Remember why you’re here

I find myself in a room that’s used as an alternative healing / event space, which is scattered with mismatched cushions. I’m sitting on the floor with my back up against the brick wall.

A friend of mine is all up in my face with a sage stick. He probably thinks he’s doing me a solid by wafting the thick pungent smoke right into my face. Inside my head I’m yelling ‘fuck off Andy’, but don’t have the guts to say it out loud.

“There’s a block” announced Meg, the facilitator.

‘Are you sure?’ I respond back, again to myself, inside my own head.

It was only moments ago that I started and finished purging, after Meg had placed the Kambo poison on the 5 fresh dot marks, which she’d carefully singed on the inside of my right ankle. In reality, the vomiting hadn’t lasted long, but while it did, it was intense.

The vomiting has stopped. I must be done now, right? Meg doesn’t seem to agree.

My friend’s saging efforts clearly aren’t doing the job, so Meg grabs her rapé pipe.

It takes me a moment to catch on, but once I do, I suddenly regress back to behaving like a 6 year old girl and start throwing a tantrum.

“No, no, no. Please no!” I beg and weep, this time out loud, while shaking my head.

I know what that is. I’ve done rapé before and I did NOT sign up for that today. Man, haven’t I vomited enough already?

Meg loads her pipe with the tobacco snuff, as I continue to cry. Then she locks her eyes with mine and says “remember why you’re here.”

Within an instant, I stop my sobbing, lift my head and sit up straight. I remember my intention: I’m here to heal my suffering. I take a deep breath out as I surrender. Meg places the pipe up to my right nostril and pffffffff.

Remember why you’re here.

Hearing those powerful words in that moment when I wanted to quit reconnected me with my why, my intention and my reason for being in that ceremony. Hearing those powerful words is what ended my suffering and got me through when I wanted to give in that day. Those words have continued to bring me comfort over the years, and still do, right up to this very day.

I used these words to get me through my second Kambo ceremony (yes I did it again).

I used these words to get me through 10 days of silence at Vipassana.

I also use these words when I feel hopeless and overwhelmed by the current state of the world.

And I come back to these words when I feel like quitting my business (which is often).

It’s our connection to our bigger purpose and our ‘why’ that gets us through the tough times. It’s what pulls us through the portal of own pain. It’s what convinces us to keep going, instead of giving up.

So, I share this mantra with you too, just in case you need a reminder,

Remember your ‘why’.

Remember your purpose.

Remember why you came here.

Remember your bigger reason.

Remember your reason for starting.

Remember why you’re here.