Whether you decide to take ibogaine for depression, PTSD, or addiction, you are opening a window of opportunity for radical change in your life. Once ingested, ibogaine is converted by the liver into nor-ibogaine, a fat soluble metabolite, which is stored in the fat cells and can stay in the system for up to 30 days or longer. What you do or do not do during this roughly 30-day window has a profound effect on your rate of recovery and can make the difference in your sobriety. After the treatment, the real work starts. A lack of discipline and structure has kept you in a routine that focused on using. If you quickly address your unresolved issues (start cleaning up the wreckage of the past) you will start to find a new freedom. When you experience emotional responses and triggers, apply mindfulness techniques and use your support group. Because much of your behaviors are unconscious or subconscious, these habits need to be observed. The ibogaine resets your neural pathways back to baseline –back to your pre-addicted brain. That means you’re working with a blank slate. You have time now to create new neural pathways. It’s crucial to have tools to take back with you to your life, techniques you can use to to retrain your brain. A meditation practice is an essential building block for new thought patterns. In your pre-ibogaine brain, your default thought pattern was stress, anxiety, needing a fix. Now that’s gone. What you want to do in this 30-day window is create a new default for your brain — quiet. Calm. Expansiveness. A daily meditation practice will teach your brain to default to a peaceful state. No racing thoughts, no anxiety. Throughout the day, every time you catch yourself going down an old rabbit hole in your brain, stop, breathe, and try to enter a meditative state. Or fill your brain with good, healthy thoughts. Repeat “I love you, I love you, I love you,” over and over again even if you feel silly. It’s no sillier than the terrible thoughts you’ve been having about yourself for years. You need to replace those with positive thoughts. Say them even if you don’t mean them. Soon, you will. Meditation also allows you to observe your thoughts. By observing your thoughts you will start to notice how you react to triggers, and the more you start to observe your thoughts, the less unconscious they will be. When the thoughts move from your unconscious to your conscious mind, you have the ability to change them. Many believe addiction has to do with core traumas and/or spiritual maladies. Ibogaine often gives you a review of your life which allows us to recontextualize your past and move more freely into the present moment. It is important that you continue to investigate your experiences and how you react emotionally to them. Emotional maturity will come in time as you face demons and adopt new beliefs rooted in personal responsibility not victim consciousness. What we know is that continued care is critical to maximizing your ibogaine experience. If it is addiction you are trying to address more often than not it is suggested you go somewhere other than the environment comfortably suited to support your addiction. Somewhere safe, other than home, might be the best choice you could make. Physical exercise, spiritual practice, meditation, proper diet and adequate sleep will insure you have a speedy recovery. The Anzelmo Wellness Center is an integrated clinic dedicated to healing severe addiction, deep trauma, and other challenges that life hands us. Our treatment philosophy combines the best of Western treatment modalities with ancient healing techniques and traditional indigenous wisdom.
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