Hello dear ones,
We hope you all had a nourishing start to the new year, filled with love and meaningful connections.
Mine began with a lot of self-care and spacious me time. Something I promised myself when I turned 40 last year: every January I gift myself hibernation—no computer work, fewer obligations, and plenty of things that genuinely make my soul happy.
So let me invite you to pause for a moment and ask yourself:
How is my connection with my soul?
In the Bwiti tradition, an indigenous tribe from Gabon in Central Africa, one of the most important teachings given to children is how to distinguish the soul from the mind. First, they learn to recognize the difference. Then they learn how to make the soul the leader—and the mind a well-trained personal assistant.
In the Western world, it’s usually the other way around. From a very young age, our mind is trained and strengthened, often without us even noticing. And because the mind is a powerful fucker, it soon takes over. Before we know it, we become slaves to our thoughts—many of them repetitive, judgmental, or downright negative.
The monkey mind chatters from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep. We become easy to influence, easy to distract, easy to brainwash. Social media plays a massive role in shaping our inner landscape: it teaches us to compare, to long for more, and to seek fulfillment outside of ourselves.
Back then, that work was already deeply impactful for me. Voice Dialogue gave me a clear and embodied framework to explore my inner world. It works not only on a cognitive level, but also somatically, by bringing awareness to how different inner parts live and express themselves in the body. It strengthened my capacity to differentiate, to stay present, and to work consciously with the mind rather than being driven by it.
Over time, another form of inquiry began to call—IBOGA. While Voice Dialogue is a method developed within a Western psychological context—structured, relational, and accessible through conscious awareness—Iboga is a plant medicine that carries ancestral wisdom and operates through direct experience rather than conceptual understanding.
Both approaches share the same intention: to reconnect with the soul. They simply take different routes. One offers a language and structure the mind can engage with; the other bypasses the mind and works through the intelligence of the plant and the body.
Iboga entered my life at a moment when the groundwork had already been laid. Together, these two approaches now inform how I relate to myself, my inner processes, and the work I bring into the world.
This year, I had the privilege of joining Rupi & Steven for a one-week Iboga retreat here in Portugal. Iboga is a plant that has been on my radar for a long time. But only when I met Rupi & Steven at a talk last year (thanks to Katharina & Andreas for the invitation) did I feel a full-body yes. A clear, unmistakable call.
Iboga, a medicinal plant from the African jungle, is one of the most powerful plant medicines on this planet—and you really need to know how to work with it. Let me put it this way: you don’t fuck with Iboga.
Rupi and Steven have both been trained for years by a Gabonese shaman in the 11th generation—initiated by his grandfather, who was initiated by his grandfather, and so on. Their depth of knowledge, inspiring personal journeys, authenticity, and refreshing sense of humor hooked me instantly. Just a few months later, I found myself on a one-week retreat with them—an experience that turned out to be one of the most profound and transformative of my life.
One week. Two ceremonies.
And in between, plenty of time to simply be and to feel everything that had been moved inside of me. What a luxury. To be. To feel. To integrate.
And to be fed the most incredible food—huge thanks to the amazing cook Rogério. The soul loves good food.
All the while, Iboga did its work, held and supported by Rupi & Steven, who were available whenever needed: answering questions, holding space for vulnerability, caring for us with deep presence and love. It was palpable how much they genuinely love what they do. I bow deeply to the way they are in service to the plant and how they make themselves available for this spiritual and therapeutic work.
Let me share a little about my personal experience—briefly, because I’m still integrating and it feels sacred.
The first ceremony is about mental detox.
The second ceremony is about asking clear questions to the soul, which Rupi & Steven helped me refine beforehand.
For me, the first ceremony was hours and hours of mental and physical torture. One of the other participants described it perfectly:
“It’s like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle in a tornado.”
Unrelated stories sprinted past at insane speed for hours on end. My mind desperately tried to grasp, analyze, and make sense of it all—without success. At the same time, I was purging relentlessly, again and again, until there was nothing left but raw sounds of desperation and the deep longing for it to end.
And then there was the music.
Not melodic. Not rhythmic. A proper pain in the ass. Intensely annoying. And very intentional.
Iboga taught the Bwiti how to build the instruments and how to play them. The purpose is not beauty. The purpose is disruption—to create chaos in the mind.
The medicine shows you exactly how your mind works until you get so sick of it that surrender becomes the only option. Surrender into yourself.
And that’s when the magic happens.
That’s when you reconnect with the soul.
It feels like coming home.
Quiet. Spacious. Incredibly peaceful.
When the sun rises, you’re brought back to your room, where the journey continues. I spent the rest of the day in a dreamlike state, lying in bed, receiving insights from the subconscious, feeling through old pain, and simply being with what is.
The second ceremony was less torturous, though still uncomfortable in the beginning. My mind had more detoxing to do. But this time, surrender came with more ease—and I didn’t have to purge even once.
Interestingly, although the music was exactly the same, it bothered me far less.
At the perfect moment, Rupi came in and did the soul work with me—which truly is the gem of the entire experience. She asked the questions we had prepared, and my soul answered.
Sharp. Clear. No bullshit.
The mind tells stories.
The soul doesn’t.
There is a deep, unmistakable knowing when the soul speaks. It simply is.
Working with Iboga, guided by Rupi & Steven, felt like an initiation on my soul path. I am profoundly grateful for having had the opportunity to go this deep.
A special thank you to my soul sister Katharina, who first introduced me to this medicine, invited me to the talk with Rupi & Steven, and encouraged me to do the retreat with her. Sharing this journey together was deeply connecting and incredibly special.
I also want to offer a loving and heartfelt thank you to my partner, Mattie, who held the space at home so that I could fully step into this journey. Having a partner who truly sees me, supports my work, and encourages me to follow my soul path without restraint or compromise is invaluable. This kind of support is not a given, and I am deeply grateful for it.
With the blessings of Rupi & Steven, I will begin integrating some of the teachings I received into my own work. The first to experience this will be my beloved Slow Sex team, who will gather for an in-depth facilitator training this February at the farm where we live in southern Portugal.
The core intention of the facilitator training is:
To know yourself more deeply.
To become more authentic.
To tune into the energetic field we are all part of.
And to use yourself as an instrument.
And from there, it will naturally ripple outward. Those joining the Slow Sex Practices and Specials in Amsterdam will also receive this magic. Because that’s how it works: what comes around goes around—always with respect, humility, and deep gratitude for those who walked before us and shared their wisdom so generously.
While this Iboga journey was deeply personal and shaped by very specific conditions, its essence is not bound to a ceremony, a place, or a plant. What it ultimately pointed me back to was something much simpler and far more accessible: the ongoing relationship with my own inner listening.
Not everyone will feel called to work with plant medicines, and that is neither a limitation nor a prerequisite for soul work. The question that remains—regardless of path or context—is how we cultivate presence, discernment, and trust in everyday life. How we learn to recognize the voice of the soul amidst the noise of the mind, and how we stay connected once the intensity of an experience has passed.
In the next MUSELETTER, I will share a set of simple, hands-on practices drawn from my own experience and the lineages that inform my work. These are practices you can explore at home, in your own time, without ceremony or external guidance—gentle entry points to begin, or deepen, your own relationship with the soul.
With much love to all of you,
Katjalisa
