147 - Nervous System Healing & Mountain Medicine: Peru Part 1
What happens when a trip you've been dreaming about for two years begins with unexpected challenges, physical illness, and an invitation to surrender?
In this episode of Threshold Moments, Sarah begins sharing the lessons and experiences from her recent journey to Peru.
After saying a wholehearted yes to the trip two years earlier, Sarah found herself navigating a major program launch, changing travel plans, and making decisions that honored her body and nervous system. What once would have felt overwhelming became an opportunity to recognize just how much her nervous system work has changed her life.
But shortly after arriving in Peru, things took an unexpected turn.
Between a long journey, severe stomach illness, and the challenges of adjusting to high altitude, Sarah found herself in a vulnerable position. What unfolded next was an experience of receiving care, allowing herself to rest, and discovering unexpected blessings in the midst of discomfort.
Surrounded by the mountains of Peru's Sacred Valley, Sarah began to experience something she describes as mountain medicine—a deep sense of awe, connection, and nourishment that went beyond what her physical health metrics could measure.
Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hello. Welcome to Threshold Moments. A few years ago, I went to Scotland and I made a five-point series on the lessons I learned and the takeaways, and I'm gonna do something similar for Scotland, uh, for Scotland, for Peru I waver back and forth as a human who loves science, who loves soul, and is always like, "Am I giving people enough if I just give them a story?"
But in the story, there's always medicine, there's accompaniment, and you get to hear the mini and the macro, the micro and the macro thresholds. So what I wanna say about this trip is that I said yes to it two years ago. I also wanna say that I have said no to a trip to Egypt. I have said no to a trip to the sacred sites in England.[00:01:00]
I have had opportunities to do things that are truly spectacular, but aren't a full enough yes that I would move mountains to get there at this very moment, right? It wasn't like all the pieces. It wasn't, you know, the person or the time or the place. And so with this particular trip, it was such a resounding yes that even though I was like, "What am I even gonna be doing in two years, in twenty twenty six?
How am I supposed to say yes to something where I don't know?" Like, I didn't know then that I would be running Opting Out of Urgency as a September course, and that resource is right after it. And there's such a specific reason why I do that. It's so many of us feel the both excitement and too muchness that [00:02:00] comes at the beginning of a school year.
Whether or not we have kids in school, we often have that remembering in our body, that memory in our body of, "Oh, this is the time for me to learn something new Which can be exciting and great, and it can also be like, ah, but too much, and we forget to put ourselves on the calendar. And this is interesting 'cause as I say, we forget to put ourselves on the calendar.
Part of launching, there's, there's so much work behind the scenes that you can't even imagine. So many things, so many links, so many steps, so many people, that the teaching of the course itself is definitely the easiest part. It is so great, and I freaking love it. And that part of am I putting myself in the calendar is part of the opting out of urgency.
And then to have Peru there, [00:03:00] as I said in the, the last one when I talked about the launch, meant that I would shift when the launch started, how I would engage with the launch in the first week, since it was also a family vacation week. I had to shift how I close the cart. Usually, I leave, um... I won't open the cart for a few days after opting out of urgency, and this was a directly after, which I actually kind of loved.
Um, I really got to see that there are more ways than just one to do it, and then I got to follow my instinct, which was to change my flight. So in the middle, in the middle of all the things to do, there was ... I actually really wanna celebrate this. There was a changing of the flight, which if any of you are like me, where links and dates and schedules are not your strength, to change something, which means there is the flight [00:04:00] happening in the US, then there's a different airline in Peru, another flight, then there's a hotel that I was staying at between when I'd land at night in Peru and when I'd fly out the next morning, and there was a car that I had already arranged to get me from the airport to the hotel.
And so it meant ch- canceling, changing, rearranging multiple parts of the trip, and then finding a place to stay. So I wanna celebrate that I did that with ease. I often think, I often wonder, does this nervous system stuff really work? Which all of my clients say it does. And my life has gotten so much better, and I'm also sleeping so much more.
So sometimes I'm like, "Is it because I'm sleeping more, or is it the nervous system work?" And what I'd like to celebrate is that even when I had tons of energy in my 20s, and I was sleeping [00:05:00] well, and I had nobody else to take care of and nobody else's schedule to tend to Changing flights and reorganizing the way that I did, and doing it in the middle of a launch would have been too overwhelming, and I just would not have done it.
And so this is how I know. This is one sign that shows that the work works. I was really proud of that. So Sunday morning, you know, I don't sleep much Saturday night going into Sunday morning 'cause I'm leaving at 3:00 AM, and I just have the best day. Like, uh, I should tell you that my back was in pain, so it was hard to sit on the first flight.
And then I had a seven lay- hour layover in Atlanta. And I had upgraded my seat because if I upgraded so that I would fly out of Portland instead of Boston, which saves me two hours and a [00:06:00] hotel. And all of the changes I made were all in response to what would my nervous system need. What would I need to land and have time to acclimate to being at 12,000 feet?
It was also what would be best for my back, and I knew that was gonna be flying out of Portland instead of Boston. And so I made all of these changes on behalf of my body and my nervous system. And I got to Atlanta, and seven hours is a long time, but since I upgraded my seat, I got to go into the Delta lounge, and they had a standing desk looking out the window.
And I got done all of these emails that would have to go out in October when I get back from the trip, just already have them done. And, uh, and then when I get on the plane for Atlanta to Peru, which is not gonna get in until, like, 11:30 at night, and they're an hour behind, [00:07:00] so 12:30 my time, um, I realized that the upgrade that I thought was just because the price wasn't so significant, I didn't realize, I was not sure, sure that I was actually in a lie-flat, and I was actually in a lie-flat which, folks, for my back, this is game-changing.
So I got to in the lounge, stand, and, um, you know, eat food that was pre-made, um- Yeah. Great flight, land, um, things happen. I don't end up getting into my room until 1:00 AM. So that is essentially, 1:00 AM would've been 2:00 AM my time, so it is 23 hours of active travel just to get to Lima. And I am just like, "Wow, I feel so good.
I have not gotten a lot of sleep, and I can't believe I feel so good, and I can't believe this is going so well." And so here's a few things. [00:08:00] One is that Deb, who's hosting the retreat, says to me, um, "You know, this is such a sign that things are going the way they're meant to go, the synchronicities. Um, you're in the right place at the right time."
And so I wanna talk a little bit about have you ever heard of the phrase of being, like, delusionally optimistic? Which is, I just wanna say it's different than bypassing, in my experience. It's different than toxic posi- positivity. It is choosing to see the best possible option that's there. And if you need to cry and feel bad about something, you can still do that.
Like that, then you're like, "Great, that's part of the process." So that all goes well, and I have a flight, and they tell me that it's gonna take a lot of time to get back to the airport because of traffic in the morning, and that I should be there really early. So I end up getting up at 6:00 AM, and my stomach is like, [00:09:00] "What?
What is going on?" I am not a person who throws up often, and I soon find myself over the toilet. And I was told this, this hotel has a great breakfast, and I go downstairs, and I'm just like, "Do you have ginger and hot water?" Um
Sorry. Do you have ginger and hot water? And they have to go back in the kitchen and get me something. And the rest of the day, if you can imagine, like bumper-to-bumper traffic, cobblestone streets, winding roads, stick shift, small planes. Um, I lost whatever was in my stomach multiple times, like in the airport, not being able to make it to the bathroom, like running to the trash can.
[00:10:00] Um, and again, like back not feeling great, so all of these bumpy rides in the car, this small plane being totally upright. And I reach out and the same person... And two different people actually say in their own ways essentially, "You know, people come to Peru and pay a lot of money to do psychedelic medicine and to purge, and that a purge often leaves room for an upgrade."
And it doesn't take away how much it sucks to throw up and how much it sucks to feel sick. Um- But it is also, like, quite fun to be open to the possibility that, uh, the purge is leaving room for something better, is leaving room for a different perspective, that I'm just, like, getting rid of what is, like, stagnant inside of me, and there was so much that was feeling stagnant inside of me.
And so whether or not I had food poisoning or I was having an [00:11:00] upgrade, um, the next day was rough. And I was really just appreciating that whether everything was lining up, quote unquote, "as it should be," or that the challenges felt big and uncomfortable, that I could play with the possibility that it was all for my behalf.
I wanna say right here, there are many circumstances in life where we do not have to think that way. We can be like, "No, that was terrible. It shouldn't have happened. It wasn't on behalf of my growth." I'm here for that. But it was funny and fun to consider this. And so get in a taxi. I'm at 11,500 feet when I land, so if you can imagine, um, the possibility of altitude sickness on top of the stomach virus, um, or food poisoning.
Lost it again in the airport. Um, [00:12:00] get in a cab, pick up two other people who are in Cusco, uh, to get to a small town called Pisac. And I get to Pisac, and the room I'm staying in happens to be with a nurse practitioner or a registered nurse who is a healer who does do psychedelic medicine, but also has IV fluids.
So she's like, "Would you like some IVs?" And I wanna put it out there, like, what are the chances to feel... I was just feel like I was in and out of consciousness all day, to be honest with you, barely making it, and to land in a chair, and she says, "Do you want glutathione? Do you want vitamin B? Do you want vitamin D?
Do you want vitamin C?" Probably D was not in there. Um, B, C, glutathione. Not sure if there was anything else. And then just fluids that have, [00:13:00] um- Electrolytes. No, I think that's it. I think that's it. And I pretty much just passed out. I took the biggest bag she had. Uh, again, in and out of consciousness. I believe she put a heating pad on my belly and a PEMF mat, and covered me in blankets, and got me Munya tea and ginger tea for me to sip on.
And
My blood pressure was 80 over 40. It was Here's the beauty of it, if I have to just say, like, what, what is the point of telling you all this? To actually just get to be sick, like once I got to there, just to be able to receive so much support, to not have to, uh, you [00:14:00] know, as a mom of two kiddos, usually when I'm sick, I'm also still needing to ta- caretake.
I'm usually still needing to make meals, still needing to get them off to school, or if they're home too and they're also sick, then needing to tend to them. And so to just be able to, like, receive this help, and then just go lay in bed, and again, in and out of being awake, and then be able to sleep the entire night.
And when I woke up, Deb brought me a smoothie with very specific ingredients to help me out. It
It's a scenario that could seem bad, but felt like a million blessings to me
To like, yeah, any mom out there, like the time that you actually just get to lay down when you're not feeling well, wow. And to have somebody bring me a smoothie, what? And [00:15:00] of course, having that IV fluid and having time to just rest, and then I went outside and I saw the mountains, and I stood in front of the mountains.
I think it took me like half a day before I got outside. I didn't feel sick to my stomach anymore. I just couldn't eat much food for a couple days. And I felt the mountains filling me up. So again, now we're at maybe 9,000 feet above sea level, and we're in the Sacred Valley. I'm in the Sacred Valley And the mountains just they're so high all around me.
And I'd say each one is another 3,000 feet at least from where I'm standing. And I can see all around me, 360 degrees, mountains. And I stood out there for over an hour in the morning just looking at them, the way that one would sit around a fire pit and just gaze at the [00:16:00] coals, right? The way that the coals dance or the fire dances, and it can be mesmerizing.
And I could feel my body filling up. And the interesting thing that happened over the next few days is that the numbers on my Oura Ring were like, "You are not doing well." The feeling in my body and in my soul was awe, was feeling fully alive, was hardly being able to believe all of the things that started to unfold one after the next, after the next, after the next.
And here's a little sneak peek of what I'll tell you from a guide who was showing us around a sacred site five or six days later. He said, "Sometime- some people call it altitude sickness. We call it mountain medicine." [00:17:00] When the altitude is affecting the oxygen getting to your brain, we often are able to see more and feel more with our hearts, and this is exactly what I felt.
My... The partial pressure of oxygen in my blove- blood, which is usually around 97, and for most people is usually between 96 to 98, was around 88 to 89 most nights. That's where my Oura Ring tracks it is at night. The aura ring would say this is a problem. For me, my body received so much from the environment around me.
It was like nothing I've ever experienced. Because generally, if I'm not getting enough sleep, if... obviously, if I'm not getting enough oxygen, I'm gonna feel like crap. [00:18:00] That was not my experience. I had the experience of feeling and seeing everything more from my heart. I had the experience of feeling as if energy were coming out of the mountains and filling me up each day, so that when one of my friends who came later said to me, oh, she like, "Oh, shoot, man, I really didn't sleep well last night.
I slept like shit." And I said, "You might be surpri- you might feel terrible today, but you might be surprised at just how good you feel." It's been my experience as I've been here that whether or not I sleep great at night, whether or not, not my stats are great- I am being filled up by the land, and by the experience, and by the people, and by the practices of sacred reciprocity, and it's doing something for me that even sleep hasn't done for me in the past[00:19:00]
On the next one, I'm going to talk about when you are so filled and so happy with what you have, that when anything extra comes in, it feels like a bonus. The next part of my trip was, like, surprise and delight, surprise and delight. Like, I'm so good with this little room in this, you know, dirt road area with very little, with high mountains, uh, only to be again, and again, and again shown, like, wow, there's more.
Wow, there's more. And how this also showed up for me for Cart Clues, and what I found out about my name and what it means. So in the next episode, I'm going to share with you about this wow, there's more, and what it feels like to be so good [00:20:00] with what you have already. And for me, this has for sure been the basis of Any time I've drawn something into my life, people call it manifestation, it's generally when I'm really so grateful for what I have.
And I might be thinking, "Oh, that'd be nice," or, "That's cool," or, "I wonder," and things happen. Um, that was my experience in Peru, and I would love to share with you what unfolded and then some... Ooh, and then the next one is gonna be about my dreams and what I learned from a local shaman on how to weave the divorced parts inside of me.
So I guess those are the next two episodes. Thank you for joining in, and I will see you next time.