In this episode of the Ayahuasca Podcast, host Sam Believ connects with combat sports legend Cain Velasquez. Cain is a two-time NCAA All-American, a two-time UFC Heavyweight Champion, and the first Mexican-American heavyweight champion in UFC history. Known throughout his career for an unstoppable, relentless pace that broke the toughest fighters on earth, Cain has since transitioned that warrior spirit into a profound mission advocating for ancestral healing and the transformative potential of plant medicines.

Cain opens up about how his early life in combat sports functioned as a raw mechanism for processing childhood trauma, how losing his mother and brother catalyzed a profound spiritual awakening, and how navigating legal trials and prison time became the ultimate training ground for his integration of ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT.

Key Discussion Points

• 01:14 – Raising the Stakes: Cain discusses his transition from childhood wrestling—which he picked up at age 12 because it was free—to mixed martial arts, driven by an instinctual pull toward higher physical stakes and martial arts discipline.

• 02:42 – The Mexican Fighting Spirit: Discovering right away that getting hit didn’t phase or scare him, but instead unlocked a deep, instinctual resilience and strength that allowed him to retaliate and put fight combinations together quickly.

• 04:34 – Combat as the First Medicine: How the physical extremes of MMA served as Cain’s initial form of therapy, allowing him to release stored emotional trauma, build unbreakable poker-face boundaries against pain, and completely lose himself in the sport.

• 08:45 – The Body Breaks Down: Navigating severe career injuries, back surgery, and an intentional daily relationship with THC and CBD to manage pain while completely changing his mental creative perspective on fighting.

• 11:07 – Unmapped Grief & The Medium: Processing the sudden, deeply traumatic losses of his mother and brother within a two-month span, and how a session with a medium helped shift his mental loop away from their final moments and toward a higher spiritual perspective.

• 14:54 – The First Ayahuasca Journey: Sitting in his first ceremony on the exact anniversary of his brother’s passing, where he instantly felt he “knew the plant more than he knew himself,” choosing to fully surrender his trust to the medicine.

• 17:58 – No Accidents: Cain shares his visionary download regarding the perfection of human life, realizing that his soul and higher self mapped out his exact earthly timeline with Source before incarnating to guarantee maximum spiritual growth.

• 24:32 – Dissolving in 5-MeO-DMT: Undergoing a shattering ego death during a high-dose Bufo experience, where his consciousness left his body, expanded into everything and nothing, and experienced an infinite existence of pure love and universal strength.

• 28:07 – The Reintegration Crisis: Facing a severe midlife integration crisis over a two-month period where his perception of life had fundamentally changed, leaving him without a guide to help anchor his massive energetic downloads back into reality.

• 29:41 – Prison as a Silent Meditation Retreat: How his subsequent time in jail and prison was divinely orchestrated by Source as a mandatory period of absolute solitude, teaching him to find total inner happiness and realize that the entire universe is stored within, regardless of external walls.

• 31:42 – Synchronicities from a Cell Window: Learning radical gratitude for microscopic wins, including a profound moment where he manifested a wild hawk to fly six feet from his window seconds after mentally asking to see one close up.

• 36:16 – The Prison Sweat Lodge: Hanging around the Native American circle in prison to connect with his own Yaqui ancestry, and learning the ultimate test of surrendering to the heat inside a traditional Lakota-style four-round Inipi sweat lodge.

Connect with Cain Velasquez:

• Instagram: @officialcainvelasquez

Experience Safe, Guided Consciousness Work: To explore heart-opening, traditional plant medicine retreats in a deeply restorative setting designed for integration and profound clarity, explore our programs at: ayahuascaincolombia.com

In this episode of the Ayahuasca Podcast, host Sam Believ sits down with Jonathan Robinson, a psychotherapist, New York Times bestselling author of over 10 books, and a frequent guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Jonathan has spent decades exploring human connection, interviewing foundational spiritual figures like Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, and Ram Dass. His latest work, Ecstasy as Medicine, and its counterpart Ecstasy for Couples, centers on the immense therapeutic potential of MDMA.

Jonathan shares his transition from growing up in a chaotic environment to studying chemical consciousness, explaining how MDMA acts as a biological “fast-track” for vulnerability, emotional rewiring, and healing relationships.

Key Discussion Points

• 02:15 – A Dysfunctional Childhood as a Gift: Jonathan discusses how growing up around family volatility forced him inward at age 12, sparking an early mastery of self-hypnosis, meditation, and early psychedelic experimentation.

• 05:40 – The Early Days of Legal MDMA Research: Conducting a master’s thesis on MDMA for trauma in the early 1980s before it was criminalized in the US, and how modern data proves it is exponentially more effective for PTSD than standard antidepressants.

• 09:15 – “The Drug Never Took Effect”: A hilarious story of Jonathan giving pure MDMA to his conservative parents, who spent the evening resolving 45 years of hidden marital tension and cuddling—completely unaware they were under the influence.

• 13:45 – The 5-Hour Therapy Session on Steroids: The mechanics of facilitating over 700 MDMA journeys, and why Jonathan chooses to run his intensive deep-dives and integration work virtually over Zoom for maximum domestic comfort.

• 18:20 – Blaming, Shaming, Complaining, and Explaining: Why standard relationship defense mechanisms fail 100% of the time, and the core communication framework required to shift a relationship dynamic immediately.

• 22:50 – The Illusion of “Dishes” (The Aunt Story): How an MDMA session saved Jonathan’s own marriage by revealing that his wife’s displaced anger over refrigerator doors was actually unmapped grief regarding her late aunt.

• 27:15 – The “Sweet Killer” Dilemma: A 300,000-year evolutionary look at why male brains were naturally selected to prioritize protective aggression and goal achievement, and how modern environments require an intensive education in empathy.

• 33:10 – Collectivism of Spiritual Lifelines: Insights from living in Buddhist, Hindu, and Christian monasteries, culminating in Jonathan’s ultimate personal religion: “Do what works.”

Connect with Jonathan Robinson:

• Websites: ecstasyformedicine.com | awarenessexplorers.com

• Featured Books: Ecstasy for Couples, Ecstasy as Medicine, and Communication Miracles for Couples.

Experience Safe, Guided Consciousness Work: To explore heart-opening, traditional plant medicine retreats in a deeply restorative setting designed for integration and profound clarity, explore our programs at: ayahuascaincolombia.com