This past week marked exactly one year since I went off to Peru to do ayahuasca. I did a lot of reflecting on everything that’s happened since then as I feel like my life is completely different now. I remember feeling very anxious before I left, not knowing what was waiting for me on the other side. I had no idea just how life-changing it was about to be. A whole year later, I still believe that this was the most important and transformative experience I’ve had in my life so far. 

I won’t discuss the experience itself, as you can read about that here. Instead, I’m going to talk about everything that contributed to making the year since that experience the most challenging, yet fulfilling year of my life.

When I came back, my life felt like it was falling apart, and to an extent, it was. The integration work I was about to undertake – work that I’m still doing now – wasn’t going to be easy, and I knew that from the get-go. There were so many aspects of my life I knew no longer served me: my job, where I lived, my daily habits, and my internal thought processes, just to name a few. The problem was that while ayahuasca showed me the things that no longer served me, it didn’t show me where I needed to go, it only told me to trust the universe and trust my intuition, and if I did that everything will work out. Not the easiest thing for someone like me who was a bit of a control freak. 

TripSitting existed just as a blog before I left for Peru, and I started the podcast pretty shortly after I got back to the States. I had no idea what I was doing or how to start a podcast, but I felt more confident in the fact that I didn’t have to and I would just learn as I went. I’m almost at 50 episodes now, which is wild to think of because I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. TripSitting also has over 1,000 followers on Instagram now too. I’m not a huge fan of looking at stats like that because I don’t really have any control over it and it often still doesn’t mean much, but it’s still a big accomplishment for me and I don’t want to minimize that either. 

I visited my friend and current roommate in Denver about a month after my experience, and I told him that Denver was a place I would consider moving to, even though that was my first time ever visiting. It just so happened that our leases ended at around the same time and he needed a new roommate. This was a sign I couldn’t ignore, and on a whim I decided I was going to move there when my lease ended about 4 months later.

I wasn’t happy at my job, but it paid me pretty well so I wasn’t going to just leave either. I worked for a very small tech startup, and this was during the time tech layoffs were happening just about everywhere, and I was part of them too. On November 1st, I was laid off, and not a single part of me was mad about it because I could tell right away that this was going to be better for me in the long run. It gave me an opportunity to finally do whatever the fuck I wanted without having to worry about trading my time for money. I knew that I needed to use this time to continue my integration work and allow the layers of myself and the life I had built to continue to fall apart in order for it to come back together in a way that served me.

I had the idea for my side business, Conscious Retreats, during a therapy session towards the end of November or beginning of December, and through building that out, I met some incredible people to refer clients who are interested in working with plant medicine – and I also met my friend Daniel, who would later ask me to join his team at Posada Natura to help them with their sales process. I started that job about a month ago, and I’m still feeling it out and learning, but I have a very optimistic outlook on how I’m going to develop in this new role. 

I officially moved to Denver toward the end of February. My current girlfriend, who I didn’t know at the time, moved to Denver exactly one week after me. We had mutual friends because we went to the same college, so we started hanging around each other, and things naturally progressed from there. This is the first long-term relationship I’ve ever been in, and relationships were always something I struggled with before ayahuasca. We’ve only officially been dating or a month or so now, but I’m excited to see how we’ll both continue to grow as individuals and in our relationship. 

I currently work at a restaurant to help pay my bills, which is my first time working in the food service industry, and it’s been a fun experience. I write for another newsletter called Shroomtown. I’ve also made some incredible friends in the past year who I love and cherish so deeply. Had it not been for my experience with ayahuasca, I’m not sure I would’ve been as comfortable with putting myself out there in the way that I have, and all of these changes wouldn’t have happened as quickly as they did. 

While it may sound like all of this came pretty easily, I do want to stress how difficult making some of these changes was. They didn’t just come without any pain or tears or stress. There was more of that than I think I’ve ever endured over the course of a year too – but there was also so much more love and joy and pure being than I’ve ever experienced as well. 

It’s been a year full of ups and downs. I still have no idea where I’m headed, but I’m just happy to be right here, right now – which is all we ever truly have. 

I sincerely appreciate each and every one of you more than I have words for, but I just wanted to thank you for following me along on this journey. Whether you’ve been here since the beginning, or you’re just joining, you’re amazing and perfect and I love you.