How Life’s Hardest Moments and Plant Medicine Can Help Dissolve the Ego and Set You Free
- Brainz Magazine
- Apr 23
- 7 min read
Written by Dr. JC Doornick, Health Transformation Coach – Podcaster
Dr. JC Doornick is a leader in Health Transformation, sense making and the human I.R.S.-(Interface response system). After a spontaneous recovery from a life-threatening traumatic event, Dr. JC made it his lifelong commitment to pay forward his concepts and strategies to dramatically shift one's perspectives to reclaim control as the dominant creator of your reality.
At some point on the path of awakening, we must confront a threshold we never saw coming. A reckoning, not only with the world outside, but with the one who’s been standing guard protecting us from it all along. That guardian is the ego, what I call the Great Protector.
For much of our lives, the ego serves a purpose. It keeps us safe, helps us function, and gives us a sense of self to navigate the complexities of family, work, relationships, and society. It is a byproduct of the conditioned mind that its programmers have trained our MFTPSE (Mother, Father, Teacher, Preacher, Society, and Evolution). But there comes a moment, a breaking point or a cry for help, where we realize it’s not just keeping us safe anymore.
It’s keeping us small.
So we begin our journey of personal growth and self-discovery, looking for the answers in all the wrong places. Armed with awareness, we learn that we’ve been looking in the wrong place for the answers. On the outside, rather than the inside, under the safeguard of our ego.
The great protector: A superpower with an expiration date
The ego forms in early childhood, shaped by experiences such as survival, trauma, rewards, punishments, praise, and pain. Its job? Developed in the formative years by our Mother, Father, Teacher, and Preacher. Well-intended, to protect your identity and your story at all costs. It watches over:
How you see yourself (“I’m strong,” “I’m in control”)
How others see you (“I’m worthy,” “I’m good enough”)
What makes you feel safe, significant, and accepted?
It builds walls, masks, personas, and defense mechanisms. And it works until it doesn’t.
When life throws a grenade into your story, loss, betrayal, addiction, burnout, or, as St. John of the Cross refers to as the “dark night of the soul,” where one experiences a harrowing period in their life, the ego can’t protect you anymore. It starts to crack.
And sometimes, that’s precisely what saves us.
Ego death: The collapse that sets you free
For me, it wasn’t theory. It was real. I came face-to-face with my darkness, my breaking point, a vulnerable, out-of-control moment of utter despair that humbled me beyond words. I had been living as a man, performing a version of myself, unaware that my protector had me locked in a prison. When it all collapsed, I went through a passage of dark despair that brought me to the brink of my destruction. However, through a series of insights and awakenings, something inside me whispered: “This isn’t the end. It’s your rebirth.”
Things weren’t falling apart; they were falling into place.
That was my first taste of ego death. From that moment on, my great protector was let go. Fired. He did a good job up until that moment when I determined he no longer applied. Make Sense?
But it wouldn’t be my last. You see, ego death. When we experience ego death, it doesn’t mean we operate “ego-free” from that point on. It means our old ego dies off, and we instinctively begin to develop a new one that better suits our needs.
Unfortunately, I had reached that point again, and my new great protector’s time had reached its expiration date. I felt that “Fierce Urgency of Now” to confront it again. This time was different. I wasn’t in a dark place of despair anymore. I was more conscious and felt called to work with plant medicine in the Amazon Jungles of Peru for 4 years. I had heard many stories and done a lot of research on the powerful effects that plant medicines had on cleansing the ego. I could not ignore this calling. As scary as it seemed, I decided to do it anyway.
Plant medicine & the sacred stripping away
I traveled to the deep jungles of Peru, set alongside the infamous and mysterious Amazon River. At the Arkana Spiritual Center, I encountered sacred tools like Ayahuasca and Bufo Alvarius (Sapo). This trip was not meant to be an escape, but a return. These are not recreational experiences. They are spiritual surgeries. Referred to as “teachers,” They carry the power to dismantle the illusion we’ve mistaken for ourselves.
In short, according to the experts at the Arkana Spiritual Center, Ayahuasca (also known as Yagé) is a tea-like brew used by shamans in the Amazon Basin countries. Many visitors to ayahuasca retreats today seek the powerful healing it is known to bring. It can cure chronic depression, drug addiction, or alcoholism, as well as physical illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease, psoriasis, and even cancer. Clinical researchers are investigating claims, some of which remain anecdotal. Still, there’s compelling evidence that shamanic healing works and is especially effective for emotional and psychological issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Another medicine I tried was called “Sapo Toad Medicine.” According to the Arkana Spiritual Center, Sapo (Bufo) from the Bufo Alvarius toad in the Sonoran Desert contains the ingredient 5-MeO-DMT, also known as the "God molecule". This short but profoundly healing & intense ceremony offers deeply profound experiences which are said to be comparable to mystical Hindu experiences of Moksha or Buddhist experiences of Samadhi and Nirvana.
To say my experiences were profound would be an understatement. My life was and has been changed in a positive way forever, and I continue to travel to these sacred ceremonies and check in with my Plant Medicine Family at least once a month. Feel free to reach out and inquire about our monthly Integration Masterminds.
Ego death
Also known as the “Death Plan,” Ayahuasca doesn’t kill you. It kills off the part of you that no longer applies. In these states, the ego doesn’t just step aside; it vanishes. The narratives we’ve clung to dissolve. The masks fall off. There’s no name, no story, no control, only the raw, vast presence of what is. I explain the experience as a combination of terrifying, liberating, and truthful.
Terrifying because your great protector resists it, of course. That’s why people feel fear before and during ceremonies. That fear is not about the medicine; it’s your ego sensing its dissolution.
Imagine your ego is like a 120,000-ton oil tanker steaming ahead on its regular course, and all of a sudden, you tap the captain on the shoulder and request a new coordinate? It's a significant change to make, and typically, the captain will disregard your request and continue. Well, Plant medicine doesn’t require a change of course. It insists on it.
Liberating because of that dissolution? A reality untouched by our programmers: (M,F,T,P,S,E) Mother, Father, Teacher, Preacher, Society. A reality unfiltered by conditioning, free of fear, shame, or performance. It is pure, vibrant, sacred, the divine you.
The IRS: Choosing who speaks for you now
The value in experiencing ego death is gaining access to see the unseen. The truth on the other side of the protective mask is like an illusion we’ve created to fit into society. Once you’ve seen through the illusion, you don’t forget it. You can’t unsee it. You’re now aware of the game behind the curtain. That’s when the real work begins. That work is referred to as integration. This is the work we do as a large group during our monthly mastermind Zooms.
This is where the Interface Response System (IRS) can be applicable. It empowers you to pause that oil tanker, permit yourself to sit in a space where you can notice who has been speaking. Is it your Great Protector trying to control, justify, or defend? Or is it your true self, present, humble, awake?
The Interface Response System doesn’t kill the ego. It simply reminds you:
“The protector no longer rules you. You’re at the table of discussion now.”
The gateless gate: Becoming no one
In Zen, the ego is referred to as the "gateless gate," an illusion that we must pass through to return home. But here’s the paradox: It doesn’t exist, as it's been made up by the great protector. No one can pass through it.
So your task is to become No One.
No name. No story. No defense. Just presence. This is the wisdom behind ego death, not to destroy who you are, but to remember who you were before the world told you who to be.
You don’t have to wait for a crisis or a ceremony to begin this process. You can start now by arming yourself with awareness. With curiosity. With the quiet courage to question your perceptions and reactions and ask:
“Who’s speaking right now, my protector, or my truth?”
And in that sacred space of questioning, the gate doesn’t open; it begins to fade. And who you genuinely are steps through.
Make sense?
Want to claim control as the dominant force in your life? Are you someone who can sense that there is greatness inside you, but you haven’t yet figured out how to unleash it? Consider taking a simple step that amounts to a glorious leap into our Makes Sense Academy. Our private psychological safe-haven where our growing membership has access to live masterminds, networking, business coaching, and mentorship. As well as all the courses and tools to become the vehicle you drive in action. Learn how to implement the IRS (Interface Response System) from its creator, Dr. JC Doornick, founder of the Makes Sense Academy and Makes Sense Coaching System. Are you ready for some action? Come check it out, risk-free, with a money-back guarantee.
Dr. JC Doornick, Health Transformation Coach – Podcaster
Dr. JC Doornick is a leader in Health Transformation, sense making and the human I.R.S.-(Interface response system). After a spontaneous recovery from a life-threatening traumatic event, Dr. JC made it his lifelong commitment to pay forward his concepts and strategies to dramatically shift one's perspectives to reclaim control as the dominant creator of your reality. As the CEO of Doornick Enterprises, and the host of the Rise up with Dragon podcast, and co-founder of the Makes Sense Academy, his mission is to positively impact the world one perspective at a time.
