u/Author_MarcHenri

After illness and amputation, I expected the hardest part to be physical recovery.

What surprised me was something much quieter.

A shift in identity that didn’t really “resolve”, as if part of the person I had been no longer fully fit, but without a clear new self replacing it.

Writing became one of the few ways I could stay in contact with that experience instead of shutting it down or simplifying it.

I ended up writing a memoir about that process, not as a self-help book, but as an attempt to put words to something difficult to explain.

I’m curious if others here have experienced that kind of inner shift after a major rupture in life.

And if this resonates with anyone, I’d be happy to share the manuscript privately.

One thing that has struck me in working with non-ordinary states of consciousness is not just what appears… but what had been kept out until then.

At some point, it became clear to me that a lot of what I called “myself” was actually built around avoiding certain forms of suffering, even unconsciously.

I share something I wrote recently, that captures it:

“Facing suffering, I had spent a long part of my life hardening myself. I had learned to deny my needs, to suppress my perceptions, to numb myself to what hurt. That’s what our human species has done since the dawn of time. My consciousness had narrowed in an attempt to protect me. It had learned to filter reality, to ignore what needed to stay hidden because it hurt too much, because it threatened too much. And in doing so, I had also shut myself off from my own light and from the divine light that shines at the heart of all reality and all experience. I had veiled it over.” (Ch.3)

What unsettled me is this:

If our perception itself is shaped by what we cannot afford to feel…
then what we call “reality” is already a kind of compromise.

And in those altered states, something in that filtering seems to loosen, sometimes brutally, exposing what had been held out of awareness for a long time.

I’m curious how others here relate to this.

Do you feel that these states reveal something new, or remove something that was already there, but inaccessible?

If this resonates, I’ve recently published a book exploring these questions, and I’d be happy to share it with anyone open to giving honest feedback.

After illness (cancer and leg amputation), I realized that the hardest part wasn’t only physical recovery, it was understanding who I was afterward.
Something had shifted, but there was no clear language for it.
I’m curious how others here have navigated that kind of identity change, and if anyone would be interested in reading something along those lines, I’d be glad to share what I wrote about it.

I’m searching for memoirs that explore what happens after illness: not just recovery, but the deeper shift in identity that follows.

Books that don’t necessarily offer answers, but share authentic questioning with vulnerability and honesty.

I’ve also been writing about this myself recently, after going through cancer and amputation, trying to put words to that experience.
If anyone happens to be interested, I can share it, but mostly I’d love to discover other books first.

Even knowing that the real work lies in integration, I didn’t expect how quickly the experience would go beyond the purely personal.

At first, I approached it as introspection, exploring my own emotions, and history. But at some point, something shifted.

I began to perceive material that didn’t belong to me: family dynamics, unresolved traumas carried across generations.

It introduced me into a long process of making sense and integrating all this material.

I’d be very interested to hear how others here experience this.

How do you deal with what you encounter in these states that goes beyond your individual story?

If it resonates, a lot of my integration was about writing a book around these questions, and I’d be happy to share it with anyone open to giving honest feedback.

From the beginning, I knew that the real work with ayahuasca wasn’t the ceremony itself, but what comes after. The visions and intensity matter, of course, but they felt like openings, not conclusions.

What I didn’t expect was how far that integration process would take me. What surfaced in those states wasn’t just personal material.
It felt older: patterns, emotional layers, something connected to family history rather than just my own life. And once the ceremonies were over, there was no clear structure to hold that.

That’s where things became demanding.

Because what initially felt like insight turned into something much more complex, something that couldn’t be resolved quickly, and that asked for time, patience, and a willingness to remain with difficult material without fully understanding it.

I’m curious how others here relate to this.

Have you experienced that sense that integration is not just a phase after the ceremony, but the actual path?

If anyone is interested, I’ve recently written a book exploring this process in depth, and I’d be open to sharing it in exchange for honest feedback

I hope this is okay to ask here.

After going through illness and amputation, I found that what stayed with me the longest wasn’t the physical aspect, but a kind of quiet shift in how I experienced myself and life.

I’m curious if others here have felt something similar and are open to sharing around this experience.

(If this kind of topic resonates and you’re open to reading about it, I’ve written a personal account and would be glad to share it privately.)

I’ve written a memoir about what happens after illness and amputation, not just the physical recovery, but the deep shift in identity that follows.

It’s a very introspective and spiritual book, closer to a personal exploration than a traditional “overcoming adversity” story.

I’m looking for a few thoughtful readers open to this kind of experience.

If that resonates, I’d be happy to share a free copy (Kindle or PDF). No obligation: honest impressions are more important to me than anything else.

Feel free to comment or DM.