Feb 17

I’ve done some wild shit in my life.
But preparing for ayahuasca might be the most intense thing yet.

And I haven’t even left the country.

I’ve shipped myself across borders to pursue my dream of becoming a doctor.
I’ve started two businesses from scratch while saving lives in the ED.
I’ve coached other doctors through burnout, identity shifts, and career pivots while navigating my own.
I left behind Christianity after 40 years to practice an African traditional religion.

So yeah. I’ve done some shit.

But preparing to sit still — to let a plant medicine meet me in the middle of the Amazon — feels like a completely different level of work.

This Isn’t About the Ceremony. It’s About the Preparation.

In a few days, I’ll be deep in the Amazon to sit with ayahuasca.

And no — I’m not naive.
I don’t think Mama Aya is some magical cure-all.

What a lot of people don’t talk about is the preparation process that starts before you ever encounter the medicine.
It’s called la dieta.

La dieta is how you meet the medicine.
And how you meet yourself.

It’s physical.
Emotional.
Spiritual.

It’s not flashy.
It’s not aesthetic.
And honestly? Some days it’s uncomfortable as hell.

What La Dieta Is Asking of Me

Right now, preparation looks like this:

Cutting out processed foods, alcohol, sugar — and soon, dairy.

Reconnecting with my body in quiet, unglamorous ways.
Stretching.
Doing yoga in bed.
Sneaking off to the call room to meditate between patients.

Journaling more.
Scrolling less.

Choosing silence instead of constantly chasing dopamine.

Some days?
I hate it.

Because this isn’t just a detox of food.
It’s a detox of the things I use to numb myself.

Sugar.
Screens.
Busyness.
Achievement.

I thought I knew what discipline felt like.

Turns out, preparing to surrender is a whole different assignment.

When Control Starts to Slip

Here’s the part I didn’t expect.

Preparing to allow whatever needs to come up…
To come up?

That’s when the control freak inside of me started spiraling.

I’m realizing how deeply I’ve been conditioned to believe that I need to do something to be worthy of healing.
To perform.
To achieve.
To prove.

This preparation is asking me to unlearn that.

To meet Mama Aya not as someone who has it all together —
But as an open, imperfect vessel.

And clearing out a lot of internal junk so I actually can.

This Is the Part Most of Us Avoid

We know how to prepare for launches.
For presentations.
For exams.
For procedures.

All things meant to prove ourselves to other people.

But when do we actually prepare to meet ourselves?

When do we slow down enough to hear what our body, our spirit, our nervous system has been trying to say for years?

Stillness Is a Strategy

When you take yourself seriously enough to pause —
To detox your body, your mind, your spirit, your nervous system —
You create space for the best version of yourself to emerge.

Stillness is a strategy.
So is purging.

Not just of food.
But of patterns.
Beliefs.
Noise.

So let me ask you this:

What’s one thing you could let go of this week to hear yourself more clearly?