The day after my Ayahuasca ceremony I spent at least few hours browsing Amsterdam stores and looking for quite a specific T-shirt. It actually looked like a pretty hopeless activity: all the T-shirts I could find in the city center were ones with “I love Amsterdam” or simply ones with the symbol of cannabis. And that was not surprising at all! Like, what else would you expect to find in the city which enjoys a heavy traffic of tourism? It’s just… I really wanted to find a different kind of T-Shirt — it needed to have an image of an animal that had a very important role in my experience a day ago. And just when I gave up any hope of discovering something different from typical merchandise, in a small store somewhat further from the street I found it: among these traditional Amsterdam-ish themed T-Shirts I saw one with an image of Lion! Bingo!! It was so unexpected — and improbable — that even now I somewhat wonder whether or not some kind of higher force made this occurrence possible. Perhaps Aya herself, especially when it was her speech that encouraged me to look for this T-Shirt in the first place.
She said to me, during the ceremony: “You always saw yourself as a rat or as a worm. You thought that the purpose of your life is to hide somewhere without disturbing anyone else. You imagined that the best feat you could ever accomplish is to simply stay low, stay down and never lift your head up. But it was never true.
The only reason you felt that way is because throughout your life you were constantly surrounded by people who saw themselves as insignifficant, puny animals, and you felt like you had to become as “low” as they are in order to not hurt or upset anyone.
But you’re not a rat nor a worm. You are a Lion! You were not meant to crawl and hide, you were born to roar and thrive! Your destiny is to become this majestic creature that others will be amazed and inspired by, and to take care of other little aspiring lions that will eventually come your way.
You can and will become this animal. It’s already in you. And yet right now you are a baby lion — you still seek for your “momma”, you search for help, guidance and wisdom but wish to play and have fun in the meantime. And that’s fine, take your time.
Every courageous step that you take — regardless of how small it may be — makes you grow and will eventually lead you to discovering the real Lion. This is where you are headed.”
For a minute or two after her monologue has ended I felt as if I was living this future reality she was referring to: I saw myself bravely dealing with challenges occurring in my life, clearly and regretlessly communicating with people I know, making different choices… I felt strong, lively, fearless. And it wasn’t “alien” to me, quite contrary — it was the most natural feeling I have ever had!
I felt overwhelmingly inspired at that time. But it took me only few hours to face the first challenges of living with this insight. Does my anxiety, my deep ingrained beliefs about myself and others go away just because “I’m a Lion”? Nope. Not really. At a certain point of the following day it even become hardly bearable — my mind was constantly looking for ways in which “I’m not good enough” and “Not being a REAL Lion”. I was nervous, sweaty and, well, let’s say — not very happy! My “Baby Lion Self” thought that he was failing by not being able to reach “adulthood” in one day. Ah, these cute stupid youngsters!
Today before leaving to work I opened my wardrobe in order to choose clothing. I hung up my T-Shirt with lion’s image in a way that I would see it every day. And yet — I very rarely wear it. But today I got slightly irritated by seeing it. “Well, when AM I going to wear it? Is it hanging there for aesthetic purposes only? It’s meant to be worn!”. So I put it on, looked in a mirror, saw this colorful Lion on my chest staring at me.
“I have no idea how to be a grown up Lion” — I said to an image, as if I was talking to this animal. “I’m sorry, if I’m not doing this the right way”. And then Aya’s speech was brought back to me once again. I remembered the “take your time”, “even small steps matter”, “this is where you are headed” and other parts of it.
Am I doing wrong just because the way I see my life is different from the vision I’ve experienced during the ceremony? Am I not good enough just because I still have a lot of toxic patterns in my behavior despite the fact that I’m becoming more conscious about them every day? What about the changes — regarding residency and nutrition — that I did recently? What about the decision I made last week — decision to face my fear of social interactions by visiting a gathering of strangers which turned out to be immensely joyful and mesmerizing? Do these not count as the “little steps” I was meant to be taking? What else do I expect myself to do? To become a f***ing president?!
I’ll not become a Lion just by wearing a T-Shirt with an image of it, by learning how to do a realistic “roar” sound or by learning some new mantra for lion-like confidence. I’ll become a Lion when I finally stop treating myself as a critter. THAT’S the way to go!
