The Second Time

or: the fear itself was the threshold

I had no plans of doing 5MEO again anytime soon.

Yes, I knew I would do it again eventually.

But not thirty-four days later.

And definitely not in Austin after accidentally stealing someone’s coffee creamer twenty-four hours earlier and somehow ending up surrounded by a room full of people I trusted enough to hand my entire nervous system over to.

But there I was.

One voice in my head kept saying:

It’s too soon.
You’re not ready.
Your body cannot handle this again.

Another voice kept whispering:

Look at how this happened.
Look at the timing.
Look at the alignment.

Maybe this is what trust looks like.

Before ceremony, I drew a card.

A woman half underwater. Arms reaching upward, barely above the surface.

I drew myself.

So I walked into the room shaking.

I was the last person to go that day, and by the time I sat down tears were already pouring out of me.

Not graceful tears.

Fear tears.

Full-body fear.

I didn’t want to go back there.

The flashbacks from the first ceremony were already alive inside my body before I even inhaled.

Justin looked at me gently and said:

“Take a lighter hit first. Just see how you feel.”

So I did.

Deep inhale.
Long exhale.
The sound of the torch.
The counting.

Three.
Two.
One.

And immediately—

whoosh.

Back there.

Bright white everywhere.

My body falling backward while their hands guided me down.

And then I saw my children.

All three of them.

And I was gripping them desperately.

Crying. Clinging to them with everything in me. My fists tight. My whole body tense.

Terrified to let go.

I could feel something pulling me toward the light, toward peace, toward surrender—

but all I could think was:

No.
Not them.

I could not loosen my grip.

The fear was overwhelming. Animalistic.

Like every survival instinct in my body had fully taken over.

And when I started coming out of it, my body was rigid.

Every muscle locked tight.
Hands shaking.
Jaw clenched.
Tears pouring down my face.

I curled into myself like a little girl and cried into my knees.

“I can’t do it again,” I kept saying.
“I’m too scared.”

But underneath the fear was this quiet knowing:

this was the moment.

The exact moment people talk about when they say:

go back in.

Not because it’s easy.

Because the fear itself is the threshold.

So eventually I looked at Justin and said:

“I will.”

I closed my eyes again.

Inhale.
Hold it.
Don’t cough.
One more inhale.
Get it all.
Stay.

And then—

I disappeared.

No fear.
No pain.

Just brilliant white light exploding everywhere.

Thousands of memories and moments moving behind my eyes faster than I could catch them.

Forty-one years of laughter and people and ordinary life shooting through me all at once.

Names.
Faces.
Ice cream sandwiches.
Friends.
Childhood.
Tiny moments somehow holding enormous meaning.

It was happening too fast to focus on any one thing.

I wasn’t watching memories.

I was feeling them.

Every ounce of love.
Every ounce of grief.
Every ounce of being alive.

And underneath all of it was this overwhelming realization:

my life has been filled with love.

Not perfect love.
Not painless love.

But love.

I could feel it everywhere.

In my chest.
In the memories.
In the people.
In God.

Then suddenly I saw the silhouette of my children.

My son.
My daughters.
Me.

And I realized something I had never fully admitted out loud before:

I have been gripping onto them like their survival depended entirely on me.

Like if I loosened my hands for even a second, everything would fall apart.

Because for so many years, I was the one holding everything together.

I was the safe place.

But in that moment something softened.

Not because I stopped loving them.

Because I realized maybe I am not carrying them alone.

Maybe God has them too.

And even as I slowly started coming back into my body, I could still feel everything moving behind my eyes.

Words.
Memories.
Laughter.
Thoughts moving faster than I could process.

I knew I wasn’t fully in the medicine anymore.

But I could still feel it moving through me.

Justin asked if I was okay and all I could do was smile through the tears and give him a thumbs up because I still couldn’t fully tell what was happening inside my head versus outside of it.

But for the first time since beginning this entire journey, I understood what people meant when they talked about peace.

Not euphoria.
Not escape.

Peace.

And underneath all of it was the answer to the question I’ve quietly carried for years:

Am I worthy of love?

And suddenly the question itself felt wrong.

As if love was never something I had to earn in the first place.