Remembering My Memories

My first night of using Ayahuasca was an incredibly transformative experience. At its conclusion, I sat with the shaman — who was in fact a beautiful psychologist with the voice of an angel—and posed her a curiosity: why do I lack the ability to recall my memories?

I have an excellent memory for numbers and academics. However, when Keith Ferrazi asked our group of business leaders “what is your most delightful memory as a child”, I could not extract a single one. The truth is that I could not recall even a few months back with clarity, let alone years. Events in my life were like skipping stones on the river of time: I could only hop from one to another with little or no connection in between, and as I proceeded downstream towards my past, the stones were fewer and further between.

My shaman gave me a simple, sage response to my query: “Ask Ayahuasca.” And so, the next day on February 23rd, my 36th birthday, I drank the dark liquor with a singular intention: remember my memories.

As time began to slow and I felt the familiar feeling of the Universe opening, I peered deeply into the depths of my mind. My consciousness opened like a flower, revealing to me—no, replaying for me—the memories that I missed. What a delight! I began by experiencing traveling to Europe with Chuchu, a memory from a year ago. We walked the streets of Paris together bundled in furs. I remembered being in St. Mark’s Square in Venice with my mother the year before, watching the pigeons leap as a child ran through their flock. I remembered Audrey, my partner for more than 4 years, and taking Tofu (my dog) home from the shelter for the first day. I cried tears from the memories that unfolded before me… times that I had forgotten but now I re-lived in vivid detail.

I pushed backwards through time, finding stones I could hop to that were uncovering before me. I re-lived learning to code in Chris Lyman’s West Hollywood mansion while we passionately pursued a dream eight years ago. I put on a suit in my Downtown LA loft and walked a few paces to the trading desks where I would stare at investment charts I was 25. I walked to Calculus classes with the ocean breeze behind my back in UC San Diego. I raised my hand to debate classmates on literature in high school on a book I never read.

Middle school, elementary school, playing Star Wars computer games with a joystick, growing up on Andy Street in Cerritos, Christmas with Marty… I treaded backwards until I was a baby and enveloped in darkness. I felt warm and nurtured. I was under a blanket with a toddler’s eyes just as I was under a blanket on a yoga mat in present time. And then, strangely, awkwardly, I felt something foreign: I felt horny. I thought, “this is weird,” as I was momentarily withdrawn from my memory reel. “Why would I feel this way?” I sat back into the seat of consciousness and surrendered to the memory. I felt a man’s fingers touch my penis. Then, my world turned upside down. I understood.

I was sexually molested as a baby by my mother’s brief boyfriend, Gary.

He used his fingers to gently fondle me under the bedsheets before sleeping. As a baby, I felt weird. Later, as a child who’s sexuality sprung too early, I felt shame and guilt and alone. I felt wrong. I woke up briefly to say “Holy shit!” with the revelation: I repressed my memories — all of them — to escape this trauma. I laid back down and dove back into my psychadelic trance to analyze the reverberations of the trauma throughout my life.

I started to push forward through time from when I was a toddler. I recalled making childhood friends with my neighbor, Jason, hiding in his room at night and playing with each other’s genitals. I must have confused and traumatized my best friend with my unconscious behavior. I discovered masturbation and porn far earlier than my peers. I was a bully as a kid. I verbally shamed and physically hurt others, mocking them for being “gay”, projecting the fears of my own repressed homosexual thoughts. I remembered signing into AOL chat rooms to pretend to be a teenage girl when I was ten, having internet sex with teenage boys while imagining having sex with the girl I was pretending to be. It was a strange perversion of the knotted confusion that laid deep within me, an invisible force that I did not have the power to see.

With my intellect and consciousness at my disposal now, I could unravel the complex web of repercussions that originated from this original sexual trauma. I have always been ashamed of my body, not thinking I was good enough or “big” enough. Physically, I fought the reality that men could appear beautiful to me. Romantically, sex has always been a substantial part of my expression and receipt of love. When I would lack it, I would lack self-love.

More importantly, I felt my memories return to me. I cried tears of joy proclaiming, “I’m cured, I’m cured” to the small pillow on my yoga mat. Indeed, I would later describe the feeling to Chuchu:

I feel as if I’ve been cured of Alzheimers.

I felt the onset of all the memories — with their requisite love, fears, joys, and pains — rush back all at once.

As I replayed my memories forward, I saw how their prior absence led me to “forget” the immense amount of love, joy, contentment, and creativity that I experienced as a child. I forgot the unbridled pleasure of reading. I forgot the exuberance of writing. I forgot the embrace of my mother. I forgot the beautiful memories I created with Audrey.

I saw that the forgetting created a void — a black hole by which all my ability to build upon the past was sucked in and emptied. I could not experience love to my maximum capacity because I would so quickly forget the love I felt before. I could not give my mother unconditional love because I forgot the feeling of receiving it. I could not see a business venture to its completion because I would lose the passion of it.

But now, I had my memories back. And they were brilliant! They were so vivid that I could almost count the Autumn leaves on the ground in my high school corridors. I was freed from the prison of forgetfulness. When I opened my eyes and saw my shaman before me, I told her about the trauma I repressed. Her immediate response was, “Oh my God! I’m so sorry.” I laughed through tears of joy and whispered, “No, no! Please do not be. I am so grateful that my memories have returned to me.” It was as if I was color-blind: I did not know it my whole life until this test of consciousness. Now, the dull grays have been filled in by brilliant, unimaginable colors… it’s as if I saw the beauty of my life again, for the first time.

I flexed my intellect with my recall and saw the awesome responsibility I had in front of me: to help others see, just as I have:

The key to unlocking everything you are is within you all along. The key to me is my memories.

Everything that I am now — all the brilliance, the strength, the love that I have for myself, my friends, my family, and the Earth — all of it is from the accumulation of who I was before, including and sometimes especially because of the suffering.

I vowed to be true to myself — the self that I had lost. With the memory of writing poetry, I wrote Thank You, my first poem in nearly twenty years. The words flowed through me as if a dam broke and the river of all my memories, my love, my gratitude rushed outwards. With the memory of exploring strange, new worlds in Sci-fi books, I have voraciously been reading my favorite books again. With the memory of my mother’s embrace — of drinking her milk from her breast, of being held and kissed on my forehead, of being told I’m special and gifted — I have shared and connected more deeply with her than I ever have. With the memory of my love for all my loves, I am able to pour forth this power from my heart into the relationships with my wife, my friends, and with the world.

I could not stop crying from the immense amount of gratitude that I felt at that moment for the immutable, beautiful moment: that even the trauma of being touched prematurely has guided me forward to Holy Now. All the joy, all the pain, all the knowledge, all the seeking… all of what I was has led to this incredible human that I am now. And I would not change any of it lest I change who I am today, for I am perfect and this moment is perfection.