Rebirth

If in our childhood we experience an unwanted, painful situation where we get the message that being or feeling something we naturally feel is not OK, we create another part in our psyche — what in psychology is called a protector part — which embodies the qualities necessary for survival in that environment. Those protector parts are often called demons or things that sabotage us and prevent us from doing the things we want. But as we know, self-sabotage doesn’t exist, because parts of our psyche, which are parts of our ego, are essentially parts of ourselves that were developed for the sake of survival.

So if you are keeping yourself from something, “sabotaging” yourself, or not doing something you want, it only means that there is a part of you that thinks doing that thing is more unsafe than not doing it.

For me example, if a child in her early years had a traumatic experience where she felt powerless, alone, and scared, in order to survive in the worldview created by that experience, she has to develop a protector part — one that protects her with powerlessness and fear, by keeping her small. And if on top of trauma there was a mother who also experienced a lot of powerlessness, and every time her daughter felt a sense of power in her relationship with the mother, the mother got triggered and caused her pain through rejection, then it intensifies the psyche’s attachment to powerlessness, fear, and being small. Because our survival depends on our connections.

So why am I saying all of this?

A month ago, for my birthday, I had a 5-MeO-DMT ceremony. My intention was to surrender and to feel fear. After the ceremony, I had a whole month of feeling very weak, very scared, and very sensitive. I felt like all my pain, all my fears, and all my inability to push forward in life any longer came up — not only mentally but also physically — making me very tired.

And then I understood that I am actually integrating my protector part. The medicine completely dissolved the outer layer I created to stay alive — the layer that learned how to push through, how to override her insecurities, how to be a go-getter, and how to not slow down, because slowing down for me has always meant feeling a lot of fear.

So now that this outer layer has dissolved, the only way my psyche learned to survive is by protecting me from pain through being powerless, afraid, and weak. So it’s not that I am feeling weak a month after the ceremony — it’s that my protector is making me weak. Because now I am not only aware of her mentally; I am also feeling the effect of that mental scenario in my physical body.

What I understand is that I am now really stepping into the position of reparenting my inner child — I feel her fear, I feel the fear of the protector part. It’s like this little scared child that says, “If I show myself, I will be rejected. If I express my power, I will be punished or hurt.”

So I am reparenting my protector part and teaching her to be safe, because now she doesn’t need to protect me. She can become a part of me that is very sensitive to danger or to people who are not honest. But she doesn’t have to protect me from life altogether.

And a sense of deep gratitude is felt in my body — gratitude for finally realizing that I can learn how to take care of myself, I can be gentle with myself, I can feel what I feel and teach myself to move through life, and show myself that life is not as dangerous as it used to be.

It’s like I’m reparenting my internal safety.

I am becoming my own mother and also my own father.

It’s like the medicine dissolved these structures of illusion, and now I am really understanding how much softness, slowness, and intention behind every action I need. So yeah, I am very grateful for this medicine that allowed me to embody softness and power at the same time.