Drugs, sacred sex and rock-it-all - my journey as an author through the last six months

It was early April and my first time in Peruvian jungle. I came to drink ayahuasca with a Shipibo shaman but I wasn’t emotionally ready to. With the lockdown barely over I’d just been through one of the toughest times in my life, mental health wise. I was ready to shift something. Or was I? I’d had panic attacks on the plane from London to Lima, crying my eyes out, ready to turn back as soon as I landed. But I hadn’t. And then as soon as I arrived in the settlement in the jungle I gave it two days max. I stayed three weeks.

After fourteen days of preparing myself through meditation, grounding, strict dieta and taking all sorts of non psychoactive shamanic medicines, the night finally arrived. I was given the bitter nectar of the Gods, less than half a cup, as a “safe” entry point. During the two or three hour ceremony I felt love, expansion and mostly beautiful sensations in my body. Then I was sent to my bungalow. And it all started. 21 hours of some of the most intense, continuous anxiety I’d ever experienced and, trust me, when it comes to anxiety I’m a pro. I woke up our translator and helper (the shaman himself was long gone). Twice. I told her I wasn’t able to cope and didn’t know what to do. She told me to take a cold shower (as if there was warm available ;) and lie down. “I CANNOT JUST LIE DOWN!”, I shouted back at her, moving my limbs all over the place all the while as continuous movement made it easier to bear with the anxiety.

When I finally came down I was given all sorts of new shamanic medicines to ground. I had no clue what just happened. I was told, repeatedly, to trust the medicine. I don’t think I had it in me to trust anything anymore. And yet I was also somehow resigned, surrendered to the process.

I slowly recovered, kept on meditating, taking ritual ablutions (important in Shipibo spirituality), connecting with the Earth, the fire, the water, the sun. It was pouring down mostly as I arrived at the tail end of the rainy season but when the sun came out the moist heat was intense. It burnt my skin and left marks on my belly for months to come. Big ants who chose to create a highway through my bungalow and relentless mosquitos left stubborn marks all over my arms and legs. And yet inside I was beginning to heal, slowly, almost unnoticeably. There were little moments of bliss, scattered here and there, in meditation or witnessing Nature.

As I was leaving the jungle I had no idea of the meaning or purpose of it all. I took shamanic medicines, sacred stones, rapé, 3kg of cacao, agua florida and practices with me I was committed to continue with. But I would lie if I said I felt solid within or actually reassured. I mostly couldn’t wait to see my husband and my two cats, Whiskey and Bubbles, back in London.

On my return, for a month or so I was in a limbo of sorts. Landing back in urban reality, still taking cold showers, practicing my practices with colognes and candles that I brought. I was confused. I was tired. Over two years of very strong depression were behind me, aided by strong medication prescribed by psychiatrist my husband took me to see as I was too weak and confused to go on my own.

And then, a few weeks in, things started slowly shifting. Opportunities, interesting projects, beautiful humans came into my life and went. Suddenly there was space to receive it all. And more. My main project to do with sacred sexuality, Temples of Eros, gained serious momentum. One of the messages I discerned while in the jungle is that my purpose has much to do with creating sacred, healing spaces, for myself and for others, while I’m in this body and in this lifetime. I’ve been an entrepreneur several times before with my last business turning over £4m and employing 50 people at the time I left. Yet I’ve never felt more aligned with my purpose, and with Higher Powers, than working on Temples of Eros (templesoferos.co.uk). My public speaking gained momentum too, I secured several high profile international engagements in a short space of time, and continued to secure more.

My journey with polyamorous relating and sexuality blossomed. It took me all the way back to when my journey of embodiment started which was in 2011, with a burlesque course. I was now performing as a showgirl, and loving it again. My first book, “Laid Bare: what the business leader learnt from the stripper”, started opening many doors and gaining momentum. It was conceived several years after my very successful TEDx talk under the same title and first draft was produced in a burst of three months of an ecstatic creation. Admittedly, the process of editing and re-editing and making it ready to be finally published was much more painful. And yet, as they say in the startup world, I decided to “fuck it and ship it”, knowing it’s imperfect and yet consciously deciding to birth it, despite all the obstacles.

It seemingly was the right decision. Since it was published in January, so many have given me wonderful feedback around what the book meant to them. What resonates with some is the message around the importance of the so-called tantric marriage of feminine and masculine leadership characteristics in all those who are, in my books, truly powerful leaders and how to achieve it. What astounds others was my previous company’s bleeding edge cultural practices such as self set pay (yes! all on my team at GrantTree had the responsibility to determine their own pay in accordance with a given process at the time I was leaving). Others still feel they have much to learn from my experience and practices I suggest to do with using the wisdom of one’s body in leadership.

Two days ago, on the day of New Moon in Scorpio and a solar eclipse, the string in a bracelet with a piece of ayahuasca vine I’d been wearing since my time in the jungle finally broke. It was getting thinner and thinner over the past few weeks but I decided to let it fall off by itself, when the right time came. When it did, that morning in the shower, I knew it meant the end of a cycle.

As I write this I’m finding myself in a possibly most empowered time in my life. Manifestation wise, I’m running with several projects all at once and following a psychic breakthrough I went through on 16th of September I have a global vision of building a Mystery School I’m consciously working towards, while in surrender of the ultimate outcome. The TED Global talk I plan to give in the next ten years will likely be titled “What the business leader learnt from the tantric priestess” and focus on the power of ritual and spiritual/consciousness expansion practices in commercial entreprises with a global vision. People I’m meant to be meeting, opportunities I’m meant to be seeing are showing up in my life every day. And somehow I’m being granted all the resources that I need at this time to both progress with my vision and my own healing.

Where the next cycle is to take me I’m not at liberty to know. Nor would I want to! What I do know, and feel in a very embodied sense is how my singular life is embedded within the giant light and dark web of Life as a whole. And also, how rich and endlessly stunning existence feels when I continuously choose to throw myself head first into Mystery and align my energies and actions with a higher Flow, to the best of my skill and craft.

And even though, on a cosmic scale, my singular life, the one with a small “l”, doesn’t matter at all, somehow it also matters deeply.

And so, dear reader, does yours.

XXX

Paulina’s adventures as a burlesque showgirl and how it transformed her as a leader in business are described in her debut award nominated book “Laid Bare: what the business leader learnt from the stripper”. It’s available as a paperback and on Kindle, more: paulinatenner.com/the-book