by Jenita Richards
Flor Bollini is the founder of NANA heals, and on a mission to help people heal themselves. A trained Iyanifa and student of Ayurveda, Shamanism, and Africanism: her third ibogaine journey stands out from the others and came to her through a series of signs.
The first sign was running into an old friend she felt look totally anew. The reason? Her friend had just come from doing a session at the Beond center. Bollini’s interest was peaked, but she didn’t explore further. The following week she met a man who wanted to go to Beond to have an ibogaine experience, and invited her to come with. She declined this invitation, but took note of this second appearance. She then went to a conference in New York and the first person who approached her was Talia, founder of Beond.
Bollini could no longer ignore the signs, she felt it was what she needed.
“The wildest and sweetest ride of my life was about to start.”
As someone who has had hundreds of psychedelic experiences before, she went in with clear intentions: self understanding. Bollini asked for a 1 gram dose of ibogaine, a higher dose than typically given. This was the highest the doctor would feel comfortable giving her. She was determined to explore her light, she wanted to surrender and get out of her own way.
She had trouble understanding how people perceived her and accepting and owning this bright light inside of her. A constant limitation for her was not knowing who she truly is. This was a blind spot in living her life. After years of therapy and professional help, she was still combatting the conditioning she grew up with and could not step into alignment with herself.
She knew this experience would be different because the environment at Beond was different. It was a high level of care she had never seen before. With a friend by her side, the staff told them that at the signal of buzzing in the ear, there would be only a short time until take off. She attributes this level of care along with her own self preparation to what led to her having visuals for the first time in her psychedelic journey with ibogaine.
Where others have associated fear and apprehension before and during the ibogaine trip, Bollini felt the opposite. It was all beauty and glory and sweetness for her. She likens it to a virtual reality inside her head by the divine, revealing her own divinity.
“I had to be confronted with the reality of who I am.”
She was approached by a celestial goddess in her visions, and she began to speak. The goddess wanted to prepare her for what she was about to be shown: herself. Even in her heightened state, Bollini wanted to deny this beautiful priestess appearing before her as a message for how she was perceived by others. She could not believe her light. The discomfort she felt in her body had to be addressed so she could accept who she truly is. The dark side of her ego did not want her to see her light. She was more afraid of her light than her darkness.
Accepting this part of her led to further discoveries of accepting her femininity. She had used her masculine energy to navigate politics, business and the world; thus pushing her feminine side down. This ibogaine experience urged her to step more into her femininity and encouraged her to find the balance and beauty of how they both live inside of her.
These psychedelic experiences help her to catch up and actualize herself. She finds it so necessary that it’s gone from hobby to passion to career. There’s nothing more important she thinks she could do. Being able to surrender to the truth that it shocks you with is so crucial.
After this ibogaine trip, where she met the highest of the highs, she went home to the lowest of the lows. Although you change in this intense medicine experience, you go back to your same environment and it’s difficult to re-enter the world. Thankfully, Bollini saw this as a test by the divine and she was in the strongest place she’d ever been to take that punch. So she was able to rebuild. She learned exactly what she was supposed to.
“Be an active agent of your own transformation.”