Anna's unexpected awakening

So how did I even get here? To this strange place of working with psychedelics, hosting dream workshops, inviting in new ways of relating to each other in community? It's been a strange journey.

In 2016 (almost 10 years ago, to the day I'm writing in 6/29/26), I was going along in my ordinary life. I had finished my PhD and my post-doc, I had written a book, I was married, I had traveled the world as a nomad for a few years. I came up in a heavily science based education. Create a hypothesis, gather evidence, evaluate the outcome. If you can't prove it, it's invalid. Logic rules. Emotions? Problems to be solved. Dreams? Nonsense noise the brain makes up. Done! Easy.

By all outside standards, I had my life together. Inside, like most people, I was anxious at times, pretty depressed at times, and full of all kinds of judgments towards myself and others. And, I say this now with a lot of love, I pretty much thought I knew everything-how I should be, how other people should be, how the world worked. I knew the right way to do things and I was happy to tell everyone about it. Hahaha :) 

That summer of 2016, I happened to be visiting home on the East Coast. A childhood friend invited me to come to her church where she was a pastor and listen to her give the sermon, and we would go out for coffee after. I hadn't set foot in a church in years, being raised Catholic and roundly rejecting the idea of God after my mother got severely ill in 2008 (a story for another time). I love my friend, so I drove along on a Sunday morning through rural New Hampshire back roads, thinking "This was too far to drive, how annoying, maybe I should have said no." So that's how I found myself in an old stone church in a tiny town on a sunny summer morning, totally unaware that my life was about to change dramatically. 

It came time for the part where everyone goes to the front to take communion, which I wasn't about to do. But this church offered another option, to come to the front, kneel, and receive a blessing. Why not? I thought. May as well just be a good sport and participate. So stand up, walk to the front, and kneel down. A woman, a total stranger to me, touches the top of my head gently. Here is where language does absolutely no justice to what I experienced. But I'm a writer so I'll try anyway. In that single moment a number of things happened. I felt totally suffused/engulfed by an ancient golden light. A sense of complete peace, acceptance, and a profound love. I suddenly understood that we are all part of one whole, I am you and you are me, in the deepest sense. It was like a life review in one second, everything I'd been holding--judgment, anger, shame, just...disappeared, released. It was unspeakably beautiful. I started sobbing, like full on ugly crying, in the middle of a group of total strangers.

I had absolutely no idea what to make of any of this. I was still me, so I had my regular old thoughts like "I can't believe I'm crying in the middle of a group of total strangers." But somehow the old patterns were gone, I just went back to my seat and let myself cry. I had absolutely no words to explain anything that the time. I was stunned into wordlessness (impressive experience for me!). Everything I thought I knew and understood was turned upside down and inside out. I had experienced something totally new, far beyond anything I'd ever experienced before. It shifted everything for me. Many patterns that used to be normal for me just dissipated. If on a deep level, we are one, then, why would I judge? Why would I harm anyone else? Why would I try to tell anyone else what to do or think I knew better? It just made no sense. 

My whole life changed rapidly after that. My then husband came home and asked for a divorce, to my total shock. It was so painful, certainly the most painful thing I've ever experienced so far in my life. But at a deep level I really understood that he was me, and I was him, so why would I want to trap myself or keep myself in something that didn't work for us both? So I basically surrendered everything I thought I needed to be safe, all my plans, all of my thoughts about how things should be and said "okay." (He was shocked too, haha, and said with some confusion "...that's not how I thought you'd respond.")

I joke now that I didn't find the present moment gracefully, but rather everything I thought I needed was ripped out of my grasping hands and all I was left with was right here, right now. And to my utter shock, the experience was joyful, vibrant. I understand better now it is the sensation of surrender as liberation.

As I said "okay" and surrendered everything I'd been told I needed, everything I thought was important, and I was left with what's true. Which is my true heart, my breath. I remember at times the pain was so intense I was quite surprised I was still breathing. But I had the thought, well, I'm here now today, so what am I going to do with that right in this moment?

The way I related to my clients in therapy shifted dramatically. I centered in love, in presence, honoring each person in front of me as the total expert on their own lives. The principles in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) were a perfect fit for me. I remember feeling such relief on finding the model, because there was absolutely no way I could go back to being just a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) therapist. ACT talks about values, willingness to experience emotions, contact with the present moment, all of these things I was actually living through experience.

A few years later I read Acid Trip and How to Change Your Mind, and that was the first time I'd seen or heard anyone else talking about what I'd experienced. I remember lighting up, and thinking YES!!! That!! I experienced that!! That set me down a path of exploring psychedelic medicine. I also found a community of people who were interested in and well versed in "non ordinary"experiences and began to wake up to the power of being in community. That started to give me language and words to articulate what I'd been experiencing for a few years, and helped me begin to integrate more and more.

That experience in 2016 was like being airlifted to the top of a mountain, shown a new way of being. Gradually, without support and integration, I drifted back down to the bottom (or maybe the middle) of the mountain, and have been finding my path back up. I reclaimed some old patterns at times (especially fear based ones), but with the wisdom and awareness to understand that there are just patterns. They are in my field, they are mine to heal, and they aren't the truth of who I am.

In 2023 I found the work of Robert Moss, a gifted healer and dreamer, which opened up yet another avenue of learning for me. I've been working with dreams, my own dreams and the dreams of others, since then.

However you found me, I'm so glad you're here. If you'd like to receive an occasionally (less than once a month) email about my latest workshops, books, or podcasts, you can subscribe to my email list below.