Hello,
I'm Bárbara.
I've come far on my own journey
to remember that it's OK to ask for help,
and to discover that I love offering mine.
Where general aftercare tips and "integration guidelines" end,
I step in.
I'm a psychologist, ceremony guide and artist.
I specialize in psychedelic integration therapy and cultivate a passion for educating participants, facilitators and communities on safety practices in plant medicine work.
I'm specifically trained to guide you to the depths of your unique process, where trauma and dysfunctional personal material can be accessed - innate gifts, skills and talents too :). I help you find your own way to a deeper, richer understanding of plant medicine, your particular experience and yourself.
An ever expanding tapestry, my practice weaves in together 10+ years of training, professional and personal experience in different artistic and therapeutic fields, as well as in shamanic healing practices, with an array of amazing mentors.
The goal of an integration process with me isn't “going back to normal”. This would imply you continuing to feed outdated limiting belief systems, trauma responses, and avoidance mechanisms which keep you stuck in a version of yourself you're outgrowing. In our time together, you'd be consciously taking action on what plant medicine has brought clarity on, to bring your Self and life to the next level.
It can get intense.
But this is precisely what I'm here for: to witness, guide and support you on your journey to master those scary depths. I remain just a little whistle away, holding the other end of your lifeline, a steady light, an oximeter, and extra snacks and water as you go on an expedition into the caves and tunnels of your process.
As Dr. Seuss would say:
Oh the places you'll go!
To which I add:
Oh the treasures you'll find!
FROM SEUSS TO OZ:
MY PERSONAL YELLOW BRICK ROAD
"Courage, dear heart"
(The Cowardly lion of Oz, 1923):
Originally from Asturias, a small Celtic region in Northern Spain, I have lived, studied and worked in several countries across the world, spending a good amount of time in the UK.
You can currently find me in the Sacred Valley, Perú. It was at the feet of these majestic mountains that both my jaw and my nomadic heart-pendulum dropped several years ago. I daily enjoy this ancient, magical land amongst many other plant medicine practitioners, people seeking deep, visionary healing experiences in native traditions, and travelling psychonauts from all over the world.
As you might imagine, I live my days immersed in a pretty rich soup of psychedelic stories, experiences and circumstances in relation to healing with sacred master plants. For a therapist in service of supporting plant medicine integration, this is definitely one of the key places on Earth to be right now. I am so, so grateful to this land for having me.
It took me a while to get here, though.
About 20 years ago, a profound dissatisfaction with life took me to discover non-ordinary states of consciousness with the help of some powerful mycelial teachers. In a bathing suit, sitting on wet sand, and with just a towel and a big rock as a shelter, consensual reality was majestically torn apart before me. In cahoots with the rising tide, psilocybin magick composted my severe depression into the best soil, where a very significant seed was planted.
Like Alice, curiouser and curiouser I kept watering the seed...
Somewhere along the path I met Amazonian and Andean plant medicine. Ayahuasca in particular catapulted me into a whole new understanding of reality, nature, entheogens, and the human experience: a revolution in my understanding of healing.
This sulphuric dream stunk of future.
It also felt like coming home.
I had found my personal yellow brick road.
All allies, wizards, fairies, witches and Munchkins included (and then some),
to help me reset brains, heart and courage.
Master plants have been key in me realizing how blind I was to my cultural conditioning, the good old comfort zones and shackles of belief, the unconscious software running my life (and strategically exploited by those in power to keep abusing us, but we can have a chat about this over a cup of tea some other time).
Andean cosmovision similarly speaks of internal order. In words of Peruvian musician Jorge Choquehuillca: "you don't have many problems, you just have one, inside; you have to bring order to that". Ancient Toltec wisdom acknowledges this imposed blindness, speaking of faith as a currency: in childhood, we buy others' lies about reality with our faith. In the Peruvian Amazon, Shipibo-Konibo people also consider faith one of the cornerstones of healing: you gotta have faith in the plants.
That's how powerful faith is,
hence that's how deep our conditioning goes.
We pass it down generation after generation until someone takes a lucid moment to question it: at what point did all the patterns, beliefs, actions, judgments, shame, fears, disgust; the "right" and the "wrong", become a sine qua non condition to be loved and accepted?
Plant medicine took (and keeps taking) me straight there.
To the root of all that needs to go
for me to be truly free.
Especially with Amazonian master plant diets.
A cosmic 1-up at a time.
Of course, growing comes with growth pains. The journey turned out to also be next level of hard personal work. The hero's ordeal over and over again. Up and down the trauma spiral (and astral ladder) I went for years. But, oh the rewards!
Out of this personal process I began supporting others in plant medicine retreats, as a guide (and a chef!). This meant being part of a team of spaceholders in service of guarding the ceremonial space, contributing to the creation of a powerful, safe container, ready to help you at any time during your plant medicine experience. Throughout this period I also started offering my support as a private integration therapist.
It all unfolded in divine timing into a life style and a path of service, which eventually led me to Perú. Here I continue to grow and support as a psychedelic integration therapist and plant medicine practitioner, in both Western and indigenous contexts. I'm an apprentice in the Shipibo-Konibo ayahuasca tradition, learning and collaborating with well respected Shipibo maestros and lineage carriers from Pucallpa (Peruvian Amazon basin).
I perceive my services as a borderland between both realities: native and Western. I cultivate ways to build a caring bridge between them, at the same time I follow and take your own personal worldview and experience as the baseline for our process together.
Walking with master plants quickly revealed itself as my main path in life, out of which everything else stems.
But I won't lie to you,
this ain't for everyone.
Reach out to see if and how I could help you.
HERE are some relevant
ACADEMIC references:
I hold:
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a degree in Psychology (UNED, Madrid),
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a degree in Acting and Performance (Escuela Cuarta Pared, Madrid),
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an MA in Applied Theatre (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, RCSDD, London) - an artistic pedagogy for educational and community interventions. Leverhulme Trust Award (2018) to co-develop a five-week artistic residency with a community in Northern India. This resulted in sharing an academic communication in the I International Congress on Theatre, Drama and Corporal Expression in Education (Oviedo, Spain, 2018). Read our published academic experience here.
I have trained with:
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ICEERS - International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service (international non-profit):
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training in Psychedelic Integration Specialist with world-reknown psychologist and holotropic breathwork facilitator Marc Aixalà, following the Brief Therapy guidelines of Palo Alto School (CA, US).
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AyaSafety, course in safety in non-traditional, non-indigenous ayahuasca sessions.
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Shadow Work Europe™ (Cotswolds, UK), Basic Facilitator Training (BFT). In this groundbreaking method Jungian archetypes, the use of biographical characters, memories, messages, prompts and general physical release and expression blend together in a safe, guided, structured manner, offering a remarkably powerful trauma-recovery process.
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Sacred Tree (UK), Shadow of The Shaman spaceholding training programme. For three years, I was able to go even further into shadow work and trauma recovery, specifically in a shamanic healing container, blending shadow work with Amazonian healing technologies, and energy work following Barbara Brennan's Healing Science.
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Lomi Lomi (Stay in Touch, UK), ancient Hawaiian healing practice focusing on the regulating power of conscious, loving touch, reaching an expanded state of consciousness through a long, whole-body massage.
Over the years I have been blessed with multiple opportunities to train and collaborate with internationally renowned theatre companies and individuals, as well as healing practitioners, all pioneers in their fields. Most importantly, I have been honored to learn from people's most incredible stories and transformative process, which profoundly inform my therapeutic lens, as well as my general take on life.
It is precisely my core belief in the healing power of stories that has led me to offer Once Upon A Ceremony (Sacred Valley, Perú, 2024), a series of educational workshops to raise community awareness around plant medicine safety, through participatory arts and storytelling.