In mid-March 2023, I kicked off my journey as a digital nomad. I left New York City where I lived for 13 years, and turned my sails to the wind of letting synchronicity and my heart lead the journey forward.

My first stop was Sintra-Cascais, Portugal (after a short day in Lisbon to see St. Anthony’s church).

Side note: follow me on Instagram to see the inside stories from all of these spiritual sites!

Cascais on the coast, about an hour outside of Lisbon.

I went to take part in and learn how to facilitate plant medicine ceremony therapy.

The amazing soul I learned from, Paul, was a coach who has worked with some of the world’s most notable athletes, executives, and celebrities. He was finishing his PhD in Transpersonal Psychology and a plant medicine therapy program. He traveled to dozens of indigenous tribes all over the world to learn their ancient 30,000 year old techniques for natural healing — from the mountains of Ecuador to learn about psilocybin, ayahuasca, and peyote, the rainforests and planes of Africa to take part in iboga ceremonies.

The experience I had at this retreat was beyond what I could have expected. I didn’t come in expecting anything life changing, but the next few days had a different experience in mind.

The first day was a day full of psychological lectures, workshops, and emotional awareness exercises. These are some of the things we talked about and I took notes on.

• Biogenic (what your genes dispose you to), sociogenic (what traits you take on due to your family, community, culture, or society), and idogenic (what you decide is important to you/personal behavior) traits
• The Default Mode Network (DMN) — the perception that we’re independent from everything else — aka the Ego mind. In plant medicine ceremonies, the DMN goes offline and we feel one with everything
• Learned behaviors to fit in, fear being afraid of itself (to get away from the feeling happening inside), and the filters we experience the world through as our survival/defense mechanisms
• The Ego Avatar comes into existence in response to external situations
• The amygdala (fear response) operates 3x faster than our rational brain (1 billion bits of information per second)
• Bring awareness to how we’re defending the ego
• Our reality is the extent of our senses in this 3D existence
• The human being is (1) DNA coding with (2) an avatar that’s defending itself, and (3) an awareness of both
• We can’t show someone our identity. It only exists in the dimension of thought. As such, it wants to be seen — to exist.
• You can’t want to awaken and awaken simultaneously — the most dangerous thing is to think you’re there
• What we do in the world is to prove or disprove a belief
• Athletes who win tend to have the strongest limiting beliefs — lots of trauma, feeling weak, proving strength
• Limiting beliefs feel good and we choose to swim in the sewer that’s familiar
• We’re not meant to dislike the ego — it turns into conflict. The ego is programmed to defend itself by reinforcing its belief. Instead, we’re meant to disarm it — go in as ignorant — Should I be afraid? What is it? — in the process of disentangling itself, it comes apart
• Our own personal stories of who we have created we are
• The top most transformative/traumatic events of our life
• The risks we feel in giving up our belief systems, and how the mind hides it
• How the meanings we give things fit our beliefs
• The mind loves to suffer
• We make meaning of things that don’t have meaning. If I can have a strong emotion around it, it has meaning and is real
• If you’re present, there’s no ego
• We’re afraid of our feelings
• Awareness has no language. When you say or feel something, that’s the ego
• Neti-neti — neither this nor that
• Our specific limiting beliefs of ourselves
• Where patterns show up in our lives

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The second day was the first plant medicine ceremony with psilocybin mushrooms. After morning movement and some preparatory breathwork and healing exercises, we went into ceremony.

We performed the medicine ceremony with Paul’s learnings from the Ecuadorian tribes, taking cacao as well.

After smudging with sacred herbs, we all lay down on our mats with blindfolds on and Paul put on a channeled and curated music playlist for the journey (he spends 8–10 hours channeling the music!).

This is where my life changed.

In this journey, I entered what I felt was a state of samadhi for four hours. It was an experience unlike any other I’ve had. My breath stopped, my heart stopped for a period of time, and left my body. I became the thought thinking itself.

This is part of my reflection of the experience. I journaled it right after I emerged from that state — all blissed out.

Medicine Journey 1 — Reflection

In this journey, I felt an energy pulling at my heart, starting at what felt like 40–50 minutes in. I felt it to the extent I started using my hands to “pull open” my heart and claw at this energy to release it.

The energy wanted to be released.

I then went into a complete motionless state. No breath. No senses. Nothing.

I fully and completely left my body. I felt myself come out of the body.

I was consciously aware of the body, but I shut off all sensory systems, seemingly at will. The heart, breath, brain, and entire body completely shut off. I went into a motionless stillness. My hands frozen in a mummified position over my heart with my mouth open.

I was a consciousness free to be and experience consciousness.

I could be part of the thought creation of anything.

I could animate any body, live any existence. In any time, planet, body, dimension, or reality.

There was nothing to heal.

It was all just thought.

It was all part of the thought I was and am created of.

The only reason this all exists is because our thoughts bound this by what we created and have been told.

In an instant, it all changes.

Abundance, love, anything.

We’ve become so engrossed and tied to our stories. The stories we’ve all been told and given.

It all starts with listening to the heart — #1. That guides your highest path. But we’ve clouded our ability to listen to it.

It simply needs to be breaking down heart walls/barriers to begin to listen to it again.

I am blessed with having been a conscious awareness with what I know in this time-space.

It all is working out.

All I need to do is BE.

I don’t even need to “do my best” because if I am in alignment with that joyful heart, it pulls me.

There’s no trying. There is just blissful flow. That’s the flow state.

Nothing to be, do, or try.

I am life breathing itself.

I am the breath.

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Part II next….

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Neal Bakshi is an angel medium, certified spiritual life coach, reiki energy healer, breathwork instructor, and best-selling author. He grew up meditating since the age of five and is a former Goldman Sachs investment banking vice president. Neal now guides founders, executives, and professionals across Gen X, Y, and Z to embody and live their dream life through complete energetic shifts on the quantum and superconscious level.

Learn more at www.nealbakshi.com, on Instagram @neal.bakshi, LinkedIn, or via email [email protected].

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