About My Iboga Healing Experience
Everyone who comes to Iboga has a story. Everyone who researches an Iboga healing experience is in search of a better way of living, an ending to their suffering.
This is my story.
My name is Luis Makonza Da Silva (Makonza is my Bwiti name given to me by the Missoko Bwiti). I’m the son of an alcoholic father, and a mother who suffered from depression, most of her adult life. My upbringing was not typical, to say the least. Violence and drama were the staple in our household. My parents were immigrants just trying to survive in a country that was foreign to them.
As I grew into an adult, I tried anything and everything, just to feel alive. That included drugs and alcohol. I was a workaholic and an adrenaline junkie.
I got married to a woman whom I knew nothing about, I got caught up in the moment. We had two wonderful kids. And as time went on, the job and my extra activities became my fuel. My life was coming to a head real fast.
Then I had a home invasion. I was hog-tied and had a gun put in my mouth.
This was the last nail in my coffin. Within one year, I was diagnosed with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and major depression. That started an eight year relationship with pharmaceutical drugs. Pills to live. Pills to sleep. And even pills to have sex. These were my Elvis days.
I landed in a mental health facility that put me even further over the edge. This became my Brian Wilson period. Living in a bathrobe for a couple years, now divorced, and my children watching their dad fall apart.
One day I met an African shaman. Apparently, he could fix me up in a week! My thought was like most, I was in disbelief. “Yeah…right.”
But after two more years of suffering in this hellish existence, I was ready to die. I had nothing to live for… But I just couldn’t do it to those kids of mine. Worse was that I couldn’t continue living the way I was living either. I was stuck.
I needed to get busy living or get busy dying. I chose living. I reached out to the African shaman and headed to his clinic.
The Road Home
“What took you so long?” was what he said to me. “You wasted two years of your life.” Which I knew was 100 percent true.
That week I experienced an Iboga healing retreat. Words cannot describe how amazing and transformational it truly was to my life… to my whole being.
No more pills. No more drugs. No more alcohol. No more job – I quit it all! I was now living for me. I was the best version of “me” I had ever been. It was an extraordinary experience and it was exactly what I needed to turn my life around.
Once I returned home, I needed to continue to process everything. It was six months and I realized I wanted to share this with the rest of the world. This was my calling. If my life could change this dramatically, then others who were suffering as I did, could be helped also.
This time, I headed to Africa to experience my rites of passage, and my full initiation into the Bwiti Tradition. I continue to return every year now, for training and for personal growth.
Bwiti is the art of knowing. Knowing one’s soul changes everything. It changes your whole perspective on life. I was no longer feeding the crazy thoughts in my mind and feeding my body with garbage. The soul is the true connection. The mind and the body are both tools for its use.
It became my mission to spread the word. I decided to experience Bwiti to my fullest capacity, and in doing so, I’m able to offer others a choice. It’s a choice to take full responsibility for your life, by offering an option to step out of the system, to get better on your own with the help of Iboga, to live a clear and present life that is rewarding for the rest of your days.
Please don’t hesitate for one second as I did. Don’t waste any more time with the struggle. A solution to your pain is right here. Right now.
I truly know that you don’t need to suffer for years – like I did.
Let’s all start living.
Join us for an Iboga Healing Retreat – come and meet your Soul.
