PositiVibes Hypnotherapy

Pachamama and the Blessing that Healed My Spine

School was pretty intense for me and although I desperately wanted to open my own healing practice fresh out of training, I needed to devote all my time and energy into Biological Psychology - Neuroscience. I became fascinated by the human experience and how the mind creates reality. I was enthralled to discover neurogenesis (the growth of new neurons) and all the psychological mechanisms behind thought and action. I came to realize that we don't so much as perceive the world as co-create it. Life is out there, external to us, but we have to recreate it on our brains to actually see and experience it. In this electro-chemical process of recreation, all of our biases, past experiences, environmental influences, peers groups, emotions, beliefs, stereotypes, and even our genes determine how those experiences are seen and perceived. We are not so much as a mirror to reality as a computer, taking in input from all types of stimulus and producing output that approximates some form of a subjective reality. Every moment is different for every individual and no two individuals can ever be seen to experience the exact same experience. This is shown time and time again through experimental and field research studies.

Eventually I was on a path to travel. I traveled to Bali (where I got to spend Christmas and New Years with my Franti) on my way to semester abroad to Australia. I got to visit the entire east coast and still have a couple weeks for New Zealand. I met up with a friend from the Air Force in Thailand for a week on the way home. I fell desperately in love with a beautiful woman named Victoria back in Humboldt and was very happy to return home. But then, just after a month of being back, I was running safety kayak for my summer job at Center Activities when I got rolled in a rapid and suffered a major concussion. Recovering from this wasn't easy, especially considering I was just about to start my dual program - 5th years Masters program in Academic Research in the neuroscience field. This meant that I had to recover from a concussion, start my Master’s program, all while finishing my bachelors in Psychology. Meanwhile my really good friend was in Chile for his program abroad and Victoria and I had planned a visit to see him and stop off in Peru for two weeks to see Machu Picchu.

We did the five day backpacking trip up Machu Picchu to arrive on December 31st 2012. At the top of Machu Picchu Mountain, Victoria and I did a blessing to Pachamama – Mother Earth. My intention was to ask for a complete healing on my post-concussive issues, but my mind flashed to my back. I’d been having pretty severe back problems since my Military service, only accelerated by each tour to Iraq. Even a three hour car ride would cause excruciating discomfort. The Air Force never found any resolve for me although they tried (chiropractor three times a week, 4000 mg of Ibuprofen a day, physical therapy, electrotherapy, traction, and Percocet). I just backpacked for five strenuous days up the steepest path – The Salkantay Trail – and the blessing I’d been planning all along was for my spiritual realignment with a complete concussion healing. As soon as my mind drifted on my back I thought, “Now don’t take on too much Kyle, that’s a huge project and let’s just fix your head first.” I laugh at these words now.

We returned beat, but unscathed. Yet, opportunity knocks. The Snow Jacks (a Humboldt Ski/Snowboarding club) plans an annual trip during the winter. I had been traveling the world the last year, so I missed two seasons in a row. I wasn’t going to miss this! Three days after we returned from our three week power travel to South America, we were repacked and ready to join the Jacks for a five day trip to Mammoth Mountain in southern California. At the end of day two, catching the last lift ten minutes after it closed to the top of the mountain I somehow got off course and ended up at the top of the big jumps. I typically do the big jumps at ski hills but not with any tricks or skill. I just like to face my fears and jump straight, typically screaming “WEEEEEEE”. Well as it turns out, some jumps are specifically designed for sponsored professionals to perform corkscrews (a special type of flip that rotates 360˚ around both the horizontal and vertical planes). Thinking ahead of time about how I was just going to hit the second jump to be safe because I didn’t know where to start for the first jump and typically after the first jump you just go straight through the rest, I thought I was well prepared. In fact, I was a novice jumper about to hit the “Showcase” jump at full speed and having no intention of slowing down at all before or after takeoff. Due to the large amount of friction that occurs when the corkscrew is performed properly, the deck and landing ramp of the jump was shortened significantly. None of this became apparent to me until I was about ten feet from the tip of the jump, at speeds near 60MPH (there was an ap that tracked how fast you were going). The jump was kicking me vertical, something that’s never happened before. Doctors estimated I free-falled for about 40-50 feet before landing directly on my tailbone and lower spine. I had fourteen fractures in all to include my vertebra from L1-L6, coccyx, sacrum, two ribs, and pelvis – the largest bone in your body. After I caught my breath, regained consciousness for the second time, and forced myself to ski down the rest of the mountain (it’d been closed for about an hour now) I began telling myself that this was really all a miraculous blessing. That it was too synchronistic that merely a week prior I asked Pachamama –Mother Earth – for a healing and here I am, slamming into an Icy Earth. I remembered that during the blessing my mind flashed to my back and I accepted this as my opportunity to heal my Air Force trauma.