From Military to Mystical: A Veteran's Journey with Ayahuasca with Sunshine Grace

The Mission After

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Sunshine Grace was born in 1976 in Sheridan, MT, and comes from Russian, German, and Scottish lineages. Her early years in Portland, OR, were shaped by the Pacific Northwest’s trees and mist, fostering her deep connection to nature. Her grandfather Frank Nielsen was a storyteller, which gave her an appreciation for good stories. She attended junior high and high school in Mesa, AZ, where she was exposed to community initiatives on universal love and compassion. She joined the military at age 22 for housing and educational opportunities, where her mentors showed her how to follow and the true meaning of “first in, last out” leadership.

She helped raise her step-daughter in Jacksonville, FL, where she earned her master’s degree in research psychology and worked for large corporations for twelve years. Married at the time, Jacksonville became her first haven for safety and belongingness. Building community became important to her there, but this is also where she became keenly aware of her family’s history of debilitating anxiety and depression.

After an ineffable experience in Kenya in the Serengeti, she moved to Austin in 2018, where she began her emotional healing journey. In 2019, her health mandated an early retirement to focus on simplicity and introspection. In 2019, she began a four-year period of severe mental health breakdowns. Realizing that she couldn’t do this life alone, she began asking others for help. Her friends taught her she could feel safety in removing her masks.

In the middle of this healing, she was called by ayahuasca in 2022, which began a cherished and deeply intimate relationship with this medicine. Working with ayahuasca, life got much harder before it began getting easier, but she eventually started to learn how to work with this teacher plant. Sunshine attributes the wisdom from ayahuasca and unconditional love and support from her friends and family as her anchors on her incredibly profound integration journey. Sunshine continues to work with sacred medicines to help her continue to learn how to think optimistically, receive love, prioritize her health, trust her intuition, and look for the divine beauty in life’s perfect design!

Today, Sunshine is more peaceful than she’s ever been. She is passionate about meditation, non-duality, redemptive love, authentic expression, honest relationships, the importance of ceremony for life’s rites of passages, reverent use of psychedelics – and the Texas two-step! She believes it’s essential to have fun while healing!

Ram Dass, Terence McKenna, Eckhart Tolle, spiritual teacher Adyashanti, Sandra Ingerman, Oprah Winfrey, Gary Zuckav, Albert Einstein, and Willie Nelson are just a few of her most admired teachers.

Summary

The conversation covers a range of topics, including the speaker's experience with ayahuasca, the impact of trauma on anxiety and depression, mystical experiences, military service, and the transition to civilian life. The speaker shares insights on creating safety for others, the ethics of war, and the challenges of serving in the military. The conversation also delves into the speaker's personal journey of self-discovery and exploration of sexuality. Mike Bledsoe shares his journey from military service to corporate life and retirement, and his exploration of psychedelics as a means of healing and spiritual growth. He discusses the transformative experiences he had with mushrooms and ayahuasca, and the profound insights and connections with spirit that emerged from these experiences.

Chapters

00:00 Ayahuasca and Self-Discovery: A Journey of Transformation
07:17 Trauma, Anxiety, and the Impact of Awareness
47:17 Creating Safety and Personal Exploration
48:13 Military Service and Corporate Life
52:19 Transition to Retirement and Spiritual Exploration
57:44 Profound Insights of Psychedelic Experiences
58:39 Integration and Reconnecting with the Heart
01:32:10 Supporting Veterans in Mental Health Recovery