned. My dad told me I was messing with the things of the devil and was opening my mind to it. And then he was like “I hope you see Jesus and he saves you” followed by “Maybe you’ll see hell and you’ll be scared of it”. So, yes, I was very scared.
People were telling me “Oh, you are so brave to take all these plant medicines” but I was scared. I just faced it. I’m still scared when I take them. I felt comfortable because my friend had done it so many times and he was going to be there. Although, during the ceremony, the facilitator didn’t want us to sit next to the people we knew because we would be tempted to depend on them. So, we had to sit far away from each other but just knowing he was there made me more comfortable. I’m the kind of person who just would not have been able to go to Peru into the jungle on a whim. I had to feel secure.
What did you most look forward to?
To the joy, happiness, and the peace that my friend had spoken about and that I had read about too. I also looked forward to releasing things that were weighing me down that I was not even aware of. I think just looked forward to a new awareness.
What was the hardest bit about the experience?
Drinking it, as it tasted so horrible. And then once you drank it, this is it, there’s no going back after this, no matter how crazy this experience gets. Just sitting in the dak and waiting was hard – I had so much anxiety because I just didn’t know what was going to happen.
The 1st night I was very anxious, overthinking everything that not much actually happened. I was only able to relax, release and let go on the 2nd night and that is when the magic happened for me.
I was able to release because this one girl called Brie who was working there, pretty much told me “You need to surrender”. They did say that for a lot of people a lot more happens on the 2nd night after the medicine has settled in your body. Knowing that helped. She told me to come back the next day and that she knew I was going to have a better experience then. Just hearing those words made me relax. I did want to have an experience and not overthink it anymore.
After that, the biggest difficulties for me were the throwing up. That type of nausea, getting sick, hot & cold, wearing the blanket then taking it off, wearing the sweater, then taking it off – just being physically uncomfortable was the toughest part.
The 2nd night I just settled into it though and I started being taken through the visions of my
childhood as if I was the fly on the wall, watching myself as a kid back in my home in Kenya.
I relived a scene were a family friend molested me when I was a child and I had repressed that memory for such a long time. I remembered it when I was 13, told my parents about it but they told me I didn’t don’t know what I was talking about and that it did not happen. So, I repressed it again, but it came back up during the ceremony.
I watched myself in the bed and this man came into the bed with me. I was pretending to be asleep and he was touching me inappropriately. I saw everything as if I were there. Then just like that, we went to the next scene and I got to see my parents’ memories through their eyes. I saw my dad as a young boy in a school uniform going into school in Kenya on some dusty road in the middle of nowhere. I saw my mum growing up. She was a secretary in Kenya. I saw them meeting and marrying – I just went through their lives.
Then, I saw through the eyes of my ex husband and what he was going through when his mum died 3 years ago. It was very traumatic for him. I was taken to the hospital room where she was being resuscitated and he was there, watching her die. I was taken to all this stuff, watching all these other people’s experiences.
I also got to feel my mum’s emotions. 10-11 years ago, we had a bad thing happen in our family that destroyed us and some other people’s families and my mum suffered a lot during that time. I got to feel her pain during that ceremony. At one point, the medicine asked: “Are you ready to feel your mother’s pain?” and before I could say yes or no, I felt this wave of energy crush into me and I felt grief, sadness, loneliness, anger, frustration – everything my mother felt for years. I curled up on the floor and just cried for a long time.
I took Ayahuasca again a few months after that but I did not follow the dieta then. I got so violently sick and couldn’t purge to release it and was stuck with this nauseous feeling for hours. I still got a message though and relived the moment when my husband cheated on me. I was taken to the room where he was sleeping with this other woman and I watched the whole thing. It was a lot but I just let it go. I was able to look at it and go “Yeah, that happened, there’s no point in holding onto that”.
What Was The Best Bit About The Experience?
There was a moment where I was caressing myself. I wasn’t aware I was doing it, it was as if something was making me love on myself. I was getting the message “The love that you crave from men, you need to give that to yourself”. That whole moment was beautiful.
2nd time I drank Ayahuasca, I also had a self-love moment. I started grabbing my stomach (my typical problem area) and the medicine said “Why are you so ashamed of this body you are in? You should love yourself”.
By the end of the night, no matter how sick I felt, by the morning, I felt amazing, loved, happy, and joyful. I released all the stuff I had been carrying.
What did you get from it?
It helped me forgive the people who I felt have not loved me and done me wrong. I was able to see through their eyes and understand that we are all human, we are all just a product of our environment, of how we are raised, we are all just reacting to life and not everybody means to hurt you. I was able to accept life and not hold any grudges.
As far as being molested, I don’t know what impact remembering it has had on my life yet. I got to relive it and then just move on. Maybe it was just showing it to me for me to see that happened to look at it and to do just that: move on.
Also, the experience of feeling my mother’s pain really helped me to empathise with her but I didn’t really feel comfortable talking to my parents about Ayahuasca after they said it was demonic.
Apart from Ayahuasca, I also took mushrooms and then, I felt my boyfriend’s emotions and the pain that I had put him through. I cried so much because of that. You literally physically feel it. I was trying to resist it and I felt it for only a few minutes but it was very powerful. I felt so bad. I started apologising to him. I felt like such an idiot for treating him so bad. I was a blubbering mess and could barely talk. I was just crying and apologising.
How did it impact your life?
Ayahuasca was my gateway. It showed me that there are plants that will alter your consciousness, take you deep within your psyche and heal you. That opened me up to other plant medicines.
Most people don’t do Ayahuasca as their first psychedelic but that’s how she came to my life. She opened me up. She showed me this is real and it heals people and from there I started to go down the rabbit trail.
I had 2 profound experiences on mushrooms. I did 5 grams that I split up: I did 2.5 and then an hour later, I did the remaining 2.5. I was going through some relationship problems at the time. I had been putting up a front, all these walls. The mushrooms ended up channelling through me – I was very aware it wasn’t me talking. It was weird but I just let it happen. I recorded myself for hours and so I sometimes go back and listen to my journey. I broke down and cried so much. I felt I peeled off all these lawyers. It’s hard to describe it but I feel like I tapped into myself. I reached my higher self, my inner child that’s always been there. It’s been the most humbling experience I have ever been through.
The other one was with 3.5 grams and I did it with one of my friends. The mushrooms were speaking through him first. He kept telling me “Why do you keep looking outside of yourself? You take all these psychedelics looking outside of yourself trying to find answers to what life is about, who you are, why you are here. But you created your reality, you came here because you wanted to be here, so be here. Be your creation”. That was a message and I was seeing visuals including his face transforming.
It was crazy but for the first time I was able to realise I had been searching outside of myself for so long when everything is within. That trip brought my whole life inside. Then he showed me how powerful I was. I was able to really feel and understand my powers of a creator. It’s so hard to explain…
We now have this new level of understanding. It’s as if you look through this one window all your life and someone is like “Hey, there’s another window you didn’t know about!” It was all very profound. We try to assign our power to some outside deity when it’s us. We are what we are looking for.
What did you struggle with after?
I still struggle with the little things of the ego like being mad, holding grudges, being angry, sad. I still go through those normal human emotions but now I can observe them for what they are and I don’t let it go on for too long.
It took me a while just struggling with the whole “Am I opening another portal to demonic realms” type of thing. I haven’t yet met any entities – I have never allowed myself to go so deep that I could meet any. I always have an open eye experience because I’m afraid to fully blast off because of my religious conditioning. I’m afraid of seeing something evil. I know people have seen evil or scary things and it’s a part of the experience. One of these days I will allow myself to fully blast off and see what entities I run into.
What improved?
An understanding there is so much going on outside of this scope of reality.
It’s helped me not to take things too seriously, not to feel too stressed out. Even though I sometimes go back to my old ways, but at least I can check myself.
It gave me an understanding of myself and other people and it has connected me to so many people – I did a YouTube video talking about my experience and it has gotten so many views and hundreds of people had written to me and I referred them to my facilitator. Their lives had been changed because I shared my experience. That’s been the most rewarding thing for me – to find a place as a healer through sharing of what I went through.
I now don’t believe in organised religion at all. I’m realising there is nothing outside of me. I have everything I need and that we are all connected to each other. We are the higher power. For example, all the cells in your body are doing different things but they are a part of the body. I feel that’s what we are when it comes to the Source, the Universe or God, whatever you call it. We are all connected.
One of my friends told me “Well, can you just come back to Jesus and be like you used to be?” but I have opened the Pandora’s box now. Once you know what you know after experiencing the plant medicine, there is no way you go back to that. I respect people doing their thing but for me there is just no way to go back. I know too much to put myself back in that box.
What do you need to work on?
I still need to work on not taking things so seriously. When I get into an argument with somebody that I love, I need to not be so aggressive. I just want to be in peace but that other side of me comes out and it’s stubborn and mad and wants to hold grudges, so I fight with myself and my ego. I’m still working on that.
I have so much more self-love for myself than I have ever had. Even shaving my hair – that was another scary thing to do but I completely and fully accept the way I am now. I still have more work to do with self-love but it’s definitely improved from where it was before.
I’m working with DMT more now just so I can be familiar with it and not be so scared of it. I want to go deeper with it. I haven’t done Ayahuasca in a while as unfortunately, the police had raided my facilitator’s home and taken all the medicine. So, they shut him down and we are reminded that there are still legality issues around that.
I ended up doing mushrooms and I did them too often and built tolerance. My trips weren’t as profound as they should be. So, I needed to take a break and that’s what I’m doing right now.
What would be your advice if you were to do it again?
Start with mushrooms! I guess it happened the way it was supposed to happen. What’s interesting though is that mushrooms are now my favourite plants to work with – the depth I have reached on them is unimaginable and does not even compare to my Ayahuasca experiences. Ayahuasca opened me up but mushrooms teach differently, and I really enjoy working with them. I also can do them in the comfort of my home and I can really connect with myself like that.
If I could go back, I would also tell myself “You have nothing to be afraid of. Nothing can harm you”.
Christine made me laugh when she talked about her Christian programming because let's be honest, all of us who were brought up Christians seem to come with the Devil chip, myself included. I wasn't as specific as Christine about being afraid of the Devil but evil entities certainly crossed my mind before and even more after the ceremonies.
It's an incredible relief to know though that a lot of that stuff comes up purely because of what is fed into our minds and not because it's actually there. What's there is what you give energy to - if you want it to be the Devil, well, you might end up meeting it but at this point, I would not be so sure it exists unless of course I create it.
Despite her fears, Christine pushed through and even if she hasn't been able to fully blast off with Ayahuasca, the insights she has received have been incredible and life changing on their own.
My own experience with fear is that little steps are a great way to break through it in a way that may be more acceptable and less traumatising rather than throwing yourself in the deep end. After all, you have developed a certain resistance because you were not able to deal with the problem. A little bit of gentleness with yourself and time to get familiar with the scary stuff has done wonders for me and I'm sure will do for Christine too. May she blast off to the skies and tell us about it next!
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You can find Christine's YouTube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro_OXQUCwPc
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