I wanted to kick this inaugural “The Time I” Substack off with the way I started 2022. Each year I usher in the new year choosing one word to anchor the ways in which I want to grow and expand.
January 1st, 2022 I chose the word Up Level, which I realize is not actually a real word. I had been working in the startup tech world and heard it used many times referring to up-leveling systems, products, marketing strategies etc. I thought why not up level me? So I chose the tech bro word and stared the year. It felt right. It felt courageous. I wanted to level up every aspect of my life—my health, my connection to source, my relationship with money, my career.
So boom, up level. I made my yearly vision board on Pinterest, wrote in my journal and stepped into the year. Three weeks later I find myself at the top of a mountain on a hike with my friend George. I say out loud to him, I want to do Ayahuasca this year. In LA. With all women.
It seems like it came out of absolute nowhere as it was something I never really wanted to do but that whole week I had been dreaming about her…Mother Ayahuasca. She’d slink slowly into my dreams. It was seductive and terrifying and yet somehow familiar. I had been around Ayahuasca in many circumstances over the years. Be it ceremonies in the jungles of Central America where I happened to be staying, or beloved teachers that had taken the plunge many times, or friends relaying their stories to me. It just never felt right. I never felt the call.
Not only did I not feel the call, I used to mock it a little. I would roll my eyes when someone would say, “Mother Aya told me this…” I felt like I was better than everyone else because I was doing the “real” work of therapy, yoga, meditation, and Breathwork. I wasn’t interested in some shortcut. I thought I was doing the noble thing by only choosing these modalities and not taking the so-called easy way out.
But lo and behold, there she was in my dreams each night. I couldn’t shake her. After a week with her nightly visits, I woke up that morning of the hike and said, well this is surely a sign.
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