Kambo Healing - A Reflection
And there I was. The calm before the storm. Sitting before my kambo altar in a beautiful house in the English countryside, awaiting the arrival of the rest of IAKP team and the people who were about to embark on their journey from student to practitioner. I sat in contemplation of my journey with the frog thus far, where I had come from to where I was then, anticipating the next phase of my journey. Today I find myself returning to this contemplation, initiated by a client asking me how I came to work with kambo. In the moment, without any thought or rationalisation I spoke from my heart and told him "It was divine intervention".
A year ago today, I stopped taking antidepressant medication which I had been taking for eight years. This I owe to the healing of kambo.
Suffering from depression for most of my life, with my ups and downs but always finding myself returning to the darkness, I had come to a point in which I felt thoroughly defeated, but I was still holding onto a sliver of faith in myself and my healing. I knew if I were to continue on, I needed to find a new approach, a new "medicine" that would truly resonate with me and allow me to work with it, as it worked with me. I put it out to the universe, and not long later, the frog answered my call. I came to kambo in the midst of a healing crisis, feeling raw, heartbroken and vulnerable, but open to the possibility that somehow, this frog secretion had a gift for me, that somehow the signs I received from the universe that were pointing me in kambo's direction were right on the money. I heard the call, I was scared of the call, but I answered the call.
Soon afterwards I found myself sitting through my first kambo session, feeling the medicine coursing through my body, going where it needed to go, knowing that it had heard my intentions and was working on them, delving through layers of trauma, clearing them and lighting the path for me to delve deeper into the self-work that was now laid before me.
People often ask me, "How did it feel? Do you think it helped your depression?", and to answer those questions now - It felt as if it was rewiring my brain, and no I don't think it helped, I know it helped. Everyone's experience with this Amazonian medicine is different, but for me it gave me exactly what I needed, lifting my life-long depression and initiating a new phase in my healing journey. And from there, the real work began, but I now work with the support of my allies - kambo and myself.
As time goes on it becomes clearer to me that this little frog had a big plan for me all along, part of which involves my work as a kambo practitioner. I am forever humbled to be on this path, sharing the medicine that changed my life in ways that are simply indescribable. Witnessing my own healing journey is a gift in itself, but witnessing the healing journeys of my clients is nothing short of magic.
I share this story with you so you may get to know me and my journey a little more, kambo a little more, and if you decide to work with the frog , you may just get to know yourself a little more as well.
Viva Kambo!