Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has opened up about several excursions to Peru to undertake guided ayahuasca trips as a form of self-healing and reflection.
The 38-year-old has enjoyed a long and fruitful career in Wisconsin since being selected in the first round of the 2005 draft, and the veteran will enter his 18th season as the NFL’s reigning Most Valuable Player having won his second in a row and fourth over all.
However, he recently spoke of his own personal battles as he enters the twilight of his career, expressing moments of self-doubt and mental blocks that he has attempted to remedy through the use of spiritual healing.
He revealed that on two separate retreats to South America, he underwent an hallucinogenic experience using ayahuasca. The plant has been used by indigenous people in the Amazon Basin for thousands of years, and is noted for its ability to reveal strong personal insight and mental healing during guided ceremonial practices.
Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers credits his back-to-back MVPs to the psychoactive brew ayahuasca:
"I had a magical experience with the sensation of feeling 100 different hands on my body imparting a blessing of love and forgiveness for myself and gratitude for this life …" pic.twitter.com/BxJu97nIaS
— The Recount (@therecount) August 4, 2022
DMT, the psychoactive component found within the brewed drink, is outlawed in the US but NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said on Monday that despite its illegality, it would not trigger a positive result within the league’s drug policy parameters.
Speaking to Peter King of NBC in an article published this week, Rodgers said:
“We sat three different nights with the medicine. I came in with an intention of doing a lot of healing of other relationships and bringing in certain people to have conversations with.
“Most of the work was around myself and figuring out what unconditional love of myself looks like of myself. In doing that, allowing me to understand how to unconditionally love other people but first realizing it’s gotta start with myself. I’ve got to be a little more gentle with myself and compassionate and forgiving because I’ve had some negative voices, negative self-talk, for a long time. A lot of healing went on.”
“The most important way was really that self-love part. I think it’s unlocked a lot of my heart. Being able to fully give my heart to my teammates, my loved ones, relationships because I can fully embrace unconditionally myself. Just didn’t do that for a long time.
“I was very self-critical. When you have so much judgment on yourself it’s easy to transfer that judgment to other people. When you figure out a better way to love yourself, I think you can love people better because you’re not casting the same judgment you cast on yourself on other people. I’m really thankful for that.”
Despite being lauded his entire career as one of the finest quarterbacks to ever grace the field, the highest paid player in North American sports history faced heavy backlash earlier in the year for saying he “immunized”, before backtracking on his comments to reveal he was not in fact vaccinated against COVID-19.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
