I had been disconnected for ten days without writing, without reading, without checking or posting anything on social networks. On Monday, April 29th, we left for Afrika Burn, the third consecutive life experience for me. I have broken all my routines, I have forgotten what it is to be self-disciplined, I have avoided any demand, I have fled commitments. Let me tell you that I have accepted whatever happened as the most appropriate way. I have also gone to meet the surrender, and I searched the depth of my being as much as I could. It was a journey about how to heal myself.
Moment of breathing
I’m somewhat disoriented. I could even say that I am lost inside myself. I have found so much, and so deep that I am still digesting what happened. What I can conclude is that how to heal depends on you.
It was so much that I couldn’t be able to write until some days later, on Monday. Date when I had planned to return to normality, to my work and life. Instead, I decided to pause, breath. Look sideways, backward, and primarily inward, but to look. There was no writing, no reading, no receiving inputs. No asking for feedback, not surrounding myself with people, not doing things in a group. Instead, I started a 7-day trip, alone, on the Garden Route (west coast of South Africa).
How to heal yourself
I started on Tuesday the 7th of May, without a fixed course, without maps, without barriers. And without rules, without control, and obligation. I slept over in Mosselbaai, the place where the Point of Origin is located. Something helped me go to that place, but on my own. Now, I am here writing, between George and Wilderness, trying to explain to you how I feel, what I have learned. And what I have discovered, and what the next steps are going to be. All after another tremendously powerful life experience in the Tankwa Karoo desert, 335 kilometers from Cape Town.
Today I look back, not only on what I experienced in Afrika Burn, but on what happened on the previous two occasions, and what I experienced before in the last years. Mainly because I need to do it to understand where I have arrived on this “journey,” (“trip” will sound tricky, isn’t it?). It was like last year, I experienced one of the most beautiful transformational experiences I can remember. But this year I have lived, which I now begin to feel is the most healing life-changing experience I have ever remembered. A little context before.
Everything has a price
Again, just like last year, I felt like I was searching for something, myself, of course. Something was not quite right inside me; I’ve been misaligned for a few months. I do not remember so many life experiences within this almost half year that I have lived. The trip around the world, several shocking experiments, extreme social challenges. Embracing a stoic life, the second vipassana. Meaningful spiritual, emotional, and mental experiences. Or going even more in-depth with the holistic high-performance and the tireless and endless search for self-knowledge and self-control. It’s, and what I leave, is not easy to handle, at all.
Everything has a price, more awareness, more perception of reality, more reality. More nuances to more nuances, more readings, then more thoughts, more thoughts, more pain and pleasures, more sensations, more stimuli, more reactions, more duality.
Do you want magic? Gather the right people
This year, another year in this transformational experience, with the Ubhulanti tribe, surrounded by fascinating people. More, if possible, than the previous year. Pure magic, Gong baths by Johnny, transcendental meditations by Eric, music sessions by an infinity of great artists, Andrés, Álex, Julien and Thomas, Johnny, Joep, Veronika, Ruud, JPV, and many more super talented musicians. A session of talks with 10 thoughtful and inspiring stories of 10 change agents. Collaboration, help, fraternization, empathy, authenticity, assertiveness, love, trust, acceptance (to oneself and others) and a lot of surrendering, from almost everyone. All accompanied by a top-quality vegan meal by Peace of Eden (where I was staying for two days).
All this accompanied by a lot of Spanish people, something of which, I have enjoyed it very much. On the one hand, Tucho, Javi, Valentino, Carlos, Juan, Álvaro, Cristóbal, and a group of genuine people from Madrid who came together as a team. Then some bad-ass people like the people of La Despensa, Javier and the rest of them, and the legendary José Pascual. Also, Doug, Kevin, Lionel, and Rad, George, Kyle, some of my favorites, some of my good friends were in other camps, people like Alexis, Lennert, Mikhail, Jo, Thiago, Willy, Rag… If it’s true that the dose makes the poison, here putting all of them together, then made the poison an explosive cocktail.
Then, people like my bro Fosta, Siphie, Trenton, Bianca, Tania, world-class Amie, the remarkable Milan, and also others from the Langa townships and Bridges for Music team. And of course people from every part of the world that I got to meet there. All have contributed to what for most of the immense majority (even for the old burners) has been a deep transforming coexistence; you only have to listen to the testimony of each one of them in the last few days. People are the only ones capable of turning an event into something unforgettable and exhilarating.
How to heal oneself is the hideen question we all ask ourselves, right?
An incredible life-changing experience on how to heal yourself
This year has been incredible in all the meaning of the word. I never remember an event like this where I had partied so much and got out of control (many times), I could even use the term, “hurricane” or “tsunami” – whatever. It has been like a way to unload all the tension, aggressiveness, anger, insecurity, fury, uncertainty, and frustrations that I had inside, heck yeah. I’m not sorry for even one of those minutes. It had to happen the way it happened. I’m satisfied, I accept it radically. I have been able to realize many of my behaviors in this state. Some by myself, before, during, and after, and others by the great feedback I get from people who love me, respect me and appreciate me.
Incredible because I was able to reach a place where I never thought I could reach (with the help of psilocybin). I never imagined that I could have so much pain, grief, bitterness, affliction, lack of love, and torment inside me. The most incredible thing is that they weren’t present during the 36 years that I have lived. I could feel it. All the unworthiness, those big and deep limiting beliefs, that feeling of not feeling loved, of not being enough, they came from before being conceived.
Now I know exactly where they come from, so much so that felt I was there, conscious and living those moments. The rest is something that I will not share with anyone other than myself. I never remember crying for so long, so melancholy, so depressed, so surrendered to experience. Accepting, perhaps, the bitterest thing I’ve ever tasted, after Gilberto’s death.
It is something unfair and unknown against what I had been fighting all my life until I was able to discover it and feel it in my flesh. A moment of understanding, empathy, acceptance, and letting go. I could live, understand, and now accept, something that was rooted in my gut and I was limiting myself without knowing how or why – only that way, I could get it out of me, and perhaps I will help me understand how to heal those wounds.
The best friend – and the worse enemy
Anyway, there I was, lying in my tent, without moving, absolutely committed to something beyond the rational. It all started when I started walking through the desert, lost, aimless, confused. Just as I have felt lately. It was night, I was freezing and I just wanted to reach the camp for a blanket to throw over me, which was difficult as I was so perplexed, so I was lost for much longer. After a few hours, I finally arrived, I entered the tent, I felt discomfort, and then I decided to resort to this playlist, the rest was the most painful emotional experience of my existence.
I could only leave to go to the bathroom, when at a given moment, I was so exhausted, that I debated wetting myself, fortunately, my survival instinct took over, lifted me and I was able to go. And I remember walking as if I were in another world. I could not talk or think or react. Also, I went back to the tent, and I was still more in depth.
I was able to understand why the two things I fought the most in 2017, 2018 and 2019, asking for help and asking for love, as well as knowing how to receive and accept it. What a liberation, what an incredible moment. Everything made sense; I saw the superhuman effort that I had to do to not go through there. That has been creating a void in me – remember, everything has a price. I have been pushing everything away and becoming 100% against the current. Developing a mentality, attitude, and unstoppable push against beliefs, pain, incomprehension. And against love, from others, and therefore, my own – although I thought that the latter was not like that.
Finally I “had” to ask for help from Valentino, who once again was there. What gave birth to perhaps the most magical moment of love, affection, understanding, sincerity, transparency, and openness I remember sharing with someone. How to heal yourself also starts here.
Note – This necessary healing experience was also made possible by a minimal dose of psilocybin. (Here is an experiment I did under medical supervision a few months ago).
In the end, it’s simple, but not easy
The learning and conclusion about how to heal yourself and more; at that moment and after having spent a few days to reflect, are four letters: love. Given and received, without asking and asking for it, more intense or less intense, with oneself first and the rest later. I am not speaking of love between two people who love each other, that could also enter the equation, but a universal love, which we should feel at all times and throughout the world.
One more thing, most people will tell you that opening Pandora’s box is dangerous, but I will tell you that not opening it is even more perilous.
Go where you may not come back from — and have an exciting trip.
One question for you, are you willing to know how to heal yourself?