Aaron Rodgers recently opened up about his trip to Peru in 2020 and use of ayahuasca – a psychoactive brew that contains the hallucinogenic DMT – though this wasn’t the only time the reigning MVP experimented with the drug.
Rodgers informed NBC Sports’ Peter King that he first learned of the plant-based concoction, which has been used for thousands of years in self-awareness healing rituals in Central and South America, from a friend who tried the drug a year prior.
“I have a dear friend that I’ve known for 25 years that went on an ayahuasca journey in 2019,” Rodgers said. “He came back, and we played golf one day and he told me all about it. I said, ‘Okay, I think it’s time that I do it.’ So we put together a trip to Peru [in 2020] and had a great experience.”
Following the eye-opening experience, Rodgers returned to Peru to partake in the ceremony once more.
“Then I went again this offseason and had another beautiful experience,” Rodgers said. “[It was] different, very different. Different size group, different amount of days.”
This time around, he entered the ritual looking to mend his broken relationships.
“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.
“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.”
Rodgers explained how the ayahuasca trip changed his life.
“I think it’s unlocked a lot of my heart,” he said. “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.”
Though his second psychedelic journey did not directly pertain to his touchy relationship with his estranged family, Rodgers asserted the self-love he now has could lead to a reconciliation.
“I really felt like I wanted to surrender and open up to the medicine for some healing to come through and some direction on how to kind of go about that,” Rodgers said of the rift he has with his family. “And it didn’t. It didn’t necessarily.
“The big message was unconditionally loving myself is the key to being able to heal all relationships—with them, past relationships with lovers, whatever it might be…So that gives me a lot of hope in healing at some point.
“There was nothing specific that came through in my three nights of journey, per se, but it was everything to learn how to love myself better because every relationship is changed from that standpoint. Including the way I look at them [family members] and the hope I have for reconciliation at some point.”
