Me Sam Believ and my guest Oliver Scott talk about supernatural events during Ayahuasca retreats. 

LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat

http://www.lawayra.com

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to podcast.com.

Welcome back guys, to the episode of psychedelic what is it? Psychedelic Conversation. You are the host. The name is in progress, write the suggestions in the comments. Hasn’t been created yet Today. We we just thought about few things and stopped at the roles in the conversation and in general we’ll try to touch different subjects and just tried to get some nuggets to come out.

But the summary would be. Depression. Anxiety, escapism behaviors. Yeah. Addictions addictions supernatural stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Supernatural. Explain stuff that happens during the seventies. The relationship between mind and mind and emotion and the moisture is something else I’m missing.

Oliver Scott: I think there’s something back cotton, what it was in no

Sam Believ: particular order. We’ll just see if we can talk about those subject, if something good comes up. Yeah. When for me, the first that really excites me is the supernatural stuff. Yeah. That, that caught my, that catches my attention because I come from a very made materialistic.

Background, like I’m a mechanical engineer, so I worked with engines and physics and everything is explained and it seems to be that everything is clear. I’m very non-religious. I come from a country that. When I was born in Soviet Union. I spent my first two years in Soviet Union.

On my birth certificate, I have the hammer and Sickle, and religion was prohibited. So there was a religion. The only thing I tell you in Encounter Religion is, people when they get scared, they say oh my God, that is about it. Like this. This church is still remain, but. I actually got baptized, but because when I was growing up and religion was reactivated, some guy just came to my, our kindergarten and said you’re not baptized, like demons will get into, they just threatened me.

The azi scared me into it. Yeah. But I was never really religious and was always very materialistic. So for me in this journey with ayahuasca. Discovering gift of healing, which should not be real. And then actually observing that it works whenever I try to apply it, which is even stranger.

And then. Those stories that the connection between people and their families. When something happens to somebody during the ceremony and something gets removed or released from their family line and they get a call from their mom or their dad saying I felt something, what’s happening with you?

I saw you mad. It was like, there’s like reactivation of something that should not be real. Yeah. Or sometimes people healing stuff that’s. Sure that’s supposed to be healed or two different people seeing the same. Yeah, same vision in fact. So have anything, have you heard about anything like that’s not really unex, really unexplainable or some happening to yourself or somebody?

Oliver Scott: There’s one thing that definitely comes, came to mind when you mentioned about two people saying the same vision, seeing the same visions. And that happened to me and my friend, Alex Howell, when we were living in. I shouldn’t have said his full name, wouldn’t they? Broadcasters,

that’s too late.

No, they’re coming for you. You CI is coming for you. Alex. Alex, how the passport number? 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7. You’re out in the ether,

Oliver Scott: right? And yeah. We were living in, we were best mates and we were living in London at the time and we were he just introduced me like it by accident or by coincidence or synchronicity, what?

Whatever you wanna call it. To healing frequencies like the 432 Hertz and these other octaves. I’d never heard about this stuff before and we were on a mild psychedelic at the, in fact, it wasn’t really a psychedelic, I won’t say what it was ’cause I don’t want to con open up ideas of drug use in the in the podcast.

I wanna remain responsible. It was just a ma a very mild dose of a nons, psychedelic relaxant. Really. It was like a relaxant. And we were listening to these what do you call it, these frequencies and this sort of really weird, confusing, but profound experience happened and it’s the first and only time it ever happened and.

We were sat there on the sofa together and this very strange experience started to happen and I started to develop this sort of inner sort of vision, which wasn’t at all a symptom of this medicine we were on. And and he goes to me, he is whoa, all are you tripping balls? I’m like, yeah, man.

Are you, and we both look at each other and. And I was like, oh, I’m in this other realm and I can see these people. And he’s yeah, I can see it too. Like through the letterbox. And we started describing the same thing and it’s almost these frequencies did something and maybe adjusted the tuning on our brains and we’re very briefly tuned into this completely different reality.

And we were apprehending this sort of landscape that. Wasn’t on earth. I can’t really remember what it was like. The ground was pink and there was these weird but friendly looking creatures. It was super, you accidentally opened the, and you were that exactly what happened. I think the I think the frequencies where we were listening to, one of them was a dm was a pineal grand resonant frequency.

So my hypothesis is. In a completely scientific and materialistic way that this frequency resonated with our penal gus. It caused us to release a bit of our own natural DMT, and it triggered like my first and only inner natural D nm T experience in him as well. It still leaves that massive question of what does DMT do and what he’s seeing?

Is it real? But it was a very strange thing that.

Sam Believ: But like people could say you’ve still been consuming something and whatever. Like they, they can always say it was just a hallucination. But what about when it happens to two people when one person takes nothing at all?

The very recent experience that happened a couple months ago one person at the ceremony, he hasn’t spoken to his dad for more than five years. There’s some kind of very big trauma from childhood. He, during the ceremony, he was feeling the healing and releasing of this and like forgiving and he wrote him a seven, seven, like five or seven.

I don’t remember the exact amount. Page letter, like a physical letter. He didn’t send it to him or message him or call him nothing. The next morning, literally his dad called him and said, we need to talk. That’s like first time in many years. Yeah. It can be a co coincidence, but it’s like I’m too suspicious, right?

Yeah. Then one time where this girl from Africa and she was having a very profound experience, like TTO was doing the gleaning on her. He had to run, vomit like two, three times because it was so tough. Like whatever demon he was fighting, it was it was pro, it was like one level higher than him.

So he barely managed to like, know, had to use some help. Wow. But probably leveled up after that. Yeah. I really using, I really like using gaming and Mario, he not Super Mario, but free the fight RPG games. ’cause it’s like magic and in a way. Yeah. Yeah. And when he done that. He she like stood up and jumped up as if nothing happened.

Yeah. Yeah. Then later on she came to me and said can you please translate to the title that, you saved my life and this, and if I’m not mistaken, she said that she’s, her mom called her or some family member and they felt something as wrong, something being released. So it’s wow.

Oliver Scott: So intergenerational. Yeah. I was just gonna say, that’s so interesting ’cause it’s it. It impacts the whole lineage or bloodline or ancestry or whatever, and it’s some, this is something that I’ve heard or even been given pretty strong evidence of maybe five years ago when I was still very much firmly rooted in my materialistic scientific worldview.

I’d have found any sort of excuse to justify it in a different way. Oh, coincidence or this or that. But where I’m at now and what I’ve learned so far off various medicines, it does make perfect sense because, or it makes sense in a in a particular paradigm. And ’cause it seems that, from my perspective, the only thing that was restricting these possibilities and things that we’ve mentioned so far was this limited idea that the mind is.

Almost like a secretion of the brain. It’s just this sort of ephemeral thing that exists within the skull and it has no influence on, or it can exert no force upon anything beyond the skull. But if you consider that’s actually not the truth and that maybe the truth is the opposite, that our entire experiences within mind are not my mind, like the collective mind, like the Buddhists say.

Then why wouldn’t that girl’s that guy’s father or that girl’s mother have some sort of intuitive knowledge that something was happening with somebody they’ve got a very strong bond with. When these people exist within the same reality frame or the same mind or whatever, it’s like this conduit that is hidden from us by our scientific rationalism.

But if you accept that it’s a reality. These things that suddenly seem so paranormal, start to have quite a sensible explanation.

Sam Believ: I think I just realized a good analogy for this. It’s one analogy is we’re all computers. I. Without connection to internet. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I love it.

Yeah. The other analogy is we’re computers but we have connection to internet. Yeah. Yeah. And the other analogy is we’re all actually on the cloud. Yeah. And the computers are basically just screens where we are. Yeah. So which one is right? We don’t know. Yian theory, like what they call it collective unconscious.

Yeah. The fight that everything is somewhere down the cloud. And that obviously it’s very believable that they’re in that space where everything is connected. The souls communicate. Even when people die, they still go there. I really like that that, that thought is comforting to me. Coming back to what we started with, right?

I’m really non-religious. I thought, the moment I die, I fall on the ground and I rot and forget about it. Like the only the only positive I can find of that is let’s say, my meat will rotten and wars lead and then the grass will grow already. This kinda way of recycling.

Yeah. I recently, working with medicine, you just have no choice but to notice that you go to those space, like you said one time, you punctu it through that wall and so what’s beyond and whether it’s correct or not. Nobody could really nobody could really say, because nobody knows, right?

That’s what all religions are based on that assumption that there’s something there. I definitely felt presence of God couple times new ceremonies, and God for me is not a bearded guy or whatever. It’s basically that thing that like this understanding that everything is connected and like a universe is a God.

You a God, and Lamb God grow God and this palm trees a God. Yeah. Yeah. It’s all, this one thing is like being connected to it is when you feel that it’s a God, being disconnected is when you feel godless. And then I definitely started believing that you don’t really die. Like I don’t, it’s not that I, there was a specific moment, but like some time has passed and I went from thinking that, you die and that’s it.

To kinda like just not believing it anymore. It’s not that I adopted some other belief, it’s just that I removed that wrong belief. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And my opinion now is if you think about it, we as objects are basically information, but you tiny sperm meets tiny ag and everything else grows from the what you eat and stuff you can consume from around both physically and probably also energetically, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And so how unbelievable. Like you can send a movie or, and you can send blueprints to a fucking. A death star for some reason. Like you can send blueprints to for a ship to a shipyard in China and they’ll do a ship for you. And that’s the industry I worked in. So how unbelievable it is that this blueprint, what you could call soul.

Yeah. At the moment we die is being sent somewhere, wirelessly, we have wifi now we have Bluetooth and all this kind. What is this? What is, there are other levels of stuff that we dunno like and this thing about levels. Yeah, I was worried I’m not gonna have something to talk about this other conversation nicely.

Now I’m realizing do that, I’m like I’m not letting you speak. Is there enough memory on the phone to come to every end? As I was saying, it’s experie how it just comes out. Yeah. Yeah. And this is, even if I’m wrong, this is a very comforting notion. Okay, you die and then.

Something goes somewhere and then it goes somewhere else. And like those, I’m assuming those spaces where you go in psychedelic sometimes is a space where it so goes and those I like a lot of times those are very pleasant places to be. Yeah. So

Oliver Scott: what’s your opinion on that? It’s I’m just trying to remember now those a bit that I liked.

First of all, I like the the analogy with the internet and the, of being computers. Our minds work in a similar way. Which one? Which one appeals to you? Of three. You. You I’d never taken it to the cloud level, but it seemed so, it seemed like such a really fitting analogy when I thought about this same thing in my own contemplation that I was a computer, and that to have this sort of realization that there’s a God or this connection that you spoke about is exactly the same as just being plugged into the internet.

Because for a computer that’s never been plugged into the internet, even the idea of being connected to, sorry, I interrupt,

Sam Believ: but I just realized something really profound. Internet is just the, those connections, right? Yeah. It’s not a thing. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So God is that thing.

Yeah. Yeah. It is all that connection. No, is what God is. Yeah. It’s, it is it’s not something specific, but it sticks like yeah. That glue, it’s the

Oliver Scott: synergy between all these different knowers and. And yeah, like from the perspective of a computer that’s never been plugged in, even the idea of being connected to other versions of itself would be the most foreign concept ever.

It’d have no need to even think that’s even a possibility. But as soon as you plug with that ethernet cable in the back, it’s like hyperspace in terms of the computer. And so it really to me that feels like such an accurate analogy and. And you could even see it that this is certainly how I see it, that everything that man creates, the internet obviously being one of those things, it’s just like a reflection of, or a manifestation of his inner nature.

So like the fact that we’ve created this network of things that seems to quite nicely fit this metaphysical concept of connection. It is actually a production from that metaphysical connection and almost like mirrors and the world being a mirror of the inner soul or whatever. That’s, that fits quite nicely.

It’s like just a

Sam Believ: very kind of tainted mirror. We come up with our own versions of Yeah, exactly. Slightly uglier and

Oliver Scott: more backwards. Yeah. Yeah. We just need to give it a good clean, and almost the mirror’s so dirty that we’ve actually lost the ability to recognize ourselves in it and. We see everything as being separate things that aren’t intrinsically connected to ourselves, but when we start doing activities like meditating or taking medicine for example, we’re just giving that mirror a bit of a clean, and eventually there’ll be that moment of, oh my God, it’s me, shit.

This is who I’ve been hiding from this entire time. And these are those moments that really open up the heart and,

Sam Believ: yeah. One more thing that I wanna talk about, which is on, on the subject of supernatural, but it’s basically so far not confirmed, but sometimes on Ayahuasca for example, you get, it’s as if you put a lens or filter on, on you and you start perceiving flows of energy.

A lot of people commonly describe. And even on the last retreat, you had several people death. Describe this mesh or a net of they say it like, like a matrix. Yeah. And I’ve had people describe it to me know ceremony after ceremony and, even on different medicine. Yeah. Yeah. So interest one, one time here, upstairs, you cannot see it, but there’s a bonfire in some small roof and the agner roof that I built, but functional.

And some chairs where we would sit by the fire during the ceremonies. And I remember seeing this ver I was in my trip, psychedelic trip, psyched up, but then I opened my eyes and I was still, seeing things visually, but it was not like just a bunch of colors that don’t apply.

It was augmented reality in the sense that it was right there. And I would just see this stuff green color glistening veins of something that I understood was as energy going from old directions, kinda like a vane plants to the fire. And it wasn’t that like I would look around, that they would shift with me.

They were there. Yeah, I would just see them when I would look at him. Wow. And then every stone around the fire my, the logo that we have, the. Oh, you want it’s that moment that I I want I still, no it’s a very rudimentary one, but if I get a graphic designer that, that’s good enough to understand my vision, I would like for him to draw and maybe, when this blows up, or if, no, not if this blow up, but when this goes up you he or she will find me.

I saw those green veins of energy going around each rock and then ending up in the fire and then this energy would burn. And the fire was a spec, a specific kind of spirit kind of being, it’s not just this like plasma I was looking at. It was the It was a thing. Yeah. It had a person.

In general when on psychedelics, when you look at plants, you realize they’re not just plants. They’re something else. It’s not just a physical appearance. Definitely. So the, my question is and also every rock would have OG lifts on it. Like letters basically saying I’m that rock.

Yeah. That’s my name. That’s who I am. Like and they would also not change, like I did not know how to read them, but it was all there fixed and there was, it was, everything was surrounded by notion that this moment where I am right now is exactly where it should be and it cannot be done any better.

And this is just, yeah, perfect place for this moment to happen. I. And even though nothing was happening, it’s a very comforting notion that this is a perfect place for me to be right now. And all those people are exactly at the place where they need to be. Yeah. I’m losing my breath. I have so much to say.

That’s nice. And this is, but not to change the subjects. Is, and my question was like, is this a real thing that I’m seeing? Is it just something that I normally have no ability to perceive? Yeah. Is it just a hallucination? And if it is a hallucination, how come it’s so real and why everything is augmented.

Yeah. And then it comes to, gave me this notion that maybe there are like levels, like we have infrared and visible and exactly what, if there are levels to that we, which we haven’t discovered yet, which psychedelics, you put those in, some people can see totally different landscape, yeah.

What does the what does a bat see? So it’s solar or what does it see? Oh, yeah, exactly. What does it flies? What hell does that Yeah, exactly. So what the, what are the levels are there with, psychedelic service? Same psychedelic, but on a different Yeah. Level. What are the levels gaining and how many are there?

So is it wrong? Is it

Oliver Scott: just a hallucination or is it that, this is a very interesting question, Mike. This is something that I’ve, I certainly don’t have the answer, but I’ve thought about this a lot and, ’cause I’ve had similar experiences of you, you’ve said it very well, this augmented reality like.

In fact, one of the moments that one of these, like life changing moments was ironically, the moment I met my a moment I truly recognized my now girlfriend, there was this moment of this augmented reality, like the these levels to reality. And I was able to see this other reality and it was like, yeah, is it real?

And then it the conclusion I eventually drew with, not with regards to what I’d seen, but it was with regards to my own definition of the word real. And if we are constantly surrounded by all of this, and this is our solid reference point of language and terminology, our definition of real is gonna be almost like a condensate of this being the ultimate reality.

And so if we’re not, I guess to, to link you with your analogy of these different spectrums of the electromagnetic, sorry. These different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. If we’ve never seen infrared and we’d never have a word for it, there’d be no need for it. But then if one day we eat a particular plant or a berry and it’s oh shit, there’s this, there’s these infrared structures. I need to start creating new concepts for this because all my old concepts aren’t sufficient. And so I, my personal belief is that there are layers and there are other energies and intelligences and beings all around us.

Just like there are all these different radio stations all around us and we, you can shoot into different ones. Like the spirit realm and the Exactly. Yeah. But it’s all spirit really. In my worldview, it’s all this, it’s all energy. Just different f because if there’s

Sam Believ: like thousands of levels and some pieces are like, you go somewhere from level.

Exactly. So it of a 300. Then occasionally maybe they take their own version of psychedelic, Hey, sure, I made this call. You’re like yeah. Not just, or somebody. Yeah. That was them. Yeah. How unbelievable it is. Like it brings me to the concept of in infinity.

Yeah. Yeah. Is infinity just linear in space or is also infinity just going deep Yeah. In levels. Right?

Oliver Scott: Infinite and infinite dimensions. Light,

Sam Believ: yeah.

Oliver Scott: There’s is it is so crazy. It’s,

Sam Believ: yeah, it’s a real mind, and you lack, we lack words. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think our brain. If you believe in that, kinda like the cloud cloud analogy that we are in the cloud and this is just a manifestation.

Like we, we are, we have, our intent is very limited. Yeah. It just receives this tiny amount of information and what? I really like this tiny ants. Yeah. He’s happy there. We went too deep, we losing it. Decline. But this is all good. I think the view is a little, this I don’t know. I hope so. I wanna talk about something else that, this moment that I experienced and when I was describing this situation with the fire and this moment in the ceremony, how often do we feel that way?

I really don’t think I ever feel that way in, in my normal waking life. It’s like everything is exactly as it should be. And we always assume it’s not, we always assume we could be somewhere better or somewhere else or somewhere, but the reality is that it is the only way. The only way it could be like, because it’s, that’s the way it is.

Like just the one moment. Why can’t we feel that way every moment? Yeah. This is, the moment you stop and thinking like, I’m exactly where I need to be and this is perfect, and why can’t we? They’re like, why,

Oliver Scott: why don’t we ever? Yeah. That’s that’s another sort of I think it’s a thing that a lot of people, maybe 99.9% of people will be able to relate to, like this ability to truly value the present moment.

I know it’s something I struggle with a lot and it’s almost like in I, I see my mind as just this accumulation of time. It’s this big accumulation of time that prevents me from just being in this one moment because there’s all these memories of the past, all these thoughts about the future, what I’d want to be different, what I wanna do tomorrow while when dinner ready.

And it’s all these different thoughts of time are just clouding us and preventing us from just being completely content in this moment. ’cause it’s the only moment that has ever existed. It’s like pollution, right? Yeah,

Sam Believ: exactly. Like in the city we have light pollution, mental pollution, we have mental pollution.

We just, all those like loose thoughts just bouncing around the head. Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. That’s where generally comes in, right? You catch those loose thoughts, you put them in the page. Yeah. Hopefully there’s a bit less noise. Yeah.

Oliver Scott: Yeah. I’ve certainly found that’s been helping me over this.

Obviously the medicine’s probably helped me more than the journaling, but the. They’re on the same, they compliment each other.

Sam Believ: It’s no excel that I gave you this, and it’s not because it’s a dream of mine or, an indenture mine that people, after they end up filling their integration guide, they will go to the pages and just keep yeah.

As I explained, I want them to imagine they’re in imagine their word circle. Yeah. And just start telling like how their day was and like what else do they have, because. It’s only it feels like there’s nothing but the moment you start, it just starts pouring out, right? Like this conversation.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We like we began one thing and then we’re another, we already forgot whether this is kinda like a river and it just flows. Yeah. It just nice and fluid and it’s very interesting. But it’s fun. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s jump to another topic, right? Depression, anxiety.

Escapism, escapism, behaviors, addictions.

Yeah.

Sam Believ: I think we can easily tie them all together. Yeah, de definitely. I’ll begin with probably very wrongly quoting Gabo Mate, which is, I don’t mind if this becomes a podcast, he can say a good achievement will be getting him here.

I’ve actually met people who met him. Wow. Is he hung the Hungarian guy hung Hungarian Canadian Dr. Guy. Yeah. He says don’t look for, don’t look for substance. Look for Bain. Okay. So genius. Wow. Yeah. People, yeah. It’s so hard to get addicted to something when you’re in a good place mentally, like you can just, no.

Addiction is powerful. Yeah. Addiction is like a, something. It’s like a wrong plug to plug a hole. Yeah. But it’s, you only jump to those behaviors or substances when you’re in a bad place mentally. And when you’re not, you can. Play with the, like you can break, drink some alcohol and feel amazing and not remember about it next day.

What do you think? Yeah,

Oliver Scott: completely just even that sort of nugget of thought of his, about looking for the pain even that’s just liking up all these regions of my brain, was with different channels of thought, but. I agree with what he’s saying and also know it’s true from my own experience, like when I’ve struggled in the past with addiction or dependency on substances, whether it be alcohol or a big one for me was ketamine.

When I was after the period, maybe not until four years, maybe three years after my dad died. Started using it rec socially in, in London. And it was only after, maybe in London. Yeah, London, with the vowels. It’s only after nine months of being in London, I thankfully had this sort of rude awakening by a more helpful medicine, which was LSD when I was a music festival.

It just helped me realize though, so clearly that. The reason I was that I enjoyed taking ketamine so much wasn’t because of this sort of sensorial bliss that it gave me, because it helped me to shut out this pain that I just had manifested just ever present in my heart. And I just thought, I just enjoyed taking Ketamine because it was sensorial, but that.

Experience helped me get a level deeper and it was like, oh, that’s why I’ve been doing it. That’s why I keep going back to it. That’s why it stuck to me because it’s got this sort of little pain hook that it is almost like a little cactus on a jumper. It’s it’s hooked itself in there because I’m in that particular place mentally and emotionally at that moment in my life, and one once had managed to move past that.

I don’t take drugs anymore, but even maybe year, a year after it, I was able to try that particular drug. It was like, you know what? That actually wasn’t even that nice. It was, and then had no desire to even try it again. And so it was really potent for me how much that changed my relationship with the sorts of crutches or these buffers that help you through these hard times and.

And I went for a period of demonizing in which I’m, I think I’m passed because I think certain medicines or even things that would be considered drugs like ketamine is probably in most people’s vocabulary a drug and setting a medicine, it still helped me a lot and it’s still, it still helped me deeper my understanding and grow.

Everything has its purpose. Yeah. Ketamine

Sam Believ: by itself, it can be a drug, in a good partition has, you have the amazing way to remove pain from Yeah. From a memory and process trauma. Yeah. The I think I want to talk about depression, antidepressants and also quitting at the depressants to come to the ceremony.

We call that. Let’s take a short,

Can Ayahuasca help with Psoriasis? Sam Believ of AyahuascaPodcast.com interviewing Austin, who got some relief from his psoriasis symptoms after attending LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat

http://www.LaWayra.com

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to aya podcast.com.

Hello guys. We are live and today we’re joined by Austin coming live from Cali Austin was was a visitor at our November’s Ayahuasca retreat. We want to talk about, he messaged me a couple days ago sent me a photo of his legs. Nothing sexual. Basically he has he had a pretty, pretty bad case of psoriasis and it seems to be clearing up just nicely, so I decided to go on the call with them.

That might be interesting for those of you with psoriasis and other skin issues and talk about. His healing experience with Ayahuasca and maybe try going to the subjects of, you know, where it might be coming from and why Ayahuasca might be helping. So, Austin, welcome to Ayahuasca podcast. How are you doing today?

Hello, Sam. I’m doing great. I’m volunteering at this hostel in Cali and I.

Sam Believ: Nice. That sounds like you’re living a good life, Austin. So yeah. What, what brought you to Ayahuasca in the first place and and how are you feeling now after doing it? It was about, what, three weeks ago?

Yep. Almost three weeks ago. And so what first brought me to Ayahuasca was I’ve been struggling with psoriasis, which is autoimmune disease.

It’s for an example I’m not too sure, you can see this little red dot on my forearm here. But if you, you can search it up to look at more a string case of photos. But yeah, for the past year I’ve been struggling with this and I’ve cleared it out once and through just like straight eating out, got a blood test in Canada and sense a bunch of foods, just imbalance with bacteria in my belly over years of abuse of alcohol and just not eating the best foods and body with as.

And yeah. So what brought me to what comes down to like Western medicine just alternative roofs and I’m always into like just body health and wellness in the natural way is always, typically the best way. And I’ve done psychedelics before, like mushrooms and LSD and ayahuasca been something I never tried.

And just look seed, shrimp, the healing properties and how you can heal your mind and your body. And just like some people’s breakthrough experience. Experiences and realizations about oneself and just coming to, I, I had no idea if it, it would work, just a new experience. And yeah, so that’s what brought me to Sam’s retreat.

And yeah, after I can say it is so profoundly amazing just what I experienced, not within myself, but the others, and within my mind just consciously I feel awake and with my autoimmune disease, acceptance of what is. The thing is you’re beautiful on the inside, and even though your skin’s not perfectly clear, it is totally okay.

No, no one’s perfect and my skin is actually clearing out at a really amazing rate. And then, so my bug cut bacteria is like off. So I’m taking probiotics and eating really healthy and just getting my body back up to shape. And pretty much at this state, I can show you my skin at the moment.

So it used to be red as a tomato before coming to Sam’s. How do I switch the camera here? So if it looks here, kind of it’s still there, of course, but on my leg. But yeah. The, it takes the skin’s regeneration process takes 30 days. To fully heal from the bottom. Might take a little bit more than that just considering with inflammation within my body.

But it is it’s been an amazing process. Just feeling at peace with myself and not not, I wouldn’t say I was, sometimes I was depressed or feeling down. Not in the highest hopes, but yeah, for anyone out there with not even just psoriasis, any autoimmune disease or just any mental battles that someone’s struggling with.

It is so immensely beneficial. I couldn’t recommend this to enough people. I’m 22 years old. I was the youngest person at this retreat and yeah, it doesn’t necessarily mean how old you are. Everyone goes through their own things at certain times in their life and yeah. Medicine is truly beautiful.

It’s hard hardest week of my life, but also the best week of my life. At the same time working out so many things. I called every my, my parents, my brother, people like good friends, just. Told ’em I appreciate for what they’ve done in my life and I hope everything’s well. It wasn’t like I just called them up and been like, I just did that at Alaska.

I love you. It was like I just appreciating for what they, who they are and yeah, just, I don’t just wanna establish more connection with the, especially my parents and. I just told my dad saying for any, like, disagreements we’ve had in the past that have kind of like kindled the fire, put a little bit of added some extra wood to it when I could have just put it out with a glass of water.

That’s just and yeah just saying, I, I love you and I appreciate what you’ve done for me and I just hope everything well, because I’m in Columbia and I’m not too sure when I’ll see my parents because. And yeah, I just just such a profound experience and with the mind and body, like how it could, it’s correlated, it can reduce inflammation in your body.

It’s, it wasn’t a cure at the moment. Like it’s not just like to drink this and it’s like good to go, but the process of healing it is immensely. I believe within the next few or within the month, I’ll be like, my skin will be fully clear and yeah, just. My body heal and get the bacterias back up to normal levels.

Just from all the years of just my past, just being able to drink a whole ball of tequila in a night that is not the healthiest lifestyle. Staying up to four in the am. And yeah, for other things I have to say, it’s just on, it changed my life pretty much in such an amazing way, and I just feel at peace with myself and people around me, and not just about like my autoimmune disease, but just the whole life analysis and just old habits.

I haven’t smoked a cigarette in two months, or no two weeks since after the retreat. In my mind is programmed. I feel like it, I get nauseous when I smell cigarette smoke which is not good for any re anything. And yeah, for, I’m not really, yeah, pretty much. Yeah, that’s all I have to say at the current moment with ideas.

So yeah.

Sam Believ: And lemme unmute my microphone for a second. It’s just, it started raining here. No worries. It rains like crazy. I might be able to show you guys all good. It is Columbia.

Oh my, oh my.

Sam Believ: So I just muted the microphone to avoid any extra noise. So, yeah, it’s, it’s pretty obvious that. Condition is much better. ’cause I remember you, when you came to the retreat, the, all of those things on your legs, they were like red and sort of fluffy and it’s, it’s good to see them disappearing and your, and your skin healing.

Yeah. So the question I have for you, you is like, in your opinion what, what do you like, how do you think Iowas could help you? Is that just purely the emotional side, or is, or is it just the part that, you know, you’re urging and sort of releasing? Toxins, or maybe it’s something energetic like in your opinion, or at least like from your perspective, what, what you’re feeling, what, what would you reckon is the, the healing mechanism?

I would say it was a mixture of both physical and mental. I would say more so mental with inducing inflammation because say if I would eat certain foods and I would think that it would inflame my skin, that thing in my mind is I would kind of beat myself up mentally over that sake of just eating certain things that I knew necessarily could potentially make my skin worse even if it was just.

A bite of cake, like one bite of a cake. One bite is one bite. Having a whole slice is a whole slice, or even a whole cake, right? Even larger quantity. But one bite typically would not be a something. I didn’t have allergies, just sensitivities, just induc inflammation. So within food definitely I don’t think if anything’s gonna make my skin worse I feel at.

And just not aggravated like the inflammation that has been calm down in my body, just my mind just being at the most beneficial aspect of

healing process. That’s the a hundred percent. Like the best thing I got out of this experience was just being at peace with my mind and not just like being in like a bad head space. Just be like, just looking at my skin being like, come on, why has it gotta be like this? Like just for an example.

But for like the physical aspect when cleansing haven’t thrown up so much in my life ever before. It before doing ayahuasca. So I believe I’ve gotten a lot of bad bacteria out of my body. Just kind of like, I felt like I was a clean and like a fresh start from after the ceremony. And yeah, it was I just felt fresh and it’s just like an, like, it was just like a fresh start.

Like I just pressed, pressed start on my life and just time to make a lot more positive life decisions and just exercising. I’ve been going to the gym, skateboarding, playing basketball doing things I love. And yeah, not yeah, pretty just doing the things I love and just, just positive, beneficial I, I miss I messed words up, but yeah, I don’t think it was necessarily for like the clean, yes, it cleanses your, it can cleanse like it parasitic, but it comes down to rebuilding the gut biome.

It’s not an instant cure. I don’t believe in my personal opinion but with mental stress, I don’t believe I have any of that anymore. I’ve come to peace with myself and it’s just acceptance of what is and things will, it’s only temporary and with time if you’ve been damaging yourself for the past eight years with alcohol or drugs or anything it’s not gonna take one week to heal this damage that you’ve done to yourself. It’s gonna take a lot more time. And just accepting of what is and being at peace with myself and just happy for life.

What can I say? Not being, like feeling like my body’s turning against me. Yeah. Or not even just, it’s not being scared to go outside. ‘Cause I didn’t want people to see my skin. Not self-conscious of wearing shorts. I’m not, I’m wearing shorts right now. I really don’t care if someone looks at my legs and sees their red or like a little bit red now, I guess.

So it doesn’t really bother me too much at all. It’s just I am who I am and myself as myself. And your outward exoskeleton to your skin is the first thing people see. Doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a bad person or you’re. Like not nice because I just like hanging out with people and just enjoying experiences and yeah.

It’s been it’s been a hard year, but I feel like it’s in the past all this like mental agony and stress and yeah, coming to terms and accepting and just taking time for myself for once instead of going out and partying which is fun in the short term, but damaging in the long run.

And yeah, what is it? Pretty much that’s all I have to say on that question.

Sam Believ: Well thank you for your your analysis of that. It’s it’s interesting how you mentioned the, the stuff about the food and for a couple years I was also really struggling with my gut and I was really obsessed with different diets and elimination diets specifically, and I noticed that.

You might eat perfectly well, like better than you ever ate before, but because you’re so obsessed with the foods, because you’re so worried about it you just eat one cheat meal and immediately start getting bad symptoms and stuff like that. And seems that the mental aspect of it is somewhat than just the physical aspect.

And that’s really closely ties in with Ayahuasca and, and and the way, the way it works on you, right? Because Ayahuasca addresses that, you know, the, the men, the mental underlying causes and it’s sort of when works on you, right? He kinda like rebalances your body energetically and then. It kinda regains the ability to heal itself and, and, and become a little bit more sort of strong, basically not, you know, not like you get a gust of wind and you may immediately get sick when your body is balanced and it’s it has access to all its healing cap capabilities.

It’s like nothing, nothing can touch you. You become sort of. Much more resilient, I think is, is the right word. And I think that this this sort of relief from the symptoms you got, I think it might also work on other people with autoimmune conditions because. When your body attacks itself, you know, you really need to sort of talk to your brain about it.

Like, you know, come on, you know we should stop doing that. Stop attacking ourselves. And it’s like, why? Yeah. Logically think about it, like why would your body attack itself? Right? It, it seems like, seems like something emotional, maybe like lack of self love or something like that. I really have no explanation or no theory.

It’s just interesting to analyze cases like yours. We had some examples of people with other autoimmune diseases like chronic pain conditions that were relieved after only one ayahuasca retreat and, and so far it don’t seem to be coming back. And it’s just begs the question, what is the, what is the mechanism of it?

Why, why does it work? And it wor it seems to be working especially well for things like like this that seem to have somewhat of emotional core. I know you said you’re totally okay and, and you think you are. Situation is not caused by some emotional or some trauma, and it’s just your behavior. But may I ask you know, you said eight years of drinking and sort of reckless living.

Like what does that caused by? And it may be there, we can dig deeper and find an emotional or trauma based core. What, what happened eight years ago?

Eight years ago? Lemme see.

Actually, it may not be eight years ago. So I started drinking at 15 years old, so seven years ago. Okay. One year difference. Okay. So what happened seven days ago? You know what I seven years ago I discovered alcohol. It’s a great dopamine boost and it’s a good time with Houston. Respect.

But definitely definitely I would say I grew up in the big city of Vancouver, close to Canada. And yeah. What is it? I just enjoyed getting intoxicated. What can I say? I’m not too sure. I had some people in my family that were alcoholics and I just liked getting drunk as well. Hookups typically happen when I would drink.

Just more confidence within myself. Tip of what I have in myself now without alcohol is a lot greater. I find just confidence within myself and just like being I feel like alcohol is just like, it just numbs everything and definitely hanging out with some people that weren’t necessarily great toxic people.

And getting everything intoxicated around them. Just what I would think of as friends at the time just to enjoy my time a lot more. That was say like emotional trauma. That was, that was definitely, I. Something I would say that wasn’t, like, nothing was perfect, of course, in my life.

I played sports, played lacrosse for 13 years didn’t really, I smoked a lot of weed as well. Hit the vaping, nicotine as well, a lot of that and which is not good for, so let’s,

Sam Believ: let’s analyze the, the drinking part, right? You said that. Made you feel more confident? You said it made you feel more sort of joyful and you said it numbed something, but what, what, what was it numbing, right?

The question is was there maybe some running away from

emotional pain? When it comes down to numbing of anything? It just, when I say it. It, it numbs any anxiety. Fear. Fear of anything. Mm-hmm. Rejection going up to late girls, I didn’t know. Now I would just say hello and conversation goes somewhere. It doesn’t, it’s all right. That doesn’t mean that they’re not a great person or I’m just not for them.

It’s just we’re different people. Not, you cannot connect with everyone in the world. And definitely I would say so. Social anxiety a little bit. And yeah, from growing up in the city and just being around technology, being in a younger generation, growing up around cell phones and everything like that that was the, when I say for numbing that’s the one thing I.

Think of off the top of my mind, I’m an honest person being open right now. I just, I don’t think that that’s the only thing. And just like I really enjoyed being intoxicated as well. I’m not too sure if I was like thinking of escaping, but I just enjoyed the feeling of ci dopamine boost makes me feel good.

That’s why alcohol is one of the most popular drugs in the world consumed by millions if not billions of people.

Sam Believ: Billions for sure. And billions.

Yeah, billions. Yeah.

Sam Believ: So

yeah.

Sam Believ: So I’m glad you found better ways to manage your social anxiety than alcohol. Something less destructive and yeah, and it’s good, it’s great seeing you, you know, slowly fixing your problems both physically and mentally, and, yeah, it’s you know, we’ll we’ll check up on you later to see if you’re still doing well. And you know, if, if, if your ailment ever comes back, you know, you’re always welcome, welcome back and to the retreat and we’ll fix you up. Totally.

We lost any.

Any parting words, honestly? Yeah. Just acceptance of who you are and your body and yourself and yeah, what is it? If you have an autoimmune disease or any sort of depression or any, anything that’s bothering you in your life, ayahuasca basically can show you the answers and, and mitigate or eradicate any stress.

And just acceptance of what is and through a healing process, everyone’s healing is different without what other depends on the underlying condition of what is caused and what you said about having a cheat meal here and there. Even though if you great, like say if you’re eat so strict for a week and then you have a cheat meal and you think you’re going to, on the mental burden upon yourself, that’s gonna cause a lot more damage.

In the long run or in general than the actual, just having like a slice of cake, for example, if you’ve been doing all these positive things in your life and not having that mental what is it burden anymore? Even if I just have guilt, like Yeah, yeah. No guilt. Yeah. Whatsoever. Is beautiful. And yeah, I can’t advocate this experience for enough for anyone in the healing process of their life.

And yeah, just discovering and just being at peace with oneself and being,

Sam Believ: yeah. Thank you Austin. Yeah, it’s about sort of. Disconnecting eating from emotions, you know, eating is eating emotions, our emotions. And we seem to blend, blend them all together and it creates a lot of, a lot of problems.

And I ask is a nice sort of reset for your brain whenever you’re dealing with anything that might be caused by anything emotional. Austin, thank you for coming in for this short episode and telling us about your, your healing process and, i’ll talk to you sometime soon.

Cheers. Sounds good.

Does Manifestation even work? Sam Believ interveiws Diana Merfeldiene who is a coach and manifested a pretty awesome lifestyle for herself, look and learn on how to do it yourself!

LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat

http://www.LaWayra.com 

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to aya podcast.com

and we’re live guys. Welcome everyone who is gonna join us. Most likely. There’s not many at the moment, but you’re gonna watch this in, to repeat. Guys, welcome my sister Diana here. She’s gonna join us today for this live stream. She’s a life and manifestation coach, and she’s gonna teach us about that and also about why today, 11th of 22 is the very important date for manifestation.

I, I see. Manifestation is very tightly knit with setting your intentions as well. For as we work with ayahuasca primarily before the every ceremony, we always ask you to set an intention so you know why you’re drinking the medicine and what you wanna achieve. So think, I think about manifestations somewhat as an intention for your entire sort of life.

And yeah. Diana, welcome. Thank,

thanks for having me. And guys, if you’re watching this in replay hashtag replay it would be nice to just know who watched and maybe if you have any questions, you can always ask in the messenger and we will look and reply after. If you’re not watching this in a lifetime.

Yeah, I think manifestation is like a new trend. It’s nearly a lot of the time people are using it, but they’re not really sure what it is. So it’s nice to talk about it, and especially because you’re interested and today’s a special date and it’s even more magic.

Sam Believ: Okay, Diana tell us how did you become a manifestation coach?

What did you do? What did you do before that? And yeah, just a little bit about. Manifestation.

Yeah. I’m gonna first probably introduce myself, not you introduced me a little bit, but just a small bit. But people don’t know me. I am some sister I’m also wife and mom for beautiful daughters.

I am an artist and I am a life and manifestation coach. So how I come across manifestation is, it actually was a surprise for myself. It wasn’t something that I inten, intently do. Two years ago I met a friend and she seemed to be changed and I looked at her and she was all different.

And I was like, what are you doing? Are you doing something different? Because I could feel the energy. I didn’t know what she was doing, but I could feel the energy and that way I got introduced to one of the coaches and, she was working with the coach and she said, this is the lady I’m working with.

If you’re interested, you can contact her. And and this is where my manifestation journey began. So two years ago, when I was when I got introduced to this material, I started to change myself. Two years ago, I did not have what I have right now. I was still working in my logistic job. I was unhappy, unfulfilled.

I had my kids in the crash and I really hated what I was doing. I hated leaving my kids in the morning, coming back, feeling so empty. Like life was really. Sad, and I, there was like a little voice inside that was telling me you’re meant for more. And yeah, and I and I knew that I meant for more.

I’ve heard this voice, but there was nothing I can do about it. So this material, two years ago that’s how I got introduced to manifestation it. It’s the first time when I set actually intention, what you were talking about, when I set the goal for myself. And then I started working towards it. I started visualizing, manifesting, using different techniques and stuff like that.

So I become a student two years ago, and now fast forward, I I teach this myself. Yeah.

Sam Believ: Okay. Student becomes a teacher. Before we go in depth with the manifestation I want to ask you something. Because I work with plant medicines and I was a marine mechanical engineer before working in oil and gas.

You were working in logistics and also very like technical jobs, not that you did.

How did you end up working in oil and mechanical job? Do you want tell the that’s what

Sam Believ: brings me do you think that? Our paths as as brother and sister are somewhat similar, that we came from like a soulless job, like a traumatic upbringing, solace job, and then eventually finding ourselves and like you, you choose the path of, coaching, meditation personal work in this way.

I chose the plant medicine path, we are both obviously achieving the results and like changing our lives. What do you think it has to do with our upbringing?

Oh, it has everything to do with our upbringing. Now, I know this like two years ago, I didn’t know this and what was happening for me because we, you and I, we both lived through the traumatic childhood with our abusive parents alcoholics in, in our family one alcoholic and all this.

Time the childhood and everything that was a all the beliefs, systems and everything has to do with our childhood. And it’s funny because we were like we were good kids of our parents and we were, we always did what we were told. So we were told to go there and that’s where we went.

And I went to this logistic college, which mari Italian college in Lepe. And then I told you like, do you want me to join me? Maybe because this was the only way to escape this abusive environment in our house. And that’s how I ended up in, in ep. And then you yourself. So it’s all to do with that.

And now fast forward, I become a mom, I have relationship and everything in my life started to bring this back. It’s like you, you come back, you still have to deal with. So with problems from your childhood. I generated all the problems that I generated throughout my childhood and how I saw my parents interacting with each other.

All of that obviously put a stamp on my relationships. Now, I don’t really know. How to do it differently. So when I become a mother and when I entered into relationship, guess what, I had all the same things that my parents did. But at one point in my life I was like, no, this is enough. I’m not gonna do this.

I want to change this. That’s how I started to shift and and I was like, I become aware that this is not who I want to be. And like I started noticing traits of my father in me. And then that’s when I started hating myself. And and that’s when I started no, enough is enough.

I want to shift. I want to change. This is not for me. Yeah, so that’s probably why. Do you want to tell your side of the story?

Sam Believ: Yes. The childhood was very traumatic. Especially for me, I think the most. Difficult part, which is I don’t even remember. But I think what started all was a separation with the mom.

And they, they sent our brother and to our grandmother and also me later on a very early age, which I think is terrible for a long time. And I think this kind of set sort of pattern and then all the separation and all the. Our dad was al always like borderline ag aggressive and you have to be like, tiptoeing your life to just basically not.

But anyways we, we found very different paths and we’re both working on ourselves. I definitely know my journey is not over yet. I still, there’s still a lot to work through and I don’t think you ever get perfect. But to not derail that conversation completely. Like we, we are here to talk about manifestation.

And but before, before we do, I want to address something that’s personally a concern for me as well. There’s a lot of something that’s called like toxic positivity. I don’t know if this term is basically where there’s it’s kinda like an. Multilevel pyramid schemes oh, I’m a coach, and then you’re a coach and everyone’s a coach and who’s gonna actually do the work?

It’s also somewhat similar in the plant medicine field, but and it’s there is like a dark side of that concept of manifestation and like this. This sort of work. So what I want to make sure people know is that we are aware of that and we are gonna talk about manifestation that actually works and it’s not about selling something.

And so to begin that, I wanna talk about my own experience with manifestation. I’ve never done any courses or anything like that. I’ve heard about it. I’ve heard mostly about vision boards where you have a board of things you want to achieve. So I never really had a board because I’ve been traveling around all the time.

But what I did is I created a file on my phone, just a little text sort of file, and I wrote some points and just so happened to be, which is an interesting synchronicity. Two days ago, I was going through my phone and kind of cleaning it up, and I found that, that file, like for example I have I live in a Finca now, which is, countryside.

I, I could show you. It’s it’s like a very green, beautiful place. And and I have two sons, two boys. And I have this thriving business and with the Ayahuasca retreat, that grown a lot within the last year and a half. And just it was about three years ago when I said those manifestations, all of those things were in that list.

Like back then I had zero babies and now I have two. And they’re both boys, which is very I. Tripping in a way, like how can it be? But that the things that you set your mind on. And what I would do is I would just sit down for half an hour meditate, and I would envision myself like playing with my sons in the morning or being in this place and things that I would do.

And, it came out not exactly like I envisioned it, but it still came out like the basics. So I know manifestation works and, it’s better to probably do it professionally and that’s why that’s what Deanna is gonna teach us. How did manifestation I. Work in your life and how do we manifest things?

Yeah. I want to start by just telling that we are all manifesting and we’re manifesting 24 7 literally with our thoughts. And a lot of people are doing unconsciously. They’re not aware of it. And that’s what it is. So we always manifest and all the thoughts that you think throughout the day.

If more than 50% of that is positive, you are manifesting positive. And if you, if more than 50% is negative, you’re manifesting more negative to your life. When you are, when you become aware and you were aware, because if you started to do the vision board and stuff like that and work through mindset, you are becoming aware of what you think about.

And the more you’re aware of it, the more you can actually shift it or. Switch your thinking. So for example, if a negative thought comes into your head, you can just switch it or you can choose not to entertain it, and that’s how you so manifestation is the thought. Then the thought comes into the feeling.

So the feeling of it, feeling is the secret. Be behind the manifestation. The moment you entertain the thought, so thought comes into your head, then you give it feeling and that’s when like the power as with the power you really manifest. So the feeling is giving you this a hundred percent assurance that this will manifest.

So how I know that my manifestation is gonna come true when I know, when I feel that yes, I can do this. This is coming my way. So the moment I become I have this a hundred percent belief and faith in it. That moment it comes and. Manifestation. And from the two years ago I started my conversation.

I was in logistics office. I was broken inside. I had this surgery that I came through. Everything went downhill and I felt unhappy. I felt like something is missing in my life. On the side. I always had this I like to paint. I like to, it was like my hobby thing. And I was thinking I would like to have it as a full-time job.

I would like to do this. I would like to enjoy my life. I want to take my kids to school every morning, drop them to school, enjoy my morning, do my, and guess what? I think since I started working on this with the coach two years ago, everything started to unravel. I started to work with my thoughts.

I started to catch them. I started to shift my beliefs, and that moment is when I when I started realizing things are starting to move, things are happening. I quit my in a years time. I quit my logistics job, nine to five. I fulfilled my long time. Passion and I become full-time artist. And not only I become an artist, I also believed in myself.

I believed that my paintings can be sold for big money and I become first life wedding painter in Ireland. And ideas start coming to me. And this idea of a life wedding painting wasn’t really mine. And like people started to come up to me, something started to shift. People from the newspaper, radio stations coming up and asking me for interviews, and that’s how everything started to unravel.

And my, my income grew. I did less. And, but I loved what I do. I spent time with my kids and my income grew dramatically. For example, just to give you an idea for just to if I drew two paintings, doesn’t work, two days. Per month. This is my monthly income when I was in my logistic job, nine to five.

Sam Believ: And how many paintings a month did you do the most? Biggest amount.

It depends because I also take deposits. I’m not really painting all the time but my income is around 10 K every month and it’s and it’s easily, it’s like with ease and flow. I do what I love, like I can paint one day I can take a break, I can go collect my kids from school.

I can go, and now coaching is my second thing as well. So it’s my, I have two income sources, not only paintings, but also coaching.

Sam Believ: That’s really great. So how do you I wanna talk about two things. First of all, how do you. Physically manifest, like what’s the process looks like?

What is your routine for that? And the second thing is like, how do you combine manifesting with actually doing actions and actually doing things? Because I think the risk here is for some people to just spend their time in their mom’s basement just manifesting and not ever leaving to confront the world.

Yeah. No my, my favorite expression is actually from God Works through Faith Book. Robert Russell, if you know this author, he’s talking about success and faith. So success is faith expressed in action. So we want to believe, we want to manifest, we want to visualize, but we want to also, take steps towards it. It’s like the God gave us everything that we want in this universe, but we need to stand up and go and do something about it. And for example, the birds, they have the food here. Food is available. They can just go and get some worms or whatever they eat, or some berries.

But they need to literally fly off the of the branch and go and get it. Yes. But it’s still there. It’s available for them. So if there is something that you really want, it’s available to you. All you need to do is just end up and take actions. Take actions. Yeah. The manifestation process then, is to think about something. So first of all what you need to do is you need to create a desire. Something that is something that you really want. Like you had this vision board, but this is more sort of a vision If you have a goal. Goal is a little bit different. It’s like a focused thing, so for example, I like to create six months goal, something that I don’t know how to achieve. Not now yet, but it’s something that I really want and I concentrate my my attention on it. I write it down. I write it out as I’m so happy and grateful now that I do this and that, for example, that I have I.

My, my current goal is my beautiful home by the beach. And I enjoy my time with my girls and this is what I visualize. So I do, I have a goal, I write it out, I visualize, and then what I also do is every day I. A night before. The next day I have six goal achieving activities that I do. I write them down and then next day I make sure that I tick them off the box.

And that’s what I know that I need to do those six. And if I do those six, then I will get to that goal, and you normally get the idea, the ideas will come to you what you need to do. So this is the three steps, like the most important ones. You first write it out, you do.

You think of what you want, what you really desire. Not something that your family wants, your parents want for you, nothing to do with anybody else. It’s you. What do you want? And then once you know what you want, you write it out and that’s how you can then visualize it. You imagine yourself with it.

You feel the feeling of having this already. That’s an important part as well, is just to feel this feeling of you already having it. And then once you have this feeling, when you connect it with it in the morning, go and do some work. You just go and do you just write out the things that you need to do and always.

I like to call it in spirit action in spirit, so when you’re connected you go and do the things. Inspired you, you do things inspired, not just to be done mechanically. Oh, I need to do and I need to send that email. We are not doing it like that. What we want to do, we want to do it in spirit.

We want to do it inspired. So how would for example, Sam, that has that goal. Do it. How would you, can, you can actually think about it and connect to it back and forth, like some that has all of that. How would he do that? How would he write this email? How would he speak to that person? So that’s what I like to do.

And this process gave really works. It now works with my students. I have a group of people that I coach and all of them. Building up a little by little they manifest. And it’s just amazing. The most amazing. That’s great

Sam Believ: talk, talking about your students and we’ve already heard your success story, right?

Can you tell us some of your student successes and how it looks like something that impressed you personally?

Yes, for every day I hear something and every day when I hear my students like making progress, it really makes my heart melt and it means I’m doing the right job and I’m in the right place.

One of the probably biggest ones my student, Flo, is she is a baker and she was dreaming of opening her own making her own business, and being successful. She was baking as a hobby, selling one cake, two cakes, but with me, when we started working. Put her, she now is she looked at me and she’s now focusing on the wedding sector.

So she’s now working with wedding business and she booked one of her orders for more than she could imagine. I think it was 1000 something for a cake. She never had done anything like that before. She, she only booked the cake for five 50 euros. So by shifting the beliefs, by working through all of that self image she achieved those results.

She also had her relationship with her husband was on the edge of divorce. They were divorcing. She didn’t know what to do. She wanted to divorce. That’s it, because it was the last thing. And because I have experience in those things, we worked, relationship, my, my courses including relationship, course as well. So we talk about that a lot. And she started by shifting herself, her own her own beliefs, her own self image. We do a lot of mirror work and working with herself, giving herself what she needed. She her husband changed so miraculously because our partner is our mirror.

And this is what happened in my case as well. So I help her with her relationship with her business, and she’s now thriving and, going for it. And it’s amazing.

Sam Believ: That’s great. Yeah. Everyone can do it. And I wanted to remind you of something, and we haven’t spoken about it before, at least for a long time.

Do you remember. Maybe 10 years ago or so when you were already in Ireland, and I think you already had one daughter, you did mention that you had a vision board and that it included those things. Do you remember that or no?

You had the vision board or I had no,

Sam Believ: no. You had some kind somewhere in the closet in your room.

You had some kind of thing with something similar to Vision Board. Do you remember that?

No, I haven’t. No,

Sam Believ: because I definitely remember that that you had something that, that basically, or you written somewhere in your diary, some kinda list of things, and then you got them. So you were practicing it before.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sam Believ: You were practicing. With my

daughters with four kids. When we met with my husband it was before I, I knew this works, when we met in 2004. He, I met him and I was like I’m gonna have four kids. And he’s no, what you laughing at? And we were only like dating back then.

And then when we got married, I was like, no, I’m gonna have four kids. And he was like, laughing at me. And then there we go. We have four kids. So this stuff works. Yeah. A hundred percent.

Sam Believ: Okay. Now tell us why Today is a special day. The 11th of 22.

Yeah. So why so manifestation is happening always, but today it’s unique.

What is happening is 11 1111 is one number one is about new beginnings. And if it’s there is a power of repeating numbers, especially 1111. And just today it’s a very powerful opport. Opportunity to allow with the voice within to just tell you what you want. If you listen today, if you ask yourself a question, what is it that I really want?

You will get a great answer and it’s a great day to manifest. So it’s like a. Double. No, it’s actually quadruple four. It’s 1, 1, 1, 1. It’s quadruple energy to manifest. So if there’s anything that you want in your life, today is the most amazing day to do that. And you can do this by as I said, by journeying.

So if you want, you can just sit down. Maybe lit a candle. What I like to do is I journal and my journal processes, when it’s quiet, my kids are in bed. I put lit the candle. I have an empty space. I sit down and I journal and start with start with gratitude. Don’t just go jumping to, I want this, it’s like a santa list.

When the kids, want something from Santa Claus. They started to bring me this and this, and I’m like no. We have to go back and just ask, tell Santa thank you for this and this, and then we ask for something. So before you jump into asking for what you want to manifest, I want you to sit down and really think about what is it that you’re grateful for in this life.

Think about people, maybe something that happened to you. All the little details, all the little things that you can think of. Write them down, think what you’re grateful for, and then. Focus and think about what is it that your heart really wants? Not people around you, not your wife, your kids.

Forget about everybody. Just think about what you really want. You can also talk to your body and ask yourself, what is it that my body needs? What is it that my body wants? So don’t jump ahead, sit down, have some time really concentrate, and talk to yourself. It’s a nice day to do that. The next step is meditate, and I will share when you will be sharing this life.

You can share my meditation that I’ve created and my the students that I work with are using as well, and I use, it’s called Create Your Live Meditation. It’s actually it’s very powerful meditation to really sit down and visualize where you want to go in your future and connect with the feeling of it.

So if you can do this today and really think about it, write out your goal, and it is gonna work for. Four times, like it’s quadruple. So do it today. Do this meditation if you can today, and then repeat it once a day at least for a month. 21 day is just to have it and then come back to us in a month’s time and let us know if this worked because I’m a hundred percent sure if you really will connect with the feeling it’s gonna work.

Today is this amazing day to do this. And yeah, just to before you go. And it’s great to, and like Sam said, we, it’s great to manifest and sit there and it’s, we need to connect with the feeling because we, as human beings, we operate on tree planes. Yes. We it’s our body, it’s our mind, and it’s our spirit.

And we want to connect with all three of them to have things happened. And with body, we need to get moving. So once you have this, you have this beautiful manifestation, you know what you want. You go ahead and move in spirit and think of what is it that you want to have and maybe the steps that you need to take every single day to get yourself closer to that goal.

I think that’s it. From me on that manifestation thing, do you want to add anything?

Sam Believ: No, I think it’s it’s a good way. Explained it. I think that I might give it a try. I definitely, without knowing it, because you messaged me after I woke up, but as, as soon as I woke up this morning, I was just lying and visualizing some things as well because I’ve been, it’s kind habit of mine.

I, maybe that’s why good things happen to me in life is because. I do have this, but see,

some people are unconscious competent as we call them. You might not even realize and do this. And that’s what I did. When you were saying now we did it, I journaled before as well and it was unconsciously, I just, I.

Because I felt like I, I want to do this, and that’s how my manifestation happens. For everyone, if you’re watching and if something happens in your life, so sometimes people say everything bad happens, and it’s like, everything around me is against me. Or life is like just getting ahead or whatever.

Just remember that life is nothing to do with it. You create your own life, and you can change this by changing one thought at a time, by connecting to the feeling, by connecting to something that you really want, it’s important to understand, and this is probably why coaching, what coaching is for, to just show you that it’s possible.

And help me give you this,

Sam Believ: guys. Look what I manifested.

I can’t wait. I haven’t been in Columbia yet. See, I’ve been

Sam Believ: manifested by papa.

Aw, so cute.

Sam Believ: Eldridge here asked us a que a question or he says something. He came to one of our retreats, I think it was two or three retreats ago. He says after I saw the energy grid, during our ayahuasca experience.

Now when I use intentions, I use my arms to move the energy, and it seems to be working great for my manifestations. So my question is, when we are vibrating hard, does that cause faster manifestations? Absolutely. My, my opinion is, and we’re gonna talk about Ayahuasca as well, ’cause just so you know guys, my sister has never done it before and she thinks it’s maybe not necessary, but so we have to convince her, no,

I’m not I I recommend Ayahuasca to everyone who has who is in that deep place and they might not know how to come out of it faster.

So for the person that needs to get to the higher vibration faster, this could be like the great great tool. For me I, I will probably, when I come to Columbia, try it because I have no other way. And I’m planning my trip for the next beginning of the next year to see my, if you’re gonna come, if

Sam Believ: you, if you don’t wanna try it, we’re still gonna mix it with your juice or something like that.

So with that Eldridge, thank you for your question. It reminds me of something. And it also ties into another subject. So basically, I remember one time I was having ayahuasca like a couple years ago, and Ayahuasca clearly told me that if I take my hand like this and I put it here on my forehead, pressing this bone onto this point where like the third eye source?

Yeah. It’s as if this is some kinda like antenna. And I’m gonna get my signal will be stronger. Both receiving it. Yeah. And sending, which kind of, right now when Eldridge says about moving your hands and you always get all sorts of different gestures and they seem to have different meaning.

It’s very hard to understand. Like it’s a sort of deep thing, but it reminded me, people when they pray they do like this. No.

Yeah. Here you put your heart hands to the heart center. Yeah.

Sam Believ: Yeah. In yoga but I know that some people pray like this, or at least like in Asian cultures they do this.

So maybe we either unconsciously know it or maybe the, some traditions sort. Understood. So my answer to you would be that probably yes, we definitely. In the higher state when you’re, especially after you’ve just done ayahuasca and you’re like vibrating high, you definitely have stronger access.

And I think during your ayahuasca session, sometimes you have direct access and you can, I. See your future, see your past, and manifest things immediately. So I think it, the, those two things tied together very nicely. Meaning that if you do ayahuasca, then you’re not only, you will unre, unbreak this break apart your mind to to even allow yourself to think those thoughts.

Because some people, they’re. They’re so deep down in that energetical hole that they think like it’s over and it can only get worse. And then when you do manifestations, it’s it’s also a form of meditation. Even if you take away the. The supernatural part

before I forget my thought.

Go for it. I absolutely think that it brings you a higher on the level of vibration. What it also does when we are as human in, in our normal self I call it 3G State when we are say meditating, we get ourselves to four D states. But what happens with ayahuasca, it’s like you get to the 5G, and you can get there with meditation, but it’s harder and you need to be more advanced.

And if Joe Dispenza, he’s talking about this 5G, but where you, when you. Get into this, into the state where you are. Nobody, no one. And you connect with the universe and with your energy, with your vibrations. You straight, like when you see something and when you repeat something to yourself in that 5G, that’s when you manifest it like instantly.

And to get there, you need to get through to your subconscious mind, like straight away. I think that’s what vascular is doing to you. You get there quicker, like on the rocket instead of, elevator with meditation. Yeah.

Sam Believ: The way that I like to display the, explain the whole sort of spirituality and the personal growth field is like there is a mountain.

And you want to get to the top and there’s, it’s a big mountain. There’s hundreds of different walks and paths, and ayahuasca is like a helicopter that takes you to the top. But the thing is that it, it comes with a caveat that it takes you to the top for like couple hours and then it takes you back.

Down, not all the way down to the base, but somewhere closer. But the thing is that you, once you know what expects you up there on the top of the mountain, be it, you call it nirvana, enlightment, or just, just being happy and grounded and connected, you’ll be more and motivated to wanna return.

And I guess, I guess your method is one of the methods to get Yeah. You can chop

it up with co, with my coaching and with the meditations and with the, actually raising your awareness by your conscious mind. Using your conscious mind so you can get as you said, yeah, you can take a helicopter and for some people, if they’re afraid, they can take like little steps and also get there.

It’s just another way to get there. We all want to get into this happy loving. Amazing state where we feel the most joyful selves. What I say it’s more it’s about coming back to being your own self. Your child self. So if before all the limitations or the limiting beliefs, everything that our parents you know.

Unconsciously put into us. If you remember yourself as a child being that happy, joyful enjoying yourself, being creative self, that’s where we want to get. With AYA or with coaching. It doesn’t matter, but that, I think that’s what we want to come back to.

Sam Believ: So we have another question from Quentin Dotson.

He says, how do you handle the faith in manifesting when something you’re trying to manifest didn’t come? Something with a timeline, like a promotion that I believed I had a deep in my heart shook the foundation of what I, because I didn’t manifest it.

Yes. So what is happening? You have if you think of the coin, you have two sides.

So what is happening? With one thought, you’re manifesting and you want it. So there, there must have been an opposite negative thought that was stronger. So you might have thought oh, it might not work. It’s not if you had this a hundred percent belief that it’s gonna work. It would have worked, but what happened in this case could be that you didn’t have this a hundred percent belief.

And maybe you doubt it deep down. And unfortunately our negative thoughts are actually we feel them more. If you, if that thought was we feeling that’s what’s happening. You manifest the opposite. Yes. I wouldn’t give up. Failure for me is only when you give up and it’s not the failure, you can just come back.

I would recommend you to read this book. God Works Through Faith by, by Robert Russell. It’ll really give you this little bit, in depth understanding of what faith is. And it’s important to not. Not only believe one second and then be negative the other second, we want to stay in that faith 51% of the time, more than 50% of the time.

If you can, then your manifestation is definitely gonna occur.

Sam Believ: Quentin, my opinion would also be that, maybe that promotion is not what you need. Who knows? Maybe you’re not even in the right field. Because sometimes to go forward, you need to go back first, and it’s complicated.

I think that it’s

definitely teaching him something. It’s a lesson. Every single thing that is happening to you in your life as a lesson.

Sorry, and you’ll know if it was meant to happen. Only when you look back at, into it, so when you, when say in few years time, you will know why you didn’t get that promotion and that it did definitely teach you something. It’s always, every experience is there. For the higher good of all.

And it’s what you needed to have at that time. Maybe it’s actually teaching you to be a little bit more in faith to actually strengthen your faith. And we always have a contrast. What also happens a lot of the time, it’s not just to see the light. We have to see the dark first. So the next time now you saw this dark, next time you get this promotion and you really believe in yourself, you will feel the feeling of this, a little bit stronger.

So it, it’s gonna happen. If this is definitely what you desire and you feel like this is what you want, you’re gonna have it a hundred percent.

Sam Believ: There. There’s also an aspect of sort of destiny and doing what. What you are here to do. Like we all have this little mission and sometimes you’re just on the wrong path.

And like when you’re on the wrong path, you can be pushing as hard as you can and it just not working. For example I was, I. Working my job on the offshore and gas platforms and making a lot of money. And let’s say if I if I only wanted success and wanted that promotion, I could have probably gotten it and do something that I hate.

It still wouldn’t make me happy. So it is ask yourself, is the career you’re in, is that promotion really what you really desire or is it something that you think you need right now? And in that case I like to think about it. Yeah. Is it coming,

Is it coming from the place of need? I. Or is it from the love?

So what you need to really ask yourself if, is that something that I would laugh or is it something that I would need? If it’s coming from the place of need, it’s, it nearly 99% is is that it’s not gonna happen. You need to find something that comes from the place of love and today is a great day to do this.

It’s sit down and really ask yourself, what would you love? What do you want to do with your life?

Sam Believ: Come to the retreat. Sit with mother IA and ask her, if she, what you should do with your life, if the promotion is what she need or not. But yeah, I hope we got, we gave you some ideas.

We have another question from Jay. I hope you’re not in a hurry. Says, no, I’m not when drinking Ayahuasca and you go, when you go on your journey. Sometimes you connect to people that have passed away. You get some healing and no, they’re around. Something about people that passed away.

I don’t think it has much to do with the manifestation, but I do believe that it’s possible and I do believe you communicate with those people. ’cause many people at the retreat have, and I think I since started to working with medicine, I changed my attitude towards death in general and what happens.

I no longer believe that we ever die. And I think nothing is ever

created or destroyed. Everything. Like I, I hope you know that. Yeah. This is what I believe right now as well, that not nothing is ever created or destroyed. It’s all here. It was always here. What we as human do is just we merely become aware of something.

So if you were meant to have something, you are gonna have it. Manifestation is just a way of really by, by vibrating on a certain vibration, feeling the feeling attracting to yourself something that you already know is here for you and.

Sam Believ: I’m not sure if we’re replying to your message, but basically I do believe you, you connect to people that have died and I think that you, they still exist somewhere, and I think if you want to heal the relationship with them, that’s, that can be done.

But yeah, let’s go back to the subject of the conversation guys. If you ask questions, please make sure they’re. They’re applicable. And if you want us to do another live sessions about some different topics, then yeah. Leave a comment. What you want it to be about. Diana, you said you’re you’re launching this free mastermind.

Is that true? Is that correct?

Masterclass. Yes. It’s gonna be a masterclass. Sorry. Yeah. I’m actually doing something. If you’re interested in in finding out more about manifest manifesting and what you can do to to bring yourself closer and also how to shift your non-productive.

Non-productive limiting beliefs. I have a masterclass coming up next week from the 17th and 18th of November. It’ll be nine, nine to 10:00 PM ESG. And if you can join me and I will be there. It’s free, it’s available for everyone. You can come and. I will teach you some skills, something that I do my, the tools that help me to come from this unhappy stressed and unfulfilled and too happy and enjoying my life, prosperous life that I wish to have for everyone to have.

And yeah, and that’s what I’m shouting out from the rooftops. I want everybody to have this. Yeah, if you can join me November 17th and 18th and Shamir. I’m gonna give you some, the link to share, in your

Sam Believ: book we’re gonna, we’re gonna leave a link in a post somewhere. And to make sure that you guys can find that I wanna tell, I wanna talk about something before we finish that conversation is that knowing my sister and observing her.

Through years. I can definitely say she’s changed a lot. She has been quite quite miserable before to be honest.

In two years you, you’ve been here, you’ve seen my relationship with my husband and kids and Yeah. Yeah. There, there was

Sam Believ: a lot of problem. I can definitely see improvement and yeah, guys that, that’s just another way of doing your own personal growth.

So come, check out the link and join the Masterclass or.

Yeah, masterclass.

Sam Believ: I keep saying Mastermind. I don’t know why. And mastermind is

something that I, what that my students do and it’s, yeah, it’s good as well. It’s the people that enroll into my coaching programs they do mastermind and we have coaching sessions and stuff like that.

Sam Believ: We, we have outreach Do Chart says, send me out for the class. And he left his email, so he got one. How beautiful.

Some short, some you can share my link. Yes. And guys, I want you to do the meditation as well. I created it specifically. I’ve uploaded into you onto YouTube because I used it on with my clients from my own platform.

But I uploaded this into YouTube. I want you to do this today if you can, because this will help you to really connect today’s amazing energy. It’s quadruple if you really are if there’s something that you want to manifest. Do this meditation today. Create your life. And yeah, sit down journal.

Make sure that you do this today. Today is a special day. That’s why I this morning it was Sam’s morning and I was like, we have to do this. I think it people in your group will like it, so definitely do this today.

Sam Believ: Dennis Ortiz also says, me too, so he also wants to sign up and learn more about that.

Beautiful.

Sam Believ: Okay, guys think on that we can close up. And it was really interesting to learn about that from you, Diana. And yeah, I’ve been manifesting things consciously or unconsciously and definitely wanna take it to the next level. So what

is it, what is it now? Maybe tell everybody what are you manifesting, if not secret?

Sam Believ: What am I manifesting at the moment? Yeah,

what? Yeah.

Sam Believ: A couple things. I have, i, once again, I have a little list in my phone that I have. I pursue capital directions things about relationship, personal things that I would like to achieve. But my main goal right now, and I think people in this group will not be surprised because I talk about it in every word circle, is that we are building that, creating this community where we gonna.

Purchase a property of land where we’re gonna build a, an ayahuasca retreat that will be next level from what we have now. There will be a coworking co-living, an echo hotel. There will be gyms, saunas, i, ice baths, and all the, all different workshops and different yoga classes and different plant medicines.

All of that happening at the same time. So it’s gonna be. Iowa retreat slash a digital nomad, remote worker community slash you know, just just a place where people come, they get transformed and then they go back to their real life and they get, they transform their own world.

It’s beautiful idea.

And so you too, Sam, today you do my meditation and you imagine all of that. You create the all in your hand. And I’ll do that.

Sam Believ: I will do that. But as of now, what I’ve been doing is I just I. Before my meditations, I like to do this wim hop breathing exercise, just one set. It just completely changes my brain state.

And then all I do is for example, I imagine one thing I like walking. Normally after lunch I go for a walk. By the way, you’re ruining my routine. I go for walk for an hour. I and I listen to audio books or podcasts or sometimes just just thinking. So what I imagined, one of my visions is that I and this new retreat that we’re gonna build, I’m gonna have a path laid of stone where I’m gonna be walking after my lunch and then I walk around and I see some happy person that came from his room and he is going to, to the gym and he.

Salutes me and says oh, nice ayahuasca session yesterday. Okay. Because that kind of happens to me right now, already during the retreat. Like this conversation is grateful people, but I just imagine very small, very detailed moments and I try to imagine how I feel and how I.

Like the smells and like just go very much in detail. And then I imagine like I pass by Maloca the medicine house, and I look at it, how it looks like, and then I pass through this area and then what I see and just go in detail and yeah, just imagine things that that I like to imagine that they can make me feel good.

It just fills me up with with that confidence that it’s gonna all happen. And I never say if it’s gonna happen. I always say when it’s gonna happen, it

is done. Just keep saying it is done. It is done. And maybe when you’re doing some actions also like a night before, write down six things that you need to do.

Because we like to dream sometimes, but to like to follow up with an action is important. And when you do action. Do them in spirit and connect to yourself in your vision. Ask what would I do? If I were like the psalm that has all of that, how would he do this? I think that’s a good one.

Sam Believ: Yes. Okay, guys, on that note it was a fun little conversation and we’ll do more of those in the future. So tune in. I have a lined up, a an expert on integration that I want to interview a medical doctor, that we wanna do an interview that she came to the retreat and talk about. What are the parallels between Hindu tradition, eastern tradition and ayahuasca tradition that she discovered while during the Ayahuasca?

And yeah, if you know someone who might want to participate in one of those live sessions, then also tag them. In the comments or share them to me in on WhatsApp or on Facebook. And yeah, Diana, pleasure talking to you in that setting for kinda like professional setting, you can say it’s the first time for us and I’m looking forward to see where you’re going with your journey and how we can intertwine them or make grow together.

Yeah. I’m looking forward to coming to this beautiful retreat where I can go for the gym and sit down and do my on my laptop looking at the beautiful Colombian Yes landscape.

Sam Believ: Yeah. We already spoke about it. You probably gonna give me part of the money that I need to buy it so you will be notified.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I’m manifesting that as well, so it’s great.

Sam Believ: Okay, guys, it was a pleasure and I’ll see you soon.

Thank you. Bye.

In this Episode Sam Believ interviews John, military doctor. We touch upon subject of care for Veterans, PTSD, psychedelics and so much more.

LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat

http://www.LaWayra.com

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.

Hi guys. Welcome to ayahuasca podcast.com. Our guest today is John and this is a pseudonym and we are gonna call him John. Because he is a medi medical professional in the United States, and unfortunately in US psychedelics are considered unrightfully so illegal. John, welcome to the podcast.

John: Hi Sam. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.

Sam Believ: It’s my pleasure, John. When was we saw each other two months ago, right? Was it two months? A bit more?

John: Yeah. Yeah. It was I think right around the end of January when I was in Columbia and we had met.

Sam Believ: Nice. So how was tell us a bit about yourself.

Your story of story of your life, and how have you discovered plant medicines and your take on them.

John: Yeah. So I think my journey has been a little rocky with plant medicine. I was in the US Army for 13 years, had deployed in 2014. And after returning from deployment, I was involved in a very.

Traumatic event where my friend got in a really bad accident and lost one of his legs. And that changed my whole perspective of my career and my life. I’d been a Army physician. I’d been doing triathlons, did an Ironman had. I’d gone through a divorce with a couple of children and when that accident happened I definitely was questioning a lot of the things I’ve been doing in my life.

And especially career accomplishments and other things and setting goals. It put those all kind of in a shadow and and emotionally. Brought me into kind of a very depressed state. Ended up leaving the army and moving back to to my home state. And in the process of being in a bad relationship there, I was having a lot of what would be considered post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

And so I went and saw. Mental health professional that was helping me with the stress reaction that I was having regarding my life and my relationships and my work. Not being able to handle stressful situations at work either. And I went to therapy. It wasn’t really bringing much root, it was a lot of cognitive, and I already was very cognitive about medical issues and mental health issues.

And even taking SSRIs, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors as prescribed. By my doctor and I just didn’t feel like I was gaining much benefit in my symptoms or my depression. So I moved to a different job. And while I was in that new city, I was listening to MPR and heard Michael Pollan talking about his new book how To Change Your Mind.

And that book was a very powerful book about psychedelic therapy. And looking at the benefits of psychedelics in the past when they were used before the 1960s and seventies, and then recently were they being used including plant medicine such as ayahuasca. So I got really interested. I bought his book and read it.

And then. I started exploring what options were in my city to undergo some kind of plant medicine therapy and and I was having trouble really connecting with anyone. If you’re outside that world I. It was a little bit hard for me to really find something that was professional and was safe to do so then I tried a little bit on my own and honestly wasn’t really helping.

I did see a therapist who was advising me to keep searching, giving me some guidance around it. And then finally, I started connecting with some people that had advised about Ayahuasca and that’s when I decided to go to Ecuador and try it for the first time.

And and that was my first experience.

It was an experience that was a little bit intense for me because it wasn’t just Ayahuasca, there was other. Plants that were being used such as tobacco through and combo. And I got some benefits. Definitely felt a lot of heart opening, but I knew that it wasn’t gonna be enough and I needed to integrate what I did at the Ayahuasca with other things I’m doing on a day-to-day basis.

So I. Started looking at how to integrate and really started meditating a lot more and journaling and and then also connecting with others that have experienced similar things as me, as well as continued ongoing therapy and joined the men’s group. So I was doing a lot of work after that Ayahuasca experience and, 2021.

Sam Believ: I really like that you mentioned that Ayahuasca itself is albeit a very strong tool, it is still a tool. It’s like an opening that allows you to open and connect with certain emotions and then in the end you are the one that needs to do the work. I think that’s very, that’s really great to discover that in the beginning of your journey because a lot of people have this feeling that, I ask you this magic pill and you do it once and forever.

Since then, all your problems go away. And it’s great to knowledge that it’s a, that it’s a process, right? Did you get relief from your PTSD symptoms? Did you, did quality of your life improve after you work with ayahuasca or how long did it take? Or can you tell us a little bit about your journey with plant medicines?

John: Yeah. So the Ayahuasca was just a small piece of the puzzle of unwinding the complexity of post-traumatic stress disorder. I, of course I. Having been doing therapy and getting cognitive awareness around my childhood issues, being an immigrant and having an alcoholic father and coming from a country that had war and and chaos I realized that.

That, a lot of my reactions were not only from current events, but probably were ingrained in some childhood as well as some ancestral issues that were coming up. Came up during the ayahuasca as well as some of the other therapy I was doing and. When I did the ayahuasca and felt that heart opening, the biggest thing I think that I gained from it was feeling connected to the women in my life, including my mother, and having a lot of love just flowing towards her plight and her suffering and what she did, in terms of as an immigrant mother.

To bring me the opportunity to succeed in a in the United States. And I also connected with my ex-wife’s trauma and stress that she had gone through when she was, a child as well as the things that I caused onto her and our kids. I think that was really helpful for me to really feel connected to their suffering and their pain.

And it’ll helped, also helped me connect more with my current partner. So I felt like I had a lot more connections now to the feelings. Of love and openness and acknowledging others and having more empathy towards others, especially the women in my life. But I knew that I still needed more direction and more, integration of this, like to be able to do it on a regular basis to, to keep this opening. And I knew that it might take more than just one, one, episode of Ayahuasca or even just Ayahuasca alone. And I think that’s where I got into more. Looking at a men’s group like the Mankind Project which helps bring the different archetypes into play and looking at shadows that tend to come up every day when we’re feeling stressed or we’re feeling down or or we’re having difficult situations and how these shadows of our ego can sometimes, bring more misery and suffering for ourself as well as the people around us and working through the men’s group. My therapist, I decided to go back and do ayahuasca again because I knew I, there was probably more deeper things. So the next year I went to Spain and. Did another round of ayahuasca, which gave me additional perspectives and insights as well as showed me when you elevate your expectations for ayahuasca or you become attached to an outcome, how it actually just gives you the opposite, which is what you really need.

So what you want and what you need don’t always align. I. And that second time that really gave me a lot of insight that I needed, I still had a lot more work to do. Yeah, it is,

Sam Believ: it is a long process. The healing. Yeah.

John: And and it took me into looking at other guided therapies out there including MDMA and LSD as well as psilocybin and what’s being done research wise around those and how that can help.

People with depression with PTSD and anxiety. And so I started doing a lot more research into that area and seeking advice of people that are practicing providing guided therapy and seeing what their, what the outcomes they’ve been seeing. And I started getting really interested. In that because I think the evolution of mental health treatment is gonna involve psychedelic assisted therapy.

There’s FDA studies currently that are in phase three and phase four. Now for MDMA ketamine is already a legal therapy that’s being used. And then there’s. Definitely looking at psilocybin also as a potential therapy aid for addiction and depression, I believe that these plants that have been around for, a very long time, thousands of years have a significant role in helping humans, gain control of the negative mind the spiraling emotions around, the stress or trauma they’ve.

They’ve had in their life as well as ancestral trauma. That’s interwind in the neural networks of our brains, which obviously helped us survive in one way, but also is hindering our ability to become more in line and evolve. And that’s what led me to colo, to you. Obviously that’s how we ended up in Columbia, like seeking.

More, more insight and more enlightenment into this whole process.

Sam Believ: Yeah, definitely. We’re living in exciting times, the psychedelic renaissance and the way that, plant medicines are slowly coming back into our life. Traditionally every culture had some kind of psychedelic they were working with, and mostly in the shamanic sense and.

In the sense of, getting answers and directions, but in in, for example, ayahuasca, traditionally, everyone would like everyone in the tribe would drink it here or there sometimes regularly. And I guess that kept people sane and allowed the harmony.

To carry on, in the society. And we don’t have that now, like lack of spirituality. We’re, as they say, we are intellectual giants and we are spiritual dwarfs and like spirituality obviously intertwines with mental health. It seems to, somebody also said, and I don’t know, maybe you know the author of this quote, it’s.

Psychedelics are for the mind, what telescope was for astronomy or something like that. Some, something along those lines. And I do definitely believe in that. It seems to somehow show you the inner works of your mind. This is fascinating. So your last experience with us at our retreat, can this, if you still remember what what the outcome of it was, could you share it to the audience?

John: Yeah. So my experience initially was I wasn’t had been planning to do Ayahuasca that weekend. I was there to support some friends, but you convinced me to to go through it. That I had this reason I was there and, and I knew there was a lot more I was hanging onto. I I knew that that my subconscious was, there was still some blockages in my subconscious that were affecting me from letting go of a lot of, the stress and trauma from my life and also some of the shame I had around some of the behaviors I’ve also exhibited towards others. And my first night there was a huge purge that happened for me both physically and emotionally and mentally. I know that it was a very powerful night for me.

’cause I think I purged more than I’ve ever purged. I’ve had always had difficulty especially with physical purge and confronting physical pain. I would try to distract myself in the past or hang on really tight. And at this time around I was able to actually really let go. That felt really good.

I felt it really opened me up and allowed me to really become more present with, the moment and not be so in my head around controlling the process or seeking things from the process, but rather being just open to the process.

Sam Believ: Yeah, that’s that’s a very good, result for the first night be able to release.

How, what how did your second night go?

John: My second night was almost an extension of the first night in the, and the fact that it was just very peaceful. Like it was like the second day of this. Aspect of purging, letting go, being open, and then just observing and it was almost a very peaceful, very blissful night.

Where the first part I was just very aware of everything going on but very present and, and just accepting it as it was. And and when my ego or shadow would come out trying to convince me to do more ayahuasca, when it’s being offered, I resisted it and luckily, by resisting it and believing that, Hey, I’ve had what I needed the night before.

I don’t need to try to go deeper. I feel like very feeling at peace with what I got. Then it became a very, blissful experience after that, as soon as I rejected taking a second dose and just drank some water I started feeling the effects of the medicine in a very beautiful way. Became a very blissful, very colorful and just peaceful experience of lights and colors and patterns and, and it just kinda led me to a place of just like real peace, like where I felt a lot of peace in my life at that moment. Almost like. Where I’d want to be on a regular basis every day. So it really showed me like what it feels like when your mind just finally lets go of expectations and cravings and aversions and just accepts what it, what is you just find like joy and love and presence in every moment.

And and that was beautiful. I felt like really complete from the second night. Yeah,

Sam Believ: that’s a, it’s a great outcome, to be able to switch off the chatter in your head and just feel being alive and being in the moment. John you are a veteran and you’re also a med medical professional, and that sorta both of those.

Both of those career paths, they’re both very traumatic and very painful, and there’s a lot of doctors that are struggling. There’s a lot of veterans that are struggling, as a doctor. What obviously we know your opinion on psychedelic is positive, but as a doctor you have access to both sides of the picture.

What is your take on. Illegality of plant medicines and the fact that, and what do you think about conventional medicines in helping with problems like PTSD and what do you think is stopping us as a society from, calling medicines and not calling them drugs?

John: Yeah, that’s a really important question. In my opinion, in my view, is. A lot of what’s going on around why there’s resistance to psychedelic therapy is more of a financial, as well as ramifications of what happens when people take psych psychedelics in their view, towards their governments or corporations the military.

If people’s hearts are being open and they’re finding a lot more. Insight into being peaceful and loving and connecting and learning to remove, their stress from causing misery and trauma on others. That what would that mean for society and as a whole? I think the resistance probably stems from that because I think it really changes people’s minds and perspectives of a lot of things, including western medicine.

I feel like my view of Western medicine has significantly changed since. I’ve experienced this everything from the trauma I experienced to witnessing how western medicine has resulted in an opiate epidemic where people are resist their emotional, mental, and physical pain now by looking for drugs such as Fentanyl or Oxycontin to relieve their suffering when they really.

Have it within them to really do the work to relieve their own suffering. And if we’re always looking for an external way to re, to remove our pain we’re gonna always be being misled. And unfortunately, there’s industries out there completely built around that idea that somehow they have the answer.

To your pain and that they can help you overcome your pain, when in reality it’s it’s within you to do that. And I think plant medicines don’t actually do anything to relieve pain. But what they do is they give you insight into the roadmap that you need to remove whatever those stressors or emotions or thoughts that are causing you misery and pain.

Sam Believ: Interest, interestingly enough,

John: yeah.

Sam Believ: In, in my opinion, or from my own observation when I first started with Ayahuasca, it actually does have that aspect. But basically what it does, it helps you get, helps you deal with the pain, and then as soon, immediately shows you what’s the cause of the pain.

So it’s not just like blindly taking away the pain and like allowing you to, once, go out back, go back into the world and get more pain. So it’s, it kinda shows you like, don’t you know what to do and what not to do and how to actually get out of the, the cycle that causes you to be in that state as opposed to, let’s say, antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication.

It is just. You if you stop taking them, there is no more healing with Ayahuasca. You can take it once and have healing for years because of the information you receive and the understanding you receive.

John: Yeah, exactly. I think like most of the medications that get marketed for mental health as well as pain are more of band-aids and they’re not even very good band-aids.

People get some relief, they feel a little bit better and then they get stuck on these medications, which, results in billions of dollars in the pockets of big corporations. And the reality is, most of those patients aren’t actually. Getting to the root of what’s the cause of their emotional, mental, or physical pain and learning, how to get to the root, how to remove that from the equation so that it doesn’t keep them in that state.

Because there’s, there is no pain. That, that is, is indefinite. One of the concepts of the Pasana meditation is Anisha coming from the Buddhist times which is, basically everything is changing. It’s, there’s impermanence to everything, every sensation you feel and that.

Attaching to any one sensation, whether it’s good or bad, is just gonna result in misery and suffering and pain. And if you can get to that area where you start to see where it’s coming from and you address it by not attaching to it, you’ll notice that the intensity of that pain of the emotions will decrease and decrease, and you’ll have less suffering around it.

And Ayahuasca and some of these other psychedelics out there are like one person had told me about one way to look at psychedelics is if you’re in an in a high rise, and I. You’re at, you’re living on the first floor and you don’t get much of a view of the whole city. And your neighbor who lives on at the penthouse invites you up and you go up to the penthouse and you see the view, the 360 view of around your whole city, and you say to yourself, wow, this is like an amazing view. I thought it was just, all there was a road and a few shops I can see from my window and now I see that there’s this huge big city with all these other buildings and rivers and parks and maybe I need to, venture. Out more and go and see more of my city.

And in a way that’s what these things do. They give you the elevator to go up to that penthouse or to climb that tree to be able to see where else can you go in your life? What else can you do? And where some of the blockages are that keep you from going there. And and gives you a nice roadmap.

And the roadmap is never 100% complete after one. One session, although that’s enough for some people to really like, have enough insight that it changes their whole life, especially with addiction medicine. One psychedelics have been used for addiction or depression.

I. Even just one, one episode of a session one, one therapy session with ayahuasca is enough to pull you outta that state of addiction or depression. But if you want more enlightenment and if you want to get to that next level where things just become less causes for misery those negative thoughts that come up not attaching to them, then I think you have to keep practicing both, a daily practice. As well as, obviously regular insights that you have to have on how to get to the next level. So there’s always another level. You’re never 100% like gonna wake up one day and be all in a state of bliss and love forever.

It takes multiple. Sessions as well as the daily work that you do to get you there, and hopefully to get you to your end of your life where you found acceptance with the Im impermanence of your own life. So that you’re not attached to it and your spirit or your if you’re spiritual and you believe in your spirit or your afterlife or if you’re more religious inclined and you believe in heaven and.

That’s how you get there. You get there through the, this process, the daily process as well as these insights you get into what it takes to get to that next level.

Sam Believ: Yeah, definitely. It is a process and I think that if life would be a game, and if you think that, one moment you realize, you won the game.

What happens when you win the game? You switch off the computer and you stop playing. It’s kinda like we need the challenge, we need the growth, we need the movement to feel alive and to be alive, and we need bad to understand good. And we need good to understand bad. So it’s kinda it’s not about just coming to the bliss and never leaving it.

I think it would be pretty boring. And I like, I really liked your analogy with, with the building, the analogy that I like to use also, once again, I don’t remember the source of it, but if you think of spirituality and mindfulness as a mountain and the, this nirvana place where people want to go is the top of the mountain, I.

What happens is you can take, the mountain is big and there’s many different routes you can take. One of them is yoga and others is meditation. Others is just, being in nature and all sorts of mindfulness and spiritual practices. Let’s imagine there’s hundreds of routes, and in that analogy, ayahuasca is like a helicopter, which takes you straight to the top.

And even though there, but there is, there’s, there, there’s only one condition that takes you there for a short amount of time, couple hours, and then it takes you back. But it doesn’t bring you all the way back to the, first base. It brings you to like second base. So it’s easier for you to go back to the top and the idea is that you already know what it is you’re heading, you already know what it is there on top.

So it, it kinda keeps you motivated and gives you faith in what? In that there is something. Start to achieve in that spiritual journey. So that’s how I see the ayahuasca versus other modalities. And then you get the, you can take other routes to, to go back to the top, slowly, gradually.

Because I also believe that it’s not that you just do ayahuasca every day for the rest of your life, but the idea is that you do it occasionally, and you do the work in the in between and integrate and, find the holistic approach you as a doctor, right? What do you think about the whole notion of, doctors not being able to have feelings?

When a doctor has depression or PTSD, they have to hide in the shadows and even conventional medicines, like they, they can’t just openly admit that they are. In a bad place mentally because then they lose their job. But then as human beings, we all understand that doctors, suffered the most, especially like after what happened during the COVID epidemic.

What do you think about that?

John: Yeah, it’s interesting, there’s this hippocratic approach that a lot of healthcare institutions. Take towards mental health in physicians and especially stress and burnout. A lot of organizations are investing in physician burnout by providing more services by using surveys and other learning techniques to help physicians recognize burnout, stress, sleep other things that are happening in their life and they want you to be more aware and they’re asking surveys on how your burnout level is. I know in the military they were doing more of this. And with the change in the way they’re training physicians with limited work hours and sleep issues and so on, a lot of training is being put into that now.

That’s what visibly they’re looking like they’re providing things for physicians. Now, here’s the problem is if physicians admit they are burnt out and they’re feeling the effects of that emotionally or mentally, I. Then they’re put in this special category basically of they could be a danger to the patients if they’re having mental health issues, so we need to put them on.

Special status, whether in their credentialing at the hospitals or with their licensing. And some of that can be extreme where thing, they’re basically, put in a suspended state where they can’t practice medicine and then they have to attain certain amount of therapy and. They have to go through a bunch of steps to demonstrate that, that they’re capable of doing the work.

And and a lot of times that blacklists them with medical organizations, malpractice insurers, licensing boards, and then they have very, and then basically they had. Become, outlawed in the whole practicing medicine. By coming and admitting you know, that they’re having some struggles.

And a lot of organizations then won’t hire them. And they feel afraid to hire them because they feel they’re not capable of handling the stress of being a physician. And so what happens is then it drives a lot of these physicians, and I’ve witnessed it with colleagues to seek care without professional help.

And a lot of times a lot of physicians are drinking alcohol. At home at night on a regular basis or on weekends to numb themself against the stress and pain. And as we know of all the medicines out there, alcohol is probably the worst to deal with pain because it just brings you into a numb state and will lead you to actions.

That, of course, can be very regrettable, like physicians driving drunk or. Getting angry at their families, their wives, or their children or their husbands or and becoming more reactive, a work towards their colleagues. So in a way that’s the indirect effect of of suppressing. These feelings and emotions is that, they end up engaging in very high risk behaviors.

Even some physicians to the extent of using some of the medications in the hospital that are meant for patients. Illegally and hospitals have come down really hard on that. In the past, physicians would administer, opiates and other controlled substances to themself or would prescribe to their colleagues and anxiolytics.

Now that we have more computerized systems, that’s not as easy for physicians to do. So clearly a lot of physicians are seeking these things outside of the healthcare system. And I, this is all speculation and some observations I’ve had in the past. And it happens also in the military being a veteran watching a lot of officers and high ranking enlisted military members.

Also engage in high risk behaviors when they’re deployed and when they’re at home. Because that’s also another profession where any mental health. Or stress related disorder is brought to the attention of leadership typically, that service member although the military encourages service members to seek help will then blacklist that member and affects that member’s, ability to promote or get positions they’re seeking in the military.

And then eventually. As we’ve seen with a lot of veterans it leads to suicide and significant drug addiction and homelessness. So this is a huge problem. It’s a huge problem that is not really being addressed properly because I think they’re just hippocratic, like providing one solution, but at the same time.

Punishing if physicians and service members come out and actively seek help,

Sam Believ: yeah. This is very unfair the way they kinda say come, we help you, but then, we punish you. And obviously that will basically lead. The veterans and medical professionals to just look for help outside of the, outside of the legal realm.

John, you mentioned to me that after the retreat that you were. So passionate about planned medicines and this healing modalities that you were kinda exploring. The opportu, the ability to maybe start something of your own or work with it yourself. Can you share with us what are you thinking about?

What ideas you have and that’s cool.

John: So there’s, because of the process right now for legalizing plant medicines, there is now lines of training being created for physicians and mental health providers to become guides that can do assisted therapy. And I think that’s the first step for me as as a physician is to see, to explore what are those pro training opportunities and what places.

In the country or in the world? Is it would it, would I be protected as a physician legally from any consequences? I don’t, you have to understand is I don’t believe psychedelics should be just legal for everyone. I’m not, and I’m not at all advocating for people to go out and experiment with psychedelics on their own.

These are, these can be, that can be a very dangerous thing to use psychedelics with no experience person supervising. That is one of the reasons psychedelics got such a bad reputation in the 1960s and seventies is because when people started using psychedelics without supervision. And mixing them with other drugs and alcohol imparting.

There were a lot of people experiencing some of the negative side effects of psychedelics, which is not what I’m advocating for at all. When I’m advocating is that psychedelics with proper supervision. Guides in the right set and setting be allowed to be a type of therapy for people struggling with mental health, addictions stress, PTSD, and and et cetera.

I think there’s a huge role for them. I think the benefits are enormous better than anything that’s ever been created by pharmaceutical industry. Better than any psychological therapy alone. When they’re used in the proper setting, setting by professionals that are trained. Like we mentioned before, you might only need one session ever to get out of whatever place you’re at in terms of your mental health.

So I think, with proper supervision, I. I, I would want that kind of training to be able to provide it to patients and and that’s something I’m looking forward to. And hopefully more universities will start providing certification processes that allow physicians like myself to, to participate in providing that kind of therapy.

Sam Believ: What do you think about traditional use of psychedelics and ceremonial setting with indigenous practitioners?

John: Yeah. Again, I think like anything out there, I think indigenous practitioners a lot of times have learned the practice through, elders that are that have gone and.

Perform these ceremonies and have thousands of year, hundreds to thousands of years of practice that have refined the process to the small details of it that provides a safe environment. For people. And I think I’m completely for that. But we have to be careful also because a lot of people are claiming to be shamans and indigenous practitioners and they’re not.

And it’s becoming a tourism thing, especially in Costa Rica and elsewhere in Central America. And we have to be careful who we label as. A Shama or indigenous practitioner versus who’s doing it, for financial gain and tourism. So we, I wouldn’t recommend that people just, fly anywhere and do this, that they research who their practitioners are, what their experience is.

Where they come from and what techniques they’re using and ask some questions around that before committing to something like that because again, it is life altering and if you end up having a really bad experience, it might actually take you in the wrong direction in your life.

Sam Believ: Yeah, definitely. I agree with that. I, for those of you listening who maybe not, are not gonna end up at our retreat, which is, Laira retreat. If you go somewhere and you’re looking for shamanic or traditional use of psychedelics, make sure you ask those questions.

Question number one. Is whether the shaman is coming from a lineage, meaning, his his ancestors are their shamans because this is a very high indicator that he, he is because, like in, in their knowledge because they learn from their parents and they start from childhood.

This is where they. This is where this gives them the opportunity to absorb the most information. Then always ask whether did the shaman cooks and grows his own medicine? Because the most important part is the purity of the medicine. And for in case of ayahuasca has to be only two ingredients because if you start mixing in mixing with other stuff that’s already questionable.

And. Not recommended, at least. There are some dangerous additives, but I know there are some more harmless ones. But those are important things. And also if you’re looking at the retreat, look into them and I, we should respect the traditional approach and of course follow there.

Their tradition, but it does not hurt to combine it with a bit of a Western approach and add some integration or maybe word circles or, written integration like we do at our retreat because using the medicine to open those doors, but then using other approaches to actually.

Integrate better. So those would be my own tips for those looking for a proper traumatic thing. Because yeah, in my experience I’ve I’ve done medicine in a lot of, in a lot of places in a traumatic setting. And so far what I’ve learned is that out of 10 people that say they are a shaman, one of them will be.

A real shaman. And if somebody is indigenous, it doesn’t mean they are a shaman. They might be as clueless or maybe even more clueless that than a somebody who is not indigenous. So it is important that you get good recommendations for the place and you get, you know who you’re drinking with because as John said, there’s a very high.

There’s a very high risk, and if you do it in the wrong setin setting, that might, if you feel uncomfortable, it might actually make you feel worse than before. So setin setting is another thing. Make sure that the place you’re going to is comfortable. It is, pretty and calm and there, there are no distractions.

Not, not like a basement next to the highway sort of situation. So yeah, that those would be my recommendations. John do you have any, anything to add before we finish this episode?

John: No. I just have to say, yeah, I I found that, what you were saying is really important in terms of doing the research and and making sure that you don’t just force yourself to do it.

There’s a, like a calling that happens around when you’ll be ready to do something like this. So don’t feel tempted to do it just because other people are doing it or. Or you just wanna try something. This is more about a healing process and knowing where you are in that process and what phase of that process you are called to do this.

And having the groundwork also laid out for the integration piece, knowing, how you’re gonna integrate what you get from the process, so it doesn’t go to waste, I think that’s really important. Definitely to get across. Definitely. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I think that’s all I had extra to say.

Sam Believ: Thank you. Those are really wise words and John, I’m I’m sorry that today we had to do it audio only. I had to call you John, because you’re not John. And the ridiculousness of the fact that this plant medicine here that’s been a medicine for 4,000 years is unfortunately considered a drug in your country and, not respected.

And, it does not have a place in our society, which it should have. But we still need to talk about it. Still get information out there. So thank you for coming. To the podcast. Thank you for sharing your your wisdom because as a veteran and as a medical practitioner, you have a different perspective on things, and it’s it’s been really great talking to you, John.

John: Thank you, Sam. I really appreciate what you’re doing and and hopefully more people become open to. And the benefits they have for us.

Sam Believ: Thank you, John. Guys, thank you for listening. Once again this was ayahuasca podcast.com and if you’re interested in participating in our retreat you can find us@lara.com, L-A-W-A-Y-R a.com.

And yes. Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you soon.

Emma asks me all these questions in this episode:

1. What is Ayahuasca?

2. How does Ayahuasca work?

3. What are the effects of Ayahuasca on the mind and body?

4. Is Ayahuasca safe?

5. Can Ayahuasca cure depression or other mental illnesses?

6. How long does the Ayahuasca experience last?

7. What are the potential risks or side effects?

8. How is Ayahuasca traditionally prepared and consumed?

9. Is it legal to consume Ayahuasca?

10. What should I expect during an Ayahuasca ceremony?

LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat

http://www.LaWayra.com

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.

Okay, so firstly, thanks for taking the time to chat. Obviously this is the last day of. My experience, which has been amazing and super profound, and I really just wanted to like, bring this information to more people back at home. That’s one of the kind of thoughts that I’ve had while doing the Ayahuasca.

Just to give us a little bit more information on Ayahuasca, what actually is Ayahuasca?

Sam Believ: Thank you for having me on this podcast, Emma. My Irish is not that good, but I’ll do my best. Ayahuasca is a brew. It’s a, generally, traditionally it’s a mix of two plants, both together for several days, and it forms that, that sort of.

Thick viscus drink that, that you drink. What what it’s made of is two ingredients. One is the ayahuasca vine which is scientifically called oppi. And a DM tshr, which can be charo or cha. Oh, depending on a tradition, like here we use Charo Panga. Okay. What Vine does, it makes it DMT orally active and then when you drink it you can have a DM T experience for several hours, and it’s traditionally used by the indigenous tribes.

It’s, traced to 4,000 years ago. And it is a hundred percent a medicine, not a drug because that’s how it’s always been used. And yeah it’s helpful with your mental health and a lot other things. It’s like a very complex sort of medicine that addresses many aspects of both physical, mental health and so much more spiritual.

Spiritual health, if you can say so. Yeah.

So you said it, it affects the DMT receptors, yeah. Like how does it work? What are the effects of ayahuasca on your mind and your body.

Sam Believ: So basically we have DMT in, in our bodies naturally. So let’s say when you’re sleeping, you get DMT produced in your brain.

And what happens is your body absorbs DMT. What the vine does, it makes it so that for a while you can’t absorb it. So it accumulates and it actually. Creates the experience. But what was the question? How I ask? It feels so

How would it, affect your Yeah.

How does it affect your body and your mind?

Sam Believ: Yeah. Generally it it comes with few effects. One of them is physical purging, meaning it’s pretty likely sometimes during the retreat you either vomit or have. Like a diarrhea. And I know it sounds very uncomfortable, something you wouldn’t wanna do, but it’s always tied to a certain emotion that then you can feel how together with with that bodily evacuation, you also get rid of that emotion.

And a lot of time people report like they have a trauma or the feel. Some, they have some traumatic memory come up, and then they purge and then when it comes back, it’s, now it’s just a memory. It does have that emotional component to it, but generally Ayahuasca effect can be, there’s 5,000.

Different types of of effects. It can have. It can be like very visual, very psychedelic. It can be just in forms of like physical effects. Like you could feel tension in your body or pleasure. It can be euphoria, it could be pain, it could be like literally anything. And but somehow when you come and drink the brew it, it always gives you what you need. Yeah. And the type of the experience you might not expect or want, but it will give you the type of the experience that will give you the answers to your current problem that you have right now. Yeah. And even if, let’s say you have a, an intention set for the ceremony, it might be.

Not the right intention for you. The medicine will guide you where you need to go, and sometimes you will, if you don’t resist the process, you will in the end understand like why it was supposed to happen. Exactly like that. I’ll ask you a question as well. You just had your experience.

How did it feel for you?

I, it was definitely different than what I had expected. I think I, at the start, I. Was forming my expectations based on what other people were experiencing. But by the end of the four ceremonies, I feel like I had gotten exactly what I had asked for. And it was definitely one of those be careful what you wish for moments because yeah, I really, I went into Ayahuasca saying, I don’t want any more answers.

I don’t want any more words. I would like feeling, I would like experiences, I would like clarity, I would like direction, and. Because it wasn’t psychedelic and I wasn’t like tripping. I was like, I’m not experiencing. But when I take away and have done like the integration work, I’ve realized like how profound it actually was.

So yeah it’s been incredible to see how other people have experienced it as well, like compared to mine. But would you recommend, like who would you recommend Ayahuasca for? Who would you recommend to do it and is it safe for everyone?

Sam Believ: I was say for I would say 95% of people. So don’t do it if you have a history of schizophrenia in your family.

Yeah. Like your brother and your mom has it and you’re next in line and Yeah. Because it can, it’s not gonna give you schizophrenia, but if you’re, you post to have it sometime in your life, it can accelerate that process. Yeah. Don’t do it. If you are, if you have like serious health conditions, like heart issues and then also don’t do it if you’re taking medication. Yeah. So you need to quit the medication first. Yeah. SSRIs and other like thyroid medications, the interaction between the medication can be dangerous, but for an average healthy person it’s completely safe. And we so far had.

Probably more than a thousand people come to our retreat and never had any issue with, like medical point of view, ayahuasca. When you have a good chairman pure Ayahuasca without any additives, and you have a good preparation process where, you know as we guide people, tell them what to eat, what not to eat, what medicines not to take, it’s actually very safe.

Yeah. It’s safer than. I don’t know any of the drugs that people use. Eating a eating a, yeah. Fish in a Mexican beach dog. Like more likely to kill.

Yeah. Yeah. How long does the experience usually last for people?

Sam Believ: It depends. So if you have one cup, generally one cup can, the effect of one cup can last anytime, anywhere between four and six hours.

But if, let’s say we have three cups over the night starting from first cup and then more cups, it can altogether last eight to 10 hours. That’s expected. How long did it last for you? Because,

yeah the first call on my first night I felt like. Super sick. But then the second cup, I, it started, I think, to hit me more.

And then, yeah, like I, I would say it takes a while to set in like maybe 30, 30 minutes to an hour, and then to get the actual, deep thinking and clarity and stuff would probably about an hour or two. Yeah. It’s very unique to, but I like how we separate the cups though. Like every two hours I think is a good time.

Sam Believ: It’s very well planned because based on, many ceremonies and many observations because sometimes the danger is. Somebody takes one cup and they, and it hits them an hour later. If by then you took a second cup you go too deep where your journey’s not productive anymore.

Yes you might be seeing so much, but then you don’t remember anything or, lose control of your body. Like you, you want to, you always try and find what our shaman does. He is great at it. He is trying to find. A level where people have a productive journey. Like they, they see enough and feel enough where they actually can draw some conclusions to affect their life.

For this, it’s not about just having a vision and like moving on with your life. It’s about, using those lessons in your life. Back at home.

Yeah, I found the shaman really actually took care, like he would, before he would give you the cup, he would say, how are you feeling?

Are you good? Are you okay? And yeah, I really felt safe with him, which was great. So the effects on mental illness, depression, like this is I think why a lot of people come and do Aya Osca.

What would you say the effects are on mental illnesses and depression?

Sam Believ: So I personally, my journey with the be began based on that.

Like I, I started drinking regularly when I realized I was depressed. Like I was never diagnosed. But now, especially working with hundreds of people that are depressed, like I know I was a hundred percent depressed. What it did to me personally at first, it just took away the pain, right? It just makes you feel better.

And then it shows you what to do to change your life where you’re not. Prone to depression anymore because lot of, a lot of time depression comes from certain repressed emotions. Yeah. Unsatis, greater unsatisfaction with your life where you just it comes out as a form of depression or anxiety.

So in my case, it first took, lifted the pain and allowed me to actually lifted the pain and gave me the lessons. Yeah. And that lack of pain allowed me to actually do the lessons. So work the lessons. Yeah. And and changed my life enough where it gave me the direction left as well.

It helped me find it where eventually, like I would say I’m definitely no longer depressed. Yeah. You still, it’s not oh, you’re gonna be happy forever. But it’s I know more about my feelings. Now I can identify oh, what I’m feeling actually is fear or what I’m feeling.

Where back in the day, I felt I could not even identify emotions. Like all emotions just felt like discomfort. Yeah. So that’s another thing I always does, but it can be unique for all the people. But we have a lot of people that come here for depression. Anxiety, even like suicidal ideation.

We had probably more than 10 people that came here and said if it doesn’t work I have one way ticket. I’m not gonna, yeah. I’m just, I’m ending it like it’s my last resort. Yeah. All of them are still alive. Running around. Happy. Better than ever before.

I’ve seen it.

I’ve literally seen it in this group. Even

Sam Believ: in this group, there were people, it’s not as, because he didn’t specifically say that. Yeah. But people actually say that like last month we had two people in two different groups. They’re like, yeah, if this doesn’t work, I’m desperate. Life is too miserable.

And then by the end of the, they’re like, I know for sure that now there, I know there’s options for healing and I know that I’m gonna fix myself. And it’s not only depression, it’s alcoholism, PTSD, addiction, any kinds of addiction. Yeah. Yeah it’s such a. Diverse tool. Even like physical ailments.

Like we had people get relief from psoriasis. I’ve heard that. Gut issues. Yeah. Like this I forgot the name, but it’s like when your body hurts, anything, arthritis,

fibromyalgia.

Sam Believ: A fibromyalgia, anything that comes, anything, any disease that is somatic, which it comes from an emotion first.

Yeah. If you address the emotion, you process the disease is magically go away. Like even my mom came to drink, I was, and she had like relief from headaches migraines.

That’s what I would like to know. Would it be safer? Older people like, yeah, like older people who probably are prone to like high blood pressure or have real illnesses and diseases like cancer.

I know one of the guys here is here trying to find answers for cancer treatment and yeah,

Sam Believ: we had more than five people. Visiting there are, there were more than 70

really,

Sam Believ: and probably at least 20, 30 people that were older than 60. Wow. And they’re all totally fine. It’s actually sometimes surprisingly, they have a better experience than younger people.

But a lot of times it comes with a lot of purging. ’cause there’s. Accumulation a lot of stuff. And they’re doing just fine. Yeah. It’s not, it doesn’t have anything to do with age. You can drink io from the moment you’re born till the moment you die. The oldest shaman here in Colomba is 110.

Oh my God. He still alive, meaning

Sam Believ: he drinks the medicine. He gives it, he still hosts the ceremony and, a hard job to do, like doing all the cleanses. So it definitely. I would say Ayahuasca is great for older people because it also has that effect of on your brain that is like anti Alzheimer, anti dementia.

Yeah. Because it does something to the brain. It’s called like BDNF it increases your brain flexibility and allows it to recover itself. There’s actually studies about it. It’s not just like me coming up with it. And yeah, unless you’re like really sick. Let’s say you’re on the border of dying, then Ayahuasca can push you over because it is like your heart rate will increase, or you’re taking like tons of medicines, then it would be tough.

But if you’re older but you’re relatively sick, that’s totally fine. Yeah, I think the oldest we had was 73.

Wow.

Sam Believ: That’s

incredible. Would you recommend for everyone to come into Ayahuasca with an intention or do you think it’s something that like everyone can just try?

Sam Believ: No. It’s interesting because your intention can be fighting an intention. You can always come up with intention. Intention is not that thing. It’s oh, it’s not like Google. You ask a question, you get an answer. Intention is more of a. Anchor for you yourself. So it’s like you treat the medicine with a reverence.

Yeah. Because if you just come and you’re like, oh, let’s do this drug and hang out, you’ll have a terrible experience. Yeah. ’cause I ask, ’cause oh, you disrespect me I’m gonna show you.

Yeah, I heard that.

Sam Believ: Yeah. So you need to have reverence and that’s why you set an intention. And it might not answer.

It might say yeah, this is not relevant. But even setting an attention of teach me something about me or show me how to be happier in my life, or show me what should be. My intention is also an intention. It’s about that thing where you go deep in your journey.

Yeah. You have that anchor and you can reach out to it and be like, oh, this is why I’m here for, because if you’re, if you go and have a turbulent times with IO and you have no, no intention, no direction, then you’ll more likely. Want to like give up and run away. Yeah. Instead of plowing through and getting the actual fruits of the labor,

because it does take work.

Yeah. Like it takes a lot of inner work inside and outside. I think even with the integration work and the word circles, they’ve been profound as well.

Sam Believ: It’s a spiritual work sometimes.

Yeah.

Sam Believ: It’s hard to explain.

Yeah. Is it, so it’s illegal to consume in Columbia anyway.

And. Yeah from a shaman.

So

Sam Believ: yeah. So here in Colombia, like in Peru for example, it’s like completely legal and they sell it in the markets, which is reckless, extremely reckless because ayahuasca has to be taken with with reverence and it’s not dangerous when you have a good shaman, good medicine, and like proper team to control you.

Yeah. But it can be extremely dangerous if you drink it alone at home, you can jump out a window believing you can fly. I was just gonna to say, I couldn’t imagine. You need somebody to control you. Both on a physical realm. Yeah. Make sure you’re safe and also on a spiritual realm because a shaman creates sort of a barrier where bad things can come out but not come in.

Okay. And here in Columbia, they, I think they’re doing a great job with like how difficult it is to become a real shaman. Like you need to come from a lineage, you need to have a permission from your indigenous council. Like in Peru, we had a girl that came here and. Drank ayahuasca here for the first time, then went to Purin three months later.

Some guy or some organization gave her a shaman, gave a paper like she can serve medicine. There’s a lot of that in order. Don’t do it, don’t do it because honestly it might be okay for a while. They will give medicine to people and it all seems nice and ddy, but then something will happen and somebody might die.

Like literally you can die because of not having a real shaman or a person who knows what they’re doing. So please don’t do it. I would say if you’re choosing a shaman, it doesn’t have to be with us, but look for someone who’s indigenous, somebody who has at least 10 years of practice as a shaman, not somebody who just drank ayahuasca once and feels like they can give you the medicine.

Look for a place that has good integration that they focus on, that look for a place that has a big team of of facilitators that can like, control you physically to make sure you don’t just run away in the jungle and get lost and or go on the road and get hit by a car. And obviously a place with a lot of good references like you look for references.

Don’t just go, some people go to Jungle de arrive to a bus terminal and to people like Ayahuasca and they just go, if somebody’s indigenous and has a lot of. Bracelets and colors doesn’t mean they’re a title. Yeah. Being a T is something really hard to understand unless you’re working in that space, so anyone can pretend to be one.

I could pretend to be one, and sometimes people come to the retreat, they assume I’m gonna give them medicine. Don’t do it. This is where it becomes dangerous.

Yeah.

Sam Believ: But I think I lost the original question.

No, that was great. Yeah. So it is

Sam Believ: legal in Colombia.

Yeah.

Sam Believ: As long as you have a shaman that has a permit from his indigenous council.

And generally a for a shaman to get this person this permit, he needs to have a permit from another shaman who’s older than him, and it goes like this. For example, Fernando has a permit from his dad. Yeah. Because he try, he started working with Oscar when he was seven. He went to the special school that’s called Ion.

Okay. When they drink Ayahuasca three times a week for 12 years nonstop. Wow. Then he was a shaman. He traveled all over the world for five years giving medicine. So this is gold standard, like indigenous. Lives in a jungle, comes from a jungle, cooks and grows his own medicine and has a permit and knows what he’s doing.

And, on top of that, yeah, it’s very energetic. You can know that well this guy dedicated his life to his life. He can play all those musical instruments and also yeah. But it is legal here in Columbia when it’s done right.

So what should. I’d be implementing as someone coming out of an Ayahuasca retreat.

Like integration wise, we’ve obviously done a lot of word circles, we’re doing a lot of journaling, answer answering questions. What can I expect after this and what should I be implementing?

Sam Believ: Well, I. Integration is is a complex subject. Like it’s really hard to explain what it is that some people think that integration is doing something.

Yeah. Sometimes integration is as simple as not doing anything at all. Yeah. So if you just, if you go now to a hotel in the city, just. Sit on a balcony, take your journal and just think about things you saw about your life. This is already integration. Doing nothing is integration. Sitting on your phone is not integration.

No. But if you wanna take it take it more, and have a more, more powerful integration is. Taking the information you got from the medicine and implementing it back into your life, like translating it from short form memory to long-term memory. So what helps with that would be journaling walks into nature, meditation, yoga, breathing exercises.

Or any kinds of spiritual practice, like doing rap or doing a tobacco ceremony, just like anything where you give time for yourself and you can think about your life and like zoom out and look at larger picture. Yeah and especially like implementing the advice that medicine gave you, because a lot of times people get.

Amazing advice. They’re like, oh, I need, I know exactly now what I need to do. And then they don’t do anything. It’s not gonna change. And if you go back and drink Ayahuasca, Ioco tell you like, I gave you homework. Why are you back so soon? One of the guys

said that he was like he was like, he told, said that the ayahuasca said to him, why are you asking me this when you didn’t implement what I told you the last time?

Yeah.

Sam Believ: It is. Ayahuasca is like that. It’s a little, it’s like we call it tough love, oh, yeah. It’s, he’ll give you advice, he’ll tell you what to do, but if you don’t do it, then it’ll be like frustrated and I’ll give you a bad trip. Yeah. As a lesson

payback. Yeah. No. This has honestly been probably one of the best experience of my life, and I will definitely be back and I’ve learned so much.

I can’t wait to like, bring this information back to my community and my world, and. Yeah. Thank you so much for everything.

Sam Believ: Thank you for coming. And definitely spread the world, spread The word world needs ayahuasca to believe like we are all somewhat depressed, somewhat anxious, somewhat unhappy.

On the surface we are as, as rich, as successful as we always were, and there’s abundance of food and everything, but emotionally, the world is so to screwed. We have a emotional health crisis right now in the Western world specifically. And there is nothing that seems to be helping except for this therapy people, a lot of people, even this here in your group, you hear people saying oh, it felt like 10 years of therapy.

Yeah. Because it absolutely is. I don’t say anything bad about therapy, but if you come ayahuasca and then go back to therapy, it will be like 10 times more. Yeah, 10 times more. Productive. We need it. We need to stop and. Listen and dedicate times to ourselves for our own healing. Like me, myself, I was running like a hamster in the wheel for 10 years.

Just making money and buying things. And being successful on the surface while I was miserable inside. And I didn’t know why I was doing it. It is just that society told me like, oh, you do that, you’ll get happy. And then eventually when I achieved all those superficial goals that were set for me, by my family and the society at large, I was like I have it all now. Where is my happiness? Happiness never came. So happiness is not about buying things or achieving things and yeah I commend, I recommend to everyone, to I. Take a week off your life in a year and do this railroad introspection.

Drink the medicine if it calls for you. If not, you don’t even need you don’t necessarily need that. You can start by doing something simple as just picking up meditation. Yeah. Or a

good habit.

Sam Believ: A good habit. Journaling, yoga, all those things that talk to you about time.

Yeah. And you wanna start in like January 1st? Just pick one and just start and if eventually you come to ayahuasca, it will definitely help you with with the mental health and Yeah. And just health in general. Just like happiness. Just being connected to nature.

Yeah. I think there’s something powerful even about just saying, this week is for me, I’m committing to this, I’m taking this week off.

Yeah. Like putting the phone away has just been. So powerful as well.

Sam Believ: Yeah. One, one is the last time you game, you gave yourself time for yourself. Yeah. And by giving time to yourself, I don’t mean going to drink with friends Yeah. Because it’s not for yourself. Like dedicating time to your own healing.

Like when was the last time you said I’m gonna take two weeks off and I’m just gonna. Look inside and heal myself like this by itself. Even if people let’s say you come here, you just be in the nature and you do the word circles and you talk to people that are all on the path of healing.

That is healing in itself. Like, when was the last time you did it? We don’t have that in our society. There is no, there is nobody that tells you like, oh, you need to do it. It is just. And we’re missing that. And this is what we’re trying to create and accommodate for. So yeah, thank you for coming.

Thank you for giving yourself that week. Yeah. And I hope you come back and I’ll

be back and go

Sam Believ: deeper.

I will be back for sure. Going

Sam Believ: and bring some Guinness. Bring some Guinness.

Oh my God. I’m not sure that will go well with I am. But

Sam Believ: No, that’s for me for later

for you.

Sam Believ: Yeah.

Thanks so much, Sam.

You legend. Thank

Sam Believ: you Emma. And, thank you for spreading the message.

Yeah. I can’t wait to bring this back home. And that was definitely the most powerful thing is you need to go back home

And tell people about this. So

Sam Believ: Definitely.

Yay.

Sam Believ: Thank you.

In this episode I (Sam Believ) interview Oliver Glozik.

Many people who drink Ayahuasca dream about starting their own Ayahuasca retreat, however it is not as easy as it looks. In this episode we discuss the difficulties of running an #ayahuasca #retreat

LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat http://www.lawayra.com

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.

Hi guys, and welcome to ayahuasca podcast.com. Today we’re joined by Oliver, Oliver. Yes, Oliver is a he runs an Ayahuasca retreat called Guac. Majo, also here in the vicinity of JE Columbia. Me, myself, as always, I believe from the wire retreat. This is where we’re filming from right now. As you can see, as you can probably see the beautiful view behind us.

So in this episode, we’re going to talk about Ayahuasca, but from the point of view of a facilitator, because not a lot of people focus on that. And a lot of people ask us questions about how it is running a an ayahuasca retreat, you know, how do you do to, you know, talk to so many people and the stories and and so forth.

So today we’re gonna shed some light on that and hopefully you’ll enjoy it. And welcome to Ayahuasca podcast guys. Oliver welcome. Thank you very much. Introduce yourself. Where are you from? Where are you here? What brought you

Oliver Glozik: here? Well, I’ve been living in Columbia for two years now. I was born and raised in Germany, and both my parents are Hungarian.

And yes, we’re looking forward to this episode and it’s pretty interesting. We started, I think, with this whole mission that each of us have at very similar times. Two years ago and to see how the things have grown over the for each one of us. And not just like the, the facilities, the, the retreats, but also the personal growth that’s happening within us is amazing.

And what I’m very passionate about and what I love is the fulfilling aspect and the fulfilling nature of the, of running a retreat center. Because you really see the changes that people are going through. And before I was building a video marketing company for software and IT companies, and I mean, that’s something which you objectively look at, like, okay, video marketing videos are on the rise.

Software companies, software companies are on the rise. All of that is great, but for me it was mostly money motivated. And there’s nothing wrong with making a lot of money or wanting to make a lot of money, but if that’s the main motivation. For you to do something. Mm-hmm. There’s going to be there’s more to life and also you will never have that level of enthusiasm, excitement, passion that extra bit if that’s your mo main motivation.

And yeah, it’s started my ayahuasca journey in Germany and now I’m happy that we’re with the journey developed. And we also mentioned that you know, this is not something that you plan on. No, I want to do ayahuasca retrieve, but doors open. You don’t come to

Sam Believ: ayahuasca. Ayahuasca comes to you. You don’t plan Ayahuasca.

Ayahuasca find you just comes like, you know, come, let’s hang out. Interesting note. So Oliver was born in Hungary, right? Mm-hmm. So Hungary, no. Germany. Five parents were born in Germany. Both parents are Hungary. But you’re, you’re ethnically hung anyways, like. We’re, we’re fellow Eastern Europeans. And like you know, how, how little is the possibility that two people from the east part of Europe end up here in Columbia working with a very unique medicine, which is, we probably never heard about it till we grew up, right?

Till we travel to South America. This is like completely outside of our reality. But still, we ended up here and working and, and doing pretty well both for ourselves and for the people that come to us. And the first subject that I want to touch upon, and you touched upon it, is money, right? For those of you who are listening who want to start Naas retreat for money to make money, and you can make money without Oscar retreat there are easier ways to make money.

Please don’t do it. Please don’t do it. It’s do it. If it’s your calling if it comes out from, first of all, from the point of. Passionate about plant medicines and helping other people. If you do it for money, you’re gonna fail. And I’ve seen so many people try it and because it looks so simple on the surface, but hopefully after this podcast episode, you’ll know it’s not.

But ayahuasca Retreat is a business. It’s still a business. You still need to, to pay the bills and pay the workers and pay the venue and the food and organize everything. Running an Ayahuasca retreat is like running a hotel, a restaurant, a spiritual retreat, and a psych ward. And we’ll talk, and we’ll talk about that later as well.

But there are much more easier ways to make money. And my, my background was offshore and gas. I would make a lot of money, but I would be so, so unhappy. Like you just make money and you spend money and you’re solace. What really keeps us going, and I’m talking for both of us, is when you get a person to the retreat.

And it gives me goosebumps immediately to get a person to the retreat who says like, I bought a one way ticket. I’m gonna, if this doesn’t work, I’m gonna kill myself. That happened to you over,

Oliver Glozik: I’ve that specific situation, did not I’ve had people there who’ve had suicidal thoughts before, some more present than others, but that specific situation with

Sam Believ: like one way tickets, no, it happened to us couple times.

Like literally like, this is my last chance. Nothing else works. And guess what? Those people are still happy running around. Still alive and better than ever before. So this honestly, this is one of the examples, but suicidal ideation is only one of them. There’s people from all sorts of backgrounds and all sorts of different traumas, and they come here.

Yeah. And, you know, good, good medicine, good facilitation, and just one week can, can completely change their lives. And when, when those people come to you and they’re grateful and they’re happy and they hug you and they, you know, you might not be making a lot of money, but this is so much more fulfilling.

What is in your experience, Oliver, what is the, what are those motivators, what are those situations with people that, that keep you going in this not so easy line of work?

Oliver Glozik: Mm. I’m gonna start with a selfish one. And I feel a lot of growth within me throughout my ayahuasca journey. The level of stability that I feel in my life, the clarity that I have for my.

For my future, the vision that I want to create. And also, you know, it’s one thing to have a vision, it’s a, another one is how much do you believe in it, believe in it, and how much of that can also be your reality? And also before, I mean I was always a very ambitious person, but after a couple of business failures, sometimes I was also like doubting myself as like, you know, can it really work for, for me?

And now I feel a lot of self-confidence, self-worth, and just the journey that I’m on that is I, I love that. And I think it’s great to have all of these and you need to have that of course as well, if you are running a Ayahuasca retreat the impact you want to create and, and help others. I also think it’s good to maintain certain goals for yourself as well, because if you just live for other people.

You’re gonna burn out, but if you feel the positive effects for yourself as well. So that’s obviously one for me that I feel great. And my dad visited me and he said when he was 30, he had, what is it called when you like, like that lower back pain and you need like surgery sciatica

or

Oliver Glozik: herniated disc?

I, I think the herniated disc. Yes. And he said like he was you know, sick when he was 30. And he sees how how much energy I have, the way I carry myself. My, my mom, I didn’t tell her my parents in the beginning when I went on is Ayahuasca journey. After about four months, my mom noticed my eyes were a lot brighter and my smile was coming back.

And, you know, that’s what moms care about. So

Sam Believ: the best way to advertise ayahuasca is to do it yourself. And when people notice and ask you like, what the hell is that you doing to yourself?

Oliver Glozik: So that living a good life for myself, you know, we also talked about being self-sustainable, about the solar panels, eating good food living in nature.

I mean, I couldn’t imagine living in a city again after having so much beautiful nature around you. And you know, if you live in a city, there’s a lot of confusion, always somewhere to go. And if there’s nature, there’s so much harmony. And when there’s harmony outside of you, there’s harmony inside of you as well.

Sam Believ: So, starting in Ayahuasca retreat and being a facilitator or a founder, it’s kinda like putting yourself in a position where you have no choice but heal. Like you surround yourself with constant people who are growing. You surround yourself with word circles, sharing circles, medicine, and even sometimes, you know, let’s be realistic, life happens and you get distracted.

And you are carried away to another less fruitful direction, but then because of that container you created for other people, you are in it yourself. And you can, you get constantly put back to healing, put back the healing. That happens to me all the time. I get, sometimes I get distracted with the business side of it, right?

We’re, we’re building some cabins now and you need to buy material, and then the guy wants to charge you more money and it’s constant, it’s business, right? Aya was running an IO retreat. You can hide it. Some, for some reason, some retreats out there. They, they really wanna hide the fact that it is a service for which you get to pay for which you get paid money, right?

They, they don’t call it, they don’t give you prices. They say it’s donation and they specify the amount of donations. Like I personally like, to be honest, here’s our treat. Here’s how much it costs, here’s what you get. It is a business people need to give, get paid. But there as a facilitator, you walk, you are walking that fine line when your one leg is, is in a spiritual space where you really want to help people and you want to heal the world.

And the other hand is like, how are you gonna pay the bills and pay all the workers and pay for all the improvements you want to do? It’s extremely difficult balance, but you have, you have to be open and like, I like to be open and just say like, yeah, this is a business and it’s a very difficult one.

And you said something about like being selfish, right? Which is, I’m sure you’re not selfish, but still, you know, for some reason in, in this field of work, there exists this misconception that people who work in in the healing space don’t deserve to get paid. It’s kind of like, you know, somebody comes from a, somebody goes to psychologist in us and spends.

Tens of thousands of dollars in over years to heal something, don’t get any healing. And then they come to, to a retreat and they, they need to pay five, $600. And then they like, you know, sort of rejected because this is, this feels wrong because spiritual people don’t need money, I guess, for some reason.

And then they get, like, some people, I’ve had people say anything from 10 to 20 years, they say like, it felt like 10 years of therapy. It felt like 15 years of therapy, 20 years of therapy all in one week for the price of like a medium hotel in, in, in the United States. And this is, have you experienced that yourself?

Like sort of, I can

Oliver Glozik: tell a interesting story. Somebody stories are the best actually said that to Mama Concha. The indigenous elder that I’m working with as well that, you know, this is healing work and you shouldn’t charge money for that, and all that kind of stuff. And she got pretty angry at it.

And I gave her like an ihu of wine and said like, if you want to, you can eat it or do whatever with it. Because even before our work starts, there’s so much work before that comes into it. Yeah. Like the plant needs to be planted, cared for the process of cooking, ayahuasca, carrying the heavy logs multiple days.

They have to pay their workers, they have to. Yeah. Like it’s it’s, it is a business but it’s also a very special type of business. And I think what you cannot, what you have to be attentive of is, you mentioned that you wanna make money, don’t buy an I retreat because there’s so many other ways to make money easier ways.

Yeah. And a lot easier ways as well. And I noticed that let’s say a successful entrepreneur comes to Ayahuasca and receives a lot of healing, and then he or she is like, okay, I wanna create an Ayahuasca retreat myself. And because they have that business background, they’re like, okay, I, I can do this.

And then they start. And I think that’s where some of the traps are more more present because they use the ways they built their business mm-hmm. Into an Ayahuasca retreat. And it’s still a also, I, I like to say, you know, participants, but in reality the people who come through retreat on a level are also patients because they are suffering emotionally.

They have things that they carry WW with them. And if you only think very coldly, okay. What is my lead lead cost per lead? Mm-hmm. How many people do I need to talk to? What’s the customer lifetime value? All that kind of stuff. And you’re just like too focused on that. People feel that.

Yeah.

Oliver Glozik: And you don’t want that.

And of course it’s still a business. You need to know what you’re doing and also run your numbers, all that kind of stuff. But the most important is that people feel understood. They feel cared for when they, when they come, they feel an open heart. They’re greeted,

they feel

Oliver Glozik: Yes. And they are, they come here as a person and not as a client.

Yeah.

Oliver Glozik: Because if people feel like they are a client, it’s just like, how many people can I get through as, as to, as high of a price as possible?

Sam Believ: No, the,

Oliver Glozik: the,

Sam Believ: the spirit is missing. So it will, it will never work out, man. It’s, and it’s funny because. IAS itself is a conscious thing.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Believ: So you can do everything right.

You can go to a retreat and you can, you know, copy it Exactly. And you can do everything right. And it’ll still not work. Like you can get 20 people and they will get sicker after the retreat because you need, there, there’s, there’s some very special ingredient, which is that, you know, the soul, soul aspect of it.

And can

Oliver Glozik: I, can I ask something on top of that? Sure. And one word that comes to my mind is integrity. And the higher we live our lives in integrity, the more power our words and our actions have. So one of the reasons why Ayahuasca was also very transformational for me, I first drank it in Germany with a shaman who I met me before.

He lived two years in Columbia and Mima as well before he was a very successful at business, was physically very fit. He was doing the ceremonies with his wife, with his brother, with his brother’s wives brother wi one wife. He, he has two kids now and he was one of the few people who I’ve met who had his life figured out in different areas on a high level.

’cause you meet people who make a lot of money, then you look at the way they, their situation with their family is, or to drugs or whatever, and it’s like I’m not sure if I want to follow down that path. And he was a very inspirational person that I met and he said certain things to me that I’ve heard them before, but because they were coming from a place of power because they were coming from a place of integrity.

That started

to move

Oliver Glozik: things in me, the message got delivered. Yes. And I think that refers to what you said, you can do this same without like the soul and just like get people to a ceremonial or whatever. But if the main facilitator or the people who, the person who welcomes them and guides them throughout this whole journey is not about his life.

I mean, people are very easy to have that sense for authenticity, for realness, and they just like sense, like, yeah, I don’t know.

Sam Believ: Yeah. So it is a balancing act because as facilitators, I’m sure same with you, I can just stay here in the nature with my diet and drink ayahuasca every few days and just be very spiritual and just forget about the rest of the world and just you know, connect with the nature.

Blend with the nature and like become a, being a pure Latin, like disintegrate. The last part was a joke and this, this would be great for me, but probably not great for my family and for, for the retreat and for all the people that we can host. Because if you want have people over at the retreat and the, and the, the reason it, it seems so simple, right, for me is you usually have a retreat and people come and they drink medicine, they get healing and they leave.

But people rarely ask themselves is like, where did all these people come from? Right? You need to get in front of people, which is very difficult. More on days because everyone is competing for everyone’s attention. And there’s, there are things much more attractive than ayahuasca. Like you can watch, watch short videos on, on YouTube and get your dopamine hits and never want to get your healing.

So finding a group of. 10, 20 people that want to come to an Ayahuasca retreat and, you know, sort of risk their lives because it, if you read on the internet, it seems like it’s such a dangerous thing to do and come over and, and take the leap of healing. And so for every person that comes to my retreat, I can say I speak to at least five people.

Hmm. So it means that for every person that you see at the retreat, I have a conversation with, with four more people that never, never show up. It. And it’s people that, that send me emails and they send me WhatsApp messages and I have to take time off you know, me being with my family or just enjoying my life and reply.

And you have to reply quickly. Mm. ’cause if you don’t reply quick, quickly, people lose interest and they go somewhere else, or they forget about the, the idea altogether. And how do you deal with it, Oliver, in, in your work like all the, all the compensations and not only speaking to people that are about to come or who will never will come, and people who came that still need your help.

Mm-hmm.

Oliver Glozik: That’s an area that I struggle with. Mm-hmm. You know, it’s there’s the people who wanna come to retreat, but then also the people after retreat, they still have a lot of questions they message you. And yeah, it’s, it’s difficult because what I really enjoy is being present with the people.

You know, we’ve had great conversations before and your phone was going off a bunch of times. My phone was going off. And but I value the time that we spend here and to enjoy those moments instead of like replying to everybody right away. So it’s definitely something that I am working on improving to be faster on replies, all that kind of stuff.

But yes, it’s what you mentioned, like the, the hotel aspect, the restaurant aspect and the marketing aspect, the online aspect. Mm-hmm. And it’s something very personal because in a way it’s a. Open heart surgery on your psyche that’s happening on ayahuasca, and where are you gonna go? Where do you feel comfortable?

Where do you feel safe? And I think it’s also amazing that we create those places for people to have these types of experiences because I mean there’s also other, especially here in Columbia more local ceremonies and there’s a lot of magic that can happen in those environments as well. I had a retreat participant, he was in the jungle and he drank with a tighter there, but they were hiking like 25 minutes up in the jungle and had like very, like the bathroom was like, I don’t wanna talk about how the bathroom was.

But he also then had the thought like, well, what if something happens? And that thought alone didn’t allow him to let go and make the experience that he needed to make because yeah, there was. That thought it there, like what if something happens? And so we put a lot of attention into creating this space where people feel safe, where people feel understood, where people feel listened to, where you have conversations before, what they expect from ayahuasca.

Of course, nobody can tell you how you are ayahuasca experience is going to be. But having those conversations before feeling safe, it’s it’s very powerful. And then also the conversations after. And so it’s a lot of work that goes into it.

Sam Believ: Yeah, it’s a lot of work and we have to always be, you know, both spiritual and also like taking care of the, the physical, physical aspects of it.

Yeah.

Oliver Glozik: Can I add one more thing there? Sure. Because, you know, I first from Germany, I, I came to Punyo the Colombian jungle and had very transformative ceremonies there. And that might path led me to me regime. And I’m very happy that I am here because I think it’s one thing to be feel at peace and harmonious and all that kind of stuff when you remove all the external triggers.

But by actually building a business, by dealing with rejections, by dealing with people who are dealing with their stuff, projecting that onto you. How can you stay with the trigger? How can you respond and not react? And I think that’s just the spiritual is you. I think you, I could argue even more spiritual of running a business than sitting on the under a tree and meditating all day.

So I like that level of growth that’s happening through that.

Sam Believ: It’s easy to be peaceful when there is no negative stimuli, right? Mm-hmm. It’s like, yeah, you just you hear the nature and there’s no people coming and annoying you and. Making you feel bad or like triggering your trauma. And then you can, of course, everyone can feel spiritual, but the real spirituality comes through when, when there are issues and you can, you’re still withstanding them and you know, striving under that environment.

But something you said about nature as well. Right. Once again, it’s, it’s a balancing act. It’s a kinda like if you, if if you see behind us, there’s, there’s a lot of nature, right? But we kind of, in the countryside, we’re not in the jungle, which means that you know, there’s a hospital five minutes away, but you’re still surrounded by nature, which is important.

But, but still, there’s this commodities and you can go and take a bus and go to Meine. You don’t need to hike for, for three days and take a boat and then a horse, and then so it’s, it’s finding that balance between nature and civilization. It’s finding that balance between spirituality and business.

Mm-hmm. It’s, it’s also finding balance between, you know, helping others grow and like focusing on your own growth. It’s, life is a balancing act, right? This kinda shows it so, so clearly as a, as facilitators, we do have one perk, which is ihu was itself like, you can, you can get a which is, which happens really, really rarely, but you can get a very unhappy, ungrateful person that for some reason resists their healing with Ayahuasca while at your retreat.

It happens to us extremely rarely, but when it does, you can get hundred five star reviews. But that one, one star review will hurt more than, than the 505 star reviews will. It’s kind of, I don’t know why my brain personally works that way, but it’s always like focusing on fixing the problem. And then let’s say life kicked you down and things happen and, problems and people, and then you just drink ayahuasca, you drink ayahuasca, and it puts you back on your track. It sort of pats you on the back and tells you, this is the way you go. And like, I’m here to help you and you’re on the right path. And it doesn’t make all your problems go away, but it changes your attitude to your problems where they don’t seem that big.

So that’s, that’s an, that’s an unfair advantage Yeah. Of, of being a, an ayahuasca facilitator because you, first of all, you put yourself in position where you have no choice but heal. Because even if you don’t drink ayahuasca yourself, but you participate in the board circles and you hear other people’s story, some of them they really appeal to you because they show you something about your life and you can’t help it, but, but grow.

It’s like you do word circles at you’re retreat as well. Absolutely. Right? Mm-hmm. What, what, what do you think about that concept altogether, and what do you think about the sheer. Enormous amount of wisdom that just comes out of those.

Oliver Glozik: Mm, I love it. I think it’s very important. Also one thing that I like to tell people is for the indigenous, they believe the, the message that comes through them, through the ayahuasca is a secret that is just revealed to them.

And so they don’t share their ayahuasca ceremonies, but they also say you have a different level of connection with ayahuasca if you grow up in the Amazon and if you’re indigenous than when you’re a software developer drinking ayahuasca for the first time. But keep that in mind. Do not share your ayahuasca ceremony with the whole world because most people will not understand.

And through the word circles, I always say like, share as much as you want to share, but don’t feel the pressure to share because maybe the person next to you goes deep into their trauma or what happened to them. But you’re not ready to share maybe certain things that came up for you, and that’s totally fine as well.

And and say whatever you want to say. And also I think it’s a challenge for us as facilitators as well to help people find the answers within themselves, right? Because, I mean, we’re not perfect. Maybe I put a projection on somebody else, and that’s just my projection and not their reality.

And especially when they’re in a very sensitive state and you, they could see that as truth. But it’s the biggest truth is always the one that you find out about yourself. And I had a retreat recently where somebody was like, well, you think this is what my ayahuasca vision mean? And I told, mm-hmm.

Well, first it’s your ayahuasca vision and. You need to understand your ayahuasca vision, and I can give certain impulses

Sam Believ: on the, you can know the language your subconscious speaks to you. Yes. Yeah. It’s another balancing act. Right. As, as Oliver said, some indigenous communities might not like the word circles.

Right. So we also try and find balance between sort of western approach to integration and healing and, you know, psychology in general while using those, those plants. So it’s kinda like a lot, a lot of times in the ceremony, right? You could have a title that can say, women drink, men drink first, and women drink second.

And you’re like, well, that’s kind of uncomfortable for you as a facilitator to explain to people. And he will say, like, that’s what my granddad told me. And you’re like, where’s, how do you, how do you breach that line between two oppositely, the metrically opposite things. And it’s kinda like. Trying to please all of them.

And it’s like, as a facility, you constantly like balancing, trying to make everyone comfortable. And also yeah, I lost my train of thought.

Oliver Glozik: I can add one more thing. Something that happened that a retreat this year, so I also do holotropic breathwork, holotropic breath work sessions, be before the ceremonies, like not right before the ceremony, but the day of the ceremony.

And I also told the people that I will have some friends coming over for the ice bath that we do after the holotropic breath work. And so we were just finishing up the the, the breath work session. And then a friend came and I asked her if she can do some cleaning with Palo Santo to, to the people.

And I also did, did, did it like she did it like one side of the room, I split it to the other side of the room. And one person opened her eyes or his eyes, and then he saw somebody that he never saw before, like being somewhat close to him with the a Palo Santo. And he was like, didn’t like that, let’s put it that way.

And later I heard through that he wasn’t too happy about the situ. Like he, he said like, oh, I didn’t like that people came for, for the ice bath and all that kind of stuff. And I was like thinking, like, first reaction that came up for me, I shared that before the retreat that people will be coming for an ice bath and mm-hmm.

It wasn’t a problem and now it’s this problem and like, oh, why does he need to be so sensitive and all that kind of stuff. That was like a very quick thing that came up for me. Mm-hmm. And then I meditated on that a bit and then I was like, well, he was in a very sensitive state and in that sensitive state, somebody who he never seen before was.

Doing you know, with public, it’s, it’s not like, like as close as like you, you, you and I, for example. But I could then see that that threw him off. And I also, I had trust with that person, but he hasn’t established that trust. Mm-hmm. So I could see why he felt the way that he felt. And later I also went to him, had a conversation, resolved the issue.

And I think it’s not just like for us as facilitators, but for any time in life when you have that very quick reaction and also like blame it on somebody else. Also take a step back. Mm-hmm. See what mistakes or what some of your actions led to that outcome and fix those. And we mentioned that, you know, you’re humans as well.

Yeah. And we do make mistakes too. That’s

Sam Believ: another balancing act, right? You, you need to know people are sensitive and you try to be yourself. Hmm. While needing to understand that some people are sensitive. It happened to me a few day, a few days ago at the last retreat. One lady was leaving earlier, I came to her room to organize her a taxi, but she was in a dark room, in a bed in the corner.

Hmm.

Sam Believ: And I closed the door behind me because it was a ceremony time. It was a day ceremony. And I wanted to talk to her about organizing her taxi. But a girl outside of the ceremony space who was abused, she, she lived that same situation when there was a, a big guy entering a room, closing the door behind them, dark room.

And it triggered a lot of stuff in her. So it’s like obviously it’s hard for me to know that, or like, ’cause I’ve never lived that situation before. But we need to be so conscious beyond, you know, our own field of vision. Yes. To be like extra, extra careful. So like running an AAS retreat. Is, is, is a huge balancing act.

And you’re always walking on, how do you call it, eggshells, walking on eggshells. You, you can, if you make a little too much noise, it might trigger somebody if you, you know, sometimes just your presence alone. And this happened to me once and this was really uncomfortable. Just my presence alone would trigger somebody because it might remind them of someone.

And it’s, it is difficult, like people on ayahuasca, people very sensitive. You need to, sometimes the best thing you can do is just not be around. Like, you just have to observe from a distance. Like somebody might be having a difficult time in the ceremony and you have to know how to approach them.

’cause if you come from them, from the back, and you might pat them on the shoulder, it might trigger some memory from, you know, them being attacked or something like that. And they can run and start screaming. I I remember my the thought that I asked about the word circle subject. Is that I think indigenous people in some communities, they don’t need word circles because they have an unfair advantage of actually having a, a complete, full functioning family system.

Meaning that after the ceremony, they don’t need a word circle with bunch of people they just met. They go back to their family and they talk to them. They talk to their grandparents, their parents, because they, their families are still united and it’s, it’s not shaped as a circle, but they will be able to share and integrate their experience through those conversations.

And we as western society, a lot of times we don’t have those safety nets to fall into. So that’s why as a, as a responsible retreat, facilitators and operators, we need to provide people with that support. And I like to say the best way to make friends as an adult is to go out to an Ayahuasca retreat.

Because you come to, to this place of healing, you meet with 15, 20 strangers who also are ready for their healing. They will be here for themselves, but they’ll be here for you and you’ll be there for them. And you, you will not imagine how much people can bond within just one week. Mm-hmm. It’s, we get groups of people that met a year ago.

We still get photos. We create those WhatsApp groups and we still have photos of those people traveling together, doing cool things together. Mm-hmm. And whenever somebody has a problem, they, they write to the group and everyone supports them, and it’s just amazing. Have you experienced that in, in your in your work as well?

Oliver Glozik: I think that’s very amazing about those friendships that form throughout the Ayahuasca retreat, because in a way, the, the walls are down, right. If I meet somebody, when I go bowling or wherever. You know, you, you don’t talk about the stuff that you talk about in Ayahuasca Retreat. Yeah. It’s like, how are you?

I’m okay. Yeah. That’s about it. Yes. And there you’re like, no, actually, like these things are going on in my life. And then like yeah, in some ways for me too. And then you connect on those topics. And I like tell people to drop the mess. Be yourself as much as you can. Just be yourself. Imperfect people.

Connect with imperfect people. And it’s not about how many employees you have or how much money you make or this, that, or, or whatever, because you know, we are all humans looking to make this experience or looking to heal, looking to grow. And I think it’s actually pretty fascinating to think about. There is a group of 10, 15, 20 people coming together from all different walks of life, different age groups, and they get along, you know, because like of course these things like, or else are conflicts that can happen, all that kind of stuff.

But. Generally the vibe, the atmosphere is so positive and so beneficial and helping and understanding towards each other. I think that’s a miracle in and of itself as well.

Sam Believ: Yeah. Because in the end of the day, if you remove all the fluff and all the conditioning, we are all human. We are all connected.

Mm-hmm. Which is clearly seen with the medicine. You feel like part of each other. And we are all, we all love each other. Mm-hmm. When you take away the fluff and it’s difficult sometimes because people might hurt you and, but Ayahuasca does really help to connect with it. And I think the key and, and, and that’s what you said imperfect people you know, connect with people, connect with imperfect people.

What’s the key of that? We know, we all know we’re imperfect, but we don’t tell it to other people because we are afraid to be vulnerable. So without being vulnerable, you can’t break down those walls and establish real new collection connections. So it’s like creating that culture in the retreat when people can start sharing and they, they could be a person that, you know, would normally be offended by some other person.

And then now they accept them because they feel that there’s something beyond that. They’re like, it’s levels deeper than, than what we used to. And instead of having, you know, good morning, nice weather, how are you kind of conversations, you start noticing that as the retreat progresses, conversations get deeper and deeper and deeper until the point where there’s literally no shell conversation.

And people can start like, you know, like good morning. You know, I just grabbed about some trauma and like they just start talking about it ’cause it goes very deep. And I’ve noticed that I would say at AYA retreat. Yes. More than half of the feel, half of the healing comes from group and people themselves.

Mm-hmm. So I ask is that important trigger that makes it all happen, but it’s people themselves that can heal other people and you can heal another person while being healed yourself. Mm-hmm. How awesome is that?

Oliver Glozik: I think it’s incredible. Also, one time I did a man’s retreat was without any medicine. It was also just a four day retreat.

But people said that was for me, life changing for me. I gonna start to have certain conversations that I thought I will take to my grave and I was impressed by it because what I love about Ayahuasca is that Ayahuasca also does some of the work. It helps loosen up things, open people up, and there was nothing of that, but only the.

The presence of other people wanting to be there for you, supporting you, feeling understood, feeling listened to. That is something that so many people don’t feel on their day-to-day life because most of the times everybody just wants to talk. And then there’s two people just talking at each other. Both kind of just want the other person to listen, but none of the two people listen.

And, but if you listen to people, if you, not just like with your head about what I’m going to answer, but with your heart feel what they’re going through, that is so much what humanity wants. What creates that safety net of like, okay, there are people there that are there for me. And I agree that Ayahuasca incredible does so much of the work and the other part is also very, very important.

Sam Believ: Yeah, ayahuasca. It’s very important as this first step that unlocks things, but sometimes I ask is almost like an excuse to begin your healing. Right? Some people are ready and this is just what appeals to them and there’s a lot that can be done and just conversations and helpful guidance. But yeah, let’s not talk about too much positive things, right?

This episode is about us complaining about life of a vaso. Let’s not get carried away. Yeah, guys whether you come to my retreat or Oliver’s retreat or some other retreat don’t forget that the facilitator and the shaman and everyone that that runs the retreat has this concept of wounded healing wounded healer.

It’s like somebody who was so hurt that they found healing with this modality. And they’re getting healed themselves. And because they couple steps forward, they extend their arm to, you know, guide you and help you. And don’t forget that we’re all humans and something can be perfect, but always try and focus on the fact that we open our spaces, our hearts for the healing and, and you know, this transformation for other people to partake.

And we take a huge amount of joy and gratitude from those healing experiences because yeah, both you and me, there’s, I could make so much more money with doing other stuff, but that’s not about, that’s not about it. But in the end of the day, we do need to earn money and spend them accordingly. For example, like here, this retreat, we employ anywhere between 10 and 15 people every month.

And provide them with, you know, income to feed their families and the jobs that they wouldn’t, would otherwise not have. And it, it is silly as you said, to come and say like, oh, you’re, you’re in the line of healing and you should not, you know, you shouldn’t charge money. But it’s like, what do you, I, I mean, ayahuasca gives you a lot of things.

It gives you peace, it gives you growth and knowledge, but unfortunately there’s not, like you drink a ceremony and then you wake up next morning with your pockets full of money, right? It does give you abundance, but this abundance a lot of times comes through the exchange of the good energies and the, and the healing experience from us to the patients and from you to us.

It comes in the form of money that then comes from us and keeps going on cycle completes, and it’s all beautiful. But

Oliver Glozik: Can I add one more thing to it? No. Hundred percent. I think from the way it used to be with healers is that. Everybody would pay what they could pay. Mm-hmm. But in a way, the person who was very affluent would also pay significantly more than the person.

And that also allowed the healer, the shaman, whoever, to attend to the person who who couldn’t afford it. And he also didn’t do it for the money, but he also of course needs money. But also it was, you know, that exchange people taking care of people and when you had more, you would give more as well and all that kind of stuff.

But of course, the, it’s not how life is in these days. And I mean, I even remember, you know, I think you started with very, very low prices. I think even probably the first ceremony you did it probably for,

Sam Believ: it was extremely cheap. Yeah. It was basically, for me personally, we didn’t make any money for the first eight months of our existence.

Meaning like, I would spend money. Mm-hmm. More than, than making them. So it was, it was, it was a completely passion-based business. Like I was just stoked about being able to have ayahuasca without leaving my home. Mm-hmm. And like, have other people enjoy that experience. Mm-hmm.

Oliver Glozik: And then I remember I saw a Facebook post about you, like, oh, you used to have like very great local prices and all that kind of stuff.

And now those prices go up and like, you know, I see it’s getting commercialized and all that kind of stuff. It’s like, come on man. Because also for us to create these spaces, it takes a lot of energy and resources as well to, for people to enjoy the place and to run a business. And everybody who’s run a business for them, it’s, they understand it for people who have not run a business, it’s, not as easy to understand, but there’s a lot of, you know, like you need to have a first aid kit there. You need to have so many other things that you don’t even think about when you first think, okay, I’ll just have some people over get the title there. He shares some ayahuasca. Yeah. Okay. That’s one thing.

But if you didn’t do that professionally, then if you start thinking he really likes you must be sweet. Yeah. And then the more then you talk about hosting the, the microphone and the camera it and it just like

Sam Believ: keeps on the music and the food instruments. You need to buy food for one, one week in advance and you need to have forages and you need to plan the menus and you need to get a bus to bring people here.

You need everyone to come to the pickup spot at the right time. And, and if you think about it, what if

Oliver Glozik: for two months the retreat slows down?

Yeah.

Oliver Glozik: And not a lot of people come. If you think about it, you would want the retreat center to also have. Money saved up. So that doesn’t mean it’s the, they don’t get the, the retreat is gonna die off.

And all the important work that we are doing stops as well. So in a way,

Sam Believ: I think it, it is, it is paradoxical, right? Somebody can go to, they can go to a, an expensive restaurant and just throw out couple hundred bucks and be like, you know, that’s just whatever. Or they can go to like a fancy hotel, but then like, go to a place that will change their lives.

And spend, you know, a couple hundred dollars seems unacceptable because of the spiritual. And it is for some reason means that you don’t deserve money. Or there’s this weird thing about money being a bad thing. What money is is energy, right? Let’s say we go back 5,000 years ago, there’s no money. You have a cow and I have io right?

You come, you get your healing, you give me a cow, right? You don’t have a cow. And everyone just gives what they want, but money is energy. You give us this energy, we give you another form of energy in your healing, which ends up making even more money because as a healthy individual, you, you, you get lo you get, you lose all those blockages that stop you from being successful.

And and you progress more and it makes the world a better place and like so and so. But for some, for some reason, there is this stigma about like, no, I, I don’t say anything about I was retreats that charge 5,000 plus dollars per a week. It is, you know, there, there is a way you can, you can become greedy about it, but when it’s like a reasonable price and you still don’t feel like, you know, like the spiritual work deserves any payment.

That’s, that, that’s what we, I guess we talk about because it’s like a. Pet peeve, you know, something that, that hurts us a lot. But regarding, on the, on the work subject of it, it is absolutely the most difficult job I’ve ever had in my life. But at the same time, it’s the, it’s a job I enjoy the most than any other jobs that I had before in my life.

But it comes to a point where I work when I sleep, like sometimes I’m sleeping, and then I’m like, there’s still like plans in my head and all the, you know, improvements and how I could do this and how I could do that. It just never stops. And then I wake up to go to the toilet and then I start thinking about work and I couldn’t fall asleep.

I’m literally struggling myself right now with that concept. It’s like, because I, because I like it so much. And also, but yeah, this is, this is the life of facilitator for you guys, the life of an entrepreneur

Oliver Glozik: too, and the life of

Sam Believ: entrepreneur and like an entrepreneur would understand. Then she’s like, yeah, yeah, I’m in the same boat.

So this episode is about us complaining pretty much. And I know maybe nobody will listen to it, but it’s still good, good for us to talk about it. Right. It’s,

Oliver Glozik: I think it’s also have different perspectives, right. And for people to understand both sides. And I think the best people, like sometimes I, I tell the prize and somebody’s like, oh, only that much.

Mm-hmm. And that’s, those are the reactions that I love hearing. Yeah. Because, and also interestingly, people who are financially successful, many times they are the people who are the most grateful for the experience there. ’cause they

Sam Believ: understand the difficulty of creating an experience like this, maybe because they’ve done something similar in their business.

Oliver Glozik: And also in the end, it goes back to self-responsibility as well, you know, that, just because you come here for a one week retreat doesn’t mean that all of your problems will go away. Doesn’t mean that you need to be healed. Doesn’t mean that everything needs to be perfect, but they’re gonna where you go, they’re gonna create something and it’s gonna help you take the next step in your mind.

Let’s

Sam Believ: talk about that a little bit. About managing expectations. Mm-hmm. Yes. There’s the retreat begins and you’ve done every, everything right, and you got 20 people to commit and you got the mold to come on the bus picks for at the right time, and they, they’re now at your retreat and now you get 20 individuals with 20 different completely different life stories and issues, and they all want to be fixed.

And some of them want to see crazy vision. Some of them want to. Ayahuasca to just take all their problems away. And they like borderline, they want to guarantee, like, you know, here I’m doing ayahuasca. You know, like, is it, is it sure that like all my problems will go away? And some just want some growth.

Some just want, miraculously in my experience, 95% of people get exactly what they want with only one key ingredient. And that is them doing the work, which means that they need to lower their expectation and actually accept what the medicine is giving them. Because a lot of times there’s people that get absolutely gold nuggets thrown in them and then just say like, oh no, I didn’t feel anything.

No, this is not what I want. Because ayahuasca will never give you what you want, but it will always give you what you need

Oliver Glozik: as Yes.

Sam Believ: Yeah. So. How do you deal with unrealistic expectations in your work? All over?

Oliver Glozik: I think, I think the most frustrating thing also as facilitators is when people don’t connect easily with the medicine. Also that’s why we do longer retreats, at least with two ceremonies or four ceremonies, because if you have one night of ceremony and you then put all that expectation, everything needs to happen that one night, it’s, you know, you put also that experience in a bit of a box and all that kind of stuff.

But the longer you stay at the retreat, the more things are allowed to develop as well. And you know, I, I always tell people, I cannot tell you how your experience is going to be. Like, I can tell you that we will take care of you, that you’ll be safe. And the one of the biggest things is. Most important is how are you living your life after the retreat?

And the indigenous are also saying, don’t just look for the immediate effect of ayahuasca, but the things that happen after. And I know you have many magnificent stories and I wanna share a couple as well. So there was a person that came to the retreat and his intention was to feel unconditional love.

And he didn’t get to feel that in his ayahuasca ceremony, disappointed, but two months later, he’s now becoming a dad. He’s gonna know how unconditional love feels like. And of course it’s also difficult to say as you now becoming a dad because he drank ayahuasca with that intention and all that kind of stuff.

But I’m sure you’ve experienced many of those mystical, magical. Be careful with your attention guys, synchronicities as well. And other times, time somebody came to retrieve. The first day he got back to his job, he got fired.

Mm-hmm.

Oliver Glozik: And you know, of course that’s not something that anybody’s looking forward to experience, but then you have to be honest with yourself, how much did I like my job?

How much did my boss value me? How was the, could I creatively express myself or was I really limited into a box? And then when you purge a lot by was you move a lot of energies and then things start to change in your life. And then do you keep on knocking back on the door that closed or do you maintain that level of trust and confidence and move forward that something else?

Better is coming my way. He ended up working for a different company, company where he could work remotely. He only just had to work half as much, was making the same amount of money. So things turned out to be very good for him. But it required him when. Those difficult things came up after the, the retreat to maintain that level of trust, confidence.

And that’s a difficult time to maintain the trust and confidence. When things are going well, it’s easy to be that, but if things are going tough and maintain that, so I would say,

Sam Believ: I’ve recently heard this analogy, which is really good. It’s like growth is painful. Mm-hmm. And everything in life to grow requires pain.

It’s like, you know, when when a crab wants to become a bigger crab, it needs to like take his shell off and like grow a new one and become vulnerable. It’s like growth requires pain and this vulnerability and it’s like, let’s say he’s, he’s sometimes a relationship is falling apart and you’re grabbing to it and it’s not for you and you’re still grabbing for it and you’re just losing your time instead of just accepting and, and maybe another opportunity to resolve, which will be better.

It’s like it’s almost us, ourselves pushing away good things in our lives because of. Some weird sort of attachment thing. Like, oh, I, I can’t be fired because why? Because my ego, right? But then it’s like the getting fired was the best thing that could ever happen to that guy. So it’s so interesting. Know how the, the healing doesn’t come as you expect.

It’s not gonna be like you stand there, then the ray of golden light will hit you and all your problems will go away forever. Forever. It comes in a, in a, sometimes the healing comes in a form of a, you know, a slap, somebody slaps you. I mean, not, not physically, but it can be a, something that happens to you that’s completely puts you out of balance and is completely offensive, but it then results in something awesome.

Makes, makes you have to move, right? Yeah. And you need to understand, you need to learn and you need to start to listen to these cues that the universe provides you, universe, the god, the plant, spirit, whatever is more comfortable for you to believe in. Hmm. It just guides you in the form of those. It’s not always in the form of like a gentle pushes.

Sometimes it’s slaps and kicks. Yeah. But listen to it. Listen when it comes to you and we, we don’t necessarily always know what’s good for us. Mm-hmm. And sometimes plant medicines can help understand.

Oliver Glozik: Yes. And I’m so grateful for Ayahuasca because I feel like what Ayahuasca is really good at, it’s making those emotional shifts.

It’s one thing to understand it with your head. Like, oh yeah, it’s okay. That relationship was gone and I learned something from it. It’s another thing to emotionally move on from, from it or anything that happened to you. And Ayahuasca can really deliver those shifts. And then also after is very important because you might notice, because that neuro pathway is like.

You fall back into it, but then you also, it’s then becomes a decision like, do I want to keep subscribing to my victim story and keep reliving that? Or now that I got this emotional impact, do you, do I start going on different directions as well?

Sam Believ: At least you get that flexibility and choice. Mm-hmm.

You get the tool. ’cause actually I ask from like, medicine perspective does give you the flexibility. Mm-hmm. It’s proven, you know, by, by science psychedelics in general allow you to do that.

Oliver Glozik: And I think with, I don’t want to like hate on before right now. But I think it’s like sometimes I feel like people who are really looking for that next level experience are sometimes more drawn to bfo and it takes you from zero to 100.

Whereas with Ayahuasca, you have to work through the things and however much you work through it, it doesn’t just depend on the plan. It also. It depends on your willingness to go through it. You know, for example, we have in the tradition of of, of, of the zabi macha, they have this purgative, it’s called ato.

And you drink it and it’s like six to eight hours. You vomit between three to five, five times you have to go to the bathroom. 10 to 15 I’ve,

Sam Believ: before I’ve done

Oliver Glozik: it her, and after that you’ll connect with ayahuasca. Like, but you know, some people are like, oh no, I don’t want to take it. It’s like, well, are you ready to do what’s necessary?

Oh, no, I already, my, my stomach is hurting. I’m not sure if I want to drink another cup. Well take the next step if you really want that step. So I think the expectation thing is not that big of a topic for me with the participants because of the conversations we’re having before the retreat and in the retreat about those expectations.

As well, but it, it’s not a, it requires you to, to work on it and it’s gonna come most likely in different ways than you expected, but the doors open up, energy will be freed up and then it’s up to you or you take that energy.

Sam Believ: Okay. So I think we can wrap up on our conversation about facilitator’s life.

I hope it was interesting to you guys and I, I know some of you might, might have been curious about certain aspects of a, you know, life of, as a facilitator and, and on ayahuasca in general. I ask you all to leave a comment in in the comment section, ask about what do you wanna learn more about ayahuasca or plant medicines or life of a facilitator, whatever questions might have come to mind.

Leave them in the comment. This podcast is is very new, but we are going to make more episodes and Oliver might jump back on sometime as well. So last ask for me as a facilitator, you know treat your facilitators well. You know, tho those are people that chose path and life of helping other people.

And when you’re giving all your soul, know your heart to help heal somebody and then just say like, oh, the food was not salty enough. I hate you. Of course not that way, but something like that. Something minuscule and insignificant. Don’t do that. You know, be nice to your facilitators. Give them love. Appreciate them.

Same goes to shamans. Anyone who puts their. You know, their life, their soul in line to help others heal. Just be nice to them, you know, take care of them. That’s, that’s, that’s my parting words. What do you say over, I think

Oliver Glozik: absolutely and also see everybody as human, everybody with their mistakes as well.

Don’t put us on a pedestal either. You know, sometimes you can think like, oh, you know, these, this amazing shaman or this, that, or whatever. But everybody has their things that they’re working through that they are struggling with. And I think that’s also an important message to share that we are not this enlightened guru as life figured out or whatever, but we are just as much on the journey.

We put our heart and soul into it. And you know, if you are interested on going on this journey, you, Columbia is a hotspot. It’s a growing. Amazingly. And come here, experience it for yourself. And thank you very much, Sam for that invitation. Looking forward to sharing more.

Sam Believ: Yeah, we’re, we’re no gurus.

We’re basically couple steps in front, but that’s enough to be couple steps in front to actually show you where to go. Like, oh, I’ve been there. You know, come, come follow me. So, yeah, guys, thank you for listening or watching. Once again, it was me, Sam from Laro Retreat and Oliver Klo here. And if you wanna attend one of our retreats you can find my retreats here, this beautiful venue@wire.com.

And Oliver, where can they find you if they want to join one of your events on the website, I was-retreat.com. I was-retreat.com. You heard it? Thank you guys. Thank you for listening and, i’m looking forward to seeing you in the next episode.

Ayahuasca showed a very positive impact on people with alcohol problems and we had many stories of people quitting alcohol thanks to Ayahuasca.

In this episode me (Sam Believ) will interview Damyn on how he stopped drinking after his first Ayahuasca retreat at LaWayra

LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat http://www.lawayra.com

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.

Hi guys. Welcome to ayahuasca podcast.com. Our guest, today’s Damon from Canada, originally, currently in Panama. Damon was our guest at the retreat in December, about what, five months ago.

Yeah. Almost exactly five months ago.

Sam Believ: Perfect. And the subject of our conversation today is that Damon had the little problem with alcohol, or will, maybe not that little.

We’ll go into that in a second. And after attending Ayahuasca retreat, the problem seemed to have went away. Welcome, Damon.

Thank you for having

Sam Believ: Damon. First of all. When you came to the retreat, was the alcohol like your main intention or was it just a side effect?

No, it wasn’t a main intention.

It was in there, but it also wasn’t to quit. At that point it wasn’t I didn’t look at it as a big problem yet, even though I knew at some level obviously, that it was something that was affecting my life in a negative way. But the way that I worded my intention was I wanted to rework my relationship with alcohol.

’cause, and the reason why I did that is honestly, I just, I never thought I was ever gonna quit. I’d ever be able to quit, so it was a more of a, excuse me, more of a soft alright, like I just, this is something I know it’s. Starting to become an issue. I was still pretty high functioning during that time, but but yeah, then I was able to finish it.

Sam Believ: Sorry, I just received my breakfast and but, so it was basically like lowering your expectations, right? Just not drink that much and it’s better than, it’s a smart, it’s a smart decision actually. ’cause if you go, if you ask for something big and then it doesn’t come to you, then you get, you can get frustrated all it doesn’t work.

So it’s like starting with the lesson and actually getting more. Nice strategy, but how do you, how would you describe the way it feels now? ‘Cause whenever you have an addiction, be it alcohol or something else, you could just choose not to do it. And then you feel the desire to do it all the time.

But I’m assuming it feels different for you. Like how, can you tell us more about that?

Yeah, definitely. I. I truly feels like it changed something in my brain, like on a physical level because like I’ll tell people that and I’ll be like, oh yeah, I’ve stopped drinking. It’s been six months now.

Six months because I challenged myself not to drink for a month before the retreat. And that was really difficult. But but yeah, I, I feel bad when people like congratulate on that now because I genuinely just don’t have the urge anymore. I still, I go to bars, I hang out with my friends.

I, go out, that sort of stuff. And before ever since I was, 16, 17, when I started drinking, if I saw someone drinking, I was like, I have to have a drink this crazy urge over me. And yeah, it just, it’s just literally not there. It’s just not a part of my body. I don’t have that feeling.

Sam Believ: Your alcoholic muscle was was alcoholic. Gene was removed. Interesting. Yeah,

I guess yeah,

Sam Believ: from what I know about addictions and you can be addicted to literally anything. Alcohol is a popular one because it does. Help really nicely to numb. Numb the feeling.

So what I’ve learned so far, addiction is a symptom of pain. It’s kinda like when you’re in pain for some reason and you feel discomfort you do something to that helps you get rid of the pain or distract yourself from the pain. That mostly leads to more pain afterwards. I currently have.

I wouldn’t say addiction, but my mechanism for pain right now is when I’m uncomfortable, I realize I go on my phone and I start scrolling through like reels or shorts and that kinda stuff, and I feel that it kinda distracts me. And I notice, okay, if I’m doing that, then I notice I have pain and then I can go and find why do I have pain?

What’s discomfort? So it’s that’s my mechanism now and, yeah. But in case with alcohol, a lot of times it you use it to run away from pain, but then you feel worse next day, so you get even more pain and then it becomes this weird cycle. Did you were you able to identify the pain in your life that maybe so yeah.

Yeah, definitely. Like during the retreat my work was all very. Internal some people they go see other planets and all that kind of stuff, or they’re in different places. But all of my work during the retreat was all like inside of me. Like I, and I knew that to the point, even there was one time when oh, this was the second retreat, but it was that I thought I was going to blast off, if you will.

And I even was like, no, I’m good. Like I, there’s still work here. But yeah, for me it was like, I honestly, I’ve had a very fortunate life. I’ve been able to travel a lot. My parents are awesome. All this stuff. But for me it was a lot of the just kind of self hate that I was working on.

Why that is what it is. Like I’m sure there’s lots of reasons and need to dig deep into that, but yeah, just always not feeling adequate. Not good enough is was a big thing overblown the failures I have had and also looking at the failures as a reflection of my worth rather than just a part of life.

Yeah, those were definitely all the things. And then also, like I, I just, I get anxious a lot and but I like being around people, so it is one of those, it was definitely a tool I used for more social interactions, that sort of stuff. One thing I have noticed now, like I’ll go out and hang out with friends, but I also, I I get my cup gets full a lot quicker when it comes to people. So usually I’m, if I’m going out with people like I’m gone, but like 10, 11 o’clock, I’m like, all right, it’s been fun. See ya. Where before like I was the last person up, but also the most drinking, so

Sam Believ: the social the social lubricant aspect of alcohol is pretty useful, I might admit.

You mentioned second retreat. Damon liked it so much that I think it was four months later he came back with fiance.

Yeah. With my fiance. Yeah.

Sam Believ: Do what about her? She had her process. How was your relationship afterwards? How does she feel?

Yeah, it was an interesting one.

Feels there’s still a lot more work to do and we’re working on that for sure. One thing that’s changed a lot was my communication. So essentially what happened is I did the first retreat my fiance, she really saw. What changed in me, how I was interacting with her differently.

Like I was, being more affectionate. I was being more present, I was paying more attention to the way she said things to make sure, I was showing more love essentially. And so after a couple months of that, she was like I want to try this too. It seemed that a lot of things were better with me and I just seemed a lot better.

So yeah. So then we wanted to go, for myself personally doing it, it was actually like almost exactly three months later. It was that, that we came back it was a little bit sooner than I wanted to, but like I knew I was gonna do it again anyway. And it was just, situational wise, it was, we’re back in Columbia, so it was like might as well do it now rather than having to wait a year.

Who knows how long before coming back. So I guess she was really excited about it.

Sam Believ: Yeah, that’s a great by the way, guys, this is a great note on how to, if you want somebody in your life to drink Ayahuasca, this is the best way to convince them. As Damon described, he just became such a best version of themselves that she, she was like I want that, what you’re having it’s just, it becomes so obvious that you have improved, that you don’t need to say go drink ayahuasca and stuff like that.

It’s funny. Would like to say. Couples that drank together, stayed together. And we’re talking about ayahuasca, not not anything else. Because you do it’s not an easy process, but you do grow together and relationship also improves, but, there’s ups and downs. Definitely.

I noticed that when me and my wife are fighting, a lot of times I just say go drink ayahuasca. You’re not in a good place. Interesting.

How often does that work out for you?

Sam Believ: No, it’s kinda it’s the same. It’s not a, it’s not a good one. It’s the same as saying, just calm down.

That’s, that doesn’t work. Yeah. How did you find about ayahuasca?

Just so my psychedelic journey or like into plant medicine journey started, I guess about four or five years ago now. And it’s, it started because actually I was getting really bad panic attacks.

And they just came seemingly outta nowhere. But looking back on it now, it’s like I was a lot of stress. I own a company and I was again, very hard on myself with all the failures that came with that. So yeah. So I started having panic attacks.

From all the research and people I knew that were on like prescription medication, I was just not, some, not worth the trade off for me because I was having panic attacks really sucked, but they’re only happening like once every two months or once a month, once every two months. But yeah, so I started looking into alternatives and POC was.

A big thing that was coming up there. There also just happened, like it seemed to coincide with this kind of new renaissance with psychedelics in general and the plant medicine in general. So it was like listening to lots of podcasts, listening to Joe Rogan and Paul Sta not Stamos, what’s his name?

Oh. I’m

Sam Believ: blanking now. The mushroom guy.

Yeah. Stems. Yeah. Okay. So right name. So yeah, so listening to his stuff, and so I started microdosing actually I wasn’t even taking full amounts, but I started microdosing, psilocybin and after three weeks I just, I had this kind of realization and and yeah, and I’ve didn’t, I haven’t had a panic attack since.

And I don’t continuously micro or anything like that, haven’t done medicine for. A year and a half now

Sam Believ: and how are you

big? But yeah, I still, I’ve, I haven’t had one since then so yeah, so that’s what got me into it. And then obviously as you’re looking into that stuff, researching Iowa came up and, yeah, and we were just in a place or yeah. And then, so for the Ayahuasca, I was looking at spots. I’m currently living in Panama, and we live in north of Panama, so very close to the Costa Rica border. And there’s lots of retreats up there. And I don’t, I, I don’t know. I don’t have any, reason, but I was just, none of them grabbed me, I guess is the best way to say it. And then Nicole and I, we decided to do this trip to Columbia. I was like, okay. It one those things. I put it aside. I was like. About the Ayahuasca thing for now, and I just looked it up and yeah, the Ayahuasca in Columbia came up, read the reviews.

I was like, oh, okay. And yeah, just, it just made sense. It really, and it literally lined up where we had a two week trip and at the end of the two week trip was a one week retreat and I was like, oh, I can just stay an extra week. And it was actually like, it just one of those things that just, hi Adrian hello.

One of those things that just worked.

Sam Believ: Yeah it finds yourself, you you find it and you find the medicine finds you as well. The what other benefits except for the, quitting alcohol, did you did you experience from the, from doing ayahuasca?

I think, I don’t like, I’m obviously not a scientist or anything, so I don’t know if this is a hundred percent accurate, but it definitely seems in general that all just dopamine control.

So going back to the scrolling through, that sort of stuff, I still do it from time to time, but there’s, it, I have the thought first where I’m like, okay, why am I scrolling right now? Like it’s, it just exactly what you were saying, where it’s like. You can still get into it, but it’s okay, am I doing this?

Because I literally, I have nothing else to do. I’m just hanging out which that, yeah, fine. Go for it. But but yeah, that’s,

Sam Believ: could you do me a favor? Please? Bring him to the kitchen. Sorry. Technical issues, guys.

Yeah, exactly.

Sam Believ: Yeah, you can just catch yourself, I guess when so it’s like. I think the personal growth is not about people think that you will forever be, become this perfect thing or something that the nature will still win and you will get occasionally like desires to do things you don’t, you need, you don’t, you don’t need to do or you even catch yourself doing it.

But then as you said, you catch yourself and you analyze why am I doing it? And then you try and find the core of the problem. ’cause I ask as well, right? It’s it’s not just gonna. Automatically remove all your pain, it will just show you the problems and then you process them.

So it’s just this human human sort of growth growth situation. And interestingly regarding alcohol, right? And any other behavior. What makes it an addiction is what makes it a problem is an addiction. And what makes it an addiction is the pain. But if the pain goes away.

Sometimes you can actually do things that you are addicted to, but not really have the same, don’t do it in them in a bad way. It’s kinda let’s say something neutral like food. Food is not bad inherently, but you can get food addiction and then you get different problems like either bulimia or anorexia, whatever.

You get a problem with food. But if you’re not in pain and if you’re not using food as your escape mechanism. Then you can eat food and be okay. And I’m not saying you need to go and grab a beer, but I think that it’s it’s good to come back to that point where a thing is just a thing and not your, runaway mechanism.

And then and then you can like. Do different things without being addicted to them. Because people so one question have you tried quitting alcohol before? Without before you, no.

No. No. Be like I’ve done like kind of breaks, like I’ll do like a month and that kind of stuff.

But the reason I haven’t, because I. I hadn’t hit rock bottom yet, essentially. It’s actually this is essentially the thought pattern that, that started all this during my experience was like my dad and both of my granddads on grandfathers on both sides, like my mom and my dad’s side were just extreme alcoholics.

All three of them had to literally almost completely ruin their lives and probably ruin a good chunk of their life before they had to quit. And so the thought, like this came my head and the thought was just like, I don’t, I have a good life. I don’t have to destroy it to to make myself quit this.

I am justto now. So yeah. ’cause I drank a lot a lot. But I’ve always just been a pretty high functioning alcoholic so it was, it definitely deteriorated some relationships and all that stuff, but it wasn’t where it’s oh, I lost absolutely everything and I had to change.

And I think that was obviously the one for me, the biggest positive about doing it this way. Whereas it’s, it I’ve seen how bad it can get if if you don’t don’t control it. Yeah. So yeah, so that was just the thought. And then oh,

Sam Believ: go ahead. No, that’s, I just wanted to congratulate you, man, because it’s a great realization and I’m just happy for you because like, why wait till it’s too late or till you’re so ruined and let’s say your relationship failed and then you fix yourself.

It’s kinda like after you have all this chronic health issues and stuff like that, congratulations, man. It’s a great really great thing that happened to you and yeah glad to have been a part of it. I know it, I know in the end you did the work and and Ayahuasca is just a tool, but really makes me happy, stories like yours.

And the reason I wanted to do interview with you is because we recently had few people like this that started reporting. The same thing. And one of them actually I don’t know if I’ll be able to get him on, but he said that he didn’t even think about alcohol in his intentions or in the preparation for the retreat.

He just noticed months later that he stopped drinking and it was like, yeah. And he told us that because we met at while we were traveling, and then I remembered about you ’cause we spoke about it. So I just wanted to record this episode to see maybe some people there that are struggling with alcohol addictions or other addictions.

What, whatever it is, you can you can see Ayahuasca as a tool. And maybe give it a try, ’cause why are people not drinking Ayahuasca? Some obvious reasons are, you need to travel and it’s expensive. Our retreat is, I think, is as as affordable as it gets.

And then and another reason is they’re just afraid. They’re afraid that, it’s not gonna help them or it’s gonna make them worse. Or it’s that, it’s painful and stuff like that. So that’s why we wanna get the stories of, as we call survivors and their progress.

Yeah. ’cause yeah, it’s like you, you did one retreat and then you stopped drinking for three months and even if that point you would go back and start drinking again, that’s still totally worth it. Like it’s it’s three months of your liver saved.

Yeah, definitely. How many years of life?

Yeah. Yeah. And going back to that point, I do agree, like I, I haven’t felt the want to drink again, but I definitely feel that it’s like, because of that, I feel like, oh, okay, if I. If I do have a drink, it’s not like gonna ruin me. Which, and that’s the thing too, ’cause I’ve spoken to a couple alcoholics that have really struggled with it.

And that’s the thing, it’s always over top of their head. They’re like, if I have one drink, like my life goes back to absolute hell. And it’s just which Yeah it’s, I try again, try not to force anyone obviously. ’cause everyone needs to make their own decision. And I feel if you do something as big as, ayahuasca because it’s a big thing because you feel pressured to, then it, I assume it wouldn’t be as effective.

Maybe it would, I don’t know. But but yeah that’s definitely one thing that I’m not concerned about. If I do have a drink, if I’m like, hey. I think the way I said it, I think to you actually was like, yeah, like I’m gonna stop drinking. But mistakes are, or rules are made to be broken. So if it happens then you know, it’s, it is what it is.

But I’m definitely not gonna ever go back to where it was. That’s for sure.

Sam Believ: Well, lemme know how it goes. I do have a feeling because you got rid of the pain and that, compulsive urge to drink. I’m pretty sure you can have a drink or two and just be normal and not want to do it next day.

At least I think that, let’s say you go to a wedding and they give you a glass of champagne and you just have it because there is a part of it when you really make something completely prohibited, then there’s this psychological tension that starts building up. So kinda it’s an interesting way, but it’s, I think there is this balance point where the substance is no longer an issue because you don’t have that pain to run away from and you can really.

Just, not saying that alcohol is healthy, but have a healthy relationship with alcohol. And if somebody says oh, here’s a beer. You can drink a beer, but not really necessarily ask for another one. I think that would be a really great point. But, it’s not, it’s your life.

Not mine. But do let us know how it goes and worst case you can always come back, have somewhere else.

Yeah. We’ll be back in January. I’m pretty sure that’s the plan anyway, so

Sam Believ: yeah, you and your, by that time, probably wife,

We’ll see plans. Planning a wedding in Canada from Panama is pretty, is a lot.

Yeah, no pressure. We’ll see by then.

Sam Believ: Why don’t you have the wedding in Panama anyway? It’s better weather.

Yeah, family. Just wanna make sure everyone can get there. So yeah that’s the most important thing.

Sam Believ: Well, Damon thank you so much and thank you for sharing your story. I really, I’m sure it will convince some people here that, that will listen, that have problem with alcohol, to maybe give it a try and, maybe we can save couple lives, just just easy as that.

Yeah. That’s the goal.

Sam Believ: Thank you Dam Damon. And it was a pleasure hosting you at the retreat. You’re a really cool guy and it was a pleasure talking to you again. It always is.

Yeah. Thank you, Sam. Appreciate it.

Sam Believ: Have a good day.

You too.

In this episode host Sam Believ interviews Kani on topic of Eastern spirituality V.S. Ayahuasca

There are more similarities that you can imagine explore them in this awesome episode full of fascinating questions.

LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat

http://www.LaWayra.com 

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to aya podcast.com.

Hello Connie. Welcome to Ayahuasca in Columbia podcast. No, actually that’s not our name. Ayahuasca podcast.

Kani: Lara Podcast.

Sam Believ: No, it’s actually Ayahuasca podcast. I have originally got the main Ayahuasca podcast. You

registered it. Amazing.

Sam Believ: Yeah, and we will be, you give us time v Ayahuasca podcast that everyone will go to, but as of now, we are at our humble beginnings, just having faith and growing and expanding.

So KA is coming live to us from India.

Which part?

Kani: I am in a place called Lana, which is towards the north of India. So close to Delhi. It’s a capital city. Very city like, nothing like where you are.

Sam Believ: Why does it look like I’m in India and you’re in Columbia because I have a man this big mandola from India behind me

Kani: from Yeah, we should definitely.

So kind

Sam Believ: of, you, you came to our retreat in September, right? And we had some very fun conversations regarding the parallels that both you and me were noticing in the eastern tradition, eastern spirituality tradition and the Amazonian plant medicine tradition. And so that’s what this episode will be about.

We’ll talk about, from the perspective of Ka about what she knows about Eastern spirituality. And she knows a lot. She’s very smart. And I’ll talk about the very limited amount of information I have on Amazonian tradition and we see how it goes.

Kani: Okay, let’s do it. Right off the bat, I’m no expert.

Okay. So I’m rediscovering my own roots and my spirituality myself. I’ve lived in the UK for the best part of my life. We weren’t particularly religious or spiritual growing up, so this is just me reading and rediscovering stuff. And so if I’m wrong, please feel free to correct me.

Very happy for that, for any of your audience members. But yeah, I’ll try and see what we’ve got.

Sam Believ: Yeah, that’s a good idea. Connie, thanks for being humble. We should be humble and if, yeah, if anything’s guys, you can comment on the live stream and, we will we’ll reply. So are you watching

Kani: the live stream?

So you’ll tell us,

Sam Believ: Yeah, I will, I need to figure out how to do it because when I open it, it starts to starts to make a lot of noise. Yeah I figured it out so kindly. You you’re in India. I’m here in, in South America. It’s perfect for us to you can feel that energy there and I can feel that energy here.

First question will be, it seems that like those two cultures, they seem to go both hand in hand. One seemed to compliment the other and and reinforce each other. For example at our retreats we really like to start with a bit of meditation before the ceremony so people can get connected and it really helps with their plant medicine experience.

And then we like to do yoga because it also helps, like why do you think they’re so complimentary.

Kani: I think they’re trying to work on the same system, right? The human body, the human spirit and mind. So absolutely one tradition evolved to use plant medicines to work on these systems and another has developed other strategies.

And so there’s, all the parallels of working with these systems. And I think from what I. Experienced at the retreat. A lot of what you guys or of the experience felt very similar to what we call tantra. So tantra has been like the term has been bastardized, I think in the west or associated with sexuality and whatever.

That’s not what DRA is. Tantra is basically using energy for spiritual growth. And I felt that’s what we were doing with the plant. So Sotha works a lot with energy, as you will tell us a bit more about hopefully. But that’s what we felt that healing was happening at that energy body level.

And there’s of course a lot of like physical purging that happens as well. And I, there’s a lot of Indian tradition. There’s a pope system of how. To heal with purging. There’s a whole ceremony called Kar as part of Ayurveda, which is like the Indian medicine system. And that involves taking Purgatives and releasing.

And they often say that a lot of emotion will be released during this time. And so these systems seem to have a lot of parallels in that way. Yeah, a

Sam Believ: hundred percent. Because if you go to the jungle and you say, I have this disease, I have that disease. The prescription is almost always gonna include some kind of purge.

And and some of them are very tough hours of vomiting and it feels like what’s the connection, right? But if you do it strangely enough it helps. And then I. A lot of purging. And the way Tita explains it for those who don’t know, T is a, is a Colombian name for shaman in, in their language, he explains that.

Yeah. The energies leave you with, together with the vomit. And sometimes during the ceremony, for example, drinking ayahuasca, ’cause it also has a part to it. You start feeling an emotion or a memory comes up and it sorta of sws around, rolls around you Yeah. And kinda and makes you nauseous and then comes out together with the purge.

And it’s like how do you explain that?

Kani: Absolutely. So there are other parallels in Ayurveda, in our systems as well, which make use of the purging. And I think that’s quite a key component to both, like ayahuasca, I think the purge it’s called Laga, right? I think that’s a huge part of it and still have to figure out.

What that is and why, but it seems to be a key component of all of it.

Sam Believ: Were psychedelics ever used in Eastern spirituality? Have you read anything about it yourself? I.

Kani: So my understanding was very limited until we had that conversation. So for me, I know that substances are used. Shiva is one of the three entities that we worship.

The key ones is like the known as the Destroyer, and he has a lot of like stories. He’s supposed to be constantly intoxicated and that’s the state he is in at all times. There’s a whole tradition of using, I don’t know if you know the Dura. They’re the fruit and the flour.

That’s supposed to be supposed to have hallucinogenic properties. And that’s often given to him as a presentation to ask for his blessings, that sort of thing. So that’s still used by certain aesthetic like sadhus and stuff in India and stuff like that to bring about states and spiritual awakening.

So that’s actually part of, so I knew about that. And marijuana is used quite a bit actually as well. And in, in sort of relation to Shiva, the festivals that are associated with him Norma people just get high on, on what we call hung, which is like the milk concoction of marijuana. But I didn’t know, and until you mentioned the Soma story.

So I looked it up actually, and it’s super interesting. They it’s for me, Soma was always like either the moon god, or it’s supposed to be like something that washes over you, like a plasma, like a brain fluid, plasma sort of thing. But when you look into it, there’s a whole chapter in the Rigveda, which is like 1500 bc that talks about methods of thinning, the veils between the waking state of consciousness and pre deeper transcendent layers and the ways to do that.

And mantras are one of, one of them and tappas, which is the meditation, the arduous yoga and all of that to get into that state is another. But they also mention something called, which are, is supposed to be herbs. And light filled herbs and herbs that like bring light. And so the, there’s a whole like, chapter the ninth ela, which describes like the preparation of it and what it like what sort of thing.

It’s and it seems like it’s, it was suggested either it’s a psychedelic mushroom or it’s something very similar to a brew to ayahuasca. So like you use the stock of this plant, whatever this plant is, and no one’s actually managed to recognize what the plant is yet. Maybe it’s lost, maybe because the sort of methods existed further up in the Himalaya is supposed to be a mountainous plant.

And to use the stop, which is, I think ayahuasca used the vine, right? And then it’s, it described as a climbing plant which I think is similar too. And then you crush that, and it’s bitter and fermented and it filters through you. So it’s sounds like I asked it.

You

Sam Believ: know, I have a, I’m not a sch, I’m not a scholar. I don’t know much about it, but from what you said I have a theory, right? Yeah. There is A-M-A-O-I that can, MAI inhibitors that are contained in the vine itself. They, a, they activate, they allow you to make DMT orally active, but they also make oth other psychedelics like mushrooms be more powerful.

So for example, there’s this concept of silca, like psilocybin ayahuasca basically, and mixing those two. So what if it was, what if it was something like that, like MMAI from that vine? And it occurs in nature in other plants. There’s, I know there’s an acacia that’s a DMT. There’s many plants that have those compounds.

It’s, and they grow in different parts of the world. Maybe there was or still is a plant like that, and somebody just figured it out and they were doing something very similar. So yeah. That’s another parallel, right? The psychedelic. Absolutely. Because I, I think that eastern tradition now is largely associated with with meditation and like self-work.

Just stuff coming from your own body. But I think that people who wrote all this literature and who became that enlightened, definitely had the help from some kind of psychedelic because the difference in, for example tradition here in, in the Amazon in South America, is that they seem to have they don’t seem to have that many scriptures surviving.

I’m sure they had it because to have that amount of knowledge and not have it, you see those ancient temples that are very similar. Mega, like talking about parallels, right? One of them would be psychedelics. Another one of them, as we spoke purges. Another one would be megalithic structures.

You have a lot of them in India as well. They have a lot of them here. So these cultures, they seem to have coexisted and they seem to have such a level of advancement that I will be really surprised if they did not communicate to one another, but that’s completely different concept, totally different across

Kani: the world.

Sam Believ: It’s a totally different topic huge in itself. But yeah. Really? I think

Kani: So cultures that are born out of the land, right? Like your relationship with the land and your relationship with your natural environment. They’re all, I feel like they’re all gonna evolve in generally the same direction.

I. So even if it is across the globe, like there’s gonna be some what we call morphic resonance, right across the globe of like creatures of the same type, evolving at the same ’cause The consciousness is evolving at the same kind of level. And so you will see parallels across there’s a lot of data around Morphic resonance as well, which is super interesting.

But

Sam Believ: When you drink ayahuasca or even other psychedelics, you, one of the first revelations, or as we call them universal truths, is that we are all connected. And ly and you do feel other people, not only people other, life forms, but I’m sure that, in that collective unconscious somewhere there they were, even if they were not physically connected, taking boats or something like that, they were definitely connected in some other ways because the amount of similarities is just, there’s too many, and we’re just touching on it. Let’s talk about the other one, right? What is the significance of serpent in the Eastern tradition? ‘Cause when you drink Ayahuasca it’s largely known as a, there is a serpent energy to it. Sometimes you even your body moves like a serpent.

And they say because it’s a vine, vine is a serpent in a way. And but what about Eastern traditional? Honestly, I know nothing about it.

Kani: So for some reason the serpent is connected to spirituality ’cause it’s everywhere. So in our symbology, in our like myths, there’s always stories around like snakes being present either as a kind of vehicle for the God or for example, Shiva wears a snake around his neck as a very common symbol.

And I think it’s a lot to do with we can come to it, but Kundalini energy is considered a serpent energy that sits at the base of your spine. And it’s a dormant energy that doesn’t do anything unless you try and activate it and try and clear the channels of energy that like ascend to through all your seven chakras up to the top of your head.

It’s it’s got that kind of. Quality to, and there’s two channels that are present that like twirl around each other called the eita and pala. Those are the two like sun and moon channels that exist. And like when they cross, that’s where each other, the chakras are. And so that’s the kind of symbology that exists.

And the vine thing is the fact that ayahuasca looks like intertwining serpents. Super interesting. ’cause there’s there’s like a myth. We call it a myth or you can call it like whatever. But that the thing so herbs herbologists say this, that the thing that’s supposed to affect that particular organ looks a lot like that organ.

So for example, walnuts, look a lot like the brain. It’s super helpful for like brain development. There’s not getting like ginger apparently looks a lot like a stomach or like a. Your intestines or whatever. Avocados are really good for women’s health and it looks like the womb, with the little the seat at the middle.

So the fact that Ayahuasca Vine looks so much that channel system, I feel like it has some sort of energy effect. I don’t know what that is. I’m still trying to figure it out, but like something on that channel. So I, that’s the parallel that I saw quite like immediately. And the other one obviously is that why is it making an appearance in all the visions and stuff?

And I think there is something there,

Sam Believ: Interesting. When when you drink Ayahuasca, there’s this moment at least it’s a bit of a kinda realm place, but where you go and it seems to be filled by bodies of snakes. With patterns on them, yes. Yeah. Have you been there? What is

Kani: that?

Sam Believ: Yeah. And it seems like they’re like grinding against each other and you’re in the middle of it with a buzzing sounds. Yes. And it seems to be like a, like an ego grinder you go through and then when you come on the other side. When you start recollecting your ego you create a better version and then you feel really good.

But it’s a painful experience. It’s really like you feel being ground up and

oh my

Sam Believ: God. Another thing you mentioned, thank you. This

is what I experienced. I could not describe it for the life of me. Yeah,

Sam Believ: that’s it. Yeah. It connected. Yes. Sometimes in the, in, in our word circles, I hear somebody describe something and I’m like yeah, I’ve been there.

And a lot of things are recurring and you feel

Kani: like you’re trapped in it. So I felt really immobile. Like I could not move when I’m in that sort of state. And I felt like the whole thing is just around me. Does that make sense? Like you’re being squashed by the snake, but not really.

Sam Believ: Yeah. Absolutely. Being ground up. And you mentioned chakras, right? And I remember that was what sparked our conversation at the retreat. I noticed I noticed when Ty goes and does the cleaning, he goes and uses the floral water to make crosses on where your chakras supposed to be.

And I was like, and I know he, he does not. Not that he’s illiterate or doesn’t know much, but I know for sure he’s not reading books on Eastern traditions or reads anything at all. He just lives in the jungle and cooks the medicine. He’s just really connected to that. But somehow he consciously or unconsciously knows where the chakras are because he goes and puts, crosses from that plant, on all the chakras, obviously without touching, inappropriate parts. But it’s he can see,

Kani: he can see the energy, right? That’s my, that’s what I think is happening. They can visually how people can read auras or whatever I feel like you can probably see people’s, like there is a particular spiritual guru that I follow, and he’s done a whole thing where he’s sat with somebody felt things and then he just draws oh, this is.

This is, this particular chakra is a bit strong for you. This one isn’t so strong and like he just notes all these things. I’m po I’m guessing it’s possible to read and sense these things and we just don’t have the perception for it. But he obviously does, having worked with plants for a long time and being like in this tradition for his entire, like seven generations.

Sam Believ: Yeah, I’m sure he does not know what even the word chakra means. No, probably. But I think he knows what it really means more than any of us any, it’s pretty Absolutely. It’s pretty crazy. Are there any medicine systems, like spiritual methods in Eastern spirituality similar to indigenous medicine and shamanism here in, in Amazon?

Kani: So I think shamanism has existed everywhere. So Taoists and the Zen Chinese traditions or shamans or shaman. There’s like shamanistic branches to all traditions, I feel. And those are like the ones that are super close to nature. I think any, and like we were saying before, like any kind of culture system that’s evolved from living with and in tandem with nature understanding, it’s like subtle, being sensitive to it and everything.

I think they develop these systems. And I think the way I was talking about Ayurveda, I think Ayurveda has a big sort of it’s all of our traditions were oral traditions, right? For the longest time. And then we managed to write them down. And I think that’s the difference that you were saying that we, indigenous sculptures, we haven’t quite scribed them down or I think knowledge is passed down, but by oral traditions.

So whether it’s like, depending on how the tribe is doing, the, the lineages, whether it’s lost or it’s retained, whereas we’ve managed to put a lot down on paper it seems. So I think Ayurveda has a lot of a again, obviously it’s all about local herbs and local plants and what exists here may not exist over there.

And but the bunch Garma procedure is like a 21 day ceremony where you first drink lots of oils to try and so we have this cow based oil called Key. I don’t know if you’ve come across KE before, but it’s the, yeah,

Sam Believ: It’s cla, it’s clarified butter.

Kani: Exactly, but purified in like the essence of what the milk product is and you just like drink lots of it and it seems really unhealthy, but the idea is it like captures a lot of the toxins in the body and transfers them to the gut. And then the idea is to purge those things. So it’s then you take purgatives to try and vomit those things out.

Very and vomit are the two techniques and I’m actually studying a little bit of that as well. So it’s super interesting. But you let them try and purge it all out and it’s two, three hours of purging if you like. You’re like literally taken your interests out similar to I aspects to be honest.

And then that’s posted.

Sam Believ: How did you say this Procedures called

Kani: Kar mean Five. So five

Sam Believ: procedures. It’s funny because a couple days ago we were at the retreat and s is my wife’s mom. She had some gut issues, so she went to ti to complain and guess what, she guess what he gave her. He gave her half a glass of olive oil and the per and the purgative.

Oh, wow. There you go. So yeah,

Sam Believ: They definitely seem to be reading same books, in some library somewhere.

Kani: And then the other thing so I think Ayahuasca would, again, did for me and for. Everyone, pretty much the, I met at the retreat, it was a lot of emotional release, right? And trying to release a lot of body-based tensions that exist in different parts.

And I think, we track a lot of our emotions in our bodies and these methods are ways to release all of that energy. And so there’s another one called ana, which is a meditation technique where the idea is to get closer develop it’s like a 10 day thing. The first retreat’s a 10 day silent retreat, but you hone in on your skills or really experiencing your sensations in your body.

And so as you do that kind of body scan you realize where those blocks are and slowly as you see them for what they are. So just. Face the pain as it is in Ayahuasca. It all releases. There’s a lot of like emotional release in these retreats as well. I’ve been to one lot of wailing, crying, et cetera, and all of that comes out.

And so I think very similarly, this is another thing that I’ve come across, which is very similar. And obviously like the practice of tantra is done in different ways in all of our traditions. And there’s a lot of priests and medicine men. It’s obviously, it’s really difficult in India to find like true ones ’cause there’s so many fake ones.

I’m guessing it’s very similar there. It’s also

Sam Believ: difficult. It’s also difficult here because for every real real title you have 20 fake ones, which is, oh my god.

Kani: But they have very similar, so the experience of me sitting over there and what was doing with La Wire, the leaves and the kind of spraying our Oscar and all of that it felt very similar to what we call like charred folk and like these, like there we go.

One of those. Absolutely. Yeah. So we use like peacock feathers, a lot of sort of priests who do this stuff and like you call them in the house when there’s like bad energies and they’re supposed to whack those bad energies out of you. Al

Sam Believ: Titus do the same thing. If she had Zel come over, he brought the wire and the tobacco and special sprays and just walked around and, using the smoke.

And it’s, it has seem, it seems to have something to do with. Plants or feathers as well. In Northern North American tradition, they also use feathers to basically kinda move something around. Softening it up before ex exposing it.

Yeah. Exp Yeah, that’s a word. We’ll go with it.

Kani: Yeah, so there’s that.

So the it felt so similar. It felt like I was in like an Indian like ceremony, which I’ve never been to, but I was just seen, even here. But the process just felt so, so similar and like smoke is used and I know in your ceremonies you have somebody walking around with those like things, I don’t know what you burn is a tobacco,

Sam Believ: it’s called copal.

It is called copal. It’s a tree resin dried and finely ground put on the coals. And it creates this intense smokers. It smells pretty pleasantly. It’s we, it’s not, I think this conversation is, shouldn’t be about even finding parallels. I think it will be harder for us to find things that are not parallel like this, be everything.

Is done in that tradition in, in, in India seems to be mirrored here. And this really makes you ask a lot of questions. Right?

Pretty amazing.

Sam Believ: Let’s talk about another one. I know for example, in preparation for Ihu ask, the diet is very important and you need to eat in a special way or not eat in a special way.

Are there any parallels like that in the Eastern spirituality?

Kani: Yeah, so diet has a super important role. We are what we eat. So that’s, that one’s pretty obvious, but we often say that diet is supposed to be appropriate for the kind of work that you’re doing. Say you were a king or whatever, and you have to do grand, big things.

You should eat a rich, high caloric kind of diet. And it’s named the Raik diet, right? It’s got a lot of. Key oils, rich foods and it’s, it gives you a certain energy to do that kind of work, right? The warrior, for example, should eat accordingly, and all of that’s written down. But spiritual work they say, needs to be a SIC diet, which is food that’s largely plant-based, vegetarian, super easy to digest such that it goes through your system and you don’t even feel the effects or the big strain of digestion so that you can put your energies into the spiritual work.

So the idea of yoga and all this diet stuff is like your body should not even be contributing. So say. So again with ayahuasca, like you really all that stuff, right? Like the idea is to release all of it such that you don’t even experience the body and then you quieten the mind and then you open yourself up to what the universe is for real, for the whatever the universal truth is.

So exactly. So there’s that, and obviously each of the foods are attributed qualities and what they do to the system. So there’s like foods with which are called high chronic foods, meaning they help the prana. So the prana is like the life force energy. So these are like foods that are positively chronic.

And these are like the negative and these are the neutral. And so if you eat accordingly, you’ll find that you need less. To, ’cause you’re gaining energy just by say, working on your Kundalini, and that’s energy, right? So you don’t require as much food when you’re working on this stuff. And also whatever food you do eat for substance is positive helping the product.

So that’s what the, yeah,

Sam Believ: I work with with spirituality, but I still prefer to eat my warrior’s diet. So

You’re creating a business. So I think in no

Sam Believ: way, yeah. I’m still finding a lot of small wars to just make it all happen. But I’m sure, yeah, T doesn’t seem to eat much at all.

Like he, he is very flexible with his diets, but he doesn’t eat much at all. And when you ask them about, for example, vegetarianism or just about what foods are they allowed to eat or not allowed to eat. They do eat meat in their tradition, but it has to be a very specific type of meat.

Like they, they really highlight the importance that the, before you eat the animal, you need to, the animal has to live its full lifecycle. It has to be pro, obviously you would call it organic happy chicken. And then it has to have had, kids. And that’s interesting. I don’t know if there is any parallels in, in, in eastern tradition to that sort of notion for

Kani: meats.

Yeah. I’m sure there, so meats are not forbidden. I’m like, I’ve been vegetarian since I was like born, so I have like very little understanding of the other stuff. But yeah, any indigenous tradition will say that the, you need to be part of the ecosystem and part of the natural life cycle of the food, right?

And so it needs to have finished its life in order for you to then consume it. But yeah, I haven’t like really delved into the meat consumption part. But certainly meats aren’t and certain Ayurvedic doctors recommend meat for certain things. So I imagine they have certain properties that will help cure ailments or like otherwise to yeah.

Sam Believ: Let’s talk about another parallel, which is the use of music in the ceremony, in the healing. And to me, two things seem somewhat similar, which is ikaros like chance and the mantras. Do you have any opinion on that? Have you noticed that one?

Kani: Yes. So when I was there the recovery thing, there’s the iro, the medicine music part, which was beautiful, by the way.

Thank you so much. And then of course, what sort of the, that the sounds that th makes when he’s doing the healing work, right? And they don’t have, they’re not words per se, I don’t think they are. Anyway. You can enlighten me if they are, but like they sound, but if they were put into words, they would sound like little chants.

That so I think with music and sound, it’s very much not the words, but the energy that the sound is carrying. And so yeah like just to, to me it sounded super similar. But yeah, mantras like they’re supposed to encapsulate the energies of the primordial sound of the universe kind of thing.

So they’re supposed to capture in certain ways and each mantra is supposed to invoke a certain energy within you and you find resonance with that particular sound. So I remember I think day one, I think you must have asked Cesar to play a particular mantra. And because I knew it and I resonated with it, it blew up my kind of visual.

So experience. And so I think we’re all instruments, right? Being tuned by music and sound. And I think that’s a huge part of both our kind of traditions. Like chanting, we’ll tune our instrument in a certain way, in the same way across or the other music and sound will tune our, so I found that with having taken ica, the certain, whenever music started playing, it would cause a physiological change in the body.

Like you would feel sick afterwards or like it would do something. It would cause a shift as soon as the music started. It wasn’t always consistent. I like was, yeah, I don’t I don’t know what experience like you’ve had with several people noting this, but like it’s very. Pronounce what music does in those ceremonies.

Sam Believ: A absolutely. We know that. And the even in, when I’m instructing, for example, Caesar, what to play, I always Caesar, he’s a little bit he’s a little bit difficult. I always tell him when people are very quiet and they’re not purging, you need to increase the intensity and play songs that are like really powerful.

And they, they will create the, this ca this chaos and then the purge. And then when people are

Yeah swirling starts with it, exactly. It stimulates it. And that’s really interesting. And

Sam Believ: when you, and when you, whenever one is like super quiet and like falling asleep as well, you need stronger.

But then when it’s a chaos and everyone is like releasing and there’s a lot of noise, then you quiet down and you quiet people down with the music. Like for example, me, when I play in the ceremony, it’s also not just the music itself. It’s kinda like an intention.

I sorta. I envisioned myself singing, and I I mostly sing with my eyes closed for some reason. Not only medicine, music, it’s just, it’s a thing. And then I envisioned putting like a warm blanket around everyone, sending, good vibes. And people seem to feel it, like they feel the difference and they notice it.

And if you ask t like, what is the musical all about? What is why harmonica? Why this? He will yes. I’m very

Kani: curious about that.

Sam Believ: Yeah. Tits normally say that they use sounds to harmonize the space. So let’s say there’s somebody goes through a difficult process and there’s a little bit of chaos if you allow it to be, and Tita doesn’t come and help.

Then you see there’s another person with chaos and another person with chaos. And then it, so then Tita comes out and starts, with harmonica and with ra he starts to and then or sometimes just with chance, it’s hey. Yeah. Hey. And then people start to calm down.

And it’s it’s there’s a little fire and he like extinguishes it and otherwise it spreads and it chaos, right? So they use music to harmonize and yeah it’s very interesting. Music is, it’s another universal language that I’m sure if you take an Indian shaman that works in some specific tradition and then put him in the ayahuasca ceremony and let him do his chance right at home, he’ll connect, it will connect with everyone and vice versa, right?

It’s too bad you lost your soma. ’cause otherwise I’ll be doing so.

Kani: Yeah, no. We can go on to the Himalayas and try and find it again. It’s supposed to be in that region, so from Afghanistan to like the Himalayas, that’s supposed to be where like, it’s roughly located. And obviously that’s like beyond India now. So ones

Sam Believ: really well. As soon as we’re done, as soon as we’re done with this live, I’m sure you’re gonna come out and start looking for it, right?

Kani: And start hunting for Soma.

It’s okay. I’ll just come back to you.

Kani: Cool.

It’s the same thing. Remember? It’s the same thing.

Sam Believ: Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about something personal, right? You’re a doctor and you came to our retreat. You work as a doctor in London, right? And there, there’s this thing about doctors and policemen.

And this time we had a fire. Fire chief from London as well. And they all seem to be very worried about sharing about their IAS experience on like social media and it’s there seems to be this taboo for people of those professions to have, have emotions and have emotional issues.

Do you have any opinion on that?

Kani: It’s not that we’re not allowed to have them, we’re just not allowed to express them. So first of all, the uk and I’m sure Americans similar, but it’s not quite, the UK is well known for a stiff upper lip. You just take it and that’s it. And like you just have to deal with it yourself.

You’re never gonna share it with anybody else. It’s like a very British thing to do. But yes, people in these professions see a lot. They experience a lot of trauma. We see people dying in front of us. We need to be able to cope with that. Yet we are given hardly any tools to do that. So you know, whether it’s you’ve tried to save somebody and you haven’t been able to, you might be a little debrief session with your seniors as to what went wrong with very technical.

It won’t really be about your emotions and what you took in, and it’s like a human life that you’ve just dealt with. And I’m guessing it’s very similar with firefighters, policemen, et cetera. We hold a lot of traumas but we’re for some reason not given the tools and we don’t have the tools.

Does anyone really in the west have tools to try and figure out how to express and release trauma? It’s. Yeah. Yeah. So we just numb it. We just, we decide to just become functional again with these antidepressants. So if we’re feeling low, great. Let’s just take antidepressants, just take uppers.

If we’re feeling like a bit manic, let’s just take some benzos and get to sleep at night. These aren’t permanent solutions. They might help they might put like a little plaster over your problem for a short period of time, but they wouldn’t really get to the root cause of why you are this way.

And obviously people who go into, yeah, absolutely. And like people who go into these professions clearly. Have some sort of, thing to work out, right? We need to figure out why we want to help people. We wanna figure out like, why are you drawn to like these particular professions? What is it about them?

Is it about proving it to somebody that you can do it? Is it about you saw so much chaos in your life before that you can deal with chaos and you’ve got a skill now because of what you’ve gone through, but like it still hasn’t released out of you. So it’s those questions that I think we all need to ask and I don’t think we often do, but,

Sam Believ: yeah. Do you mind talking on the subject of you being a doctor? Do you mind if I share the story about Titan and tobacco and what he saw? Yeah,

Kani: that’s fine.

Sam Believ: Yeah. I think it’s very fascinating. So about a month ago you messaged me and said you felt felt strange and a little bit energetically blocked and yes, if I can ask t for any advice.

So I spoke to t and Titan normally says, okay, if you want me to look into some person I need a photo and I need their full name. So he looks, he sits down lights at the tobacco. He looks at your photo and your full name. I don’t know how he does. It’s kinda a version of spiritual Googling.

And then he smokes the tobacco and he looks at the way the tobacco burns and starts to get some kind of hints and information from it. And what really surprised me, he asked me like, oh, is she a healer? And I thought oh, I’m gonna, I’m gonna ask you if you do some kind of healing work.

And then it struck me that you’re a doctor, which is a healer, right? And and then yeah, he, when I said, you’re a doctor, he smiled. And because obviously he was correct somehow through that tobacco, he was able to see that. And then he said that when you do your healing work as a doctor, in that sort of physical realm, you also do part of it spiritually.

And you keep some of the things people are some of their energies and people are. It stays in you. And that’s what causes that this balance. So I don’t know how cool is that? Very,

Kani: very cool. And it just validates what I’ve always known about myself, which is really interesting.

So I, I do that, with my work, of course, but even with just normal life and people and relationships and friends and whatever, it’s like I am the one that’s sit, sitting there holding people’s pain, like trying to like, trying to see if I can find a solution for them. Heal. Healing is, have no formal training and healing.

I do doctor work, like it’s very western medicine, but yeah, so I know that I take on people’s energies. This is something I know about myself. And so like it was interesting that he corroborated that. And very interestingly, after it, was it after, or before you told me this, I actually watched a Gabor Mate interview with Tim Ferriss.

He’s promoting his new book at the moment, and like he speaks about how he himself was, so he does integration work, I think with like his own retreats and stuff. So he went to a retreat and took a bunch of physicians, actually took a bunch of doctors with him and they were all doing their healing work.

After the first night he was chucked out of his own tree. The shamans came up to him and were like, you’re messing up people’s energies what’s going on with you? And he’s oh, what is it? And they basically highlighted two things. One was you basically have done so much healing work on other people, but you don’t know how to discharge it.

And so you’re holding a bunch of that within you and years of it. And so that’s not helping. And the other thing was you’re still holding onto some sort of like childhood trauma that happened to you at very early in life where you were abandoned or something of that kind. And he always has a story about that, that you can go and look up and stuff.

But he, yeah, being a Holocaust survivor and like his mom had to abandon him for a period of time and things like that. And so that is, and they just saw that. And so I think we have that problem. I think doctors, healers the shamans know how to discharge their, like emotions. And we probably don’t have the tools to that.

And this is where like the eastern stuff, like yoga and somatically with body work, discharge it every day. Like with meditation, try and work and like discharge that. Like you need to be fine tuned to what you hold and how are you holding it. And I think that’s the tricky part for us.

But yeah, it’s super interesting way

Sam Believ: of discharging it. And then maybe help the other people in your types of profession to, to learn how to do it. Speaking about some sorry,

Kani: I said that’s the work that’s the challenge. Yeah.

Sam Believ: That’s the plan, right? Speaking about other things that would be considered unexplainable and a little bit woo.

I remember we talked about reiki, right? And and the yes and the healing. So me, myself for people who don’t know I did tell the story in. A couple times is that my whole journey about starting the vascular retreat started with the medicine experience in the Amazon jungle where medicine gave me the gift of healing with my hands, which is not easy for me to talk about because it’s totally outside of my worldview.

And I’m still now stuck in between those two worldviews of and I’m trying to find my piece, trying to find my piece and create my own worldview, which sorta includes both physical And Because you were

Kani: like you were an engineer, right? Or are, or Yeah, I was. So that’s, I was a marine mechanical engineer, like material worldview, everything is matter. You have to construct it in certain

Sam Believ: everything. Very much so about physical and like lava used to be part of Soviet Union and religion was prohibited. So we grew up with zero religion zero spiritual, everything was. Just about this world, and and obviously now I understand this is not a healthy way of being, but so for me the whole journey of starting a retreat began with that experience of of of given being, given this information about healing with my hands, which I’m still learning and occasionally get like a learning sessions from Ayahuasca about how to do it.

But there, when I was describing this to one of the visitors here, happened to me, and this is what I’ve been shown, and it’s largely about moving energies. So it’s either taking something from a person and removing it. Or taking something from outside of the person and putting it in specific parts of the body.

And when I was describing exactly how it happens, he’s yeah, that’s reiki, that’s he’s a reiki practitioner. It’s that’s what they teach us at the Reiki course. And I was like, that’s pretty cool. ’cause I dunno what even reiki is. And then I remember talking about that to you and you say that you know something about it.

And is reiki an eastern tradition?

Kani: I think so. Again, I don’t quite know where the roots are, but it is energy work. It is basically working with energy, same as what tantra is in the sense that you work with your hands and you’re able to, I think it’s a lot to do with where you’re directing your attention.

So wherever your like attention is, that’s where the energy flows. So that’s why you have say the bus now where you’re like scanning your body and you’re like. Focusing your energy in those specific your attention in those specific spots and working out the energy kinks in those areas.

And very similarly, you’re supposed to direct like your whole body’s energy or your heart energy. For example, you can imagine that your heart is sitting in your arm, in your hands, the palm of your hands. And if you wanna do some kind of loving kindness, healing for somebody, that’s what you wanna do.

And you wanna work with your chakras and their chakras and interact with them. Apparently chakra don’t just sit stable in those like places you can actually move certain, some of them around, like where direct them as to where your attention is. So I think I don’t know much about it. But like this is there’s a lot of like self-proclaimed reiki masters around here.

One of my uncles is supposed to be one. So that’s the sort of thing he describes and like you can actually feel so energy. So Tai Chi, for example, is energy ma manipulation as well, right? And you’re supposed to be able to feel like this ball of energy in your hands in between them. And actually, if you really hone down, you can feel the heat and the energy in between your hands.

It’s really quite, I don’t know if you’ve had that experience, like if you’re dealing with somebody’s pain, for example, on your like focus, your energy there, they stop feeling a little bit of heat or something in that space. Something’s happening. Medicine, science,

I dunno, I don’t know if they can explain it.

Sam Believ: I mostly focus on the flow of the energy. That’s what I feel. It’s kinda you become a pump, right? That’s how it feels.

Kani: Where is it coming from? Is there a source that you’re like channeling it from into, or I.

Sam Believ: For example one of the examples when I had to do healing work, because I’m, I, it’s not that I’m that I decide oh, I’m gonna go help this person if I drink during the ceremony.

Sometimes the medicine tells me, oh, you, you need to go help that person and that’s what you need to do. And in that case she had certain disease which I saw as a lack of the life energy. And so I was listening and focusing on the nature outside of the retreat and sound of the river flowing and the trees and the plants.

And I was pulling that life energy from the nature. And I was putting that in like a specific part of the body till I could see that that the, that organ. I could see that you went from being like a sort of waste, like a desert sort of empty space to starting to fill up with green and then I could see a flower sort of blooming.

And then that to me was an, a realization that the work has been done. So I was like, happy and that’s good. And I dunno,

you saw that like visually you saw that?

Sam Believ: Yeah. With your eyes open or like with your eyes shut? No, with my eyes shut and obviously when drinking with I. Yeah. And and I don’t know.

I, I talked to her a couple months after that. I actually need to check up on her as well if she feeling better. But she was very skinny and she sat after the retreat. She gained like three kilos in three months. So I guess that’s a sign.

Kani: Do the same for me. What is this? You should come and help me.

Sam Believ: Honestly, at the moment I’m still learning and I don’t, I. I don’t say I’m a heal or anything, I’m just basically a low level student and I only do things when medicine tells me it’s, and it’s very, the instructions are very clear. If you’re at the retreat and I’m like, oh, I need to go do something, then I will.

But it’s a really rare thing. It’s, it happens to me once every six months.

Kani: Yeah.

Sam Believ: And last time I did it, it was basically me putting a hand on the part that hurts and then focusing on it and it’s a lot to do with like colors and shapes the way I see the pain and then I need to remove it and then in place of pain, put in once again, the energy of some kind of life, one of, one of the four elements it seems to be, but, and it also has to, a lot to do with chakras and kinda, yeah.

It’s as if I’m trying to like when you use the defibrillators to start somebody’s heart. It’s kinda similar, but I’m trying to like,

instead of electricity, it’s like energy,

Sam Believ: just like a rank, rank up their energy. Yeah. It’s but it doesn’t come from me. None of it comes from me.

Basically what you’re like

a channel, right? As a channel?

Sam Believ: Yeah, as a pump. I just get instructions and I say, pump this from here to there. And it’s very so you’re told

like specifically oh, for this element is needed, like fire or water or whatever,

Sam Believ: Yeah.

And if you ask Ty, he will say the same thing. He’s, he will always say, I’m do, I’m doing none of it. It’s basically I’m just conveying something. And I think that’s a very healthy way of seeing it because there’s a lot of people that have a lot of huge spiritual ego and then, they want you to kiss their feet or something like that, but which is.

Yeah, I know much about it, but

Kani: you can’t be a.

Yeah, no, the elements thing is super interesting because obviously with ailments, like with Ayurveda, what I’m studying as well is o often a lack of a certain combination of elements. So like each food is considered to have either fire and water, like it’s composed of I mean it’s five elements or whatever.

It might be different for you, but like they’re supposed to, each food item is supposed to be composed of different combinations of these five, and then your body is supposed to be composed of different combinations of these five, and each process is slightly different in what it uses. For example, digestion is a digestive fire, right?

And yeah, like the fact that you’re saying there certain elements were missing in somebody and you’ve tried to pull that energy and put it in them. That’s super interesting too, because that’s what we try and do with food and herb treatments in our rhythm, so that’s cool.

Sam Believ: Yeah, and it’s very clear, right?

Let’s say I’m doing that I have like hand, one hand on the part that hurts, and the other hand like collecting energies, like with my fingers spread and like antennas, right? And then if I go oh I go oh, I need something from the ground. And I go my hand. And then I was like, oh, I need something from up.

Oh it’s really strange because I don’t know anything about it. One, once again, I don’t know about, see,

this is what’s fascinating about us.

Sam Believ: So it’s not pa it’s another, a parallel in, I guess in methods of.

Kani: The pile between you and I is the fact that like we come from such mechanistic ways of looking at the world and then for some reason all of this we’re not saying we, we know anything about it, but it’s super interesting and it’s challenging our worldview that we filed for the longest time, right?

I came in a skeptic.

I don’t,

Kani: i’d heard about Ayahuasca, but I hadn’t like really, it’s a different thing experiencing it for sure. Like you, you go back a believer

Sam Believ: I’m still a skeptic though, right? And that’s the weirdest part. I’m like I a healing. You have healing.

I do a healing on someone and it works. And I still like, no, you’re full of shit. Like, how,

Kani: but how? But like why? Why is it working? You’re full of shit.

Sam Believ: This is garbage. You’re just crazy. And then I’m like, but then when I’m in that state, I believe it a hundred percent. And for me, like it’s a big conflict right now.

I need to find where I sit because I still. Let’s be honest there in the world of spirituality and this healing, 99% of things is bullshit. There’s so many people trying to claim something and make something mind me out of something. Yeah. And that’s why it’s so watered down then, and that’s why it’s so hard to believe, because it’s really hard to find something that really works.

But if you look at titles work and all this unexplainable things, you really re you really realize like when somebody’s real, it is real. I’ll give you an example. Like literal, the retreat that just ended two days ago. The guy was like he was at his darkest throughout the all retreat and he was just basically under the blanket going through the hardest trip ever.

And he says. Exactly at that moment, Ty just runs up to him, takes the blanket off him and starts, he starts helping him. And he is like, how the hell did he know that I was in that space? And it happens. Every retreat, there’s one person that’s like exactly where when I needed him, he came because otherwise he doesn’t bother you.

You, you’re, you’ll rarely see him. He’ll be there in the kiosk meditating and seeing things. So it’s, it is real, but it’s still really hard for me to accept.

So hard to accept. It’s really difficult. Yeah, no, absolutely. It’s been drum

Sam Believ: drummed into us, like for our entire life, lifetime.

Kani: Like you go into that space, whatever, that world, and it’s very real when it happens. Like it’s very, like you feel a presence of somebody else. There with you in your mind, and that’s and you can, there’s ways of looking at host decisions and like psychedelics and what they do to you, right?

We were talking about the default mode network and the mechanism of that and so that’s like the egotist mind chatter that you have about yourself. So what psychedelics supposed to do is like quiet that part of your brain, so you become an antenna for the rest of the universe. And so like you start like becoming more receptive to what else is going on.

That’s supposedly how it works. But that’s so mechanistic, like that feels very simplistic and reductionist. Whereas with Ayahuasca, there’s a presence that’s doing that to you and with you and taking you like, on this journey. And everyone’s having the same kind of experience, so they can’t all be lying and making shit off, right?

There is something here that’s like slightly different. There is a spirit of a plan of some sort. Now what does that mean? To put it into the wider world context. Oh, plants have spirits. Oh, okay. They’re not inert. Things that like, you’re supposed to ravage and, they have intelligence.

They have wisdom in the same way that we do. We just are not tuned to it. So clearly we need to readjust the way we’re functioning in this world to like, recalibrate a bit and open our minds to other possibilities.

Sam Believ: Yeah. Find a worldview that includes all of those things and there is no conflict.

It’s kinda like a conflict between Newtonian physics and quantum physics. It’s like they’re both real, but they don’t and I think they’re

Kani: conflicting. Yeah. There’s no, no theory that matches between, there is this

Sam Believ: world, there is a spiritual reality and there is probably something in between.

And yeah. But for me personally, it really messes with our mind, place, messes with my mind. And as, as all of you who are watching this probably can see, we have a lot of questions, very few answers, but it’s important to ask those questions, to start thinking those thoughts. And, we should do another episode 10 years from now.

And maybe we’ll have you see

where we’re at, if we gained any more understanding of

Sam Believ: this. We figured it out. And may maybe by then we’ll be doing lives in total spiritual world without any Oh yeah. Oh, that would be

good.

Sam Believ: Just oh, tune in on such time, make telepathic

channel three, three work.

Telepath.

Sam Believ: Which is another bizarre thing because Titus do communicate remotely with each other.

What?

Sam Believ: Yep. Yep. And once again, using a tobacco, they can. So many questions, so little answers. But I think on that note we’ll wrap up and yeah, I just yeah. Another thing, when you do come to the retreat, please don’t come seeking me out and asking to heal you for something because I don’t know how to do it.

Oops. Unless the medicine specifically tells me to do it. Yeah. Give me another maybe 40 years when I’m tight this age and I can control it and do it on demand. But as of now yeah. With just just learning and it’s fascinating this whole world that no matter how bizarre this world of spirituality is, but it makes me feel very much liberated because there’s so much more to explore and so much more to learn because it feels like I remember growing up I really liked that venture books, and I would read books and I would be, I read the entire, in the library that we had in, in the.

In our neighborhood. I read all adventure books and I was like, and I just realized that there’s nothing left to explore. You can, you can’t just go jump on the, you wouldn’t have done it all. Find the new continents, somebody have done it all. And I was like, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna explore?

This is so boring. This is X. And then now discovering this psychedelic, I realize that this world you go to and this worlds and paradigms and, parallel universes you go to on psychedelics is, might be much bigger than this reality, which for me personally, is really exciting because there’s so much more to explore and understand.

There’s nothing we understand about it. So yeah, I’m really excited.

Kani: It’s a journey, not a destination. You have to keep exploring.

Sam Believ: Connie, thank you for coming and thank you for teaching us a little bit about Eastern tradition and I really hope you. Find a way, to help all those doctors to heal themselves and clean themselves.

I really, I really think you have a passion for that. And maybe next time you’re on it, you’ll be you’re on our PO podcast, maybe you’ll be, you’ll write a book or something, it’s time to act,

Kani: it’s time to act. I’m trying to find my path. Let’s see where it leads me.

But yeah, book, books, book might be in the works. Let’s see.

Sam Believ: Yeah, book book a course, something that people can find and learn. Meanwhile you said you do have a blog, right? Would you wanna say, oh my God, yeah.

Kani: Yeah, sure. I’ll put it you can put it in the description later.

Sam Believ: I will do that.

And yeah. Thank you. Thank you for coming. And it’s

Kani: oh. Thank you for

Sam Believ: having me. It’s a fascinating subject.

Kani: It was a fun discussion. Thank you so much. Yeah.

Sam Believ: Thank you Ka and I’ll see you in 10 years in another one,

not before then. What? No,

Sam Believ: no. I’ll see you at the retreat hopefully sometime next year, but 10 years from now we’ll do another episode.

We’ll provide the answers for all the questions that we asked this one.

Kani: Absolutely.

Sam Believ: Bye bye everyone.

Sam Believ of LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat joined by Oliver Glozik of Guacamayo retreat to talk about frequently asked questions and concerns about Ayahuasca.

Lawayra.com

AyahuascaPodcast.com

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.

Hi guys, and welcome to ayahuasca podcast.com. As always me, Sam, believe the the founder of LoRa Ayahuasca retreat. Today I’m joined once again by Oliver Glick or Guam May retreat. This time we’re filming at this territory here at his retreat, so that beautiful paintings that you see in the background, you might see them in there in his videos as well.

And the subject for today’s video is frequently asked questions and concerns about Ayahuasca. Oliver welcome.

Oliver Glozik: Thank you very much for having me and for coming all the way up here to the north of INE to keep on sharing this valuable question, to answer questions that you might have. Also write comments messages to Sam or me about topics, suggestions.

And we’re more than happy to create more content specifically about what’s important to you and frequently asked question. Common concerns I think is a very big topic because you know, there’s so many stories out there about ayahuasca and people wanna have that experience, but it’s something so foreign.

So obviously there are concerns, there are questions, and I think a big one is about safety. Safety in the physical sense, and then the emotional one. We can go step by step. And the first one is, is it safe to drink ayahuasca?

Sam Believ: Well. Long story, long short answer is yes, ayahuasca is safe. However, it’s only safe if you do it right.

So what I generally like to say is whenever you hear those terrible stories of somebody keep being hurt in ayahuasca, it’s one of the three things. Either the shaman is not a real shaman and he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, or the medicine is not the real medicine and has dangerous additives.

Or the person that’s coming to the retreat did not follow the instructions, we’re taking some medicine or was already on the borderline of dying, and ayahuasca just tipped him over. Did I miss anything?

Oliver Glozik: Well, the contraindication I think what you said is perfect. I ask safe if you are safe and you do it in the right circumstances and medical contraindications.

So people with psychiatric conditions, it’s a borderline, a personal disorder. Also schizophrenia. Those things for those people, the ups and downs are very intense. And on ayahuasca, and also after it can feel that much more intense as well. Psychiatric breaks could happen. Also if you add maybe LSD into the mix of shortly being consumed before or after ayahuasca.

So those things are obviously very strong substances and also that affect the brain chemistry. And if there’s a imbalance in the brain with preexisting medical conditions, it’s better to, to step away and not drink ayahuasca.

Sam Believ: So guys, if you’re planning to drink Ayahuasca four weeks before the retreat, stop taking any antidepressants.

Stop taking any psychoactive medicines. Stop taking any psychedelics other than, you know, no LSD, no mushrooms, no weed, and that that should keep you safe. And, you know, closer two weeks before. Stop drinking alcohol and then start, start a special diet for preparation and that should keep you safe, as you mentioned, regarding mental health.

I really like that explanation that I’ve read in some podcasts, but basically in, in mental health, there’s two, two sides of mental health issues. Too much chaos and too much order. Mm-hmm. Too much chaos is stuff like schizophrenia, psychosis. Too much order is stuff like depression, O-C-D-P-T-S-D anxiety which is characterized by repeating thought loops.

So what you wanna do is you wanna break the thought loops, so you need more chaos. And if you’re already bipolar or, or psychosis, schizophrenia, you have too much chaos. You don’t want to add much more chaos because, so it’s basically, if you find yourself here, then psychedelics are good to bring you. Add a bit more chaos, allow your brain to re reset and start from scratch.

So it’s, I know it’s not directly on the question, but I think that it’s it’ll be valuable for some of you to know, guys.

Oliver Glozik: Yes. So make sure that you are medically clear to drink Ayahuasca. I think it also extends over to heart disease, to to epilepsy as well. And also talk with the Ayahuasca Retreat Center itself.

Everybody has their own guidelines that they follow. And by choosing a reputable retreat center, they wanna make sure that you’re safe because they, they cannot afford to make any compromises. And it’s better to say no to a person more than try to get everybody there and then deal with consequences that you don’t want to deal with.

So I ask a safe if you have the right, medical condition to drink if you drink at the right place. And then the next question about safety, I think it also goes over to the emotional safety. Will I be safe during the ceremony? What about the intensity of the journey? Am I ready to face all the childhood traumas that I have buried?

All that kind of stuff. So am I gonna go crazy? Am I gonna go crazy? Will I lose control? Mm-hmm. And it’s a lot more elusive and would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Sam Believ: So I do believe that you will lose control, but it’s a good thing you lose control. So if, if you, if you think about it, we have ego.

And ego is not always a bad thing. Ego is a, you know, mental construct that helps us control ourselves. It helps us achieve things and protect ourselves. But sometimes the ego is running on like a, not software that hasn’t been updated for many years. So let’s say you’ve been. Abused mentally. When you’re a kid, you became overly protective and you still keep doing it.

Even though now in your life there are no people abusing it. So it’s good to let go of the control and ayahuasca helps you to, to release that, release, that ego, it dissolves. You go back there and you adjust it a little bit, so you’re a little bit less strict or maybe a little less reactive. So losing, losing control can be a good thing in that, in that container.

Obviously when you lose control, you need to make sure that you don’t have your own protection. So you’re your environment and the, the facilitators of the retreat, they have to be there for you. They have to protect you. What do you think, Oliver?

Oliver Glozik: I think it’s a very big topic, and if you think about, I think a big topic is being able to trust yourself.

The medicine, the facilitators, the ayahuasca. Because you’re going to sleep every single day and you lose control. You don’t know what you’re gonna dream. You don’t know if you’re gonna wake up, but you’ve done it so many times that you, in most cases, unless you have severe nightmares, don’t ha you’re not afraid of going to sleep and knowing that you are not venturing into psychedelics, but you’re drinking a medicine.

And this is a medicine that has a long tradition and that we’re following, that we’re sharing and people are gonna take care of you. They know those different, those states of ayahuasca very well, and know what the different participants need at different times as well. And then knowing that whatever comes up for me, there’s a reason that it comes up.

And also having the trust in yourself that I’m able to. Confront, feel whatever I need to feel, and then go through it. And I think that’s the trust in yourself and the medicine and the process is a very big factor of starting to let go of control.

Sam Believ: Oliver, at your retreat, what do you do to help people feel more emotionally safe?

Oliver Glozik: Mm-hmm. So I think very important are conversations before of feeling good in the group. Sharing your intentions, sharing agreements of confidentiality, respect and non-judgment authenticity. To have those conversations that you are going in that extraordinary state of consciousness that you might encounter, certain parts of yourself where you feel fear, where you feel, tired alone, all that kind of stuff, and that you are ready to go on that journey. Also, before the first ceremony, we do a holotropic breathwork session where you consciously over breathe, you have more oxygen in your body that changes your brain chemistry. The monkey brain starts to shut down deeper parts of the brain where deep memories, emotions are stored are going to activate.

So people are already making that shift from their head to their body, to their heart. You do the ice bath before the ceremonies as well too, because in the ice bath you’re not thinking about the problems of yesterday or the worries of tomorrow. You are in the present moment. You found out that you’re a lot stronger than you thought that you were, and also you’re building trust.

Trust in yourself and the place and the group and the facilitators. It’s not just you. You calm, you drink, you go. But you ease into the whole process.

Sam Believ: Yeah, absolutely agree. It’s important to spend some time before the first ceremony for the group to get to know each other, for everyone to feel comfortable, for everyone to, you know, trust the type, the trust, the facilitators, because you, it’s hard to trust strangers.

So this is really crucial. Another thing that I think helps a lot and helps add comfort for people, emotional comfort during the ceremony, when they’re going through those difficult moments is medicine. Music, medicine, music is there for you. It’s like a lifeline to a tradition. It’s like you’re not alone.

You might not see anything, or you might not even remember language. Right. You might be so deep, but you will feel that there is music, and this music means that it’s still organized. You still have support that the help that music provides is really in invaluable. And this definitely, definitely is one of those things.

Did we forget anything on that subject?

Oliver Glozik: Well, another thing I, which I believe helps a lot is the facilitator and the shaman. So when people like, you know, you watch ’em, they encounter something and then they start to become nervous and anxious and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, it’s, I had a moment, it was more my beginning journey of, of ayahuasca where somebody was having a strong reaction and I was starting to be a bit worried about the person as well. Mm-hmm. And then the day after Sergio talked with me and he says like, yeah, you have, you cannot be that. You always have to have that level of trust. And so when people are going through whatever difficult situations or reactions, I stay very grounded and communicate that, not with the words, but with the attitude.

The way you you interact with that person and they feel like, oh, okay, no, somebody is there, somebody is composed. And having that level of composure within yourself, the facilitator, the title, it helps ground you in the experience as well.

Sam Believ: Definitely. It’s it’s much easier for us to remain calm in the ceremony.

’cause, you know, we’ve been doing it for a few years now and, something that for a visitor might seem like, wow, this is, this is crazy, is normal for us. So we just chills. A lot of times people come to us after ceremony and say, like, how, how, how can you maintain that level of composure? It’s just you, you learn to trust.

You learn to trust that even though it seems like something is happening, nothing is gonna happen. Nothing bad is gonna happen. Oliver, our next question. Physical discomfort people. A lot of, a lot of times people ask, how, how this, how comfortable would it be? Will I puke? Will I poop myself? That stuff, things, what do you say?

Oliver Glozik: Well, apart from the poop yourself, I think the physical discomfort is just part of the experience and it’s, there’s a Spanish saying, which I like a lot, is for, to fortify that you strengthen yourself by going through these experiences mentally, emotionally, spiritually, but also physically. And sometimes people are like, oh, I don’t wanna drink ayahuasca because I don’t want to puke.

And in reality, it’s, if that’s the reason why you don’t want to drink ayahuasca, you’re not really ready for ayahuasca. Your pain is not that big. If vomiting for two minutes or one minute is something that stops you from having a possible transformational experience in your life. And also vomiting is actually very healthy mechanism that all mammals do.

I mean, my dog Fukes when he ate something bad, and it’s a part of this intoxication. And I also had a participant, she said her favorite part of the ceremony was the puking itself, because it’s not just the physical release, it’s also emotional, spiritual cleansing, things that you’ve been holding onto that you let go, and then whew.

The ceremony starts to become better as well. So I think the purging is a huge element to ayahuasca and a very beneficial one.

Sam Believ: Yeah. Like in colo tradition, as you know, they don’t say vomit, they say oli, which means to alleviate. So it’s not like vomiting, it’s, it’s alleviating because as you said, together with that bodily fluid comes out, emotions you know, spiritual junk and afterwards you feel immediately better.

It’s also, it’s, it’s also really funny and difficult to understand, but you get better at puking till the point where, by the end of the retreat you’re like, you, you’re so good at it. And it’s, people expect to puke. They’re like, oh, I didn’t purge this ceremony. Something wrong with me. No, it felt, felt incomplete.

So it goes from something undesirable to something you expect because you know that it will come together with the release. And same goes with all the other types of purging. Purging can be yawning, crying, talking, screaming, shaking your body. It can be going to the toilet, diarrhea, pee. Any release of any sorts is, is purging and you can feel the tension leaving your body.

It’s that stress that we carry all over our body, in our muscles, you know, in our guts, in our organs. It just leaves you in, in the form and sometimes it, you might expect it as something unpleasant, but it’s actually is not that bad. And what about pooping yourself? Have you ever pooped yourself over?

Be honest.

Oliver Glozik: I’ve done twice, one, one time here so far. But it’s was for me both times in the jungle with various ceremonies, with various cups of ayahuasca as well. And I can say like on the one time I was very greedy for ayahuasca. Mm. And I got a little bit of a slap from Ayahuasca and yes, that’s, but I haven’t had somebody poop themselves here at this place.

So I’m happy about that. But in the end it’s also, you put a level of shame and guilt maybe on top of it if that happens. And even if it would happen, I mean, it’s not something to be proud of, but I mean, it happened. You clean yourself up. Life goes on. Not a little bit of a humbling experience, but also not the worst that could ever happen.

Sam Believ: Yeah, guys. I put myself once, it was about a year ago. I had a lot of ayahuasca, very, very strong dose. And lemme tell you, it was the best thing ever. I felt amazing. It’s, it’s, it’s not that you don’t feel it, it’s not that you don’t know that you’re pooping yourself. It’s, you come to that level of not caring.

You’re just like, I feel like pooping. I’m just gonna poop myself and whatever. Like, and yeah, it felt really liberating. Luckily. So we have two kids, so my wife is very well versed with wet, wet vibes and changing that kind of stuff. So it, it kind of didn’t, didn’t hurt us, but it does happen occasionally at the retreat that people you know, you might be so deep with the medicine that you just can’t go to the bathroom.

And it, it does happen really rarely. It’s not a big deal. But we do sell adult diapers in our store. You do. Yeah. You don’t, you should start doing it. It’s a big hit. Yeah. And a lot of times we say, if you’re worried about that. Just get a diaper and just so you’re not worried because then it will allow you to actually mm, release control and connect better with the medicine.

Mm-hmm.

Oliver Glozik: I think that’s a very good point that you talked about releasing control and feeling safe because there are multiple aspects surrounded by it, and it’s, once you also experience ayahuasca for the first time and you see for yourself, oh, I am safe, I am taken care of. The walls are gonna be that much further down the second or the third ceremony that you do as well.

So of course, in the beginning it might feel like a concept. Hey, see ayahuasca as a friend, trust it, but you’ve never experienced it. But once you have your first ceremony, you see like, oh, I’m good. I’m taken care of, I have a strong experience, but I’m safe. I learned something from it. Others are having those similar processes.

It, it allows it to develop and create that level of trust through your own experience.

Sam Believ: Yeah.

Oliver Glozik: It has to be the diaper. It’s the diaper.

Sam Believ: Yeah. Speaking of trust another subject that people worry about a lot, my experience is the group. Mm-hmm. They, they’re always worried, oh, the group is gonna be too big.

All those new people. And that, you know, is, are is it gonna be safe? Is it the, the, the sort of trustworthiness of, of the other group, of the people. And what I like to say on that subject is we never ever had anyone leave the retreat and complain about their group, what people worry about the most in the beginning.

That, you know, they’re gonna come and there will be other people at the retreat. It turned, turns out to be in the end of the retreat. The best thing, Hmm. People become friends, they become like a family. They really connect. They, in the end, the, the groove dynamic from our experience. Plays a huge positive role.

What, what do you think, Oliver, have you observed any, anything on, on the subject of the groups?

Oliver Glozik: Well, I think it’s interesting ’cause if you meet somebody and then they trigger you just like, oh, that type of person again, what is it about that person that that person has so much emotional power over you or so much emotional influence?

In most cases, that person represents somebody to you. Maybe your mom, your, your dad, a person that screw you over in business, whatever it is. But if some, if you meet somebody in such a short period of time and they have a strong emotional impact on you. In most cases, it’s more about you than it is about them.

And through the process of ayahuasca, you can explore those triggers and see what’s inside of me that is unclear, that is in disharmony with those types of people. And those people can be the biggest, biggest mirrors and the biggest source of growth as well.

Sam Believ: Yeah, it works this way where you get triggered by something and you can analyze it in yourself and sort of heal it.

And it also works in a way that sometimes in the group you have people that are very similar to you, people that are telling the story that is very similar to you and you might not see your own problems because it’s hard to tell yourself, you know, maybe I’m not right, or maybe I’m not as good of a person as I thought I was.

But looking at the other person in the group, going through their AYA was experience and actually coming out with. Information and you see at them, and then eventually it hits you and you’re like, yeah, I’m just like this person. And it’s easier to accept the truth because it comes in that sort of convoluted back doorway.

Mm-hmm.

Oliver Glozik: A very good point. And also I think it’s beautiful to observe that people from all over the world, different backgrounds come together, rich, poor overweight skinny, all different backgrounds, and they connect on the human basis because it’s not about who has traveled the most country, who makes the most money, but about, you know, there’s certain parts in ourselves that is in this harmony that we, it creates a certain level of suffering and we can connect on those imperfect aspects of ourselves on those things that we want to overcome together as a, as individuals, as a, as a collective as well.

And seeing. All these different backgrounds come together and, you know, get listening to each other. Mm-hmm. Bonding. It’s a very fulfilling experience. So I, the, the group thing, it’s a, it’s a big thing that adds to the retreat. I think it’s also, you have to see, you know, because if you do a retreat with 12 people, it’s gonna be different than if you do it with 50 people.

So maybe find out that level of group size that you would feel comfortable with. And there are retreats in that category as well. But the group, it’s many times, a lot more of a be like what you mentioned. A lot more beneficial than initially thought.

Sam Believ: Yeah. It’s amazing to observe how over the retreat.

The conversation people are having gets deeper and deeper and people go from that sort of ego driven normal in our society. This days mode of, look at me, I look at what I have and sort of, let me just wait for you to finish talking so I can tell you more about me. And eventually they change to actually listening to each other.

I think word circles also serve as this great training, how to do it because you, you, you tell your truth for about three minutes and then you just sit and listen to everyone you can, you cannot, you cannot talk. And it, it’s a, it’s a, it’s something we need to learn as a society to listen and people get better at listening.

And like we go from, you know, high nice weather today to somebody waking up and straight thing to talk about this, like deep, deep stuff, trauma, emotions. It’s just, we, we miss that in, in our life. And a lot of time people when they go back to reality and normal, which is not really normal. They often mention to us, you know, through, through a message that, yeah, the world feels finally, like they can’t, they’re, they’re missing the conversation, they’re missing the depth of human interaction.

And the group is, is, you know, close to half of your healing that you’re gonna get in Ayahuasca retreat. Ayahuasca is a big part of it, but the group is another huge part. So hard to put a number on it, but I would say like maybe 30% group, 30% medicine, 30% shaman facilitator, 10%. Something else. What do you think?

What’s your formula, Oliver? Have you thought about it? I think

Oliver Glozik: it’s very hard to put that, yeah. Into perspective. Also, probably for every person it’s different as well. For others, maybe they find somebody who represents maybe their father. And that group interaction was so much more powerful for them.

For others, it was more ayahuasca. Of course, they have to feel safe with the facilitator the shaman, but so many times it’s also your consciousness with your consciousness. So I think it’s, hard to put a number to it, but what I really liked what you mentioned is getting back to normal life, because that’s a huge concern that people have as well.

Well, how will I process the experience? How will my life change? I want a certain level of change, but will I be unrecognizable? Will I lose all my friends after? Will I want to quit my job? Will I be an Ayahuasca facilitator after drinking ayahuasca? Will I become a hippie? Will I become a hippie?

Yes. So let’s dive into that subject.

Sam Believ: Yeah, it’s we all want change, but we don’t want too much change. I’ll be honest, my first time drinking ayahuasca, I was also scared. I was partially worried that I’m gonna lose myself. And that me, that person, that essence will disappear and it will be some somebody else that, you know, that’s not me.

Right? And I must say now that me comparing to me when I was drinking, ayahuasca is a completely different person, but the essence. All of me is still the same, and either me now benefits from a better me and the better lifestyle that I have. So the change will never be immediate. And you’re not gonna be go from being Oliver to being Eric.

You’re not gonna be, become, change your personality completely. It will be a gradual process of two steps forward, one step back where you slowly adjust. It’s, it’s not like you take a a truck and you throw it out and you buy another truck. It’s like, you know, you take, take some wing off and put another one and polish here, and maybe change a wheel, adjust the motor, so you’re not gonna lose yourself.

That’s, that’s definitely a concern some people have. So don’t worry about that. And what do you think, Oliver?

Oliver Glozik: Well, I love the way that you described it also the metaphor with the truck and, well,

Sam Believ: I’m,

Oliver Glozik: I’m a mechanic, so, okay, nice. So for me, when I first started drinking. It was a bit difficult because there was, you know, this world of ayahuasca and then there’s this world of emails and they feel a lot different.

And this world wants to tell me something for this one. And, but how do I navigate? And it’s certainly a challenge. But what I have found is that I’ve become so much more authentic throughout the process, which I really appreciate about myself. And that can cause a level of conflict conflict with your friends and your work and your romantic relationship.

But if it requires you to be a different person, to maintain any of those, is it really worth it? And to have more and more the courage to be myself and go on this journey, what I like, observe the two things the most. People start to become more authentic. And people start to become more human again, more compassionate, more compassionate towards others, more compassionate towards themselves, wanting to be closer with other people.

And I think those are beautiful changes and in many ways also what the world needs. And yes, it’s more of a gradual change. And it also depends a lot on where you’re at in your life. If you are totally lost and have no idea which direction you’re going in life, and everything is super up in the air, and then you drink ayahuasca, I mean, that’s gonna, that person’s gonna have a lot different effect with ayahuasca than somebody who already is in, on their path and or in that.

Direction that they’re going to, and maybe they realize, oh, I wanna spend some more time with my family as well, and not just work 80 hours a week. Those are good realizations to have. It’s not a, so it’s a, it’s a path and it’s also very individual, depending on your ayahuasca ceremonies. Some people come with a lot of questions.

They leave with all the answers and have a lot of clarity. Others are like, well, a lot of things came up for you, me, that now have even maybe more questions. But those things will de develop. Just take one step at a time. You don’t need to have your whole life figured out after I was retreat, but by going step by step, things will start to develop also, I’m gonna say one more thing and then pass it over to you to not have too long of a monologue, but also to connect with yourself with your intuition. Usually, we’re so much in our autopilot mind today. We do what we did yesterday and tomorrow we’ll do what we what we did today.

But what happens is with Ayahuasca, you come out of that environment, you have a strong emotional impact. Then you come back to that environment and you can check with yourself. Those, these types of conversations, these people, the content that I consume, the habits that I carry, are they just learned and are they adding things to my life?

Do they bring my energy up? Do they bring my energy down? When they bring your energy down, start cutting them out of your life in three months, six months down the line, you’ll be a lot different. And a lot more to say also about being more compassionate toward oneself, letting go of the inner critic.

Things that can also just sub change subtly. And you might have not been that aware of in the ceremony, but three months, six months on lunch just ago, a lot more has changed than I was aware of.

Sam Believ: Change is good guys. There’s nothing better than, you know, growing gradually and not being stagnant. It will be gradual, as I like to say.

Two steps forward, one step back. If you, however, do get a very important insight that is very clear, but it’s something very serious. Like, I have to quit my job tomorrow. I have to quit my relationship tomorrow. I need to move to another country tomorrow before you do it. Take great care. Analyze the thoughts.

Allow yourself some time to decode it, because sometimes people see a vision and they think that means one thing, but it actually means the completely opposite thing. So give yourself some time before making an irreversible life changing decision. If it is supposed to be that way, you’ll probably make that change, but definitely do it slowly and don’t commit to.

You know, a new relationship or a huge donation, you know, or something like that. ’cause that happens to us a lot. Somebody comes and they have such an amazing experience and they say, I want to give you money guys. And I’m like, no, no, wait for a week. If after a week you still want to give us money, then yes, because you can, you can get open state that Ayahuasca puts you in is amazing.

It it allows you to feel so much, but it also makes you vulnerable for other things. Like if, if, let’s say you get a facilitator that maybe doesn’t have the best intention, and let’s say you’re a very good looking woman. Some, some shamans in some other places, they, they take advantage of it and, and they might make you believe that you’re in love with them.

And yeah, definitely don’t do it. And, and any serious commitment like this and yeah, it’s, it’s kind of hard to, to talk about that subject, but I think it, it nicely, it’s a nice bridge to talk about physical safety as well, because unfortunately guys, there exist places in, in the world where people that serve you medicine or facilitation team, they might not really be on your side and they might want something from you that you don’t want to give.

Whether it is giving them something physically or like sexual abuse style situations. I’ve heard about those things I’ve never witnessed myself here or even known somebody who knows someone directly. But on that note my suggestions would be look around find reviews. Like I know Oliver has tons of reviews online.

I have a lot of reviews, you know, places like Google where. We don’t have an effect on our reviews. We can’t go and delete them and change them. It’s easy, of course for somebody to collect nice reviews on their website, but then outside of that, where they don’t have control, like, so reading reviews, word of mouth.

If you have somebody who experienced that before and they know it’s safe, and it’s generally just, I guess you can, I, I think you can feel when people have right intentions and if you come to their house and it feels comfortable, if you feel strange and uncomfortable, then maybe it’s not the place.

Because also then if you feel a little paranoid and then you go in and drink medicine, you’re gonna get more paranoid. What do you think, Oliver, about the, the physical safety? Hmm.

Oliver Glozik: I think it’s, in most cases a bigger topic for women. Than it is for men. It’s, I think, important to have conversations with the retreat center before you go there, talk with multiple retreat centers and see how you feel.

And wherever you feel the most comfortable is also the place for you to go drink Ayahuasca. Maybe if it’s a very big concern, you could have a friend join you as well. Of course, it’s there’s more conversations to it if that person, of course, your friend would want to go on this journey as well.

But going as a group or like with a friend might not feel as vulnerable as going by yourself. Also I think it extends to the physical safety, but also very important is that you connect with yourself and find the answers within, because there can be a sharing circle and somebody says something and I think, oh, I know the perfect answer for that person, but.

I, who am I to know the answer for somebody else? I have my projections just as much. And I think we as facilitators the shaman, have to be very careful of the input that we give to the people as well, because they are in that open state. And when then the shaman says, oh, you have a blockage, you might think for yourself, I have a blockage.

And then mm-hmm. Start treating it that way. So whatever somebody else tells you about your experience, what you need to learn, be open to it, listen to it, and feel into it if that’s true to you or not. And then physical self safety. Yes. What you said, reviews. If you go on to remote place and Amazon to drink with a remote tribe, a very romanticized idea.

Maybe not the best idea for your physical safety and wellbeing. And it is a topic. So sometimes I think it’s a bit overblown as well that, I mean, those things happen, but I think in so, so much smaller of the cases mm-hmm. That it actually does happen. And then when it happens, it makes those sensational nature of it.

So of course it’s not something you wanna push under the table, oh, this doesn’t exist, and all that kind of stuff. Connect with your intuition, go to the right place and trust yourself. Don’t be an idiot.

Sam Believ: Yeah. I, I like what you just said about the sensational nature of it. I, I like I like this joke.

If you go drink ayahuasca and two days later you, you’re shot in the back alley, they’ll blame ayahuasca. And it’s interesting ’cause if you go like this group in carna, they, they drank ayahuasca two days ago. Something happened to them in carna and they were like, this couple drank ayahuasca and died.

Hmm.

Sam Believ: It was, it was pretty recent, maybe four months ago. It’s, it’s crazy. It, it feels like a joke, but in reality, ayahuasca is a sensational topic and there’s a lot of people that maybe subconsciously know they need to drink ayahuasca, but they don’t want to, and they instead choose to hate on it. And like, sort of jump on the threads of bad things being spoken about Ayahuasca.

’cause it makes them feel better. It’s an interesting dynamic because those people that hate on it the most, and I, in my opinion, are the ones that need it the most as well. But when it comes to sensationalism, you have probably hungry times, more chances being abused if you go out at night and you get something put in your drink or just somebody overpowers you, but nobody’s gonna make a news out of it, right?

Because it’s normal. But when somebody goes to get healing and then gets abused, it is sens sectional and is not to be nice still. A, it is still a disaster, still, still a terrible thing to happen. But they will be on the news. And as, as I said, anything that that has to do with ayahuasca will, will be overblown and will be on the news.

And, and I don’t know why, you know, they say bad, bad publicity is still better than no publicity. Maybe, maybe not. What do you think?

Oliver Glozik: Well, of course that’s not those are not stories you want to hear about ayahuasca because there are so many amazing stories of transformation, of healing and where there’s the good, there’s the bad, where there’s the bad, there’s the good.

Talking about the sensational nature of ayahuasca, I think it also, one reason why so many people are afraid of ayahuasca because they think, oh, I will have to confront my deepest darkest fears. I will go to all my childhood traumas. I will go to Helen Beck and. Those are the videos that also go viral.

Mm-hmm. But the video where I say, oh, I felt a lot of love, love for myself could forgive that person, that video gets 200 views.

Sam Believ: It doesn’t sell.

Oliver Glozik: It doesn’t sell. Yeah. But that’s so much more the path of ayahuasca and the, and the healing always comes with love. The light, the understanding, the compassion, the acceptance, the forgiveness.

That’s also the path of ayahuasca. So don’t believe every sensational story. Don’t believe that those sensational experiences about ayahuasca ceremonies, that, that go viral, that those are necessarily representative of the majority of ayahuasca ceremonies or of your ayahuasca ceremony. So trust in yourself and ayahuasca and allow it to develop.

And it also doesn’t always need to be the strongest, most life changing experience. Maybe if you connect with yourself and you. You cried and you maybe you haven’t cried for 10 years. That can put so much weight, emotional baggage that you carry with yourself off your shoulders. So many other things that well, I also like, you don’t need to solve all of your problems in an ayahuasca ceremony either, or an ayahuasca retreat.

But if you experience a level of growth, if you get good impulses within a, a long weekend, within a week, it’s still a big big step that you can take in your healing journey.

Sam Believ: Absolutely. Oliver. And one last thing on the topic of abuse, ayahuasca, sensationalism, you know, on all that one rape story from the jungle, there are also thousands, if not tens of thousands of stories of people overcoming abuse, thanks to Aya was coming to the retreat and healing.

Like a lot of people come to our retreat and they. See something from the past that was long for forgotten. And then they, they overcome it and they feel better and they, they heal themselves and their families. And that’s largely not spoken about. People don’t wanna talk about those kinds of things.

And it’s sort of a sad part about the way our media works in general. Like, nobody cares about good news. Yes, everyone cares about bad news because we as mammals, we’re always in search for danger to avoid. So on the topic of that danger to avoid, I’ll try and bridge it to prices. Mm-hmm. Like what what prices should you avoid?

What are, what is the reasonable price for an ayahuasca treat? ’cause people ask that, is it worth it? Is it gonna be too expensive? What do you think Oliver?

Oliver Glozik: Well, I think there’s right price points for everybody. There are ayahuasca retreats for 4,000, 5,000, $8,000 upwards, and one might think like, oh, they are, I would never want to go to that type of retreat.

But maybe you are a very high level entrepreneur and you are used to paying that for a week of vacation anyway, and you would want to go to that type of place as well. So maybe for that person, that retreat is exactly what speaks to them. Then there are also retreats and the all different prize categories and I have a lot of, you know, the prizes that we offer are incredible for the level of recommendation the food, the, the support, the additional activities, the the ceremonies.

I mean, we do a long weekend retreat from four or $500 to a week retreat, something eight, 900. I’m not sure exactly about your prices, but something in that range. Also in the future. I will go up a bit, but if you think about all the things that you get mm-hmm. How much you would normally spend on a vacation, it’s also a question about priority as well.

Also knowing that when you go to Ayahuasca retreat, you are supporting their mission as well. I think it’s a big topic, but you can find from like low budget to high budget anything. Mm-hmm. And you’ll find the right place for you.

Sam Believ: Yeah. Price wise, I think you’re slightly more expensive than us, maybe a couple hundred dollars.

But for those of you guys also to analyze, it’s important to know that. The bigger groups, you can charge a little less. And I think our groups are slightly bigger than yours, so it kind of balances it out. But I know Oliver absolutely tries his best to make it affordable. Same, do we, both of our retreats one week options are less than a thousand dollars.

And honestly, it’s probably, you’re gonna probably spend less spending a week at our retreat than spending a week in any big city in us, just the food and the, let’s say in, in just a hotel in New York, you’d probably spend double

Oliver Glozik: oh, flood more, and that

Sam Believ: that’s not including serene nature surroundings and amazing accommodation and delicious food and the great transformation you can experience.

So I’m very proud of our offer. I’m I also like what Oliver does here and I do believe that we charge very reasonable prices and in the end, the value for you, only you can know it. Some people, like one time I posted online and on the Facebook group and the person said, I would never go to your retreat.

It’s too cheap. So if it, if it’s, if it’s cheap, it doesn’t mean it’s bad. And I was like, yeah, can’t pay double. It’s okay. But the person never came. It’s just he was just there to leave a bad comment. Right. But it, it did affect me. ’cause I don’t know about you Oliver, but I definitely fight the price increase all the time trying to keep it low.

But things happen, expenses happen. Inflation happens. So prices get adjusted. But as long as you get your money’s worth. Then the price is right.

Oliver Glozik: Well, and also if you think about how much does it cost you to not have that level of healing, how much are you spending on your triggers because they’re unhealed, the nights that you go out drinking alcohol because you cannot be at home by yourself.

And many other things to take into consideration that you stay in the same place, not ready to make a decision, not ready to move on. Have being emotionally drained by topics of the past that it keeps you down, not ha not figuring those out, letting go of them. A lot more energy will be freed up as well.

You can use that energy to create new things in your life. So

Sam Believ: I love that analogy. It’s we focus a lot on the price of action, or it’s gonna cost me $700 to go drink ayahuasca. But we don’t focus on price of inaction. Mm-hmm. How much it’s gonna cost me if my relationship falls apart and I need to go through divorce hundreds of thousands.

You know, it’s like, how much is it gonna cost me to keep drinking and I get cirrhosis five years from now, or cancer, how much is it gonna cost me taking all those antidepressants and paying, you know, monthly amounts or smoking all that weed to numb myself down. So yeah, don’t ask only for the cost of action.

Also look for cost of inaction.

Hmm.

Sam Believ: Is inaction Action award. In action. I,

Oliver Glozik: I

Sam Believ: believe it is this action.

Oliver Glozik: Yeah. And I think some people have a problem where they see like those retreats for like three, four or five a thousand dollars upwards in a super luxurious situations. They’re like, oh, there’s a business person who makes a business out of it.

I want to support the local groups, the indigenous community, cultural appropriation. Is it even okay if I drink ayahuasca as a white person? Oh, there’s a white facilitator. How is he supposed to know things about ayahuasca? So what’s your take on cultural appropriation? Ayahuasca making it from the jungle up into the western world.

Sam Believ: It’s a tricky subject. Culture appropriation, psychedelic tourism. Positive effects of it. Negative effects of it. I do believe if it’s done responsibly, it, it can be very beneficial. I. For the indigenous people, I’ll, I’ll give you my retreat as an example. Our shaman is an indigenous person. He comes from the jungle.

He grew in the jungle. He has some land there. He gets paid very, very well, meaning he, you know, definitely top 1% of earn earners here in this country. So he then goes back to the jungle and this money goes to his community because there’s somebody who, you know, helps him tend to his ayahuasca garden. And those are huge territories of land.

This land goes, for example, I know his father recently brought an electricity line to Remote Jungle Village. This is money that goes through from you to me, to him, from him to other people in the local community. And then it brings the economy up. So there’s nothing wrong with it if you’re worried about the, sustainability of ayahuasca, it’s extremely sustainable. It grows where other things don’t want to grow. It’s it would either be sort of just a kind of abandoned land with some forest because the, the food crops don’t grow there, but ayahuasca grows there and they can, they can harvest it, and it’s, it’s an amazing driver for, for their local economy.

And when it comes to appropriation, well, if you ask tits themselves, if you go and ask shamans, like, is it okay? Like, do you mind my shaman? Every time the retreat starts, he makes a presentation to the group. And one thing he always mentions that he’s so, so grateful that he doesn’t have to go travel around the world.

That people come from all over the world here to learn from his tradition, to drink his medicine, to receive that healing. He’s excited, he loves it. And there might be tribes that say. I don’t wanna share it, but that’s, that’s their, that’s their opinion. So at least in that tradition, and here in Colombia, most, most of the tribes, as far as I understand, there was a moment where shamans felt the calling, the world is getting sick.

You need to get out of your cave, get out of your jungle, get out of your mountaintop, and go to the city because we are sick. And this is one of the very few things that can help us. So I’m an optimist on the subject. I do believe that psychedelic tourism can be done well, obviously with certain respect maintained where you do try and go support indigenous communities.

You do try and root yourself in a tradition. And you don’t just go to Peru and go to the market, drink ayahuasca, and then jump off your balcony and then blame Ayahuasca for killing you. It’s it’s, it’s about. The level of respect and the level of tradition, and I think it can be done really well.

What do you think, Oliver?

Oliver Glozik: Well, I, I love what you shared and when you actually go to the Amazon, when I was the first time in maco, I was like, what’s the industry here? How do people make money? And you see all those stores selling clothes and, but it’s like the money has to come from the outside for them to build something up.

It can be for ecotourism and of course ayahuasca is a, a very big topic. And for them to also have the ability to share ayahuasca with people from the west charge different prices than what they charge for local people. It creates that level of resource for them to buy more land to cultivate ayahuasca there.

So what you mentioned, yes, there has been that point where they also understand ayahuasca has to make it out to the world because if it doesn’t, then we’ll just keep cutting down the rainforest and not have that level of consciousness of, to help grow, transform, compassion, all that kind of stuff.

And so they are very appreciative of Ayahuasca, expanding from the level of consciousness, the level of healing that the world receives, and also their economic compensation, their opportunity that comes with it. And I think it’s people who ask that, I really appreciate it, that they think about those types of stuff.

Like, oh, I don’t just wanna be an idiot and take something from somebody’s culture who it doesn’t. Belong to me and all that kind of stuff. So I appreciate their level of compassion, caringness concern, it’s interesting. At the same time, maybe also those very few retreat centers who charge absurd amount of prices and the majority of the profits go to the, to the business person.

That might not be the best example of continuous growth and exchange of values knowledge. So that’s of course a different topic of a conversation. But in general, it’s very helpful to the indigenous communities. Also, it allows the ayahuasca to keep developing as well, because many people in the indigenous communities, they maybe don’t want to be necessarily s or shamans because it’s not a easy job to do.

Maybe they want to be more a DJ or this, that, or whatever, and Ree Singer. It’s it requires a lot of discipline to be on this path of ayahuasca and these opportunities, of course help. And then there’s the video I think that went viral about a guy who put on a, a poncho Mexican hat and a beard and ask people at universities in the US the, how do you like my outfit?

And they’re like, oh no, this is cultural appropriation. You cannot do that. And then he went to Mexico and he, the people, oh, how do you like the outfit? Oh, it’s really good. Does it offend you in any way? Oh, no. It’s perfect. Yeah. So sometimes you can make problems out of things that also are not really a problem.

Sam Believ: Yeah. It’s also not it’s not exactly the same subject as like, you know, wearing something. It’s kinda like when you have something that you have a lot of and you know that it’s really good for you, you wanna share it. They, at least in my experience, the shamans I, I spoke to. They love to share their tradition.

They feel blessed, they feel grateful, they feel honored that people from the other parts of the world come and enjoy their tradition. Would they be feeling the same if they were not included anymore? If somebody just drinks ayahuasca somewhere and grows it and they don’t know anything about their tradition and they’re forgotten, and some big corporation makes a lot of money, probably not.

And this is your choice in choosing your retreat. Where does your medicine come from? Does the person that cooks the medicine gets a fair remuneration? And, and there is there is a way to do it, right. It doesn’t mean that it will automatically make itself right, but people, consumers vote with dollars.

When you pay somebody that is not doing a good job and you don’t pay somebody who is doing a good job, well, you’re supporting a wrong guy. So do your research and make sure. You know where your dollar votes go.

Oliver Glozik: I would like to add one more thing to the topic, and it’s about drinking ayahuasca in a place where it’s legal and also where the tradition is.

There. Here in Columbia, ayahuasca is legal. Ayahuasca comes from the Amazon. It has a, the tradition comes from here just as much as it comes from Brazil, Peru, colo Venezuela Bolivia, wherever the Amazon rainforest is. The thing is, if you drink ayahuasca in the States or somewhere in Europe, there can be very, which are in most cases, more underground ceremonies, and you might be lucky and find a good indigenous shaman who is traveling and, experience a ceremony there. But I think what can also happen is that somebody goes to the jungle, spends maybe three months there and says like, oh no, I know how to share. Ayahuasca then goes to the US starts doing ceremonies there. He will not have that level of deep knowledge about ayahuasca, also how to support people.

That’s where situations happen, where people do not feel well taken care of. And I mean, Columbia is not a long flight away from the us. It’s affordable options. So if you can travel to places where Ayahuasca is legal, where there is that local tradition and you’re that much more likely to have a safe and good experience and support the right people as well.

Sam Believ: Definitely. And just be responsible. Because as you said, that person, I’ve met people like this. There was a person that come, came to our retreat, drank medicine with us for the first time, then went to Peru to some place where after three months they, they gave that person a piece of paper saying that they’re shaman.

Well, guess what? If that person goes and gives incorrect amount of ayahuasca to incorrect kind of person and does incorrect kind of ceremony, and the person dies, nobody’s gonna ask that This person was not a real shaman. They’ll just say, ayahuasca killed a person. Big highlight. They blame it on ayahuasca.

They don’t, it’s like, you know, you have a knife and you cut a steak with it and make a great dinner and feed few people. That’s good. It’s a tool. You know how to use it, but you can also take knife and go kill other people. But there won. There won’t be news about, you know, that. Iki people now, you know, it’s a it’s a bad analogy, but it has to be done responsibly.

So always ask you, you can, you can’t have a white chairman. It is possible a white person can become a medicine giver, even in Colombian tradition, but that requires a very long commitment, like years and years of working with indigenous people, learning their tradition, drinking tons of ayahuasca. So if you do it just for ego, just to tell your friends that you’re a shaman, you’ll fail long before an actual shaman.

We will give you an actual permit to give medicine. It has to be earned. And for people to just wake up one day and just see ayahuasca and say, I’m a shaman, that, that’s not, that’s not, you can feel a calling to become a shaman after first few ceremonies. Something similar happened to me, not specifically shaman, but it was a calling to become a healer.

But I am being responsible. And I say maybe 20 years from now when I master that, I can think about calling myself a healer, but not, it’s kind of like you go to university and you give an application to become a neurosurgeon and you start calling yourself neurosurgeon next day. That’s not how it works.

You become that first and then you, but that’s that’s a bit of a negative, I guess, note because there’s unfortunately a lot of reckless people in, in the world of medicines. But I do believe we answered most of the questions we set out to answer. Do you think of any other things you get commonly asked that we skip talking about?

Oliver Glozik: I think we covered a lot of things. I want to add one more point and about responsibility. Responsibility from the side who’s sharing ayahuasca, but in the end also your responsibility. You know, you choose the retreat center, you choose the place that you go. You choose how many ceremonies you’re gonna partake, and you also choose the decisions that you’re gonna make after ayahuasca.

If on ayahuasca, you start, a desire starts to come up, or a calling that you wanna start to travel the world. It doesn’t mean that you have to quit your job the next day and then travel the world and after six months you’re broke. And then you tell like, oh, ayahuasca told me that I should travel the world and no, I’m broke.

It’s like find a way on how you can travel or find a way how you can, that desire that you experience that you have, how to bring it into your life. But in the end, it’s you who makes those decisions. And yes, there are many things that come into the place from the retreat center, from the facilitators to give a safe experience, but it’s also just as much your decision on.

Going on this journey, how many ayahuasca ceremonies do you experience, and the decisions that you take after as well. So take that like level of responsibilities on both sides.

Sam Believ: Very well said Oliver. And I think we can wrap up this episode now and we’re planning to do it regularly. So if you guys have some topics you wanna ask us, leave a message in the comments.

If you’re listening to this on Spotify, then find a, find the contact information on, on our website and send me, send me the message if you have specific topics you wanna learn more about or find the video on YouTube and leave a comment there. Once again, we were with you Oliver Glo from the Guama Retreat.

How can people find you if they wanna visit your retreat?

Oliver Glozik: So ayahuasca retreat.com is my website, easiest access. It should be a WhatsApp message. Thank you very much for coming here to this place for for the time, for your time of the listener as well to listen to this podcast. Thank you very much and I’ll see you in the next episode.

Sam Believ: Thank you for listening guys, and I’m as always, Samie of Lara Retreat. If you wanna visit my retreat, you go to ayahuasca in colombia.com and that’s Colombia, S-C-O-L-O, not COLU, or go to lara.com, L-A-W-A-Y-R a.com, whichever retreat you choose. Where there is options, we would not be offended. We do regularly send people to each other when either he’s full or our dates don’t work out because I do believe that both guac Retreat and Lara, we maintain high levels.

Of high standards of approach to medicine and integration. So thank you for listening or watching guys, and I hope to see you at Colombia soon.

In this episode Sam Believ interviews Robert about his success story of quitting Marihuana after attending an Ayahuasca retreat.

We talk about root causes of weed addiction and more.

Lawayra.com

AyahuascaPodcast.com

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.

Hi guys, and welcome to ayahuasca podcast.com. As always, here with you, the host, Sam. We are reporting from the hammock room here at Laira, the retreat that I founded and operate. And today we’re joined by Robert, AKA Bob. Bob has come to our retreat about seven months ago, correct? Yes, sir. And now he’s back and he’s reported that he completely quit smoking weed.

And we wanna talk about the subject today to understand how Ayahuasca help him do it, what steps he had to take and, and most importantly, why is he back? Bob, welcome to Ayahuasca podcast. It’s nice to meet you. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to Ayahuasca.

Robert: Thanks, Sam.

I appreciate that. It’s been a roundabout way a, my ex was looking into ayahuasca and wanted me to do ayahuasca with her, and I kinda refused because I wasn’t comfortable about how it may affect her ’cause she’s bipolar. And and plus all my partying days were behind me, so something I wasn’t very receptive to.

And then we broke up suddenly after nine years. And so I decided to just start looking into it to see what interested her so much and trying to understand what was going on. And, one thing led to another and somehow, some way you guys popped up on my Facebook or someplace. It’s really random.

And I did the research for probably six months saying, ah, man, I’m 57 years old. Am I gonna actually consider doing something like this? Does it makes sense? And which gave me a fair bit of anxiety. And then once I made the decision all the anxiety went away and off we went.

Sam Believ: Bob, when you came to LA Wire for the first time, did you already have an intention to quit quit using marijuana or was it something that came out?

Robert: I did. I did. It’s something I’ve wanted to quit for quite some time because I knew it kinda interfered with my life and my business and my productivity in general. But it’s it’s one thing to quit and still wanting it. It’s a completely different thing to quit and not want it. And and the start of that was the preparation to, clean out the system.

So I had a purpose to quit for 30 days, which was pretty challenging, but I had a reason to do it, to prepare for the sessions. And then and then I came here and then, ever since leaving here, I’ve had zero desire for marijuana anymore.

Sam Believ: So before we talk about the part of you quitting weed do you know why you were smoking weed?

Do you, have you been able to identify the.

Robert: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s hiding from trauma, family trauma, medicating, self-medicating, and just hiding from life in general or the issues that kinda were inside of me which is a very common thing, whether it’s alcohol, marijuana, or other substances, people oftentimes will use these things to, to hide from.

Internal situations that maybe are adver adversely affecting their life. And I’m a firm believer in my business as well as my life to address the source of the issue instead of trying to treat the symptom.

Sam Believ: Yeah. This is unfortunately really true. We, as we as human beings, can get addicted to literally anything.

Robert: Indeed.

Sam Believ: Some people get addicted to work. Some people get addicted to alcohol porn. You name it. And we can get addicted to it, but people rarely ask themselves, we blame the substances or the behaviors, but we rarely ask why is a certain person prone to addiction and another is not. Then a lot of times it comes from, as you said, running away from pain.

Yep. So if, let’s say you feel bad and then you get belly full of food and the pain goes away, you wanna do it again and, soon you notice you became a addicted to food and now it’s a problem. And then a problem or addiction generally fuels this self-fulfilling cycle where. Let’s say you drink for a night to run away from pain.

Next day you feel even worse. You miss the job. Now you’re unemployed, you drink even more. And it unfortunately spirals down out of control. And I’m sure your addiction well was under control. And I know you’re very high performing individual and, but it’s still great that you are able to catch it, identify it, and then heal it.

Because a lot of time for people it’s, it’s accepting that there is a problem indeed, which is the first step because a lot of times you ask somebody, why do you smoke? Oh because I enjoy it. Or in I like the taste, or I like how it makes me feel. And it might be true to a certain extent, but there is always this emotional context that that really.

Makes those things propagate. You came over and you participate in how

Robert: many ceremonies did two ceremonies and they were. It’s pretty good. I addressed some inner child issues as well that kind of went with the reasons with my my substance abuse I believe as well. They’re all intertwined a little bit, but to touch on what you’re talking about, it starts with accountability knowing you have an issue.

And then the second is wanting to correct that issue because if you can’t own it, and if you don’t want it. It’s really impossible to fix it.

Sam Believ: Yeah. So you do two ceremonies. Was there a specific moment in your journeys that maybe, had something to do about the addiction? Was there a specific moment that you can attribute to the release?

So you’re talking about that it’s one thing wanting something and not doing it, and it’s a totally another thing of just not wanting to do it. Do you remember a moment where you realize that you no longer wanna smoke weed?

Robert: It’s

interesting

because I always didn’t want to smoke weed, but I didn’t have the resolve or the.

Fortitude to stop the habit because it’s not only an addiction, but there’s a an action of habit at the same time. And so I think the preparation helped me out quite a bit because it showed that I could do it. Ever since I’ve never been, I can’t remember being so productive in my business, I still wonder how I was able to.

I managed to run my business being in the shape that I was. ‘Cause now I look in, in hindsight it’s my life is kinda like night and day right now.

You, but I can’t really put a finger on any specific moment that turned things other than, the experience with Ayahuasca. Some of the things that helped me resolve.

The inner child issues, some of the self-love issues, I think, which comes with addiction. There’s some self-love aspects with that, which come with a lot of family trauma. And so I think there’s a lot of things that are parts of the whole, if that makes sense.

Sam Believ: I’m very happy for you, Bob, and I’m really happy you got this incredible result and Me too, and that we were able to be a part of it.

Knowing that you had such a great transformation and you feel so much better now, why are you back? Seven months later.

Robert: Good question. I ask myself the same thing. But I want to continue the path, to continue the inner work. Work on some things like acceptance, which is pretty challenging.

I’ve always been a. Survivor type who has always had to influence things or protect myself. And so I’m used to being confrontational or standing up for myself, which sometimes serves me and sometimes does not. So acceptance continuing in that path of self-love continue to try to heal the.

The insides of me that continue that can benefit from that. And and in my experience, if something works the first time, it’s good to probably do it a second time to see if we can get more benefit.

Sam Believ: It’s interesting the way I describe it, but it nicely lines up to, nicely connect, connects to our vision at Laira because at Laira our motto is connect.

Heal. Grow. So you come here, you connect with yourself, connect with the medicine, connect with the nature, you heal, and then inevitably you want to grow. Yeah. So I guess you came to this stage now where you wanna take things a little deeper and go a little further. And how old did you say you were?

I’m

Robert: 57.

Sam Believ: 57. Yeah. For those listening or watching through this, age is not, not a limit to Ayahuasca. The oldest patient we had was 73. Okay. Had great results, was able to shake off treatment and resistant depression. Meaning that antidepressants wasn’t helping and Ayahuasca managed to help.

Yeah, don’t be shy and don’t be afraid to come here to LoRa Bob. You we’re at the second day of the retreat now actually third day, I believe. Yeah. And so you had the, your first ceremony of the second retreat. Yesterday, how was it and how do you feel?

Robert: It was a crazy experience, but I have to give a disclaimer that I’m 18 on the inside, but physically I’m 57 out

Sam Believ: out.

Sorry. Technical issues.

Robert: Adrian, continue. Continue speaking ball. So garbage you last night was was actually super intense. I had, we had a lot of deep visions. Visuals help me. And bring him upstairs because I really a lot of profound aspects of no fear which is very helpful to me.

The thing I’ve noticed is fear not having fear is important. Not having expectations was important. And one of the things to address about growth. Is, another word for growth is change. And and to get into change and growth factors, we have to get into generally uncomfortable areas.

And that’s something that really, ayahuasca can do because you really don’t know what to expect and you don’t know. And there’s a little, a lot of people have some inner fear, but one thing I’ve learned that’s. I’ve had three experiences now and they’ve all been very wonderful as to not have expectations not be attached to it, where you can actually be an observer or what we call rational gaze and view things coming in and out rather than to control them and just surf the wave or, surfing under Los Avita. So that’s surf the waves of life. So that’s but yeah, last night was very intense at times. A very beautiful just a lot of crazy matrix type images and a lot of other aspects to it. So it was pretty fascinating actually.

Sam Believ: Thank you, Bob.

Robert: What do you think about La Wire, Bob?

I think it’s wonderful. I as a business owner I try to watch kinda what the intention is for a business, especially in a, what I’ll call a health oriented type business. ’cause when you’re trusting your health and other people’s hands I like to look at people who. Mission oriented with money as a secondary, as a business because without money you can’t function.

But there are other operators who focus on money and mission is a very distant second. And I like LA Wire because there’s a lot of heart in it. There’s a lot of really good group dynamic with the word circles where there’s a lot of. Exchange from different people, different countries. I think my first experience was 12 countries, ages 21 to 57.

One of my best friends is a 21-year-old Australian guy now who traveled with me in Mexico a little bit. And the same dynamic is here, is that a lot of different countries, a lot of different backgrounds, and so you get a lot of. Meshing and what I’ll call cross pollination of ideas and thought processes.

Sam Believ: Yeah, it’s really beautiful the groups of people we get here and it’s always finding how every group seems to have its own. Personality, its own being, indeed, this group and your last group and it’s perfect in its own way. Yeah. It’s different, but it’s always perfect.

Robert: It’s important not to compare. I came in here not wanting to compare to the last group, even though I have some very good friends from that group and stay in touch with maybe five or six people outta 20. But it was important for me not to compare the groups and stay outta that expectation situation, and also just be open to a new or a different experience.

Sam Believ: Yeah. As I like to say, guys, best way to make friends as an adult is to go to an NA retreat. It’s true. It’s true. Thank you, Bob. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing. And I hope this little episode will help somebody maybe that’s struggling with addiction, be it marijuana or any other substance.

That you can, ayahuasca can help, it can help you get out of that state. Take away your pain. Show you the way out. And as some of the other episodes here in a podcast where I interviewed Damon who quit drinking alcohol. And he also described that it’s not that he forces himself not to drink now, it’s just that he doesn’t want to drink anymore.

And it’s a big difference. Really hard to huge paradigm swim against current. But if you address that root trauma, even if you don’t fix it completely, but you take away that pain. Things really align and things get easier. Bob, any parting comments?

Robert: I just I think it’s important to be brave and, wanting to move forward in fixing yourself. It’s a big step, but I think it’s a very fruitful step. And it’s done. I’ve seen it do many different things for different people and in different manifestations in different ways. So I would just say if you’re watching this podcast, there’s a reason you’re watching it.

There’s something you’re looking for. And from my personal experience I think this is probably one of the better things you could do for yourself.

Sam Believ: Thank you, Bob. So guys, listen to Bob, come over to Lara and experience it yourself. And it was pleasure hosting you, Bob. Yeah, and guys, I’ll see you again soon on ayahuasca podcast.com.

And if you are interested in visiting Lara, go to lara.com. L-A-W-A-Y-R a.com. Or go to ayahuasca in columbia.com and that’s Columbia with COLO, not COLU. And I’m looking forward to host you guys and never know. Maybe someday you’ll be a guest on the podcast with the success story. Indeed. Thank you.

Thank you, Bob.

Can #ayahuasca be helpful for #veterans dealing with PTSD? Short Answer is yes and Jesse Borgelt a combat vet will tell us about his experience with Ayahuasca. 

Transcript

Sam Believ: Hi guys, and welcome to ayahuasca podcast.com. As always with you, Sam, believe the host. And together we have a very special guest, Jesse. Jesse is a military veteran and he came to our retreat a few months ago when Jesse was here at our retreat. We spoke a little bit about PTSD, about ayahuasca and veterans, and I just love the way Jesse talks about the subject.

He seems to be extremely knowledgeable and the way he explains things. I have not ever heard that explain better, so I believe that the world deserves to hear that. Jesse, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. It was good. See you again, Sam.

Sam Believ: Jesse, first of all which month were you at the retreat?

I think it’s been three months ago.

Sam Believ: Okay. So how are you feeling three months later?

I feel really good. I’ve been able to go deeper in my personal journey and navigate some roadblocks that I had put up. But it’s a net positive. It’s a difficult path. When you realize your old coping mechanisms are ineffective and it leaves your foundation shattered but it forces you to do some hard work.

Sam Believ: This is very true and as you mentioned and as we like to say, the work with the healing work is two steps forward, one step back. But you never, even if you do hundred steps forward and then 99 steps back. You never really go before you, where you went before. So thank you Jesse.

Let’s talk a little bit about PTSD and start with what caused PTSD in you and your history with the US military.

Sure. I served in the US Army for nine years and I was deployed to Iraq for almost 18 months. I had a very difficult deployment. I saw a lot of combat and action. But during this time it is was something I enjoyed because I was a young guy and I had, school children writing me, telling me I was their hero and I was just living it up.

But when you come home from that environment things just don’t feel right. So for me, I was forced to take another human being’s life in self-defense during combat, and I did not realize the pull that it had on me until after I was removed from that situation. So when I returned home I was very angry and frustrated.

Those were the only emotions that I was able to feel. And besides that, I felt like a robot just going, barely going through the motions of life. I became very depressed, so I tried to understand what was happening inside of my body. I was at my grandfather’s funeral, who, I love this man dearly, and I saw people being emotional and crying around me and I was not able to feel anything.

So I started doing research. And, science wants to say everything’s related to neurotransmitters and mental health. I question that, but if you woke up late for work or lost your car keys, or were being chased by a dangerous animal, you would have what’s called a sympathetic outflow.

It is a fight or flight response. You would have adrenaline going through your system. And you would be, have a heightened sense of awareness around your surroundings and everything is designed for survival and for you to be able to react and protect yourself. So in combat, this occurs when.

Someone is actively trying to take your life, or the threat is there. So in my case, we were mortared on a weekly basis. Every time we went on a convoy, there was the threat of a roadside bomb, et cetera. So if you had adrenaline surging in your system for a year and a half, your body would die. You would not be able to maintain an elevated heart rate.

You would just shut down. You would be non-mission capable. So the body is designed to survive. So you become what’s called upregulated. You form extra neuroreceptors. So the, you dumbed down to the, to that response. It takes more of that fear. Or the perceived threat to, to trigger a response.

So now instead of hearing a mortar go off and being afraid I might not have that peer response unless I physically feel the vibration of that bomb in my body. So when we go home from this tour of duty nothing. Is going to even begin to come close to reaching that threshold where you have an emotional response.

You can go on a date with a girl and it’s just, it’s not there. The feelings aren’t there because you have been numbed down so much from the constant bombardment of fear and anxiety. So for me, that is where my PTSD stemmed from. And I feel like that resonates with a lot of veterans.

So when I came home I sought help when I got to a point where I was in the shower and had the thought that if I took my own life with a firearm, at least in this setting, it would help contain the mess in my family. It wouldn’t be burdened with, scrubbing an entire room, just, laying the water do its job.

And I realized I, I needed help some, something needed to change. So the Veterans Affairs, they have a good campaign. They truly desire to help veterans. But it’s through chemicals. It’s, here’s some antidepressants. They’re really, it’s really sad the metrics that they utilize to give you to label you as a success story.

So are you gainfully employed? Do you actively wanna kill yourself or harm another person? You answer no. Then you’re on the right path. You may cry yourself to sleep every night and. Wish you could feel anything other than pain. But they just wanna prescribe medications. But that’s where our society is at.

I think we have a very poor understanding of trauma. So having been through this I heard about psychedelics. I’d never taken drugs in my life before. The first plant medicine I sat with was ayahuasca. And it was a leap of faith. I did some research and read some articles on it, but what pulled me was a calling in my spirit.

I, I felt something pulling me opening a door saying, you, this is here for you. You just have to make the step of the first step. Just take the first step. And I just, I had a sensation inside of me a calling that said, it will be okay. It will be okay. Just take the step and everything.

Everything’s gonna be fine. So I did, and it saved my life. It absolutely saved my life.

Sam Believ: Jesse, I’m happy you found Ayahuasca instead of cocaine or heroin or other things people can’t find to, to get relief because. Unfortunately some things that are called drugs really are drugs. And even though ayahuasca is called a drug by some people, it is truly a medicine.

You spoke about explaining the PTSD with the terms of neurons and chemistry that happens in your brain. Have you ever thought about it from the point of view of. You said Ayahuasca was calling you. Have you ever thought about maybe there is some spiritual aspect to it or somehow taking life of the other person might have caused something in your spirit or, it’s basically a question I never thought about before, but have you felt anything in that direction?

Direction,

yeah, AB absolutely. Absolutely. I was always, I considered myself a spiritual person, but going down this path. I realized that there are things at play that influence our physical life here on earth that are outside of our abilities to detect and apply metrics to them. So there, there are, I say it’s the spirit realm.

I’ve experienced it and I’m extremely fascinated. And I believe that is where True healing takes place. In science research uses terms like brain derived neurotropic factors and neuroplasticity. So with these ketamine therapies, they say you’re regrowing connections and it’s allowing you to see things in a different light, and that’s how you can process your trauma and heal.

But there is so much more than what science. Is telling us or even able to detect, like when I sat with Ayahuasca with you and the shaman is playing music and you feel the energy vibrations in your spirit. You cannot explain that. With tools in a laboratory, there is something very profound going on that influences us that just.

It’s not able to be put into spoken word.

Sam Believ: You got tremendous relief from Ayahuasca. And it probably addressed both the mental side of it the neurotransmitter side of it, and also the spiritual side of it. And you know how many more levels there are. We really don’t know.

But yeah. In your experiencing of that medicine and your process. How do you think it worked, both from like neurotransmitter perspective and from other perspectives you might have felt?

Sure. It allowed me I wanna say it almost gave me like downloads of knowledge from the cosmos.

I don’t wanna. Get woo with you. But I feel like the lessons I have learned through psychedelics and plant medicines have I like to think I’m a smart guy, but I am. It’s just things I wouldn’t have thought of. Realizations, like a, like light bulb moments that have just absolutely changed my life for the better.

So whether that’s neurotransmitters forming new paths I don’t know. Nor do I really care. It’s just I feel it in my spirit that there is, there’s profound growth and I am continually becoming a better person because of it.

Sam Believ: Yeah, it is very difficult not to cross that threshold when a reasonably sounding conversation becomes a woo sounding conversation because as it would work with ayahuascan In the word circles there’s many levels to write.

And at Lara at our retreat, we always try and focus on I would say normal language in such a way that. Everyday person could still identify with it and come to us for at least their healing before they get turned away by the spiritual side of it. Because yeah, there is a lot of negative stigma to spirituality, I guess largely because of religion and cults, and a lot of people suffer from that.

But in a way. Sometimes it gets very difficult to explain yourself at the Ayahuasca retreat without using the Wu terminology. And especially when it comes to veterans, they are not the most spiritual people out there, let’s say, if not the opposite. And they’re very sensitive to anything that might be called spiritual.

So like what would you say to the veterans that maybe are struggling? Are afraid to pursue ayahuasca because they know they’re afraid to become the white linen pants wearing fedora, wearing copper cup drinking kind of crystal hugging tree hugging person. So what would you tell them?

Like how would you communicate to them to help them seek that healing, without turning them away?

I had a very significant trauma that wasn’t able to be measured by a healthcare provider. If you have a physical injury, they may look at the granulation tissue healing on your arm, or if you have a sports injury, they look at your range of motion of your extremity and they can say, you’re making progress, you’re healing.

But it’s very difficult with personal trauma. I’m not sure any metric exists that would not be offensive to be applied. I do not know everyone’s trauma. The worst thing that’s happened to anyone is the worst thing that’s happened to them. It could be being bullied in high school or it could be taking another human’s life.

There’s, but that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t affected you very deeply. I would just say that if you just can go somewhere peacefully and sit with your thoughts and explore what is happening inside of your consciousness your emotions how you react to certain situations and if that brings you joy and happiness and if you’re at peace and if not.

There is another option out there. And what this does is it allows you to have a very significant and powerful tool to utilize. It’s not a cure, it is not a magic wand. Going down this journey of self-discovery and healing, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Sometimes I think back about being blissfully ignorant.

And think that it may be easier. But I know I’m on the right path and I know I’m making the right decisions by I improving my ability to recognize my emotions and just to be more, more mature. But it is a hard path. I’m not going out whitewash it and say that it’s not hard work. If you want to better yourself, you, you have to put in the effort.

You’re, you can’t just. Put something in your body lay there, see some visuals, or take a nap and wake up and wanna give people hugs and say, let’s go home. It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work that way. So I want you to have prepared yourself adequately. But the expectations should be that you are going to emerge.

From this experience, net positive. You may be confused. I know I, I struggled with realizing that the very foundation I built my life upon seemed to be shattered because my narcissistic behaviors that made me think I was, comfortable and in control and safe, they were gone. I realized that.

I need to be responsible for my actions and I can’t blame people for making me feel a certain way. An example that happens often is we try to control our family or our kids. And if they’re just quiet, then there’s peace in the house. But as soon as there’s not quiet, then we, we get shitty and yell and snap and treat people horribly.

But the fact is, we were never in control in the first place of the external stimuli when we realized we are only in control. Ourselves and our consciousness that then the true growth can occur.

Sam Believ: I agree with you, Jesse, and it is important to communicate to anyone who is embarking on the journey with work with Ayahuasca, that yes, ayahuasca is not a magic bullet.

It will not just magically take your problems all away after just one ceremony in one purge, but it’ll, it will like in my case. It takes away the pain, at least temporarily, and gives you clarity to be able to make some steps. And it’s through those steps and changes in your behavior and in your day-to-day life where the real healing happens.

So as we like to say to people that are at our retreat the work, the real healing work starts the moment you leave or when you leave the. Artificial serene environment. When you’re in a paradise and everyone around you is nice and kind and loving, it’s easy to be good in this space, and it’s good to have that relief for at least few weeks.

But then when you’re in a traffic jam and somebody screams at you, or your wife yells at you or your kids, or a taxi driver, whatever, this is where the real test comes. And this is. Where you need to step up and be the best version of yourself. And yeah it’s definitely that process and if somebody really understands that coming to an Ayahuasca retreat, they’re embarking on the healing journey, and then their life will get better gradually from then on.

And it will involve a lot of work. But they see it as an exciting journey, as going for a road trip, you know there’s gonna be. Puncture tires and you’ll have to pay tolls. And, that it’s, that, it’s that journey itself is gonna be fun. It’s not just a destination.

If you wanna go to destination, you just take a flight. The road trip itself is a pleasure. And this case, the journey, if you really look at it and cherish every moment, every word, circle, every ceremony, every journal entry you make, I believe the. The real high, real healing will come and it can be satisfactory.

Yeah, I agree. I think Ayahuasca has a cleared fog that I’ve viewed life through. So it has allowed me to see clearly. And you guys have a very, a beautiful retreat. I did wanna mention your, yours was a third location. That I went to, and I will not be going to, to any other after experiencing yours.

One, one of the most important things I can communicate to other veterans is we need to feel safe as we embark on this journey. And I attended some places where English was not spoken during the ceremony. And I had a very hard ceremony. A lot of things came up. I was confused and needed to communicate with the facilitator about what I was experiencing, and I felt abandoned because they were just playing their music.

And did not understand what I just, like thumbs up, giving me thumbs up. I know, I feel like I’m dying over here and I need to explain what’s happening to me and just, carry on. But with you, the attention to detail exceeded every expectation that I may have came with. So I just wanna put that out there, that someone has your back.

You’re not gonna be left alone. During the ceremony your safety is paramount. And then afterwards the integration and, guiding you to take the next steps is something that is probably very rare. So you guys are doing it right. You know what you’re doing. Thank you,

Sam Believ: Jesse.

Thank you, Jesse. Thank you for the kind words. We are only gonna continue improving that. And I know you probably know a little bit about my plans and the reason I have a very high interest in, in veterans, there is no real reason. Like I’m not a military veteran myself. I know a few friends of mine that have suffered from this, but I do feel that this is one of the most vulnerable set of parts of population that needs ayahuasca the most.

But once it the least, for example, I will be honest, this is very unfortunate, but here in Columbia, a lot of veterans come here and escape from pain. Seeking drugs and prostitution and stuff like that. And I understand that it is a coping mechanism as as you said and we all find our own and to just escape from the pain.

However, if I could get some of those people that come here for the wrong reasons to then find ayahuasca and get actual long-term healing and, change their lifestyle, maybe get a happy family and just, put themselves on the right path. That does seem like a very sort of good. Good goal to have.

So we I want to talk a little bit about the suicide in, in veterans. And you mentioned you were suicidal and I’m very happy you didn’t kill yourself ’cause you’re a great human being. I do believe that you have a mission here and it might have something to do with spreading the healing within the veterans or other communities.

But last time I checked there was a. Statistics, a very gruesome one, that 22 veterans kill themselves every day. I believe that, I hope it went down since then. But I remember ever since hearing that I realized that our ceremonies are 22 people on average, which immediately kinda synchronistically drew that line for me where I thought that I would like to one day be able organi to organize ceremonies for veterans specifically.

Meaning where people with a very similar background and with the language they can all relate to, could come and do, maybe we could do one veteran retreat one once every few months. And I know it’s not gonna be easy because there will be probably some violence might come out and stuff like that.

But, I do believe that I don’t know, I just got this, still have this sort of calling to do it. I don’t know how or when, but I believe just as of now, the right step is just talking about it. And I love your explanation of PTSD. And maybe this way we can get some attention from the veteran community.

But someday I’m hoping to organize our first ever veteran retreat where we’ll get 22 veterans. We’ll implement the body system where they can, drink couple nights and maybe take charge for one night and just help and be there on the lookout in case if somebody will go in a mode and we’ll need to contain them.

That happens sometimes, and I hope that when we do that you’ll be there as well with us maybe volunteering or participating. And what would you, what would your parting words be to all the veterans out there? Maybe some quick advice for them to, stay afloat while they get their healing.

Yeah. I would just say that you may think you’re comfortable and okay right now. But there, there is another choice. There’s a better option out there and it’s been. 20 years since I was deployed, and I feel like I essentially lost that time. I am just now beginning to live my life. So at least do some research.

Think about it. Take some breaths when you’re angry and see how it, how you truly feel inside. ‘Cause there is peace and happiness and joy that is possible. And I just, I want that for you guys. I look back at how I felt just imagining ending my life very violently. And I know that I’m not the only person that has ever thought that or felt that way, but, it makes me very sad that occurs. So please just please think about it.

Sam Believ: Thank you, Jesse. And thank you for this message. Thank you for this episode. I really hope that some veterans will find it and it will give them hope. There is hope guys. And if we just keep spreading the good word about ayahuasca, I have this I realistic dream that one day will come to the existence where killing another human being will be unthinkable and wars will become a thing of a past.

But meanwhile all we can do is salvage the wrecks and do the best with what we got.

Sam I am not a wealthy person. But I wanna give you a thousand dollars towards put towards Veterans Retreat. But I would like to be there as well.

Sam Believ: Okay, Jesse, I will accept that donation.

Thank you so much. And we’ll think about how to use it to get this thing to become a reality. Thank you, Jesse. I know it’s it’s extremely generous.

No problem.

Sam Believ: Okay, guys. I know this has been a a very difficult episode to listen to. Perhaps there’s a, it’s a strong subject, so I hope you enjoyed it.

If you know a veteran that might be struggling, share this with them and I’ll see you at the next episode of ayahuasca podcast.com. As always with you was Sam of Laro Retreat and Jesse Borgelt, is that correct? Bo Borgelt. Borgelt. Borgelt. Okay. Perfect. Jesse, thank you so much and and thank you.

Thank you for this episode. My pleasure.

In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ of LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat interviews Ryan Nurse TBI (traumatic brain injury) surviver, public speaker and a coach. 

Ryan talks about his out of body experience and similarities with his Ayahuasca experience at LaWayra

LaWayra.com

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.

Hi guys, and welcome to ayahuasca podcast.com. As always, with you, the host and believe founder of Lara Ayahuasca Retreat. We are reporting today from. The Laira, as you can see. And our guest today is Ryan. Nurse Ryan is from UK and he is a public speaker and a social media persona and a coach, I believe.

Yes, that’s correct. Ryan, tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you. To Ayahuasca?

Ryan Nurse: Yeah, sure. So I’m a traumatic brain injury survivor, and thriver was also suffered from and overcome depression after a relationship breakup. So back in 2011, I was attacked on the way home from a nightclub.

Which resulted in me being rushed to hospital the next day where I suffered from a fractured skull and a blood clot due to a bleed on the brain. I was in a coma in the intensive care unit and after three days, specialists wanted to pull the plug on my life support machine. ’cause I had completely zero brain activity.

I was completely brain dead. And after coming out of say that trauma, that traumatic event. I boxed up and buried all of those thoughts, feelings, emotions, and that whole experience. And I went into a fast-paced relationship for many years, for six and a half years. And when that relationship come to an end, obviously went through depression as it was ending.

But once I come up and out of that depression. Rather than looking for all of my answers outside and trying to find, say, happiness externally, I started to look inside and learn a bit more about myself and to say, go on this journey of self discovery. And I started to explore, say that trauma and that out of body experience that I actually went through whilst in the coma.

Because in the out of body experience, it made me question. The whole universe, the whole reality that we, we view for our own unique set of eyes. And yeah, it just made me really question why we are here on earth. And the more research that I’ve done into myself and this out of body experience, I realized there’s so many similarities with other people that have also say, been through these out of body experiences and.

I realize that a way of connecting with your true self and to find more about these certain journeys that people experience, say whilst in comas whilst say, coming to the end of their life, like near death experiences, for instance, that certain plant-based medicines, especially like Aya, Wasco, is a way of understanding more about these experiences and learning more about yourself.

So for me, I went on this one-way trip back in 2022 April to. Latin America to start in Mexico. And as I made my way down through every country in Latin America, I finally got to Columbia. And Columbia for me, felt like home. I really connected to this country the most. And I met a guy, an English guy, actually in Cali, in Columbia, and he recommended Lara to me.

And he told me about his amazing experience here. And I’d always wanted to do Ayahuasca throughout the whole trip down from Mexico. I managed to do some mushrooms and I felt so at peace, but I never got the opportunity to explore, say, AYA Oscar, and this English guy recommended me here, LoRa, and I checked it all out.

I’d done all the research, and it just seemed so, so good, and it seemed perfect for me. Literally. And for some odd reason I ended up booking a flight in November back home to England for Christmas to see my family, et cetera, and to go on this business seminar that I’d already booked a long time ago.

I booked this flight up and I flew back to England, and literally as soon as I was on that plane, as soon as we got up into the air, I realized that I left my soul in Columbia and that I made the wrong decision and I felt that I had unfinished business here in Columbia. So I got back to England and straight away I was looking at flights back.

And then I reached out to Sam here and I started to explore my options regarding coming back to do an Aya Oscar retreat and. Before you know it, I’d booked myself up and booked my spot here in Laira. I flew back out to Columbia to Cali, made my way up to Mein. In February this year, 2023, I’d done a one week ayahuasca retreat here, which was incredible.

Yeah. Wow. It just, again, made me really look deep within myself, but. To realize the possibilities and the amount of things that we as humans can’t actually see with our own eyes. There’s so much going on in our brain in this universe like that we are living in, there’s so much stuff on say, energetic field that we can’t actually view with our own eyes.

And in say the last ceremony in February, the three main takeaways that I got from that experience was that nothing lasts forever. Everything changes and that the right people will always come into your life at the right time. So I went away from this say ceremony, feeling refreshed, feeling excited, feeling happy, feeling just a different me, like I started to appreciate even like the smallest things even more.

I, I felt real connected more to, i’d say Patch your mama to the earth. And I found myself just looking at trees and nature and just smiling just for the sake of it. And yeah, there was always that connection. I’d always say enjoyed nature. But after say, coming out of this retreat earlier this year, I really connected more with nature and then I made my whole way down through every country down in round two, Brazil.

Where I was in Rio, for instance, it was at the last stop in Brazil. And something was just telling me, my, my intuition was saying, you need to go back and do another retreat, because there’s still more to learn. There’s still more to experience. So something was telling me to come back, which I found a flight to Lima, Peru, and then I went to Iquitos.

I spent a week in the jungle, just me and a guide really connected with nature again. And then I made my way down the Amazon River on a boat. Got to Leticia, took a flight to Columbia to. Cali, sorry. And then, yeah, now that I was back in Columbia, it was like, now’s my time to get back to and back to Laro, which obviously I spoke to Sam again.

Booked up another week, and now I’m here. I’ve done two night ceremonies. I’ve got another night ceremony tonight and one more day ceremony. So yeah, I really looked forward to seeing what these next few days bring.

Sam Believ: Ryan, you mentioned out of body experiences, near death experiences, and, those are mystical experiences because people that come back from them they report, understanding more than we normally would. And some people also call ayahuasca experience a mystical experience. So were you able to reconnect to that state or draw any similarities in between your ayahuasca states and what you experience at that?

Near death auto body experience.

Ryan Nurse: Yeah, no, that’s a great question. So in say the out of body experience and in my say Aya Oscar experience, especially in February the first day ceremony actually I went for a crazy experience where things were just coming at me. It literally blasted me into another universe, another dimension things were happening, colors, shapes.

Things just were so crazy and it was happening so quick. Like one point I had this Ayahuasca baby and just crazy things were happening. But it told me just to calm down and trust the process. And that’s what I said everything changes because one time I was like, I’m gonna die and I was dead and like all these things happening, but I just trusted the journey and everything worked out.

But when I was actually in hospital back in 2011. In that out of body experience, it was a completely different experience, to be fair. And it was me viewing myself laying there in that hospital bed and I was being, say, pushed through different dimensions and there was so many different transitions between these eyes that I was viewing this experience through and my actual physical body as well that I was viewing.

There was so many transitions that kept happening but. Now that I’ve done all the research on what happened, and now that I remember it as well, I remember it so vividly, it was the most. Peaceful, perfect experience. Like I remember seeing the doctors working on my, say, damaged head and there was no say blood or there was no pain.

It was just peace and pleasure and it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Seeing me being worked on by these doctors. And towards say, the end of that whole experience that I went through, the doctors dissipated and went behind where I couldn’t see. And then these eyes that I was viewing through, which I honestly believe were say the eyes of my creator, they got transitioned or sucked back into my own head.

And as I opened my eyes in this outer body experience, I remember. Laying in that hospital bed. And I slowly looked up and I see this giant curtain in front of me. And now I’m thinking like, what happens? What happens next? And in this experience, there was no sense of time or space or everything.

Everything just lasted forever. Everything was just limitless. And when these curtains in front of me opened up this super white bright like this, it was like. It was a crazy light. It was like supernatural bright white light just shone through with such intensity that it made me close my eyes, and as I closed my eyes, I just felt it so hot, and then it was just dimming down.

And then when it felt safe to open my eyes again, it was like the main part of the experience in that outer body experience. And. I remember I looked out as far as the eye could see, and again, it wasn’t in a room or a place because there was no walls, there was no floor, no ceiling. It was just limitless space.

And as far as the eye could see, I just saw faces of people, every single person that I’d ever seen in my whole life. And it was in an order of importance. Like it could have been someone that I bumped into in the street when I was a kid, and it just got. More important the closer it got, like family, friends, school friends, family members, for instance.

And then right at the end of my bed with the faces of my immediate family, like mom, dad, brother, sisters, for instance. And the most common thing, the these faces were the every single face. It was just tears running from each face and they were all silently sobbing. And I remember I just felt an instant feeling of something that I’ve done wrong.

And I just kept questioning myself in my own head. What have I done wrong? What have I done wrong? And then I started to try and grab the attention of these faces, and I started to wave. I started to try and shout, but no words were coming out and. I tried for what seemed forever and I was just trying to wave and shout and nothing was happening, and it was like I didn’t even exist.

These faces were just staring straight through me. And I remember I, I closed my eyes and I cried and I laid back, and as soon as my head hit that pillow, it was like the most powerful suction vacuum on my head. And it just sucked this whole bright white experience, all the faces out of the top of my head, and it just went completely black and dark and.

In this experience, my body was really cold, and as soon as it went black, my body started to warm up, and then in the distance I hear this beep. Beep, and it got louder and faster. And in my mind, I was just thinking, Ryan, this is your alarm clock. Like you need to wake up for work. I believed it was a Saturday morning and that I had work and that I needed to wake up.

So in my mind I’m thinking it’s my alarm clock and it was getting louder, faster, louder, faster. And I’m saying, Ryan, wake up. Wake up. You’re gonna be late for work. And thought, oh my God, my boss is gonna be so angry. And then one point, bam, I opened my eyes and. This is when I’m back in the real world and I look around and I’m in this dark room with no windows and just machines and beds and tables and just things that I just sat around everywhere and I’m like, am I dead?

Is this real? Like, where am I? And as I started to look around, slowly I see had all these pins penetrating my skin, these pads on my chest, had the tube down my throat. And I’m thinking, is this real? Am I in the movie? What is this? This is a dream, for instance, and this beeping was so intense, so loud at my left, left side here.

And as I slowly looked, I realized that beeping wasn’t my alarm clock at all. It was the life support machine that was keeping me alive. And in that moment, every single thought from that night prior to being attacked, it come all flooding back. And it was like. A massive download, like when you try and do too many things on your computer at once.

It was like everything got downloaded into my mind. It was the biggest headache that I’ve ever had, and I just closed my eyes and I cried, and then I cried myself to sleep, obviously. And then when I woke up in the morning, I just remember waking up to my brother, my sister, my, my mom and dad just stood over my bed and they were actually there now, and they were just looking at me saying.

I wonder if he knows who we are, like he’s alive and all this stuff. And I was just thinking, of course, I know who you are, but I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t do anything. So that was the out of body experience. But yeah the experience that I had with the ayahuasca was totally different, but it was also so very interested in, and it just made me, again, just question life and realize that things happen the way that they should do, and that you shouldn’t put too much pressure on.

I’m trying to figure things out. ’cause things happen in our lives and in the moment we really don’t understand why they’re happening or what’s the reason for how things are happening the way that they’re happening in that moment. But when you can come away from those experience and you step outside of the jar and look back because you can’t read the label from inside the jar, when you come from a different point of view or a different perspective, that you can start to understand these things that happen in your life and you can realize from say, a more.

Educated set of eyes or a different point of view that these things happen the exact way that they should, even though that they were potentially painful in the moment or almost soul destroying or life changing at the time. You may think they are the worst things that happened to you, but looking back, for me, the worst things that ever happened to me turn out to be the very best things.

And sometimes your most profound periods of pain can also turn out to be your greatest gifts of growth.

Sam Believ: Yeah, this is very true. I definitely can recall a few moments like this in my own life where you’re, you think it’s the worst thing that ever happened, but it turns out to be the best.

So Ryan came back here in February. That would be, what, about eight months ago? Yeah,

Ryan Nurse: roughly. Yeah. And,

Sam Believ: How did you feel after your first retreat and what made you come back?

Ryan Nurse: Yeah, after my first retreat I just had a, obviously before I even come to the first retreat, I just had a deep calling yeah, I heard about Iowa.

I’ve done the research on it before, but traveling down through Mexico and say, getting really into the Latin culture and say just connecting with, say the nature, for instance, on the whole trip down because. To begin with. Before I went home for Christmas, it was like seven months I spent coming down through Mexico and Central America.

I just felt a connection, like someone was calling me, like the Oscar was calling me. Like I wasn’t searching for it. It was searching for me. It was like almost magnetizing me to it. And then meeting that guy was like perfect timing sort of thing. Like he was. He was the person that I needed in my life at that time to introduce me to this.

Because, what was his name? His name was James, I believe, I dunno his second name. Shout out to James. James, yeah. And I believe he, he’s like a doctor. A really cool guy actually. Yeah. Ah, so wasn’t

Sam Believ: he Irish?

Ryan Nurse: Yes. I be ah. Oh, I dunno, I can’t remember. But yeah I believe it was James. He might have been Irish, I can’t remember.

But he was a really cool guy and he’s done some cool stuff actually. So real, just great connection with him. And yeah, he just mentioned this to me and I was just like, this is perfect perfect timing. So for me, that guy just come into my life at the right time to introduce me to this amazing place where I’m at now.

Yeah. Ayahuasca called me. I come here, I’d done the experience for the week. It was crazy. The day ceremony was crazy. The first few nights. It was like just welcoming me into the experience. And yeah, I got some cool visions and stuff, but then that day ceremony was just bam, and it just, it was just really profound.

The next day, when it was the second day ceremony, I remember. I didn’t really want to do the medicine as much. I didn’t want a trip. I didn’t wanna go on a crazy experience. I just wanted to enjoy the day and just absorb the energy from the music. ’cause for me, I really connected with the music and then, yeah, after going away I left.

I. And yeah, like I say, I just really felt connected to nature and to say people as well. Like I really had a huge sense of gratitude, like for my family, for my friends, for just everyone in general. Because I honestly believe that we learn something from every single person that comes into our lives.

And the people that do come into our lives, whether they bring something that we want or they say something or they do something that we don’t want, whatever happens. This message, whatever it comes to us, is teaching us a lesson and it’s teaching us something about ourselves. So I’ve become more aware and more conscious of the language and the actions that people say are bringing towards me, for instance.

So yeah, over the next many months that say went by, coming down through the rest of south America, I really just connected with the people that I met with. And then like I say, once I got round to Brazil, it was like something was saying, you need to go back, and I always listen to my intuition because my intuition for me has never, ever guided me in the wrong direction.

So I thought, look, I need to go my gut and my intuition is telling me. So yeah, come back.

Sam Believ: Okay. And you’re back now. So obviously your story is very different from I would say an average person in our group. Like what you seem to be seeking with ayahuasca is less of a healing and more of a.

Spiritual exploration and then revelation. Am I being correct?

Ryan Nurse: Yeah, more spiritual, but for me as well, it’s like I’m in this journey of say self discovery, but also on a journey, how I can learn more about myself to then make a bigger impact on the world. Because through that out of body experience, after trying to understand it for all these years since say 2011.

Something I believe sent me back because even gonna see that doctor they wrote me off. They said no way is he gonna wake up zero brain activity, like he’s never coming back. Pull the plug. And then at the end of that week it was like, oh, if he ever does come back, he’ll never walk or talk again.

He’d be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life, like his life won’t be worth living. And I literally walked out of that hospital under four weeks like nothing had happened. And when I went back to see that doctor, he said you are a walking miracle. This never happens. ’cause the blood clot was so big and it pushed my brain over and down my spine.

And they said the damage, there’s no going back from that type of damage. Like he’s gonna be permanently brain brain damage for the rest of his life. But then for me. I come out of that. So I believe like that whole experience, the out body experience, I was viewing it through, I believe the eyes of my creator and something sent me back.

And when I’d done the research, this is how I understand it, I believe that all of those faces that I’ve, I viewed that were crying, they were crying because I hadn’t yet complete the job that I was first sent here to do in the first place, which is to help say humanity, which is to help people on a global scale.

Understand who they truly are, what they are here to do with their lives, and to guide them through the process of say, discovering their true selves and becoming the very best versions of themselves to go on to live a true, authentic life, that gives them a true sense of joy, purpose, meaning, and fulfillment.

So that’s what I truly believe. My job here is on Earth. So now the ayahuasca for me is a tool. To help understand more about myself and how I can serve on a much greater scale on Earth. Yeah.

Sam Believ: For those people you’re working with as a coach and and an inspirational speaker, would you recommend them to ayahuasca in their search for their true selves?

Ryan Nurse: Like it’s a difficult one. You like, for me, from my experience, I could say to anyone like, yeah, I had the best time. You should do it too, but. No, I’m a big believer, and we were speaking about it, a few of us yesterday and even this morning, I believe Ayahuasca calls you to her.

If you are gonna go out there looking for certain things in your life, sometimes you try and rush the process, and I found this actually last night with my Aya Oscar night experience last night, and it was telling me like not to rush the process in life. Like things will come to you when they’re meant to come to you.

Don’t try and speed up the process because everything happens at the right time. Nothing happens too soon or too late, and it should actually happen. Everything that happens at the perfect timing, like. Yeah, life is the perfect timing. Whether things happen and you don’t want them to happen, it was meant to happen at that time.

’cause you was meant to learn something from that, whether it is a good situation or a bad situation. So anyone potentially say, asking me for my advice or my opinion or my suggestion, should I do I, Oscar, I’ll just put it back to you. What do you feel you should do and do you feel in this moment? You are ready to go on this journey because it is a journey, and it’s not just for fun.

It’s not oh, you just go from where you currently are in your job, your life, or whatever. Go to this retreat here, for instance, and you just do it and go back to normal life. No, you need to prepare yourself, whether it’s your diet your body your energy, your mindset. You need to go through a process of preparing yourself, preparing for what you’re about to explore and to discover potentially about yourself, and then to be comfortable with.

Potentially the worst case scenario because Ayahuasca literally holds a mirror up to yourself, reflect back to you the potential issues or things that need working on within yourself, and then it’s not gonna do the work for you. It’s gonna show you what you potentially need to do, but then it’s a. It is down to you to want to go away then and say what I’ve learned from this experience, I’m gonna start to implement to then overcome these potential hurdles, barriers, issues in my life, to then become the best version of myself, and then to let go of anything that’s holding me back from.

Potentially achieving my goals and dreams and desires in the future. So if anyone asked me should I do it, I could, yeah, I could say, yeah, do it. And you could go and do it and have a work, a real bad experience. Or on the other hand, you could do it and have an amazing experience. So again, from my own experience, I’d always say, listen to your intuition.

If there’s something deep down inside that you can’t budge that is constantly saying, I’m ready for it, go ahead and do it. And I believe if it’s calling you and. It’s not just one or twice. It’s like on a constant basis it’s almost calling you to it. Yeah. I think it’s your time to explore.

Don’t go out there just to do it because you heard someone do it. You’ve read an article, you’ve seen a TikTok for instance, or your best friend’s gone and done it and come back and they feel like a new person. Don’t go on someone else’s experience or opinion. Yeah. Obviously do research, ask other people, for instance, before you do it.

But I believe that it needs to. You need to connect with it through your own, say your own true self inside.

Sam Believ: Yeah. Chances are, if you’re listening to this podcast or watching to this podcast, you already are in that stage of preparation and collecting some good information that I’m sure you’ll find here on how to prepare and how to establish that connection with the medicine before you ever drank it.

So Ryan you mentioned that obviously it’s your day three here. Now we’ve done two more ceremonies of this retreat. Can you share something about your own process in this two days or maybe something you observed in the group or anything that you say would would interest our listeners?

Ryan Nurse: Yeah, of course. For me, coming back, I had a, literally, my experience coming back this time was flipped to last time, so in February for instance, I had these worries, these fears, and a little bit anxious. To be fair, I’m not gonna say I wasn’t, because I believe everyone coming into an Iowa experience or ceremony for the first time, they do have a bit of anxiety because it’s the unknown, but.

I can say to anyone like, the magic is in the unknown. Like never fear the unknown or the uncertainty because this is a blank space of opportunity for you to actually discover what it is that you truly want. So yeah, like me and many that we come, last time in February we was a bit anxious. The best thing about being here is like, Sam, what you do with the word circle.

I, I believe. Yeah, there’s so much power within people and within your network and with your surroundings. And having these word circles before you even begin is the most powerful and important part to get any sort of thoughts, feelings, emotions out of you to share with other people because. Nine out of 10 times, the person sat next to you is feeling almost identical feelings or worries or fears.

So it’s like you go into this and you, it is like you are not the only person that is feeling say, worried about this. Or What if this happens? What if that? So you start sharing your thoughts and feelings and then immediately you go from hearing, you just go and you feel so much at peace and so much calm and ready for the experience ahead.

So that’s a great first step is the. There, there were circles. And then, yeah, so when I first went in February, it was like, I took the cup, the very first cup, and it was sweet. It was a nice taste. And then I sat there for a while and there was like some weird few things happening and I gradually got into it.

And same with the second day. And then that third day ceremony was the one that blasted me off. And I saw these crazy, amazing experiences. But then this time it was flip. I come here. Because I already knew the drill sort of thing. I had no, no worries, no fear. It was all just excitement, just all joy, love, excitement, peace and happiness, and I was just really looking forward to see what the medicine would do once we say, Hey, build that connection again. Because I’ve already seen, like we, we’ve already met each other before, so it’s just I can’t wait to welcome her back into my body and just build that connection again and see what.

Sort of relationship we can build together. So I went into the first night ceremony a couple of nights ago, and yeah, I go up and instead of being sweet this time, I took that first full cup and wow, it is a real harsh taste. But again, I just said, look, I. We know the drill. We’re here again welcome back to my body.

And yeah, straight away we were building that connection. I just felt her going through my body and she was like just teasing me and tickling me and just twitching my thing, my, my fingers and my toes and stuff. And yeah, it was just like, yeah, do you wanna go on a journey? I was like, yeah, come on, let’s go on a journey.

And yeah, straight away, I’m not joking. After 10 minutes. Wow. I just started seeing visuals. I started to see eyeballs and shapes and colors and mouth and smiles and teeth and just like the things that I saw before. And yeah, it was just instantly, I’m just in this place and I’m just listening to the music and I’m taking it all in and yeah, I just felt really calm and I just felt, I felt at home sort of thing again, and it was really nice experience and. Yeah. And then I went up and I I took the second cup. And the second cup was really sweet actually, and it was a good taste. And again, I just went back and I just chilled out. And my intention for that one was to help me with some sort of trapped trauma that I believe I have in my leg.

I. Here, after going through that many months of mental misery whilst down and depressed after that relationship breakup back in 2019, I believe I got trapped trauma in my leg. And the ayahuasca, like mother, AYA, Oscar, was just telling me like, put both legs out straight. Because if you do want this trauma to get out of you, you’re gonna need to have a clear pathway for it to be released.

So I just sat there like a pencil and I could just feel the aya just going up and surging my body and scanning my complete body. Yeah, like what am I talking about now? So all the things that I’m experiencing that first day, that first night, sorry. I believe like the Aya Oscar,

she wants the best for you and she is here to help you in the best way that she can. And she’s not gonna do the work for you like. In life, like your dreams don’t work unless you do. You need to be the one to put the work in to achieve anything in life. You can’t just go and buy like your dream life off a shelf, for instance.

Yeah, you can get help, you can get guidance from coaches, mentors, books seminars content online, for instance. All the information out is out there, like there’s no lack of resources out there in life, but there’s always a lack of resourcefulness. So you as the individual, whether you come here.

To say an Aya Oscar retreat to learn more about yourself to discover, say, potential blockage blockages, or things that are potentially not going right in your life. You come here and you be open-minded. Don’t expect it to be like this, and drop all expectations, because I feel like that’s when you’re gonna have a sort of potentially negative experiences experience or not.

Have a fully fulfilled experience it, or you are gonna be a little bit unhappy because you might come here yeah, I’m gonna take ayahuasca and I’m gonna leave here and then all of my dreams come true. No, that’s not the case. But if you listen to the Ayahuasca you listen to what’s happening to your body, the thoughts, the feelings, the emotions that you are going through.

They’re gonna be the teachings the vital, priceless life lessons that you’re gonna learn from this experience. And it’s down to you to take those experiences, take the journal, which the amazing journal here, which you need to write every single day, at least once a day. Writing a journal and then constantly go back on that.

Don’t just take your journal away with your writings, your learnings in. Don’t just go away and then just shove it in your bag or on your shelf at home and never listen to it or read it again. Take that and constantly review it because for me, I found over the next 6, 7, 8 months, whatever it’s been since the first one, every time that I review that journal that I wrote down in February.

From my whole experience, I either learned something new about my experience or I remember something else that I completely forgot whilst going through that experience in the moment. So life is a huge lesson and you need to be a lifelong learner and just extract all the lessons from every single experience and use the lessons whether they were peaceful, whether they were pleasure, wherever they were, pain every single experience you go through in life extract the lessons.

And then use them to help you get what you want and become the very best version of yourself.

Sam Believ: Thank you, Ryan. I say we wrap up on those amazing words of encouragement. Thank you. And to see you good at your work, you know how to motivate people. So guys, listen up to Ryan and learn how to, move your life from that sort of.

Stale that point. Ryan, for those who might wanna learn more about you and your work, where can they find you?

Ryan Nurse: Yeah, thank you. And thanks everybody for listening. People who will listen back to this. If you wanna find more out about me the best way to connect with me is on all social medias.

Mainly Instagram. Social media handle is at Ryan, nurse that is at Ryan Nurse. I’m on all social medias mainly. Instagram is the best place to connect. Send me a DM if you wanted to learn more about me. I’m actually releasing a book at the moment as well, so really excited for that to come out.

So if you wanna know further, reach out to me and we can connect further. Okay, Ryan, thank you a lot for coming. Thank you so much my friend. I appreciate you guys. You’ve

Sam Believ: been listening to ayahuasca podcast.com. Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you in the other episode.

In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ of LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat interviews Scott Gray. Scott is a veteran who battles PTSD and depression and got great relief from Ayahuasca after his visit to LaWayra 6 months ago.

LaWayra.com

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to aya podcast.com.

Hi guys, and welcome to ayahuasca podcast.com. Today we’re joined by Scott. Scott, welcome to the podcast. Tell a little bit about yourself. Where are you from, Scott, where are you coming in from?

From Nova Scotia, Canada.

Sam Believ: Scott was a guest at LA Wire Retreat when was it, six months ago-ish?

Yeah.

Sam Believ: Okay. And so Scott reached out to me a few weeks ago asking for the logo of LA Wire to send it to him. And I said, why? He said he wants to make it to two, the logo for those of you who are watching the video, it’s right there on my t-shirt.

And I said why? He said that he got he’s pretty happy with the results he got here, so he wants to put it as a memory. Just so you know, guys. So we changed logo about a year ago. So far I think we have more than 10 people already tattooed on their bodies, which is a great makes me very proud.

Means the logo we chose was was pretty, just so you know, the logo has been made by number one, Latvia and logo designer. For those that don’t know, I come from Latvia. So if you ever go to Riga in the restaurants you see around, you’ll see that the logos they’ve been made by the same guy. Scott, why no let’s start from the beginning.

When you came to Lara, you came to, to seek healing from what? And how did you end up at at Lara?

So I’ve dealt with PTSD from being a vet in the military for many years. And I’ve tried. So many different medications and therapies and nothing gave me the relief that I needed.

So after a couple years of doing research with less traditional medicines I came to do a lot of research on ayahuasca and DMT and medicinal mushrooms. And I did a couple macro doses of mushrooms and. The enlightenment I got from it. And the healing in the moment was nothing I’ve ever experienced from any SSRI or SNRI.

But it was not lasting. So essentially the more research I did on DMT in Ayahuasca it just led me to, I guess looking for different resorts and stuff down south and I came across yours and everything about it from the re reviews to the price, it was it was right out my alley and exactly what I was looking for I hit quite a bad low.

About two months before I came to the retreat, and that’s what kind of pushed me over the edge to, to take the gamble, buy the plane tickets, book my place at the retreat, and and make it happen. And it has been life changing.

Sam Believ: So before we talk about results how was the process as your ceremonies?

Progress, like what was the what were you seeing, what were you feeling? And when were you when were you able to say oh yeah, I feel that something happened. Was there one moment or was it just a gradual shift?

A gradual shift over time? As when I was there, I didn’t really have any crazy experiences with the medicine.

I went my first. Two ceremonies and I didn’t have any experience at all. It started to hit me in a negative way thinking, this isn’t working. This was a waste of money. By the third ceremony, I had a little bit of an experience but again, it wasn’t anything life changing. And then the fourth day ceremony that we had on the Saturday it was a great experience, but again, it was nothing.

Crazy. I didn’t, I never had any visions the entire time I was there. I didn’t go very deep or so I thought, but as everybody says, it’s not gonna give you what you think you need. It’s gonna give you what you actually need. Everybody goes there. It’s hard not to have any expectations at all, but of course, everybody’s there for healing, so you’re gonna have some sort of an expectation of what you wanna receive out of the experience.

But while I was there, I was almost depressed leaving because I didn’t feel like I experienced what I needed to. But the sense of community and the compassion and the love from complete strangers, that in itself was a life-changing experience. But then once I came back home and I. I really took everything I learned from my experience at Laira.

And as soon as I came back home, my wife and my kids and my parents noticed a complete shift in my mentality. And then over time it was really hard for me to notice that right away, but that’s why it took me a while to reach out to you because I’m very in tune with my emotion and my feelings.

As the months progressed and I was like, I don’t feel as depressed as I was. I’m not in that rot in that darkness. And the more I focused on how more light was in my life and how less angry and less judgmental I am that’s when I really started to notice that. There was something about that medicine that completely shifted my thought train and that negative emotion.

Sam Believ: Yeah. That, I’m glad you it up because. I don’t think enough words are spoken about this subject online because when people talk about ayahuasca, they expect this big explosion of visions, which, which comes, occasionally you experience that, but it’s completely not what what is needed in most of the cases.

And at the retreat, I’m sure you remember when you’re here. We always talk about, patience, guys, you need to be patient. Get release your expectations. The medicine will give you what you need, not what you want. And it’s I can say it over and over again. Sometimes it feels like I’m talking to the wall because people, they cannot understand that.

What I mean by that is exactly what I mean by that, that the experiences is not as you expect them to be. And especially if you’ve done mushrooms before, LSD, you expect just that. And ayahuasca is not mushrooms. In LSD it’s much more than that. So you might get less visions. You might get, it might be completely bodily experienced sometimes, but nevertheless the shift and the change that happens is profound.

As you experience in yourself, something has been shifted, something has been removed, and we’re not capable enough, as, basic human beings, we are to even notice what’s happening in. This is why a lot of time it feels to people that they’re not having an experience because once again, it’s not meeting their expectations.

But when the retreat is over and then what really matters is how you feel afterwards, and it changes. This is, it means it was a productive experience. So I’m glad you experienced that and I’m glad you can talk openly about it because a lot of people that. They, their ego gets attached and then they’re like, yeah, I didn’t feel anything.

And you tell everyone you didn’t feel anything. So when you get better, you prefer to I’ll just keep it to myself so they don’t think, they don’t go and tell me like I told you style thing. But yeah, all that matters really is not the experience itself in the end of the day is what you feel afterwards.

’cause it’s medicine, when you come to the doctor and it gives you a pill, you don’t care about how you’re gonna feel. What’s the experience of taking a pill is gonna be like, this is irrelevant. You want the relief afterwards and as, as long as the medicine can provide that, that they, there can be really no complaints.

So thank you for mentioning that. So you said you are a veteran, right?

Right.

Sam Believ: Yeah. We do notice that a lot of veterans come through our doors and I i’m for some reason really interested in like creating a veteran program. I’m sure I mentioned to you something about it, but we’re far from that.

But still, I think it’s a very vulnerable part of a population because they’re generally, the veterans tend to be. Against the spirituality side of things. So what did you do personally, or maybe how your journey was to being able to like, accept that? And because generally it’s kinda looked down I guess in, in the veteran circles, if I’m not understanding it wrongly.

Honestly, after I released and I spiraled downhill I really didn’t, I’m very open towards different avenues of healing, and where conventional medication wasn’t working. And honestly, I wanted to come off the conventional medication because. Honestly, it’s the withdrawals you get from medication.

How healthy can that be, right? It’s no different than meth or, hard drugs. Your body reacts so negatively when you miss your medication for a day or two. That in my eyes, I was like, how can this be healthy for my brain or my body? So that’s when I started. Looking at more psychedelic healing and mushrooms, like I said.

And the healing that I received from one macro dose of mushrooms the feeling that I got was I hadn’t felt that since I was a kid. So with that. I knew there was more to it, and that’s what kind of led me down the rabbit hole to find other psychedelics. And I’m, I must have watched a hundred videos of different people’s experiences with DMT and Ayahuasca.

Originally DMT the methyl tryptamine found me locally. And that was when the pandemic kind of started to hit. So I didn’t have the opportunity to go anywhere to experience ayahuasca. So really I was only able to experience DMT, which was the only thing that I had, and it completely opened my mind to a completely different realm in the mind’s eye, so to speak.

That’s where the spirituality, like you mentioned, came from knowing that there is more to life than what we see in our day to day. And yeah, that’s where the spirituality and me came from. DMT and the psychedelics themselves gave me that shift. And really I don’t really give a shit what other people think about me or what my beliefs are.

As long as they work for me and they make my life and the people around me better, that’s all that really matters to me.

Sam Believ: Yeah, that’s a good that’s a good way to look at it. But now, you went through this journey yourself and working with different plant medicines and.

Finding your relief from your symptoms. Would you recommend other veterans, for example, with similar issues to, to look look for psychedelics or look for plant medicines to, to experience the relief?

Absolutely. Like I said, with conventional pill pushing doctors absolutely it does work for some people, but.

I have been off my medication for quite a long time now and I’ve never felt better and I believe it’s all due to ayahuasca. I used to go for ketamine infusion therapy as well, and I got relief from that. But again, it was only short term. Nothing really gave me that mental shift that I received from Ayahuasca.

So I think, it wasn’t just due to the medicine, it was due to yourself and the facilitators and the whole sense of community at Lara. It’s nothing I’ve ever experienced before, even in the military. There’s a lot of community in the military in some aspects, but I’ve never experienced the compassion and the love for a complete stranger that I experienced when I was down at your retreat.

That in itself was eye-opening. And from what I gather, watching your podcasts and different pictures and images and chats of people that have experienced the same thing down there, it’s, it wasn’t just a one-off from my retreat. It just seems to be, whether it’s the people that the retreat draws in or whether it’s the work that you guys and the plant medicine is doing there it’s.

All combined and it’s awe inspiring. It’s it’s a different world and it’s, everything about it is healing.

Sam Believ: Thank you, Scott. Yeah, we we do our best to create the culture of that mutual support and group healing. And I would say 99% of times we’re successful in that. Sometimes they’re.

Some groups are different than others and there is a big spectrum, but I would say most of the times we’re able to get people to that state and to that level of compassion. So of course, w nothing is possible without people themselves and obviously without ayahuasca. ’cause as we slowly kinda direct group in a certain direction. Medicine also helps. And in the end, it results in this sort of beautiful phenomena you’ve experienced yourself which is something when you see it happen. You just want the world to be that way. You want everyone to just care for everyone and that just can’t help but put an idea in your head like, how wonderful would it be to wake up one day and have everyone hadas yesterday?

That would be a pretty, yeah. Pretty awesome reality to, to be alive in. But not sure if it’s gonna happen in our lifetimes, but slowly but surely, we gonna try and get there. But so yeah, Scott where’s the lava two going? Going on? Which part?

I haven’t figured that out yet, but it’s gonna be your logo and it’s gonna be the actual molecule of DMT.

But I haven’t figured out exactly where it’s gonna go. I’m still designing it right now.

Sam Believ: Nice. Once you do it, send me the photo. I’ll I’ll share it on Instagram. Absolutely. Always. It makes me happy. There’s a lot of different versions of the virus. My, my wife also has has it on her shoulder, so I don’t have any tattoo two, but if I get one, maybe it would good.

The you and a half. Yeah. Maybe eventually. Not when I feel ready, but yeah. Scott, i’m happy to have stories like this, people coming over and, a lot of times people reach out to me and they say, I feel better and I get relief from this and that. And sometimes it’s physical ailments, sometimes it’s mental, and it just makes me happy.

The work we’re doing is very difficult, as you can probably see in my tired eyes. It’s not easy, but that’s definitely one of those things that, that keeps us going. So thank you for coming on. Hopefully somebody who is listening to that may be a veteran or somebody with PTSD or depression gets motivated to, to come out to low wire drink ayahuasca and take a leap and and get the, get relief as well.

Any parting words? Scott, anything you wanna tell to people? Or maybe if other veterans wanna find you and ask for advice, you wanna share where they can find you?

First of all, I’d like to say that the anxiety that I experienced going down there to do this on a whim in the middle of the jungle by myself, took a lot.

It was, the first three days, I don’t even think I ate anything while I was there. I was terrified. But if I could go back in time, I’d probably slap myself and just tell myself that you’re in good hands and there’s nothing to be afraid of. The medicine’s gonna show you what it needs to show you and even if it’s not.

Giving you visions to literally show you something, you’re gonna experience something down the road that’s hopefully life changing. I hope to come down again and do a longer stint. It would be nice to have a couple of days prior to the ceremonies to relax and get the shakes out.

And then a couple of days afterwards, before the long travel home I think that would make a big change in the experience itself to give yourself that extra time. Because it’s fast and furious when you’re there and you’re doing, three ceremonies day after day. It’s a lot mentally and physically.

But yeah, that extra few days I think would make a big difference. And now that you have those the other shanties or the huts set up I think that’s ideal. Yeah. I love them. Yeah, I absolutely love them. Yeah. I think that’s an excellent idea.

Sam Believ: Okay, Scott, thank you for thank you for coming over.

And yeah, you said you watched a lot of videos of people describing their experience. Now you’re in one of those videos. Hopefully somebody’s gonna watch it and then they will be in a video and the, one day wake up and the whole world will have access to this. Beautiful tool for healing of ayahuasca or other plant medicines.

And hopefully by then we’ll have a happier, healthier existence as a society. Thank you for that. Thank you for bravery as well. Not everyone is is willing to share about it. It’s still a forbidden topic by many, but as you said, you don’t care what people think. Same to I, Scott, so thank you.

Thanks Sam.

Sam Believ: It. Guys you’ve been listening to Ayahuasca podcast.com. Hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have a veteran friend that might need some relief from any mental health issues, send this episode to him and, so yeah. Thank you guys for listening. See you in the next episode.

In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ of LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat interviews Matthew Butler.

Matthew retired US military at the rank of lieutenant colonel. 20 of 27 years in military was in the Green Berets or Special Forces with 42 months total and combat. After retiring in 2017 he battled with PTSD. He tried Alcoholics anonymous and antidepressants but nothing helped. However his first Ayahuasca experience has changed his life. Now he is an advocate for the cause.

Get in touch with Matthew via linked in

https://www.linkedin.com/in/butler18a?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=android_app

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.

Hi guys, and welcome to ayahuasca podcast.com Today we’re joined by our new guest, Matthew Butler. Matthew is a veteran who has worked with the Ayahuasca specifically. To get relief from his PTSD symptoms. And Matthew is now an advocate for Ayahuasca in the veteran community. Matthew, welcome to our podcast.

Matthew Butler: Thanks, Sam. Thanks for having me.

Sam Believ: Matthew so I spoke to you a little bit before we started recording. Can you tell a little bit about your story with with the US military? What what happened there and what brought you to Ayahuasca eventually?

Matthew Butler: Yeah, sure. I joined the Army way back in 91.

It was actually a couple days before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait the first time in the nineties. And I ended up retiring in 2017, so I ended up doing 27 years total. I thought it was going to just be three years, but ultimately I ended up volunteering for special Forces or the Green Berets.

So it was, I was in the Green Berets before nine 11, so about 20 years of my total, 27 years was in the Green Berets. And of that about 17 of it, before I retired, was during the war, the Global War on Terror. So I ended up with six deployments and 42 months in combat. When I retired in 2017 I describe it as like an iceberg.

On the surface everything looked good. I had a good job and a good house, and good cars and all the things that you. People tell you’re supposed to have, but under the surface, what was going on really was bad alcoholism some opioid abuse lots of run-ins with the law. I was getting in trouble getting the cops called on me a lot.

Lots of suicidal ideation and depression. So yeah, like my, full blown PTSD but I tried to hide it pretty well.

Sam Believ: So I think with veterans especially there, there is no clear route in between let’s say PTSD or depression, anxiety and ayahuasca generally, veterans seem to try and drink their problems away.

There’s not much spirituality in that community. How did you end up going on the path of plant medicine?

Matthew Butler: Yeah 18. My father had me arrested. We got into an argument and it got physical. He called the cops on me, which was, maybe one of the best things he ever did for me.

And I, I respect him for it Now. But yeah, so when I was sitting in that jail cell, you’re right, like the VA will tell you that, there’s no cure for PTSD. You just, you’re gonna have to live with, learn to live with these problems. And, the easiest way to deal with it is through the alcohol, right?

Because by drinking. I can get numb enough to finally go to sleep. So when I got arrested though, I was sitting in that jail cell and I was thinking, two big things came to me. Number one was I have a bigger problem than I am admitting to. And number two, what I’m doing is not working ’cause I’m doing all the things I’m being told to do.

I’m on antidepressants and going to therapy and meeting with groups and going to AA and doing all the things, but nothing worked. So I had to find a different route. So the first thing I did when I got out was really started to study PTSD and look for cures. And the one thing that kept coming up for me was ayahuasca.

I was talking to people about it and trying to find a way to connect with it. So I had a friend who introduced me to who was in this space and he asked me to come with him to Columbia. So I went to Columbia, my to drink Ayahuasca.

Sam Believ: When was it? Or y

Matthew Butler: actually I should say Yahoo.

Yeah.

Sam Believ: Yeah.

Matthew Butler: When was it? The the first time I ever drank was in 2021.

Sam Believ: 2021. First of all, I’m really happy you mentioning I was in Columbia, like our website actually still is ayahuasca in columbia.com because when I first. Started working with the, with Ayahuasca myself I was surprised that I was already living in Columbia, but I was thinking like, I need to go to Peru to drink Ayahuasca because it’s a proven thing, but because in Columbia it has a different name as you mentioned Yahoo or Ja.

It’s I think. I think it was basically not known by a large republic. So I do believe Columbia and Ayahuasca is as good as if, not even better than proven. And it’s cool that you ended up in Columbia and yeah. So you basically started working with medicine. You did the, how many ceremonies have you done so far?

Matthew Butler: I’m not sure. I’ve done a, I’ve done a fair bit. I’ve probably done about six.

Sam Believ: Okay. So when when did you start feeling the relief?

Matthew Butler: Oh, immediately. Yeah. I felt like immediate relief. I, I don’t, and one of the problems, one of the difficulties I have trying to explain this to other people is the fact that it sounds too good to be true and we’re conditioned.

Excuse me. We’re conditioned to believe that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. And, it sounds like everything that happened to me was miraculous, which, it really was nothing short than miraculous. But yeah, like I. It does sound impossible and it does sound too good to be true, but like overnight, like my drinking, my, my drinking problem, my, my opioid addiction, my all the things that were messing with me from A-P-T-S-D standpoint.

All of that seemed to, to go away like overnight, again. And we talked about this before the call. I think that the biggest thing that most people lemme say it this way, the big one of the mistakes I made going was the idea that, the, if I drank this tea that it would solve all my problems.

That’s not how it works. Drinking the tea shows you the solution to the problem, and then you have the work to do, which you pointed out beforehand. It’s the integration that we all do after the ceremony that counts. And but I started to feel immediate relief, but I just had a lot of work to do after that.

Sam Believ: Given that I’ve met a lot of people who’ve done many ceremonies, in the tens of them. And some of them still struggle with the problems they’re dealing with. So this is why as when we started speaking, I was immediately wondering what have you done differently?

Because obviously you did something right with the integration. To actually have a long term lasting effect. So can you share something a little bit in what it looked like for you or any specific routines or just ways of thinking?

Matthew Butler: Yeah. I’ll tell you like one of the big things that happened to me was I think I, I probably wrote down in my journal that night probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 25.

People that I needed to go and apologize to and make amends and I thought that those relationships were okay before ceremony, but in ceremony I saw that they weren’t, that I still had, some energy to clean up. And then I think that the biggest thing really is like finding a spiritual practice.

I began to study breath work and meditation and con connect to my version of the higher power. I really, truly try to understand, what that was versus just saying it in aa. There was just a lot of work and this is, as well as I do, but one of the things, one of the beautiful things about a ceremonial dose of psychedelics specifically ayahuasca, is that we end up getting neuroplasticity for 30 days following ceremony.

So all of those things that feel impossible before ceremony become achievable. After ceremony, so it’s easier to do the work.

Sam Believ: Yeah. I love what you say because believe it or not, this is exactly the same things I tell to people when we finish the retreat in our very last word circle. I talk to people and I tell them, the work begins now and you have the flexibility and if you choose good habits, as you said, spiritual practice.

They will stick. But if you go to bad habits, they will stick even so much stronger. Yeah, this is this is the good one. After you’ve done Ayahuasca, were you still going to AA meetings or you stopped?

Matthew Butler: I stopped. Yeah, I always felt like AA was just group forced abstinence that didn’t really solve the problem.

But by doing ayahuasca, I feel like it, one of the other advantages is it releases the trauma and the negative energy. To me it’s almost like an energetic reset button. And you still have the work to do, but in some respects, you’re not being troubled by. Those extreme challenges, the stream of emotions.

And so from that respect yeah, I, I stopped going to aa, I stopped going to counseling. I got off all of my antidepressants. There’s, now it’s just spiritual practice.

Sam Believ: Nice. I’ve never been to AA myself, nev, neither. I had alcohol problems, but we have a lot of people that come to our retreats.

Dealing with PTSD or also sometimes just alcoholism. And they see a lot of parallels because at our retreats we have word circles where people share after every ceremony. And a lot of people say it’s somewhat similar to AA meetings. So I guess AA would start properly working if they add some ayahuasca to it.

So maybe someday along when the legislation

Matthew Butler: moved. Truthfully, I don’t know if you know this, but the founder of aa bill w he much later in life after he started it, did his first LSD journey and he was convinced that it was the answer. So even the founder agrees that psychedelics are the way

Sam Believ: I’ve heard that I’ve heard that story.

I think in one of the books maybe How to Change Your Mind, and I saw one of the books in psychedelics. We just need one more. A in the aa. Make it aaa.

Matthew Butler: Yeah,

Sam Believ: just add ayahuasca to it. That would be a notable goal for somebody. Maybe if you’re listening to this podcast and you are working AA high ranks or legislation let’s let’s partner up.

We’ll make some big change. I also like the way you described the way the medicine worked for you. So it’s not the, that magic pill where you take it and all your problems go away magically. It is, it does show you how, what to do with your life and then you need to do the homework. The way I personally came into the medicine about four years ago when I started drinking it because of the depression, I.

I don’t think I have PTSD. I had some minor childhood trauma and just generally just not the best life conditions growing up. But what it did for me it, first it took away the pain and then showed me the direction. So I you describe it in a very similar way. Which just makes me happy.

So I’m not the only one who thinks that way. So you said you after working with medicine, getting this relief. You became an advocate for ayahuasca, and I’m assuming you, you want other veterans to work with it as well and it’s I find it challenging to, in some groups of people, at our retreat, for example, what we’re trying to do is lower the barrier of entry to ayahuasca means, lower, having reasonable prices.

Choosing the language that is understandable by most people, because I think it’s pretty conflicting for most veterans to, to go to those retreats where like everyone is wearing white and they have hats with feathers and all that kind of stuff. Certain new age spirituality. How would you go ahead and what would your language be in trying to talk to other veterans with PTSD to.

To encourage them to work with Ayahuasca.

Matthew Butler: I think that just the biggest thing that I could tell you is that unfortunately we’ve all been lied to about psychedelics. M-D-M-A-L-S-D, cannabis, peyote, ayahuasca, psilocybin. Specifically like LSD psilocybin in cannabis they have, they have such bad reputations from 50 years of propaganda.

Our federal government has, they sent in teams of police under the DARE program into every single high school for the past 50 years to try to, convince us all that these, these drugs, quote unquote drugs are harmful and dangerous and addictive. And if you do ’em one time, you’re going to wind up in an alley, with a needle in your arm.

And that just couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact the US policy for a Schedule one narcotic is it has to meet three criteria. It has to be, easily addictive. Something you could easily become addicted to, something that could be fatal if taken in the wrong amount and offer no medicinal value.

If it doesn’t meet those right criteria, it shouldn’t be on the list yet. Psilocybin, ayahuasca, LSD, are all on that list as a scheduled one, narcotic, and yet they don’t meet any of the criteria. They’re not addictive. Cannabis can be if you use it too much. But psilocybin, no Ayahuasca, no LSD. No, they’re not addictive.

There’s no, and as there’s no known recorded deaths ever from cannabis or psilocybin, even ayahuasca. There have been deaths in those ceremonies, as but that’s usually because somebody lied and didn’t tell the, the shamans and the Titus and facilitators about what medicines they were actually on.

It wasn’t the ayahuasca. It was, it was a lie in hiding other medicines that caused the death. But yeah, they, and they all offer medicinal value. They all heal, they all cure, they all bring us closer to God. So essentially, like I find the biggest resistance is in trying to explain to people that they’ve been lied to and conditioned to believe in something that is, is just not true.

Sam Believ: Yeah, this is very true. You need to, there needs to be like a, an informational campaign and to slowly change people’s minds. I would, I would hope that maybe this podcast will be heard by few people and other. Content that that is being created. And I, there does feel to be this change, gradual change now in people’s minds.

So it’s funny that you mentioned, addictive like how the class one drug should be specified and that neither Ayahuasca or some other psychedelics, they don’t really fit that criteria. And it’s what I like to explain to people is, it’s been a medicine for 5,000 years.

It’s only been called a drug for the last 50 years, and it seems pretty clear to me why. Where it comes from and how it ties into politics and stuff like that. So I can tell you my version, which I’m sure is pretty similar to your but I’d like you to try and describe why do you think government is so afraid of psychedelics?

Matthew Butler: I think I’m probably agree with you but my opinion is because once you do. The psychedelics, you begin to see the governments and other organizations for what they are, which are they’re generally after control, and so when you do psychedelics, they lose their control over you.

At least mentally. There’s still the institutions that we have to live within, but it, it causes a spiritual awakening. And a spiritual awakening is really hard for the government to get their, to get behind or to support. They don’t want you awake.

Sam Believ: They feel threatened, rightfully because when you do psychedelics, for example, when you do ayahuasca, one of the first realization that comes to mind is that we are all connected and, hurting another person is like cutting your own finger.

So this is really counterproductive when you’re trying to fight wars mostly that, that are paid for. And, that make a lot of money to a lot of. Powerful people. So of course they feel threatened and they ’cause what happened in when the LSD was outlawed is the Vietnam War was happening and people didn’t want to go fight that war anymore or work in big corporations.

And yeah, like from one point of view, it it’s all pretty clear once you start thinking about it. But also we need to somehow find a way to. To gradually change change our society because if one day nobody wants to work then we’re also in trouble. And you mentioned something about deaths that have to do with the ayahuasca.

I’ve heard about few cases and what caused them? And as, as you said, so I ask, is a very legal med sorry, very safe medicine because it’s been used for a long time. And in the jungle you have kids drink it and many generations of people drink it, but it used to be completely safe because there was no, I.

Other medications that people were taking. And as you probably know, in preparation to any retreat the they always say, the SSRI antidepressants, for example, they can be deadly. And some people, because they’re maybe so desperate or they don’t believe that the rules have have reason to exist.

So they lie about it, and yet it can cause the serotonin syndrome and and hypothetically. A heart attack and then the person can die another cause that, that, that have happened before is when you get a person that drinks alcohol and they also consume cocaine they learn that if you snore some cocaine, it makes you sober.

So when they go into those deep crevices of their subconscious on ayahuasca and they get scared. With stuff that’s, that comes up, they remember, oh, I can just do some cocaine and get out of it. And unfortunately that combination can also be deadly. Yeah. Yeah. The, and then they blame the messenger.

There was this interesting story here in Columbia half a year ago, that there was a couple that did Ayahuasca. Then a few days later they went to another city in Colombia, and then they were found dead Somehow in the news. They managed to connect the death to Ayahuasca even though it was days later and they, it was already completely out of their system.

So yeah, it’s just yeah,

Matthew Butler: unfortunate

Sam Believ: they always try to blame Glenda Ayahuasca when possible, or psychedelics in general. Yeah. What, yeah. What would your words be to, let’s say somebody who is on that side and they say no. Let’s say there’s a veteran, a friend of yours, and he’s struggling with the same issues you were struggling with, and you wanna tell them, go go to Ayahuasca, and they say, no, it’s just a drug.

What would you tell them in the quick summary?

Matthew Butler: I, I would actually send them. I usually send. People, some really good articles especially some of the stuff that came outta Johns Hopkins and some of the more prestigious that I’ve saved over the years. And say, look, read for yourself.

Actually, I’m a big fan of the, like you mentioned the book and the documentary, how to Change Your Mind. I enjoy sending them, there’s another one called Fantastic Fungi. How to Change Your Mind. There’s a number of really good documentaries out there and podcasts and if people are willing to, do a little bit of the research after I’ve told them, then they usually get at least curious, more curious at that point.

Sam Believ: So what I noticed this process to be is you plant a seed with people and get them curious. Yeah. And then after a few years later when they get in a.

Particularly difficult situation, then they might remember your words and then be like, you know what do they have to lose? Especially like if somebody with the gun in their mouth, which is very common with veterans. As you as you probably know then, like what else do you have to lose? Yeah, it sounds dangerous, going to, to a foreign country and drinking, this strong psychedelic jungle juice and but then what do you have to lose? Yeah, the, I believe the education is the key in spreading the word, and hopefully we’re doing that right now. Slowly but surely, as as people start to open their minds.

Yeah. I think that covers it pretty nicely. I wanted to talk a little bit about our, the veteran program that, that we’re planning to start here at LA Wire and basically since I mentioned the suicide problem, we do get two, three veterans every month that come through our retreats, and a lot of them get good relief and you can.

Find their, my podcast episodes with some of them as well here in this podcast. But that’s still nowhere near enough to make a dent. So there’s the statistics, the gruesome statistics is that 22 veterans kill themselves every day. And our plan is to eventually be able to organize veteran only retreats when we’ll get 22 veterans altogether.

I think it will be easier for veterans to share with other veterans. You have common language and there will be less stigma and stuff like that. Meanwhile, we’re just gonna work with what we got. But my plan is to eventually be able to do that and then maybe partner up with some organization and have them support the veterans financially too.

To be able to afford the experience. Our retreats are very affordable, but still, you need to fly it, fly over here, and to be able to do it legally here in Columbia. And hopefully meanwhile, the legislation also changes and you get more retreats opening up and less stigma on the subject.

Matthew any, anything else you wanna add before we wrap this one up?

Matthew Butler: Just thank you again express my gratitude for you and for the work you’re doing, and also to the veterans out there. You can look me up on LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever if you need if you wanna talk about it.

Like I said, I’m an advocate. I’m the representative for hippie and a veteran here in Utah which we work on trying to change these laws and yeah. If you, if it, if you hear it, if you feel it, you’ll know it when Ayahuasca’s calling to you. So follow that prompting and find your way to an Ayahuasca retreat.

Sam Believ: Yeah, guys, if you’re listening to this episode, maybe you’re already getting your calling take it seriously. I’m gonna put Matthew’s LinkedIn, link to Matthew’s LinkedIn to the show notes so you can find them and ask him for advice. And Matthew, thank you so much for coming. It’s it’s an important work you’re doing by spreading the word as well.

And someday maybe you will get you to come to, to visit us here at La Wire as well, since you’re already like and yeah. Thank you guys. Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you in the next episode of ayahuasca podcast.

In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ of LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat interviews Rick de Villiers

I found Rick’s video on topic or integration and really liked his explanation, so I invited him on the podcast to explore this subject more thoroughly.

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to aya podcast.com.

Hi guys, and welcome to ayahuasca podcast.com. Today we’re joined by very special guest, Rick Veliz. Rick is from South Africa. I believe Rick is a facilitator himself and I stumbled upon Rick’s video when I was myself learning more about subject of integration. And his video on YouTube on the topic was really the best.

I found he has amazing ability to express himself and he’s very knowledgeable when it comes to the topic. So I decided to reach out to him and invite him to this podcast and universe conspired and a couple. Common friends have emerged and we have him here now on this episode. Rick Rick welcome to Ayahuasca podcast.

And it’s it’s great having you, Rick.

Rick de Villiers: Thank you so much. Yeah. It’s great to be here.

Sam Believ: Rick tell us a little bit about yourself before we jump into the topic.

Rick de Villiers: Sure. As far as my healing journey or medicine journey has gone as I said it’s been about four years since I stood first met the medicine.

I was at a very low point in my, the lowest point in my life. And it was the point at which the gates opened for me to then move on to the next chapter. And so it was such a blessing that was what was needed to push me. And I worked with San Pedro for a while, and then finally I felt that Ayahuasca was calling and that was, that was the step that I needed to take.

My first retreat was completely life changing it. It just took me to who I was supposed to be. It was just nothing short of magical. And yeah, following that, I had this deep. Passion for the medicine and a curiosity for the medicine. And I was just so enchanted by this world and wanted to know more about it, and it just felt like home.

And so I worked with the medicine as much as I could During that year, I had a, the person that I first sat with was a good mentor to me and we sat together one-on-one a few times, and I never intended on holding space or serving the medicine. It was never part of my plan. I had no intention of doing that.

No need to do that. And then the medicine gave me this kind of a mission, if you like. It was the ceremony that I had that it showed me that, the potential of the medicine to heal the world from a, not just from everybody drinking iOS, the point of view, but really from a point of view of the ripple the knock on effect that, that has, when one person heals the impact that has on their family, their friends, their employees, and what the medicine said was that.

There are a lot of very kind of spiritual seeking person people who are looking for this medicine, but your average CEO and accountants and politician and that kind of thing, these people often look at the medicine with suspicion. It’s something that’s a little too far out there.

They’re not maybe ready to go camping in the jungle and that kind of thing. And so the medicine said to me, it needs to be legitimized in the way that. Sober, cynical people can look at it as a possibility for their healing. Something that’s a real possibility. And it just said to me, look, if you’re up for it, it’s something that you could be good at.

I’ve spent a lot of my life in kind of corporate, in the corporate world, working for corporate companies and my job, and it said to me, you could be a good translator, one foot in both worlds. I started doing that with my mentor and then it just didn’t go very well. There were too many ideas in the parts, and it wasn’t quite the mission that, that I had been given.

So I realized the only way I could possibly manifest that was to go to the jungle and do my initiation and learn, and do the studying and everything. So I went off to Peru and spent two months there. It was hell. And yeah. And then I got back and then I sat and co-facilitated with my mentor for about a year and then eventually started my own retreats and that, and yeah.

And then that’s been about, yeah, two years or so of doing those retreats. So that’s basically my little journey.

Sam Believ: Journey. It’s interesting. We have a lot of parallels in our stories. ’cause I also first sat with the medicine about a bit more than four years ago. I also never planned to start a retreat.

It just happened to me. Also had a calling message in the jungle and since then, basically synchronicity after synchronicity. Here we are. And yeah. Yeah, it’s funny how you just, once you experience that yourself and also I was in a very low law when I got into that and it’s I think it ties into integration, right the way.

The way I think you talk about it in your videos, how medicine doesn’t stop where the ceremony stops, and it’s actually, the medicine is all around us. All altogether. So let’s let’s talk a little bit about integration. Right? So it’s a difficult concept to explain. It’s something I.

Battle myself when the retreats are happening. ’cause there’s always there’s so many facets to it that you can always take a little bit different of an angle of explaining it. But for you what is integration? How do you explain it to people?

Rick de Villiers: Sure. The world that we live in now, and I think this is the first thing that, that I see as an important thing to be aware of with integration is that the world that we live in now. It is so different from the natural world, in terms of when you are a vulnerable animal, living in the forest where your next meal is served by faith and grace, as opposed to the world that we live in, where we control everything around us, we control the electricity, the running water, we control everything around us.

There’s so much about our lives, which is constructed and contrived, and there’s a sense of control, and it is everything’s cause and effect and all of that. And that breeds a lot of fear. Because then what happens if you lose control? And then we have our traumas thrown into that and all of that kind of thing.

So you’ve got this whole baggage of life where it is all about this control and very much in the mind. You have this mystical, deeply spiritual experience, and what this medicine asks of you more than anything else is. To have faith, if any, if nothing else it’s to go with the flow, to believe in the journey, to let go, to surrender.

And this is the greatest challenge for a lot of, western minded people coming into the medicine is learning to surrender. It’s obviously the biggest obstacle for everyone in the medicine, and it is the gift that the medicine gives you, which is the most profound. It’s the ability to surrender into anything that life shows you.

Obviously, old habits die hard and there’s so many triggers all around us to try and take control again, to try and, to fall into fear again. So I think by and large, the integration process is on the one hand, a trust process. It’s about trust and vape. So you have this, unbelievable window into the truth.

Then it just gets tested. Every day it goes out there and it gets tested. And the integration process is really about taking those obstacles in your mind, or the whole of your mind essentially, and trying to quieten that down, that’s that knowledge, that understanding, that instinct for the truth that you experienced so profoundly in your journey.

Can become a part of your life, can become the walk that you walk every single day of your life, and that you can just manifest that, that understanding, that clarity, that peace. I think that’s the crux of the integration process is that faith, that trust, that calm, that peace, that surrender.

And yeah, just to go on about, a little bit about what I said in, in the video is that. When people think about surrender, integration, it the mistake with integration is I think that, just like we tackle every other problem in our lives with our minds, our instinct is always to tackle the problem with our minds.

People will often have an in, an in an inclination to tackle integration also with their minds, right? So they also. Set out a journal or make a checklist or, as I say in the video, they monitor themselves and they say I said I wouldn’t drink alcohol, so I’m not gonna drink alcohol.

And they really monitor themselves and make sure that they’re integrating and scold themselves potentially when they’re not integrating properly or if they repeat the same again. And there’s a sense of needing to. Perform and meet some kind of an expectation that you’ve set for yourself.

And, forgiveness of self is one of the other things that I find in the medicine is such a challenging thing for a lot of people. Forgiving other people in the medicine is often easier because you see things through the context of the other person, and that allows you to forgive them.

It gives you the perspective and the understanding, and the compassion. But forgiving yourself is really difficult because it’s hard to move forward. You, you see something and you feel like you maybe don’t deserve to move forward. You know that forgiveness of self is such an important part of integration as well, because integration can never be perfect, right?

You cannot integrate perfectly. You can’t come out of an iOS ceremony and then just live perfectly for the rest of your life. That is completely unrealistic. So integration is such a. It’s an art form. It’s a slow, gentle process. It’s not something to be rushed. It’s not something to be crushed.

It’s not something to be good at. Not at all. It’s something to be quiet about. Curious about, kind to yourself, about, being like a parent to your 4-year-old self and giving yourself a break and saying, this is my intention is to change. My intention is to manifest this new part of me that I’ve come back to.

But it’s not gonna be overnight and it’s not gonna be easy. I’ve got, decades of baggage. And not to mention the other thing which a lot of people struggle with. Integration is the entire circumstance of your life. You’ve got all those relationships that you have to go back into. You’ve gone through a profound, transformation.

They haven. And this is something that, that a lot of people do struggle with. If it’s a, going back to a partner or going back to your friend group, a lot of people say, people who come back on retreats and things like that. I’m sure you’ve experienced as well that their friend groups change, after they start working with the medicine because it just doesn’t work for them anymore.

That friendship was filling a hole and that hole is now gone. So that friendship then doesn’t serve the same function and it’s no longer necessary. And that’s quite traumatic, and obviously other people don’t like that. So it’s not as easy as just walking out all Zen and just going about your business.

Everyone else expects you to be a certain person and shedding your skin, so to speak is troublesome. The world might not always approve of that. So yeah, there’s so many pitfalls. But I always say when you’re gonna go through something hard. The best way to approach it is to acknowledge to yourself first before you start, that what you’re going to go through is hard, because just that process of acknowledgement, it’s like you’re just about to run a marathon or climb a mountain, or whatever the case is.

When somebody embarks on running a marathon, they stand on the starting line. They know it’s going to be tough. So when it is tough. It doesn’t come as a surprise to them. It doesn’t, deflate them or anything like that. They just buckle in and keep going because that was the deal all along.

They knew that it was gonna be tough and they were prepared for that. As far as the integration process is concerned, it’s important to know, look, this isn’t gonna be a piece of cake. It’s not gonna be easy to just, walk this. New way of life necessarily. They are gonna be tricky things to it.

And just being patient and kind and just knowing that it’s a long journey, it’s just something that you just just keep going. There’s time limits.

Sam Believ: Setting expectations is very important. When, whether, when people come to the retreat and they need to understand that.

Ayahuasca is not gonna be easy and there’s work you need to do and nobody else can do it for you. And it’s same with integration, right? And the work is, even the workload is even bigger when the retreat ends, and there is no direct guidance from the medicine to tell you exactly what to do. And yeah, I do agree with you a lot on the fact that integration is somewhat of a passive process and you can’t really force it too much.

However. For example, I really thought about integration a lot when starting the retreat. And I try and help people to not only understand that topic, but also to, to remember about, for example, here at LA Wire we did create a journal, which is an integration journal, but it’s like an ability for people to at least recall what happened during the ceremony.

So they can go back to it and not forget it, and then as they read their experience over and over again, or maybe it’s a mix of that. And also picking up a journaling practice where they can find time of the day to actually think about stuff. And because I think and what we do here is also we try and have people be bored a little bit because I think that.

In those moments of boredom, when nothing is happening, when they’re not entertained, the thoughts start to, to process themselves. And you can allow, give yourself time to think. And I think the problem with the current society a lot as well is we don’t have time. To think. ’cause even let’s say you’re in the past, you would go to an elevator, you would enter the elevator, you would thank thoughts you would come up.

And now is, we always have our phones on us. And I think the worst thing for integration is that smartphone addiction, which I myself suffer from. Especially ’cause you have to work so much on your phone to, to organize things. So my next question to you is what I know it goes again against your whole philosophy because you do say it’s not an active process, but what could you recommend people do maybe actively or some kind of tips or tricks that can help them in that process, if that makes any sense?

Rick de Villiers: Sure. No, absolutely. No I do believe there are. There are, tools at your disposal. And I think that for me, just instinctively when you asked me that question, I haven’t given it much thought now, but just instinctively when you asked that, where my mind went to was, what you just said about boredom, and forcing people into a bit of bored, Ry.

We do, I do that as well. I actively discourage people from chitchat on retreats because people get into conversations, they get very excited, everyone’s going through a lot and whatever. And then sometimes a conversation can just go on a little too long and then everyone gets a little distracted from their own personal process and it is about you.

You’re there for you, gonna leave and it’s just gonna be you. I try and encourage people to spend time alone as much as possible. The whole thing about, the medicine and its gift, right? And how it gives that gift is this idea of sitting in discomfort, right?

That’s what the medicine does. It puts you into a state of discomfort and you need to surrender to that. And so you learn to master discomfort, fear, pain, dread, guilt. Regrets, all these things and sometimes just physical discomfort. All the spiritual practices since the dawn of time have heralded discomfort as this pathway, to, to an inner process.

Whether it’s walking on coals or Christians do lent and, and there’s fasting and there’s this, and all these different, things. It’s. It’s all about the abstinence and that discomfort. I would say that if you’re struggling with your integration process, or if you feel like you need to do something to assist you in your integration process, my instinct would say, do something difficult.

Do something d. Put yourself under a bit of question. Maybe do a two day fast or something like that. Or something along those lines. If that’s what you need. Some people need different things, but, and also things like, okay, conversation would be another one that I would say is like a really important thing.

So there’s probably a laundry list. Two full pages long by the time you leave a retreat of things that you should have said to people in your life that you never did, right? You’ve never had those conversations with them. There’s so many people you haven’t told them how you feel about them, or things that you’ve done that you maybe feel you wanna get off your chest or, there’s a thousand difficult.

Uncomfortable conversations, just waiting for you and beyond each one of those conversations is a beautiful and glorious liberation for your soul. And those are the kind of things that I would probably engage in if I wanted to do a really active an active integration would be to really put myself in those difficult positions and rather not just leave those things and just say, no, you know what?

I don’t know if I want to tackle that or I don’t wanna get into that, or, I haven’t spoken to that person in a long time. I’m sure they’ve forgotten about it or whatever. That’s really. When you put yourself in that position of vulnerability, that’ll take you straight back to your ceremony.

You know that being vulnerable is such an integral part of what you need to get to the medicine, what the medicine needs you to learn anything from it, and definitely what you should take back into your life to be open, to be vulnerable, to be able to be wrong, these are all things that kind of maintain that humility.

And with that stays the connection, so yeah, and I think more communication, real communication obviously. And yes, you can meditate and do all of those things. Funny, quite a lot of people ask me on retreats and that, what kind of practices do I do?

Do I meditate? Do I do yoga? Do I do all this? I suppose people. Curious as to know what a facilitator would do in their own lives. And I always say no. I don’t really because for me I try and look at life as a meditation, that every single moment of every single day, and I was just saying that it’s not for everybody, but I think there’s a possibility that when you start meditating. Habitually what you do is you almost create that same thing where I talk about in the integration video, where it’s easy to see the medicine as one world and the real world is a different world, and that’s a mistake. You’ve really gotta understand that the spirit moves around you all the time. In the medicine, ultimate is all the same thing and. So it can be the same thing with these practices like meditation and yoga and all of these things. It can be the same thing where, you sit down to meditate in this harmonious environment and you burn incense or whatever the case is.

And then when you stand up off your meditation, there is this transition from this sanctuary that you’ve created, even if it’s only in your mind, and then going into the traffic and having someone cut you off or steal your parking or whatever. For me I want to be able to, whatever I do for my integration, I would want it to be kind.

Like real as in amongst everything else, amongst all the noise. So what I often say to people who ask me that question is I say the kind of meditation I would like to do, and I haven’t done it, but I would really love to do it one day, is actually just to go to a very busy mall and go and sit down on the floor in the middle of the mall.

And close my eyes and meditate there with everyone walking past thinking I’m a complete lunatic. Because that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. You know that intense discomfort and self-consciousness, the things that you would have to overcome within yourself. To find peace while you’re sitting there on the floor waiting for security to come and get you, that would teach you so much.

It would take you back to that journey, being in that discomfort, having to surrender, having to, overcome all the fear and making the peace inside yourself. Not having the peace around you already, just making the piece for yourself. Yeah, if I was to talk about active integration it would be things like that.

It would be things where you. You’re exercising those muscles, you’re exercising those surrender muscles if you like, putting a bit of pressure on that. Yeah.

Sam Believ: This is this is all true that you’re saying it’s just extremely difficult. It’s kinda expertise level meditation, and this image that you said about you sitting in the mall. And meditating. It reminded me there’s this Japanese I believe practice where there is a monk and he quietly walks through a busy street and as he takes a step, he rings the bell. That kind of stuff, like where meditation is is pretty much your entire life is meditation.

It’s interesting that you mentioned that you tell people at the retreat not to chit chat. I do something similar, but what we do instead of saying don’t communicate, I do believe in talking as a form of integration. However, it has to be deep conversation. So what I ask people to do is take off the masks and accept that this is a safe space where.

Deep conversation is allow, and if somebody asks you, how are you in the morning, instead of saying, okay, you say stuff like, I had a nightmare and it brought this memory about childhood trauma and just go full into it. So what do you think about that approach and what do you think about talking as a form of integration, specifically one-on-one or maybe in a setting of a word circle or a sharing circle?

Rick de Villiers: Oh, absolutely. One of my journeys was actually one of the videos on, on, on the channel, one of the journeys I had was about about how are you, the phrase, how are you? So it was funny that you mentioned that. Now it’s literally how came to me in the journey. Just so you know, I haven’t,

Sam Believ: I haven’t seen that video.

I’ve only seen I think, two of your videos. But I think we agree on a lot of stuff.

Rick de Villiers: No, for sure. And it showed me that when we greet people at the door to our house, so you’ve got friends coming over, family coming over, whatever, you open the door and right there standing in the doorway.

You say, how are you? And they say, Hey, I’m good. How are you? And you say, I’m good. And that’s it. That’s it. That’s the end of the conversation. That’s the end of the how are you conversation. And then you sit down and you talk about the kids and you talk about the weather, you talk about COVID and you talk about all these other things, right?

And the medicine said to me, this is, I’ve got to stop doing that. And it, it was it had a sense of humor to it, but it said to me, how are you mustn’t be sit at the door. You wait until you sit down. Then you ask, how are you? And it should take up 75% of the afternoon is each person’s opportunity to speak about how they are.

It should be the most important part of that getting together, not the cursed. That just gets dismissed at the door, and it’s very much the practice around sharing circles and things like that, which we practice in this medicine, and I think a lot of people don’t have the confidence to try and encourage that within their, it’s again this resistance from peer circles and friends and family and stuff like that.

It’s very difficult to encourage people. Into that practice if you’re the only one who wants to do it. But this is where I find people in recovery are actually so lucky, addicts because they go through the very similar process where they do a lot of group work and a lot of sharing and a lot of that, it’s.

It’s such a fundamental part of human connection, is that real sharing that honesty. Everyone worries, everyone wonders why they feel alone and cut off in the world. The reason that you’re alone and cut off is ’cause you’re hiding. It’s totally your responsibility. It’s no one else’s fault.

It’s because we don’t feel safe to share. We don’t feel like if you tell someone what you really feel or what you’re going through, that they might not judge you or whatever. There’s always that concern that they might look at you differently. You don’t wanna mess with that, you. Yeah, a hundred percent.

I, I agree with you a hundred percent. Where those conversations need to just change their depth, change the level of vulnerability, and I love that. I really love that. I really love that, it’s only the distracting conversations, on a retreat, it doesn’t matter how well you screen people.

There’s always one or two people who get there, and then they aren’t that keen to. Do the hard work. And then sometimes they can be a distraction to others ’cause they’re looking just to, talk nonsense.

Sam Believ: So that’s

Rick de Villiers: why I always just say to people, if you get into a circle like that, move away.

Don’t get caught up into that because it’s just gonna take you outta your process. Not everyone you know. And when you have screening conversations with people, I always try and place as much emphasis as I can. I say, look, this is really tough, hardest thing you’re ever gonna go through.

You think, it’s what’s hard is. This is really hard, be prepared. And everyone always says, I know it’s good. I’m ready. I’m ready until they get there. And then it’s whoops, I don’t wanna look at that. And and then, yeah then they get into a mindset of just trying to distract themselves with lightheartedness and that kind of thing.

And that can really bring the container on. This

Sam Believ: Really rings a bell for me ’cause this is a daily life of a facilitator. You talk to people and you put your soul into the explaining and try to use the best analogies you can come up with. And then when and then they still don’t understand you, or if, let’s say I tell people, sometimes maybe half of you are not gonna connect completely and have the big breakthrough in the first ceremony.

And then, they just assumed that it’s the other half. It’s not them. Or, I had literally 10 days ago at the retreat, I had the guy and he listened to everything that I’ve been talking to in, in preparation. And then when it really hit him and he went through a really tough process and wanted to give up, and we started talking, I managed to convince him to stay and keep drinking.

And he had this beautiful, amazing, transformational experience. He said but. It was really painful, but I was like, I said I warned you that it’s gonna be this way. Yeah. He said but it was just words. But when he felt it, he was like, okay. I it’s not just words. So everything facilitate says to you probably is for a reason.

There’s not much time to talk about, filler words and stuff like that. It is really. How do you, I know it’s not on the topic of integration, but it’s a topic that fascinates me. You communicate pretty well. How do you find it? The communication with the patients?

At the retreat?

Rick de Villiers: On the retreat itself?

Sam Believ: Yeah. Or just generally. Yeah.

Rick de Villiers: I’m, yeah I’m quite ruthless. I find that I. I I push people quite hard. I can be quite strict and I’m available to everybody all the time. I love what I’ve learned. I love. Speaking, I love speaking about the medicine.

I love sharing the medicine, but in terms of how I deal with each person, I will always push exactly whichever button I feel needs to be pushed. And I’ll push it hard, I don’t, I try not to let anyone get away with. Anything less than their best on a retreat, and if that means triggering their ego or upsetting them or whatever, I have this saying that if something I say pushes you further away from me, but closer to God, mission accomplished.

So it’s just a matter of pushing those buttons and sometimes people get upset with me and whatever. Until the last sermon, and then they come back crying and it’s oh wow, thank you. And it’s just about just pushing, pushing, and it’s something that, our world around us now, the way that, our modern medicine and.

Our entire approach to life is all about trying to feel better, right? So not necessarily get better, but just feel better. So we’re always pacifying ourselves and feeding ourselves, just with stimulus and trying to feel better. And the whole pharmaceutical system is, if you have a headache, you take a tablet, it’s all about feeling better.

If you can’t sleep, take a sleeping tablet. It’s all about feeling better. So it’s so difficult because all of people’s understanding of what human empathy is actually sympathy, which I don’t believe in at all. It’s this kind of, rescuing this notion of rescuing. And when people are having a tough time in that, there is that kind of instinct in them to say I need help.

I need to be rescued. But if anybody helps that person or rescues, then they will never have the truly overwhelmingly beautiful experience of helping themselves. So whenever someone’s struggling like that, I just say to them, you’ve got this, get out of the backseat of the car. Get into the front seat, front, take the wheel and drive the car, and then leave it at that.

Because that’s how it goes,

Sam Believ: so Rick I believe the topic you’re talking about is the concept of tough love and I ask is known for it’s tough love. It’s like showing the problem the way it is and just saying kinda like tough motherly love, go. Go clean your room style thing.

It’s the nobody else is gonna do it for you. So you have to do it. And I think your teaching approach is very much in line with that concept. Which I’m sure works. And I also myself, have some difficult conversation with conversations with people a lot of times because in our society as you mentioned, we all.

Are conditioned to numbing the pain and running away from problems and also wanting people that they assume sometimes, they come to an Ayahuasca retreat and they paid for it. Everything will be done for them, but we can do everything for you except the healing part. And this is, this gets tough sometimes.

You mentioned about people also trying to separate, say meditation from their everyday lives, I believe, if I’m not mistaken, the word separation is literally the opposite of the word integration. How do you, yourself, you talked, talk a little bit about that, but what do you see mindfulness where do you see it in the part of the integration process?

And do you have any, anything you can recommend to people? Maybe some. Some specific tips or tricks,

Rick de Villiers: so does tricks go? Yeah, it’s something that she speak to my wife quite a lot about, just as we navigate life together, and it’s something that often comes up is, when you’re faced with a situation in life there’s always the mental interpretation and the spiritual interpretation, and, if you get a flat tire or if you run out of electricity or if you crash your car, or, anything happens, there’s, if you crash your car, it’s very easy and very common to say I shouldn’t have been driven driving on the wrong side of the road, or I shouldn’t have done this, or I shouldn’t have, turn so soon or I shouldn’t have been in a rush to get there, or whatever the case is.

This is our habits of always looking for cause and effect, and it comes, stems from that control I was talking about earlier where our entire society is structured around control and the illusion of control that we can control everything, that we can avert any kind of disaster in our lives.

If we plan everything perfectly, then nothing will go wrong, and so for me, the mindful practice is really about trying to look more for the spiritual explanation in the challenges that we face, in our daily lives and each time something happens. Also something that came to me in a journey once is that, you know when something goes wrong, you are walking down the road and you stumble and you drop your coffee. Your brand new Starbucks coffee just goes spilling on the floor. There is a microsecond, a split second as that coffee hits the floor and you realize what’s happened where you get to label that experience as being bad or good.

It’s a split second, and we’re not even aware of it because we just assume it’s bad. Oh something’s gone wrong and now, I’m really crossed because I don’t have coffee anymore. But it was just, the medicine showed me that how once you label something as bad, as soon as you say that this is a problem that shouldn’t have happened, I, this could have been avoided, should have been avoided, and definitely must never happen to me ever again.

Whatever I need to do to avoid this ever happening again is what I need to change in my life. That’s a very mental approach, a very mental controller oriented approach. But if you take that moment and allow the possibility that dropping that coffee brings you a gift, and it’s all about timeframe, it’s not gonna bring you a gift in this very moment, but it’s all about timeframe and just allowing yourself to experience the journey.

Just give it a chance, give it a chance, see what happens. You never know. And so I think that, as far as a mindful practice is concerned I have a young child who’s six, and what I always say to him is, wait and see. Just wait and see. Don’t be so quick to judge what just happened as being a problem or being wrong, or being something that you don’t want.

You don’t know that. You have no idea. So many people, obviously, I think everyone in life has this experience where you have a terrible boss or something like that and you hate the way they treat you. And this kind of torment goes on for a long time and eventually you’ve had enough and you leave the job and you end up doing what you were meant to do, your all that, you know, and then you don’t think back and think that was an angel.

That person was an angel that was pushing me to where I was supposed to be going. But in that moment, we’re so convinced that this is a negative thing in our lives, that this person shouldn’t be treating us this way. That we don’t realize that we can be so rigid that we don’t move with a hint. Spirit set us.

You shouldn’t be here, be there, and we don’t listen. Because again, the control thing, we don’t wanna lose our job. We don’t wanna be vulnerable, we don’t wanna do this. We don’t do that. So we don’t listen and then we don’t move. And then, the universe knows what’s best for us. So then it pushes a little harder and it gives us an impossible manager.

And, it, it throws all these insufferable things in our way to ultimately kick us out the door to where we’re supposed to be. So for me, that process of mindfulness is really about wait and see. Don’t label everything that happens to you straight away, just wait and see. You’d be surprised at how often it just turns out exactly the way it’s supposed to,

Sam Believ: this is this is a very wise advice and looking for silver lining and things or being patient. Patient definitely happened to me, myself. I had some what at first seemed negative events led me into very positive ones and I’m sure it’s not the end and more, more will come.

Such just being, remembering that. In your video on integration, you also mentioned that indigenous people don’t seem to have an officially defined integration process. Why do you think that is?

Rick de Villiers: Like I say in the video, our process of integration and also what I said at the beginning of the video is that our process of integration is actually an unlearning process.

It’s not a learning process, and that’s where I think, the difference between active and passive. The people often approach integration. They think they have to learn something new. It’s not learning something new. It’s letting go of something that doesn’t belong there. It’s a letting go process.

It’s not a, it’s not a I’m gonna change, I’m gonna get fit. I’m gonna stop drinking alcohol. It’s rather just letting go of the part of you that, that doesn’t, that wants that, letting go of the feeling that you need that in your life, or the feeling that. You can’t do without this thing or that thing or this structure in your life.

For the indigenous people, again, like I was saying about, an animal that lives in the jungle any part of nature, as I say, lives by faith and grace because they don’t know when their next meal’s coming, everything is, they’re at the mercy of the beauty of nature, and so the integration process for them.

Those habits haven’t really formed the way that they have for us, because they live closely to nature, because they’re working with the medicine all the time. And from a young age, so a lot of these coping mechanisms that we use to get through the traumas of our life, Dr is such a great guy to, to listen to and how he talks about trauma and all of that, his thing is that, a lot of your coping mechanisms were there. Sorry, one second.

Your coping mechanisms were there to protect you as a child, and to protect you and get you through life, and difficult situations in life where you had to survive. And that can be. Being bullied at school, being made fun of. It can be anything. Trauma doesn’t have to be something huge and significant and, abuse or something like that.

Trauma is anything that makes you look at yourself with anything except love, so those is, that’s where our coping mechanisms come from. And then we build a whole castle on top of that. We make a whole life outta those coping mechanisms. So the integration process is really about letting go of that.

And I think that they haven’t put as much of that into their lives as we have. And it’s actually quite sad to see as modern, the modern world penetrates the jungle. How, these people who used to be living completely within nature are now all on social media, and. Going into town all the time and stuff like that.

And there’s a sadness experiencing that because you know that, you know where that goes. So it almost feels like there’s a time limit and that knowledge will be that that perfect integration with nature will almost be lost to humanity. There’s so few untouched civilizations now left.

And I think this is a very important part of, where you and I sit is. Trying to keep this alive at all costs, and studying it and respecting and honoring it and, and trying to carry it forward, so yeah. So I think the integration process is really just a consequence of our modern mind, really, our civilized mind, if you wanna call it that.

Sam Believ: Yeah the, it’s unwinding, that’s, there’s this biggest big movement of, capitalism and modern day living coming into the indigenous people’s lives. And there’s also, and an opposite direction, the ayahuasca coming into the western world. So the question is what wins? What happens first?

And then, yeah, maybe by the time the western way completely takes over. It might not be that bad already. That’s my hope and I’m sure it’s yours as well, is like any person that’s optimist and is hoping for more people as possible, having AYAs experience hopes for this other version of reality where we are better of as a society.

And yeah. I think another thing that indigenous people have. Generally South Americans to a larger extent, is they still have the families and their communities, they’re still big and the sharing is still there. They really have that mechanism that I believe we have lost in the Western world.

So even if the, if looking at once again at, talking as a part of the integration process. I think they still have those deep conversations at least. My wife, she’s she’s Colombian and of course she’s partially indigenous, like all all South Americas. And you can see in her.

But she’s not, she didn’t grow up in the jungle, she grew up in the countryside and she’s, educate and is largely a part of the Western world. However, when she spoke to her family members or her friends on, on a daily basis, the way they share is much deeper than you would observe in a conversation in my country or, on between to North Americans.

So I think if we, go back to, building communities and like allowing that form of, we would naturally, I would assume with a bonfire in the middle and group of friends sitting around and people and community members and just sharing about how the day went.

I think this is also a beautiful sort of way to integrate. And you mentioned Gabor Mate, I really love Gabo mate. I partially, when creating this podcast I had this. Unrealistic dream to maybe interview him one day and you never know. Never know.

Rick de Villiers: Oh, that’d be great.

Sam Believ: Yeah. You never know. If you just if I guess, if the universe is on my side, it’ll happen.

So Gabor, if you’re listening, which I know you’re not or maybe somebody who knows them, send me the contact I need to interview this guy. He’s he’s been a big part of my own journey with the medicine. And it’s it’s interesting that you mentioned him. As a outside of a topic of a facilitator, something we touched upon a little bit just now, what do you see the future of ayahuasca and in our modern society?

What do you think it would hap will happen? Where are you yourself pushing towards, in which direction?

Rick de Villiers: What do you mean? Direction?

Sam Believ: You mean yeah, I, I guess that’s that’s my way of thinking because you’re going more with the flow. But for example, I’ll my hope is I want to have as many people as possible have experience with ayahuasca experienced the healing and launched their healing progress healing process.

And I. Would like to be there to be as many retreats similar to mine and yours and many more to slowly pop out as mushrooms in the forest under the rain, and like gradually come to the point where instead of, as of now, I believe we have less than 1% of the world trying ayahuasca to have more, maybe 10, 20.

That’s my dream. I’m an optimist. I believe it will happen as the time goes by. What do you think from that perspective and what is your approach to the medicine? Because I believe you mentioned that you have this grounded way of seeing things and working with the medicine.

Rick de Villiers: Sure, yeah. Yes I would love for everybody to have that. And when I speak to people that I know are not ready, I never see somebody as being not suitable for ica. I always see them as not suitable yet, or not suitable. Now, not prepared to work with the medicine yet. There must be a question before the answer can emerge.

So that person needs to get to that place where they’re willing to listen. And. And I would love for everybody who feels called to the medicine to be able to experience the medicine. That would be utopia. And Graham Hancock is obviously one of the people from the very very civilized mainstream world who advocates Ayahuasca so strongly.

And being a best selling author and all of that, he’s obviously got quite a. A mouth mouthpiece. He, a lot of people listen and, and that was readiness. He said that he believes that this is not just your brain chemistry, this is not some hallucination. This is a deep spiritual journey that you go on.

And what is very real. And he said that. This is not something to be suspicious of. This is not something to demonize, this is not something to control. It should be something that any adult should be able to take the decision to do if that’s what they feel is on the healing part. And I think that goes for most plant medicine, and we are seeing a lot of that now with mushrooms where they’re getting a lot of, freedom. There’s a quite a very rapid, revolution in that sense. Especially in the states. Many states are now allowing it. So I see that as very positive from a plant medicine point of view, I think. And that’s also been, a big part of my. Of mission that was laid out to me in that ceremony is really about legitimizing it.

I also, I speak to a lot of people who are in recovery, ex addicts and things like that. And I was actually speaking to someone just yesterday who was at the house and and I said to her, we should consider working with my medicine. She’s willing to be ready to work and whatever.

And she said I’m not sure if it’s okay if I’m taking a substance and maybe I should speak to my sponsor about that. I appreciate that’s the box that the world has put these things into. Anything that alters your consciousness is now considered a drug, which is something that can be abused.

I can’t imagine anyone abusing ayahuasca, but the drug’s not the thing that would be abused. You would regret that so terribly. And there’s nothing fun about it. It’s not the kind of thing you’ll do to run away from your problem. Certainly not the best thing. The best thing happen

Sam Believ: to an addict is to try and abuse ayahuasca because you’ll no longer be an addict for.

Rick de Villiers: Yeah. No. You’ll learn your lesson real quick. So I see absolutely no correlation between those worlds and I think that’s the difference between a drug and a medicine. And I think the way that we speak about this medicine to the average person, when you talk about it as a medicine, I think that’s something that’s quite difficult for them to get their head around.

We just use the word medicine, all the time synonymously with these plants. And I think that there’s a degree of resistance there that they don’t really maybe believe that 100% and then maybe think that we’re just, sugarcoating what’s actually a drug. Because that’s the simple view on things. If it alters your consciousness, it’s a drug and it’s dangerous and you might get into trouble with it and all of this kind of jazz. So unfortunately, we’ve got a legacy of that, thanks to the war on drugs and thanks to all of that stuff where everything’s just been piled into that box, that with marijuana being rapidly, it’s exploded everywhere, all over the world.

And now mushrooms are going through a rebirth. From a legal perspective, I’m really hoping that, San Pedro will go through the same thing. Aya will go through the same thing and slowly but surely people will start to realize and governments will start to realize that these things heal you. And it’s for the betterment of society and but obviously there’s a lot of.

There’s a lot of strings being pulled everywhere that, it’s a difficult process, but as far as I’m concerned, and I think you probably feel the same as you do what you can with what’s in front of you. I just keep trying as hard as I can within my environment and hope that makes a difference, yeah. I hope I do. I hope for

Sam Believ: the same thing. I hope for the same thing that the world slowly. Rebrands, the, these medicines to from drug to the medicine and responsibly. So meaning in a controlled setting, people will experience their healing to eventually ceremony where ceremony, where the better world can exist.

May I’m even open to the medical therapeutic setting, but it has to maintain some side of the ceremony because if you take. The ceremony away from ayahuasca is like taking roots off the tree. The tree will then rot and Yeah,

Rick de Villiers: absolutely. Yeah. This is what concerns me is that, there’s some research being done and I appreciate that the scientific community is looking at some of these plants.

However, the scientific community or the pharmaceutical community is notorious to wanting to put something into a pool. And also to separate the molecules. So you know, we wanna address Parkinson’s. Only this percentage of BioCar has a proven scientific effect on Parkinson’s. So we’ll remove all the other molecules and we’ll just isolate this one molecule and you’ll take it in a tablet.

And that is not what the medicine’s about. So if I’m not keen on that type of legitimacy where it’s used as a product. Yeah. But the kind of legitimacy where they appreciate the ceremonial context and realize that in the context of that it must be done that way,

Sam Believ: it’s a psychology.

I do agree. Let’s let’s keep things traditional ceremonial. Rick, we are running out of time, unfortunately. I have a feeling we could talk about this subject for hours and maybe either more. And probably we should do it again. So guys, if you like this episode and you’re watching it on YouTube, do leave a comment and ask for another one.

And if, if you leave enough comments, then maybe Rick will agree for another episode. I’m just kidding. Rick thank you for your work, for the work you’re doing and for this episode. I think some people find it very productive. Rick, where can people find you and more about you?

Rick de Villiers: My YouTube channel is called In Ceremony. And my contact details are on there, so you can contact me that way. I share on there some information. Like my integration video. I have a preparation video as well, which I send to all my participants and that’s quite popular. And then also basically all the journeys I’ve had, I try and share the.

The nuggets of truth that, that, that came from these things and how that’s helped change my life and whatever. So yeah, I think that’s a good place to start. Check that out, see if you like it. And then anyone is welcome to contact me. I’m very engaged on my YouTube channel. If you ask me a question in the comments, I’ll answer completely and I’m always happy to speak to people one-on-one.

So no worries. I’m very available.

Sam Believ: Yeah, guys, I recommend you check Rick’s videos. He’s he is really good at explaining some pretty difficult things. So Rick, once again, thank you so much for coming and thank you guys for listening to this episode of ayahuasca podcast.com. As always with you, was Samie the founder or founder of Laro Ayahuasca Retreat, and I will see you in the next episode.

In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ interviews Doron Yitzchak Gibor on topics of Shadow work and working with Ayahuasca as a tool for learning.

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to aya podcast.com.

Hi guys, and welcome to aya podcast.com. As always with you here, Sam, the founder of the podcast and the Ayahuasca retreat, toga. Today we’re joined by a very special guest, Doran Geor. I am afraid to pronounce the second name. Is it?

Doron Yitzchak Gibor: It? Yeah,

Sam Believ: it Doran. I do, yeah. I’ve known for a while now. Very, it’s very well pronounced, but I haven’t been to master, master the name.

So Doran was a guest at our retreat. When was it? About six months ago. Eight?

Doron Yitzchak Gibor: No, it was almost a year ago. Almost a year

Sam Believ: ago.

Doron Yitzchak Gibor: Yeah. In February.

Sam Believ: And February. February

Doron Yitzchak Gibor: of 2023.

Sam Believ: And Doran was a very special guest because he wasn’t he wasn’t just there to learn. He was also there to teach because he willingly offered to teach us some techniques that he works with as in his personal personal coaching and spiritual practice.

And I learned a lot from him and a lot of other things. And I wanna share about that today. And today we want to also look into the topics for today will be shadow work ayahuasca as a healing tool and as a learning tool. Facilitation, integration, religion. It’s gonna be a fun episode, I’m sure.

So Dorin, welcome to the podcast.

Doron Yitzchak Gibor: Thank you so much then. It’s so good to be here.

Sam Believ: Dorin, tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you come in the work with the medicine?

Doron Yitzchak Gibor: To begin with. I was living in South Africa and in South Africa the there is a very large alternative or the alternative healing community because of the local tribes there.

Shamans from all around the world passed by South Africa because there’s it’s very easy in terms of legality. So for me, I had a friend that got involved. He had the experience ayahuasca a couple of times. And he mentioned it to me, and at the time, I had just broken through some serious blockages in my own life.

And and I wasn’t interested but it only took about six months for me to become interested. I did it from, I did it for personal reasons. I saw that there was a certain type of woman that I was attracting that there was this common denominator that basically I could tell that it was my own pattern essentially.

Just as a side note, what I do for a living is I help people break through patterns and unconscious blockages. So I was able to really notice that this was a pattern in my life. And just for anyone listening, if you want to know, if you have a pattern, then just look if something has happened two or three or four times, and you’ll notice that the only common denominator is you.

So that would be a pattern. A blockage is if you want something and have wanted something for a long time and you still don’t have it, then you probably have a blockage. That’s just a caveat. So what happened was I experienced ayahuasca for the first time in July of 2013. And I went in with a very specific intention to heal the relationship with one of my ma one of my family members.

I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna, I’m not gonna go into detail. They’re just just to, for the protection of our own family members and I basically, I the type of revelation or the type of profound simplicity that I was given. Was so mind blowing. I basically just cried the whole time.

I didn’t have any of the typical experiences of nausea or visuals. I was just in a very compassionate place and I just cried for four or five hours straight. And because it was a weekend retreat, so there was a second nights and that second nights I basically like, it was like sitting down with a teacher because I just got so much clarity about so many things.

It was really, it was very profound. And then what I got back to my life on the, on, on the Sunday, and I decided that I wanted to, I wanted to further my tertiary education. So what happened was I was in one university, was doing a business degree, and then and then I got into business.

So I put I took my portfolio into a, an open university called the University of South Africa UniSA, which is done by correspondence. So you don’t have to go to classes. You just, you study the material and you show up for exams. And I decided that I wanted to do psychology because it was more of what interested me than the business degree.

And so I was able to sign up within half an hour on the last day and the place was packed and I just, I could not believe that I was in and out in half an hour on the last day. It was just, something was like, it just, it was extremely irregular. Extremely irregular.

Sam Believ: The universe, something I.

Doron Yitzchak Gibor: It really did.

It really did. But what pushed me over the edge, so to speak, and really got my attention was that until then, for about two years, I had this car and and the petrol pump got broken. And so I went to a friend who had a garage and he he got his guys to put in a petrol pump. Now I had an Audi A four, and they put in the petrol pump for an Audi A three, but they didn’t tell me that.

They told me that they put in an Audi a four, but that’s the petrol pump of the Audi A four changed at a certain year, and I got the older one. And so if I wanted to, I needed to replace it with the same older one. It was all a lie. It was all a lie. I was living this line was my, was like true for me.

And basically the bottom line is that I this petrol pump, it got stuck. The gauge got stuck at a third. And so I never knew how much petrol I had in my tank. And every now and again, I would get stuck without any petrol. And for me it was like very metaphorical that the vehicle that I had in my life couldn’t take me very far.

It was unreliable. And within a week of drinking ayahuasca for the first time, I found the right pump. And there was a whole story where the guy basically said your whole story is not true. There’s no such thing as this old pump, new pump. Oh, this is the pump for this car. Do you want it or not? And I said, sure.

And so within a week, my vehicle was fixed. Now, for me, that was such a breakthrough because I was living this lie that this person had told me and it was true for me. I’d go into a place and say, do you have the old petrol pump for this car? And they’d be, look, they’d look at me. They wouldn’t know really what I’m talking about.

And it was only when someone actually said it to my face there’s no such thing. This is the petrol pump for this car. Do you want it? I said, yeah, put it in my car. And it worked. And then all of a sudden I was like, how? Obviously something changed within me because I had this experience. But then what has me drinking got to do with a a flawless flow, registering to a new university from a different university with a foreign metric, which is a grade 10 a foreign metric, which means there was a whole, it was a whole thing of if I matri, if I like finished school in one country and came to this country, then the certificates and it was a different language.

How could I go in and out register for a degree in a new university in under half an hour downtown in Johannesburg. And then a few days later have my car fixed, what’s going on here? What, what actually changed within me since having this experience. And then I realized that it was my vibration had increased into this, let’s call it a bandwidth, where I was experiencing all of this flow.

And that really just got me obsessed with the concept of vibration. It really like, and today what I do for people for a living is that I help people raise their vibration into new bandwidths utilizing shadow work, which we’ll touch on later. I then basically felt that I had to experience this more, like I had to.

So whenever there was this opportunity, I would go for it. And then there would be this like, flow of information that was like, answering all my questions, posing new questions, and then answering those. And basically just like drawing out this map of what I refer to as my model of reality. Just like answering questions.

And then things would unfold and then there would be more answers and more information. And it was just, it was a very enlightening experience. And then at some point I’m really like concise in the story, into into headlines at some time. This the shaman, the German guy that lived in LA and he came to South Africa and we started talking.

His medicine was like very different. He separates, he separated the first drink from the second drink, so he separated the MAOI from the DMT, which, when you think about it from a, from, just from a digestive point of view, it makes perfect sense. That the mi that the MAI gets absorbed first fully, and then the DMT, so no DMT gets quote unquote wasted.

You don’t have to do it like that. And Shamans for a millennia have been doing it. Not like that. It just, it made a lot of sense and it worked really well. But anyway, we got to talking and the way he said to me that the way that I do my coaching based on laws and gender and polarity, he says he, this is how he does his medicine also, and that we should try and work together.

And so we said, okay let’s give it a shot. Let’s create a retreat where we have the actual medicine, the medicine experience, but then it will also bring in coaching and integration as a theme. So not just like a conversation at the end or like a a circle where people just share their experience, but actual teaching of coaching principles and universal laws and the technicalities of transformation, like actually teaching it as a theme.

And so we did this, we would run three day retreats where there would be a coaching integration session on Thursday night before anything. And then Friday morning before the first ceremony, and then Friday afternoon before the the second one. So we’d work with, we’d work with a male with a masculine medicine and a feminine medicine.

And then it would be the, basically the coaching integration system would be wedged between and before the actual medicine experiences. And so all the information was would trickle and form a a really well understood themed concept for the retreat.

And it worked out to be, it worked out really great. It turned out to be a very good formula. And we worked like this for like I think just under three years. Running retreats once a month, sometimes twice a month in Johannesburg and in Cape Town. And then we started doing them overseas as well.

And I had the great privilege of of seeing like well over a thousand people go through this process. And along the way I just was receiving more and more information. Like literally for those of you that don’t know when you drink ayahuasca, it becomes, it be, it can be a very challenging experience because it pulls something from the unconscious mind, something intangible based on your intention and what it is that you want to get out of life.

And out of the encounter, it pulls something from your unconscious mind and then it brings it into a semi tangible place where it’s like in your stomach and then you actually like purge, you vomit out something tangible. So there is a dislodging, so to speak, or an actual purging, but after a while.

I stopped purging after about, I don’t know, late twenties, maybe 30 ceremonies or so, I stopped purging and it would just become a very deep meditation. And in this meditation I would just ponder on the concepts that I was teaching. And every now and again more often than not, there would be a new, in, a new bit of information that would be like planted in my thoughts, planted in my mind.

And it would, it’d be like, I won’t say overwhelming, but very profound. Very profound. And then I would integrate that and basically I would get quote unquote shown how to explain laws and how to explain the human experience and where perception may be flawed and like how to shatter an illusion.

This is what happened over, over the course of about nine or 10 months in 2015. And in retrospect, I can say that I downloaded, if you will, a new form of coaching that I call breakthrough matrix coaching and a new form or a methodology of shadow work, which is pretty groundbreaking because shadow work can be in its own right, pretty grueling.

But I have a process that has a middle, a beginning, a middle, and an end. It has a grueling part but it’s it’s very thorough and it works. So I hope that answers your question.

Sam Believ: Yeah. More than that. Before I go to the next subject, I wanna tell something. So at Laira, our motto is Connect, heal, grow.

What I want to explain is that when you first start working with the medicine, first you connect to the medicine, connect to yourself, connect to nature, connect to God then you heal physically, mentally, and then inevitably you grow. And when you grow as a person. You grow professionally, you grow spiritually.

And eventually when you go deeper, you go to where what I believe if that’s a correct way the things happen, correct sequence. Then you go where Doran went. Doran went because the inevitable inevitably is that part where you get to the point where there is this limitless spiritual exploration and you can gather knowledge.

So for those who are working with the medicine, a lot of times that’s why are you drinking? Why are you still drinking medicine? If you already healed or why are you. Like understanding what happens afterwards. And I believe this is the progression.

And inevitably if you if that’s what you want, you’ll get to the point where, which Dar, which Doran describes is where you start getting information and then medicine heals you and then it starts helping you to heal other people. And it happened to me as well a little bit, but not to such an extent.

And I’m still a novice, like I focus more on, on the organizational side of it. And I postponed my spiritual growth part because of the business. But I’ll get there inevitably. But I like I like how you describe it. Can you talk a little bit more about this aspect of downloads and how it looks how it looks and how it feels, and maybe for those that are interested to, to get there what can they do?

Or can this be set as an intention?

Doron Yitzchak Gibor: For example. Great question. Okay, so first of all it’s something that is not necessarily unique to a psychedelic experience. Every, everyone has the power of imagination. And imagination is not thinking of things that don’t exist. Like when people say you’re just imagining things.

Imagination comes from the word image, and it’s what we do with our mind is that we go into this imagery and things begin to take form in, in a, in, in, in a, let’s call it perception. It doesn’t have to be necessarily a recognizable form. The learning that happens in a mental space is not linear, and it sometimes doesn’t even really have words or things that are, let’s call it recognizable, but like for instance, Einstein, when he was on the, on, on the edge of his genius, on the edge of his like discoveries, he didn’t have a book to refer to.

So he would think about these things and he loved what he was doing. Obviously he would think about these things and then at some point his imagination would fill in the blanks. So this is not something that is unique to medicine, but what medicine does, just in general specifically I ask him, is that it’s able to compress into a space of a few hours.

It’s able to compress a lot of time, sometimes years into a, an intense 4, 5, 6, 7 hour experience. So whatever it is that a person is doing. Like whatever their trajectory is, it can be compressed and let’s call it sped up. But essentially in order to receive a quote unquote download, and I use that term very specifically because a lot of people call a realization, a download.

And I’m not saying that it’s not, but what I experienced was literally a revelation of something that was not there before. So it wasn’t just a single realization or a single thought. It was an entire philosophy or a methodology of self-inquiry. And what it did for me and I can say this now in retrospect because I had enough time of teaching it and I understand it really well, is that it took everything that I was obsessed with.

All the different frameworks. ’cause I’m a framework, I’m a frameworks guy. I’m really into frameworks of information and it basically took every framework and every process that I knew and everything that I understood about about human potential and mental mastery and self-discipline and and outputs.

And it basically it shook everything. It shook off all the labels and showed me like how in its essence that there are a certain amount of working parts that all connect. So that’s what it did for me is that it showed it connected everything in my mind that I was already obsessed with into a working system.

So it took all the parts and said, this is how it all goes together. So can a person have that intention? Yes. But if there is like heavy stuff. That is weighing a person down, chances are that heavy stuff needs to be dealt with because you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta be really at peace in order to have these downloads.

And I’m not talking about in medicine, I’m talking about also just in normal meditation. You’ve gotta be really at peace. You’ve gotta, you’ve gotta have such a deep peace that it’s not just a peace of I’m okay with everything as it is. It’s like I’m okay with everything as it is, and I love it.

Or I’m so okay with it that it feels good in my body. Because peace isn’t a neutral feeling. It’s a positive feeling. It’s a good feeling. And so if you are obsessed with something and you think about it a lot, like you really have to think about it a lot. At some point, your own mind will begin to fill it in blanks.

That’s everywhere. And so what happened to me in the medicine was that I would be in this place of think about this. I didn’t plan on being in a shamanic partnership and I didn’t plan on running retreats and I didn’t plan on any of this. And I literally it felt to me like a divine hand picked me up and put me on that path.

And I suddenly found myself holding space for 20, 30 people at a time running these retreats. Teaching stuff that I’m very passionate about helping people like, have like realizations and like actual breakthroughs in their life. And I was so head over heels in love with my reality that it was just pure bliss and it was from that place of pure bliss and being able to really focus on the concepts that I’m so passionate about, that new information would literally be, let’s call it dripped or fed to me.

And I can see now how it had to be dripped, one little bit of it, one little bit at a time because I had to integrate it and see where it all fit together. If anybody’s interested in these things, I know we, we say we wanna talk about at the end, but if anyone’s interested in these these concepts like it, it’s on my website, breakthrough matrix.com.

It’s a free download, so if anyone’s interested, they can go check it out. But essentially, to answer your question, anyone can reach that place. But there are two stages or two macro stages when it comes to healing with any healing process, whether it’s meditation, whether it’s ice baths, whether it’s dancing, whether it’s singing, whether it’s whatever healing modality that a person is engaging in.

But for the sake of this podcast, we’ll speak specifically about medicine. There is a healing phase, which is about the past, and then there is an enlightening phase, which is about the future. And you cannot get to the enlightening phase without dealing with the healing phase first. You have to go through the healing phase first, and you have, and sometimes it can be deep, like really deep, and sometimes you’ve gotta be able to peel layer after layer.

But once you get to this core, there’s just this crazy ridiculous level of self-acceptance and acceptance of things as they are in like the sort of the divine everything is as it should be type of perspective. That from that place of peace slash bliss, there is an enlightenment that happens.

There is a there is an access to new information.

Sam Believ: Yeah, this is a great explanation Doran. And I totally understand you when you’re talking about synchronicities in your life happening and just putting you on a path where you never expected to be. Because absolutely same thing happened to me.

I’ve never planned to start Ayahuasca retreat. I didn’t even know what Ayahuasca was. And look at me now doing exactly the same thing and feeling, feeling the same things you felt as well. Even though it’s very difficult and very painful sometimes it is still, you feel like you’re in the right path and it feels very pleasant and you feel supported by something unknown and bigger than us.

You mentioned downloading the new methodology for shadow work. Before we talk about that, can you explain first to people what is shadow work?

Doron Yitzchak Gibor: Sure. Sure. Just wanna say beforehand that a quick search on YouTube will bring up a lot of information. Jordan Peterson talks about it Alan wa talks about it.

Basically in a nutshell, one of the laws of this world is the law of polarity. That means positive and negative. You can also look at it as Ian and yang. Okay. So this law of polarity this duality of oneness. Yeah. Which is a paradox itself because the yin yang is one thing that has within it two things.

So within the singularity there is a duality. They’re not separate though.

Everything is dual, everything is polar. So you’ve got night and day. Within in your blood system, within your, like your body’s fluids, you’ve got alkaline and acids, which is your pH. And so what happens is that a person has within their own psyche or their own self-image, there is also there a yin and a yank.

There is a light self-image and there is a dark self-image. Now, the tricky part here is that another one of the designs for all living organisms, or at least for most living organisms, is a concept called photosynthesis. And photosynthesis is when things gravitate towards the light. I’m really not doing it justice.

There’s lot, there’s a lot more that happens within the plants, but the reason that plants grow upwards is because they’re going towards the light. And you can see this, that with certain plants, if you plant them in the kitchen, the plant will literally grow towards the window where the light is coming into the kitchen.

The same thing happens on an emotional or psychic level, that there is a gravitation towards my own light self, my self image, the person that I see myself as. Now if you can ask anyone, like, how do you see yourself? And they’ll, they’ll, on a good day they’ll come up with a picture of them with their best hairstyle, with their best clothes in, let’s say the coolest car at their best moment.

And this is this psychic photosynthesis that a person gravitates in their own mind towards their own best self, even if they may not feel like it. But if there is a gravitation towards a best self that a light self. That means that there is a gravitation away from their dark side their dark self or their worst self.

Okay. So there was a book that not many of the young people, anyone that was born after maybe the nineties or the two, two thousands, but there was a book called Dr. Jacqueline and Mr. Hyde, a very famous book. And it’s a book about this Dr. Jekyll, who was a brilliant physician and the s scientist or phys phy physicist or maybe a chemist.

But basically he came up with this potion that when he drank it, his, another side of him would come out like a monster type, cruel, violent type of persona would come out. And that was called Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were the same person. It’s just that once he drank this thing, this shadow self would come out and be visible for everyone.

Now the thing is that every person has this shadow self. And the only person that’s not aware of it is you. Everyone else is aware of your shadow self, right? So let’s say just the easiest example, let’s say a person has a a problem with their temper. So they get angry too easily and they know that’s a problem.

A person who has a problem with their anger, when they’re angry, they can’t control it. They can’t just quote unquote stay calm. They get into this emotion. They get into this emotional space where a certain behavior comes out and certain words come out. And more often than not, probably all the time, the person feels remorseful and ashamed about the things that they did and the things they said.

So how can that be? And even if it’s not a, even if it’s not a temper problem, everyone does things and says things that when they look back at it, they think to themselves, what was I, how could I do that? How could I say that? So how can that be, if you are a sane individual, how can there be behaviors and speeches that come out of you that you then regret and have to either make amends or apologize or another way of looking this, is that a person that ha So the way that I deal with shadow work specifically is I help people break through unconscious blockages.

So breakthrough income ceilings, breakthrough chronic illnesses. And breakthrough relationship patterns or blockages. So those are the three main areas. It can happen whenever there’s a loop or a pattern or blockage. But those are the three sort of like main categories. Some people call it health, wealth, romance.

So let’s say a person has got a money issue or relationship issue, let’s say, and they hit the wall. So they run out of money, let’s say, or they they break up they break up again. Or they find themselves in an abusive relationship and they in the relationship and then they promise themselves, I am never ever going to find myself in that position ever again.

They promise themselves, make a very firm decision and somehow it happens again. So a person, so the way that I’m talking about, my second example is that the way that I the shadow behavior comes out in it, it’s not, and it’s completely unconscious. So the only way that a person would notice that they have a shadow problem or a, it’s called that, that there’s a shadow problem, is when they find themselves in a loop or in a blockage that they cannot get past.

And that can take some time because when a person’s in their twenties and maybe early thirties, they go no, I don’t have a money block. I don’t have a money block. I just haven’t taken it seriously yet. So they’ve gotta wait at least a person like me that’s gonna, that can help them from a shadow point of view.

They there’s gotta be this process of the person’s gotta. Go through enough life where their best self, their most peaceful self, their most together self, their most creative self still can’t achieve those goals. And then they realize, okay, maybe there’s something in the unconscious mind that I need to, let’s look at the shadow stuff.

But to answer your question, shadow work is when a person is able to confront or own parts of themselves that they’re unaware of, but that’s popping up in their lives and showing up in like pockets of pain or blockages or things that they seem, they, it just feels either like bad luck or like their cursed.

So this would, this is what shadow work would be. Or if a person has let’s say with the original example when a person can like, okay, you know what my temper I can’t seem to, I can’t seem to deal with this and I’m not taking away anything from anger management. But anger management is very technique and strategy driven.

But you can only change things on a core level when you change an aspect of your being, when you become someone else. So shadow work is looking at the aspects of myself that I don’t like and that I’m not even aware of, because nobody wants to admit that I’m weak.

Nobody wants to admit that I’m not good enough. In fact, the entire world, I’d say 99 point something percent of the motivational world, counseling world, psychological world, therapy world, everyone says that the voice inside your mind that says, I’m not good enough, or I’m not worthy, or I’m a loser, it’s lying, and you have to shout louder.

So it doesn’t take a genius to understand that. If you’ve got a voice in your mind that says, I’m not good enough, and the advice that you’ve been given is to shout louder, I am good enough. What does that create when one voice is saying this, and then you’re saying this. What does this create? It creates inner conflict and breakthrough doesn’t happen on a basis of inner conflict.

Breakthrough happens on the basis of peace. So there’s gotta be a place where this gets reconciled. The truth of the matter is, if I give everyone like a peak sneak, is that I’m not good enough is true. I’m sorry. Sorry. It’s true. It’s just, it’s also true because you’re also phenomenal. You’re also the polar.

You’re also the polarity. So over there and over there, you may really, you really may not be good enough, and over there you may be a loser, and over there you may be a failure. It may be true, but there’s other places in your life where you are the polarity of that shadow. You are phenomenal and spectacular, and a champion and a legend and an inspiration.

And the two have to go together because that’s the law polarity.

Sam Believ: I think that explains it pretty well. You said that you recently, you’ve been focusing on, another way of healing. And you mentioned a word, another download that you had that it had to do about super conscious and I think it sounds very awesome.

Can you explain what is super conscious?

Doron Yitzchak Gibor: Sure. Funnily enough the super conscious wasn’t really a download. So the reason that I went to Columbia specifically to Sam is because I was going through a very tough time. I had just come out of a very abusive relationship.

And I was in a very tough place. I had I’ve been dealing with PTSD for over a year and PTSD has hell. PTSD is when images very traumatic, images just stay stuck in the front of the mind. And they don’t get filed away. So it’s there’s a haunting that goes on.

And I thought to myself, okay, I need to deal with this. And I had employed every healing capacity that I could think of. And nothing was really working. And I decided that I wanted to I wanted to drink medicine again. And I wanted to do it more than once or twice.

So I found Sam, and I was like, okay, four ceremonies that should do it. I think. So I got to Columbia and basically I got told in the experience that like, we’re not gonna deal with that. We can do anything. We can talk about anything you want. We’re not gonna deal with that.

And I felt very I don’t wanna say betrayed, but I was like very disappointed. So I got a lot out of it. I got a hell of a lot out of it. But what happened much later about five months of February, March, April, may, like four months later, is that I was able to tap into a part of the mind called the super conscious mind.

And then once you tap into the super conscious mind, depending on what a person’s dealing with, the healing is absolutely instant. And and I’ll explain why. So essentially there are three parts to a person’s consciousness. There is the conscious mind, there is the unconscious mind. Let’s call, let’s just say unconscious and subconscious are the same thing for this example, because they’re not conscious.

But that duality of mind, conscious and unconscious, that duality of mind only happens when the soul’s in the body. And I’m sorry, to people that don’t believe in a soul, it’s just go listen to someone else. When the soul’s not in the body, the duality goes away. There’s no longer a duality of mind.

There is just a singularity of consciousness, and that singularity is called the superconscious. So if you had to think of a yin yang, you’ve got like the white part with the black dot, and you’ve got the black part with the white dot. So that would be conscious mind, unconscious mind, but the super conscious mind would just be a white circle where these two parts fit in.

And so the super conscious mind is really phenomenal because it works very much it works very much like artificial intelligence, and it’s not artificial intelligence. It’s infinite intelligence. And it’s basically the way that you can look at it is that the conscious mind wants a quality experience. It wants that pleasure and not pain. It wants to have abundance and not lack it wants to have a quality experience.

The unconscious mind is not interested in the quality experience. It wants a quantitative experience. That means it wants nothing new. It just wants familiarity. That’s why you’ve gotta do things over and over and over and over again in order for your unconscious mind to receive it because the newness goes away.

The super conscious mind doesn’t care about quality or quantity. It’s it’s completely, it’s both those things are irrelevant all at once is an experience. It’s just, it’s completely, neutral in terms of whether your experience is good or bad. It just wants to have a human experience. The thing is that this consciousness, the superconscious the singularity of consciousness it’s extremely powerful.

And so what I’ve been grace with for the past seven months or so, is this ability to tap into this super conscious mind For those that follow Joe Dispenza it’s basically connecting into the quantum field, but staying there and communicating with it to the point that it actually does things.

Yeah the healing stories that I can tell are like quite miraculous from relieving PTSD on myself and other people to to. Healing children. There’s been crazy stories of like children, like the younger that the younger the child the more instant the healing.

So the ones that stand out for me was like a 2-year-old with a 40 degree temperature, 40.5 degree temperature, which is like 105 and Fahrenheit. High blood pressure and trouble breathing after a 15 minute meditation, the child like would basically just became okay, temperature went down, blood pressure leveled out, breathing, not regulated.

It was phenomenal. And then another one was a baby that was less than a month old that healed from meningitis in five stages. First it was the pathogens in the brain, the bacteria, and then there was swelling of the head. And then there was abso gut ab food absorption, sorry, food absorption and increasing gut flora.

Then there was a very high temperature also, and then there was a certain protein in the blood called C-reactive protein. It’s called A CRP counts, and for normal people it’s like below one, it’s like 0.5 to 0.8. With this child, that was 5.0. And so that also came down and all this happened over the space of 10 days.

So each each meditation, cause one, one thing to go down at a time and now the baby is fine. So that, those are just two things that stand out, but just really also I’m able to do an accelerated form of shadow work because that’s my expertise. I’m able to pull one of these shadow beliefs that I mentioned before.

That are really responsible for a lot of pain and suffering that, and that a person’s going through with that. It may not be like top of mind, but like a deep undercurrent of of anxiety and to literally like, turn it down the same way that you would turn down a the dial of a volume, from whatever lever is down to a zero.

It’s a very profound thing. I now understand that the reason that like I wasn’t able to access anything on the retreat when I came here was that if I if I had achieved the healing that I was looking for, then I would’ve stopped looking for a solution to my problem.

And I obviously had to access this new modality.

Sam Believ: That makes a lot of sense. Sometimes. This is how we are guided by universe through, through some form of pain. And then seeking the resolution of the pain. Dorin I, last question. So first of all and when you were here at the retreat the, one of the reasons I wanted to interview you is because I learned a lot from you and I remember we were having a pretty difficult retreat.

Once in a while you have a retreat where there’s certain people that are going through very tumultuous times and they the emotions come up on the surface and they affect other people. And as a facilitator, I always had this desire to smooth those peak and make the experience as positive as possible.

And there was a moment where. It was no longer possible. And you said something that really stuck with me still today, and I still use it in my practice, which is everything that happens at Nyas treat is for a reason. And it not necessarily has to be positive. Sometimes the negative things make this the impulse to, to growth and improvement.

And it really helped me and really made my work easier. And I’m trying to explain it now to people even before the retreat begins, that this is a possibility and we have to accept that negative emotions of another person can be a trigger for something to come out from you and be processed.

And it was really profound. I remember when you were here at the retreat, it was you’re very limited with with the ability of things you can do because of your religion, right? You are a Hasidic Jew. Is that correct? Correct. And so correct. My last question is how do you combine your religion with your spiritual practice as well as plant medicines when you do them occasionally.

And what is your larger outlook on plant medicines and its role or potential role in, in religion?

Doron Yitzchak Gibor: Sure. Okay. I can talk a lot about this, but I’ll try to be concise. So first of all, in Pacific Judaism, just like in any other religion, there are going to be people that are pro these experiences and these modalities, and there are gonna be people that are. Violently against them and quoting scripture and saying how forbidden it is.

So it’s no difference within Hasid Judaism. I’m at a place now where I don’t care anymore. I don’t care. Who knows? I don’t care who hears about it. I think personally that I bring a lot of legitimacy to this work because I’m a I’m a sort of, let’s call it high level coach or executive coach, or whatever you wanna call it.

I’m not, like I speak about things that work and I help a lot of people on a very like broad spectrum. I believe I bring a little legitimacy to this type of work. Having said that, there are people that will that will, think the worst of me because of because of the specific area.

But like I said I just, I don’t care anymore. I don’t care anymore. I’ve gotten so much from from Ayahuasca specifically. I’ve got, so I’ve gotten so much that I feel it would be ungrateful of me to not give credit where the credit is due. Now, to answer your question specifically, I can get really deep in this.

But I’ll tell you just for those that doing a little bit of scripture. The whole human game is one of consciousness and specifically within Judaism within, let’s call it ancient Judaism everything was about, consciousness, or some people call it knowledge. So the tree of knowledge, which is not what it’s called.

It’s called the tree of knowledge of good and Evil. So it’s actually a tree of judgment. So that tree of knowledge is called a is tree and of knowledge is that, and that is the word for consciousness as well. It’s within the capitalistic spheres that are within the tree of life. And everything really is about intention and consciousness in its essence.

Okay? We’re told that with the ascension of consciousness or the messianic redemption, that there will be just, that there’ll be an ascension of consciousness. So this all boils down to this now. What the ingredient that is contained within ayahuasca that does all the quote unquote magic is a molecule called dimethyl or shortened into DMT.

And DMT is a native compound that exists. It means it exists in the body. That’s also why there’s no crash from ayahuasca is because your body produces the empty natively. It’s not like when you put something else into your body that, that you get this experience or this this

elevation.

If you take that word pineal and you,

Doron Yitzchak Gibor: It says that, it says in in one of the books of the of Genesis that Jacob fought with an angel and he won and then the an and then he asked the angel to bless him, and then he called the place pineal. So who was his angel that he fought with?

He, it says that it was the ministering angel of his twin brother, Esau. Now, because Jacob and Esau came from the same womb, they are the symbols of yin yang, of good and bad. And so who would as, who would Esau’s ministering Angel be? None. None other than himself. The angel, because second’s an angel that is in charge of all evil.

So when it was time for Jacob to do his own shadow work, he did on a spiritual level, because it says in the scripts that he was left there by himself and then he fought with, and then he fought with someone. So how could he fight with someone if he was left by himself? Because this aspect of self is a deep aspect.

And so he did his, he fought with his demon, so to speak, and then he got named Israel. So Jacob is also called Israel and the children of Israel basically came out of Jacob. It’s got two names, which in itself is a polarity. So if you take the numerical value of the Hebrew word for Jacob, which is yaakov the numerical value, and you add it with the numerical value of Satan, which is Satan, then you get the numerical value of Israel.

Israel, which is like crazy. So the lower part of Jacob of Yaakov and the, and his own integration of shadow self, let’s call that Satan. When you combine this person and this darkness, and it gets integrated to the point that he not just, he didn’t just conquer, he didn’t just beat this angel in a match.

When he beat him, it wasn’t enough that he beat him. He said, now, bless me. And the blessing he got was like he actually called him. Your name will now be Israel. So the numerical value of the person plus the dark side equals the numerical value of the name, that blank where these tribes came out.

And this whole legacy and heritage came out from this name called Israel. So that just, it shows like how important this aspect of the integrating the darkness within integrating this own part within myself, how important it is now. He called the place pine, he called it in Hebrew’s pen, which is face, and then L is God.

So the face of God. And he actually says, because I saw God face to face and I and my soul was saved, which is how a lot of people talk about Ayahuasca ceremony. He then when they got down to Egypt, he then planted acacia trees. Now, for those of you that don’t know Acacia, the in Acacia leaves are one of the highest sources of DMT outside of the Amazon.

And some people say that the Acacia has got even more DMT than the bushes in the Amazon, the Ja and the chili conga. There’s actually more DMT in the Acacia leaves, and it just happens to be that the tabernacle that was built, that the Jews carried in the deserts, that where Moses and Aaron would like actually speak with God.

This was made out of acacia wood. So the woods that made the tabernacle where this, where man would interact with the creator of the world was made out of a wood that contained within it. DMT. There’s all of these different clues that you could look at them as. Coincidence or not? There is a documentary that I’m sure a lot of people have heard of called TMT, the Spirit Molecule, which is itself, is like a, it’s a paradox because a molecule is something physical and spirit is something non-physical. So it’s called the spirit molecule.

And there, there’s this there’s a guy called Joel Bt I think he’s called the psychedelic rabbi. But he speaks about, he brings a whole new, a whole different perspective on the subject, just in general. That’s, it’s a really good documentary with watching.

Sam Believ: Yeah. So I’ll share my own worldview that I’ve formed about religions and psychedelics and I’m glad you mentioned the clues and I didn’t know the judo, the Judaism side of it because I’m not aware of of that, that much.

And it’s fascinating to learn because same as with, the early shamanistic religions of Europe and the a Musca and the whole Santa Claus story and the reindeer. There’s another clue there that also ties to psychedelics. Then the early Christianity being a cult that came out from the cult of ssis, which used a psychedelic sacrament as well.

Originally. I think that if we go deep enough, then there’s definitely some kind of connection and when you drink ayahuasca, sometimes you see entities very similarly resounding, the ones that are described in the Bible with many eyes and angels and archangels. Not the pretty version of them, the one with the wings, but the actual sort of mo monstrous looking presence.

I’ve seen them myself and it just kinda shows you that there’s the root of a lot of religions might have something to do with psychedelics because basically, of course we have a natural ability to get there. But I think that those substances definitely helps. So I think that religions are, in my opinion, and I might offend some people, maybe even you, dorin, I’m sorry, in advance.

I think religions are languages and the God is is and they’re all trying to describe God with the different languages. Like you have a water in a pool and you can say water, you can say AWA, or you can say ADA or ens, and those are the languages I, I speak in and none of them are correct or none of them are necessarily wrong.

They just describe the same thing and you can, and I think psychedelics. They also point to the same direction. And we just need to sorta find a way to, unite them all in, in one given understanding. But then obviously religion has sad connotation, which is the political aspect of it and control aspect of it, which then results in wars and, we’re not gonna go into that topic.

It’s now it’s too far away from ayahuasca, but the, there’s definitely, it’s a fascinating topic to explore. And I’m glad we got to talk a about it a little bit. So we’re we’ve talked for more than an hour now. Do, and by we, I mean you, because I allowed you to do most of the talking, which was really interesting and fascinating.

What are your parting comments or something you wanna tell two people? On the topic of ayahuasca or your work and most importantly, where can people find more about yourself during?

Doron Yitzchak Gibor: Cool. Thanks, Sam. So what I have to say to people is

don’t push it. It’s a very big step and you don’t, the best scenario is that you arrive at a ceremony. While you may be scared for your first time and that’s okay, that you’re sure that you want to be there. That’s, I think that’s the best thing. And I think that’s also the best thing for facilitators is that they don’t want someone that’s I dunno if I should do this.

And then, ’cause it can be challenging and there’s gotta be a lot of resolve I heard someone once say that you don’t drink because you want to, you drink because it’s your time. So that’s number one, is that it’s really important to be sure. I don’t convince anyone to drink medicine, and I don’t convince anyone to do shadow work.

They’re just really big experiences that have, that have the potential to change life so drastically that you’ve really gotta be ready for it. That’s number one. Number two, if you do decide to do it there are three parts, and all parts are equally important. The first part is preparation.

The better you can prepare your body and your your mind, but mainly your body, the better it’ll be for the experience. So that means the preparation diet is absolutely crucial like it is. It’s, there are no words to describe how important it is to prepare your body. So that means refraining from caffeine and whatever the outline there’s a few different schools of thought of, but what’s allowed and what’s not allowed.

But I think everybody agrees on no caffeine, no alcohol no processed foods and things like that. So the preparation is very important. Some people actually go through some sort of like sugar withdrawal in the preparation, and they get to learn things about themselves they didn’t know before.

The second part is the actual experience itself. And what’s really important there is is not just set and setting that’s very important, but a safe place. And that’s really up to the facilitators to provide a safe space. And for all those for all the facilitators listening the safest place is the one with the most rules, which is it may seem contrary, but the more rules there are that get complied with the safer it feels for people because there’s different levels of vulnerability within any group.

The third part, and again, no part is more important than any other part, and that is the integration that the person can go through such a change in consciousness and such a change in paradigm that they begin to change at warp speed, and all of a sudden they find themselves. With not much in common with their friends as they, they had before.

They find themselves wanting to listen to different music, wanting to eat different food, wanting to do different things in their spare time. And some people are not aware that change can happen on that level, and they find themselves wanting, like, why is my life changing so much? Why is my life changing so much?

So it’s really important to, to to have some sort of integration that I think personally is highly underdeveloped and highly under cater for in the medicine world. So those are my, my, my parting words. I would like to, I would like to mention and to offer anyone that wants that.

I have on my website a model, a module of of plant work integration that you can find on my website, breakthrough matrix.com. Just, one word, breakthrough matrix.com, and there’s a lot of free stuff there. Just in general, my, my coaching philosophy in its entirety is essentially good to be an integration model for psychedelic work because it deals with the technicalities and transformation.

And in order for a human being to transform, you can either do it consciously or you can do it psychedelically. The rules still remain the same rules. So there’s a lot of free stuff there because I want to get the things that I’ve learned out into the world. So there’s a lot of free stuff and a lot of there’s just, there’s a lot of free material there.

But like I said, there’s also a a particular module for plant with integration that is free and you can check it out.

Sam Believ: Dorin thank you. Thank you for mentioning the aspect of integration, which is very important as I just did an episode on it as well, which is probably gonna come out together with with this podcast episode. I do believe integration is very important. Guys. Check out doran’s website breakthrough matrix.com.

Correct?

Correct. And Dorin, thank you so much for coming. I think it was a very fascinating episode. There’s a lot of things that we spoke about and a lot of wisdom. I definitely feel my mind being compelled and engaged with all those topics. And there’s a lot to explore. Thank you for coming on the podcast and thank you for sharing the wisdom.

Guys, you’ve been listening to ayahuasca podcast.com. Our guest today was Doran Yack gi. Once again, the host, Sam, the founder of LAAS Retreat. If you wanna learn more about our retreat, go to laira.com and I will see you and hear you in the next episode.

In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ of LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat interviews Wingerts family.

They came to experience Ayahuasca with the entire family and had amazing results to overcome a family trauma.

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to aya podcast.com.

Hi guys, and welcome to aya podcast.com. Today we have a very special guest group, which is a German family. What’s your surname?

Wingerts family: Vingettes Vineyard. The

Sam Believ: vineyards. The vineyards. This group, they all came together. So Catherine here the lady in the middle, she. Came to our retreat eight months ago.

Wingerts family: Yeah. In February. Just in February, eight,

Sam Believ: nine months ago. And she had great healing and she discovered some family trauma. So they all came together to dig deep. And their retreat just came to an end yesterday. And we wanted to just sit down and talk about this beautiful process of healing the entire family and how.

How does it look like when you come to an Ayahuasca retreat with your family and what happens and how, because I myself must admit, I’m jealous that you are doing this because so far I wasn’t able to have all my family together and most of my family drank ayahuasca already. But it’s a dream. This is a dream.

So I think world deserves to know. So with no longer a do, guys, first of all, welcome and Catherine. How was your original experience here and how did you get the idea to bring your family here?

Wingerts family: So my original experience was, of course, intense because I had experienced a family trauma that I had forgotten, but I had completely suppressed during my childhood.

So it was of course a very shocking moment for me finding out about it. But at the same time, a beautiful healing process. I stayed here for two weeks, which was also needed. And yeah slowly transforming the illusions that I had about my past life, like making this transformation. And I realized.

During that healing process, of course it’s my healing, but at the end it’s a family trauma. It’s a general generational trauma. What’s needed is to heal our relationship as a family as well. So it was interesting and in one of the ayahuasca ceremonies I had some kind of vision about it or some kind of ideas, but it was like, yeah, for sure.

No, this is not gonna happen. If I ask my parents to join, they will think like I’m crazy to take them to Columbia to drink. Ayahuasca because also they didn’t know so much about it. My siblings maybe that was more likely. But to have us sitting here like that, I had would’ve never have expected it.

So during this year, we had an very intense healing process and there was a lot of bravery from my parents’ side because they are from a different generation, whereas in, in our generation, it’s more normal to talk openly to. Start therapies to start alternative healing methods. And I guess the idea just developed throughout the year while our family grew.

Personally, each one of us, I feel like had the individual healing process and then family healing process. Our communication levels changed. We started to express more emotions, more deep talks which in German culture obviously is nothing nothing usual and nothing that we grew up with.

And the, I think the actual idea or the actual question started in, in August, Hey, let’s go to Columbia. Let’s celebrate Christmas a little bit away from home. And the place that I trust. Did most with all my heart was of course Lara, where I had a beautiful experience and a very important healing experience in February.

And then it was quickly decided and they said yes, and I was like let’s book it immediately. And it’s, yeah, it’s, it has been amazing the whole journey.

Sam Believ: So for you personally when you first thought about it, and then now as the retreat is over. Has it has it been similar to what you expected or less or more?

And what’s your satisfaction level with making this all happen?

Wingerts family: A hundred percent. I would say it’s hard to think about what to expect because I really tried I knew it would be important. I knew this week was probably one of the most important weeks for our family, but I try to not specifically think about what will happen.

But I’m completely satisfied, relieved, happy of not only like my healing because this is part of my own healing, but also see the faces of my family, and to see their processes, experience oh, what do they go through? And not only during the ceremony, but also in the sharing circle. Like how.

We were all able to express ourself, how we learned like that it’s, maybe this is the new way of family life. Maybe this is what we want our family to be like, to sit to openly talk about how we feel, what our problems and change the whole family dynamics in that way.

Sam Believ: Word circle is a useful tool.

Let’s pass the microphone to the head of the family. Yes. How old are you? I am 64 years old. 64. So I say you’re double brave ’cause you’re older. You come from a different generation where, I can imagine, ayahuasca is considered a drug. And where did you find the bravery and compassion to, instead of.

Like most people would be like, oh, this is, you have trauma. This is your problem. Leave me alone. Instead of embracing it and then actively working on it and coming to the other continent. The drink, I ask tell us about this process.

Wingerts family: Yes. The point was that if we heard this fact from Catherine and Catherine explained also a lot of things about alternative medicine and for me was very interesting to listen this and to hear.

What’s happened with body and so on. And generally in our family, we are more and more open Yeah. Because of our children that we were also very close to this generation and all our children were in foreign states to study to travel. And so I think this from our mind we are also very open.

Whether we are a totally different generation in our, when we were young, everything was closed. Only in the family don’t you have to shame and not to open to third parties and so on. And for me was we had a good connection permanently to south America. And also to the indigen medicine.

And so I think it was not so a big barrier for us to go back to make the ceremony. And at first we made it also it was not the first but the second, but very intensive. And this week was for me, also an absolutely new experience. Because very intensive, about six days with a complete family and with a very interesting, nice group.

Yeah, your service was absolutely professional. Also, the tides was very good. Yeah. And. Now, at the beginning I was also, yeah. What will happen in this week? Yeah. Because I, I came on from the job and what will happen, but after the third I was absolutely relaxed on, very free.

Sam Believ: So from your point of view, as a father of the family.

How do you observe the change in the family? How does it feel, the connection in the family? After this week,

Wingerts family: we are much, much more closer together and open. Yeah, open discussion we had also, but I will, looking what happened, we are staying now here for the next two weeks and we will discuss about this.

To share our experience with this week. We have now to work on it. By myself a little bit and then to share it with my children. But it was a great experience and I think a very good step forward.

Sam Believ: I’m really proud of you and I’m a little jealous that I wish my dad was like this and he was here also drinking medicine with my family.

’cause unfortunately my family is very far away from that. But I’m also gonna be working on something very similar. Let’s pass the word to the mother of the family uta. How was it for you, UTA? How did it feel? A little closer.

Wingerts family: So I was very nervous when I came here first yeah, about,

I already felt safe when I arrived here. Professionals, they are net they mute. Everyone was very professional and put a lot of effort.

So I very quickly was able to just focus on myself. Yeah.

And I was very surprised how quickly I found a connection with Ayahuasca,

and it helped me personally and also our whole family.

So we learned how to observe our emotions more and also how to express our emotions, and that is really something that changed within the family. Yeah.

Sam Believ: Was it difficult for you to. Embrace the concept of ayahuasca or to start sharing with your family? Was it difficult or did it come naturally?

Wingerts family: Concept from ias.

So eight months ago I started to get into the whole topic of it was as well.

So before I hadn’t heard about Ayahuasca at all, and but in this environment it was really easy to embrace it.

Sam Believ: Donkey Sean. Okay. Let’s pass the word to the, you’re the older brother or the. Younger, second, oldest Second we do miss one family member, so this needs to be fixed next year. Next year. But meanwhile was it what did your Ayahuasca experience also began with The, with after Karin experience, or did you also try this before and how do you observe as a child, your family and the change in the family and, yeah.

Wingerts family: I wasn’t aware before of it. I remember when Kain told me the first time it sounded interesting, but it was too far away from me. And then with all the family trauma. I was like, okay, I have to trust I trust my sister. She told me it was a good process for her. I will try it as well.

And it has been phenomen phenomenal. Journey so far really transformational. Not only for me, but like seeing how the whole family, we always had like a super close connection to each other, but now it’s on a different level. It’s even closer. It’s talking about everything.

There’s no, taboos. It’s it’s, it has been beautiful and also like in, in context of personal growth. I have learned so much in the last eight, eight months and this this week was like a nice chapter closing graduation. Yeah. Yeah. For it was graduation. I made it probably like elementary school.

Okay. But yeah. Beautiful experience. Now would you

Sam Believ: recommend this to other families?

Wingerts family: Absolutely. Yeah.

Sam Believ: Yeah. I think more families should do this. I don’t know this, the purpose of this whole video is just to convince every family out there. Collect and come drink. I ask. It doesn’t have to be here.

It’s not about that. It’s about just how great this process is. And including my own family. I’m working on it. Okay. Ana Ian, how is how was your experience and how did you ended up getting dragged into this whole en endeavor?

Wingerts family: So first of all, I feel amazing. It’s crazy how much can happen in one week.

I already thought when I got here oh, I’m really happy to be here in Columbia. I feel quite relaxed. But now, after this week, after all the ceremonies but also just spending time here, just. The word circles, like experiencing the group, I feel like it felt like much longer and yeah, completely different level.

I think there’s so much healing here for sure. And it was so beautiful to get to experience that with my whole family and also see their processes, their growth, and just such a short amount of time. And for me, so it was really interesting, like I heard about Ayahuasca before, but. Mostly like the negative stereotypes or how people say oh, it’s more like a drug, or you just do it for a fun experience or how there’s sometimes people have bad experiences with that.

So that was the only thing I heard, but. Never like that much. I just knew it from Kari and she was been interested in it for a while. And yeah, it’s interesting how fast it can change because a year ago I was like, okay, you should do it. You’re interested. And it, I’m really curious how it’s gonna be for her, but I never would’ve imagined doing it myself.

I think I was definitely scared. Definitely scared of losing control and not knowing what to expect. And then just, yeah, everything changed this year and just seeing her like the first time I remember the first time I saw her after she had all the ceremonies here and even though she’s been through so much and she discovered this huge family trauma, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her more at peace and just really happy.

So I think that was like the biggest factor already to be like, okay, like she’s found so much healing here. Yeah, to change my mind, but also as soon as she suggested it, I think, yeah, I just trusted her because I knew okay, if she thinks it’s the right thing for me, I a hundred percent trust her.

And also coming here I knew like I was. So curious to see it and to, yeah. To just to get, to experience this place where she found so much healing. So I was just, yeah, very happy and very grateful to come here.

Sam Believ: Thank you. So yeah guys, this was Vineyard’s family, right? Once again, I’m really proud of this family.

This is the example that we should all follow. It’s it’s just beautiful to observe for me, I believe in synchronicities when something happens, always for a reason, and I kinda always wanted to have my family. And to do this. And a lot of people they see it the same way. It’s it’s a sign for them that, yeah, this can be done.

You can actually convince your parents because I’m sure it was not easy. It’s always a process and yeah. I believe IC can be great tool. For the family healing. For you guys home, if you been to our retreat before and you, or the concept of the word circles, if there is a family conflict or trauma or any situation, collect them all together.

Make a little word circle and talk it out. That could be a good beginning. And and if eventually you come to the retreat, that would also be nice. I just wish this was more common because we’ve, the wire existed for two and a half years now, and it’s the first time we have such a big family come altogether.

We had mother daughter. Groups. We had mother, son groups. My own mom and my brother and my sister came as well, missing my dad. But to have the hall is really nice and we need more of that in the world. So thank you guys for watching or listening. And I’ll see you in the next episode of ayahuasca podcast.com.

In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with Oliver Glozik on the topics of rising popularity of Ayahuasca, mental health crisis and psychedelic renaissance. 

If you are interested in experiencing Ayahuasca with us visit LaWayra.com

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.

Hi guys, and welcome to ayahuasca podcast.com. As always, with you, the host, and believe today we’re joined once again by Oliver Glick. This is his third time on this podcast and welcome Oliver. And what are the topics for the day?

Oliver Glozik: Thank you very much for having me. And today’s topic is a lot about how ayahuasca is gaining popularity in the west, the benefits from it, the drawbacks as well.

And yeah, how the whole renaissance of psychedelic revolution is happening once again. And also the mental health crisis that we are in most of the part, most of the western parts of the world.

Sam Believ: Okay, so what we have on our hands right now is on one side, a mental health crisis, which is, I believe some statistics go anywhere between 20 to 30% of people in Western society, north America, Europe, that have some form of mental ailment, something like depression, anxiety the conventional.

Medical establishment doesn’t seem to have any solutions. The antidepressants, they only temporarily cover up the symptoms, but the problem doesn’t go away. The numb you down, numb, numb you to life. Plant medicines are on the rise. So we can have the cause, which is the mental health crisis.

And the result of it is a psychedelic renaissance. The constant growth of plant medicines in popularity, which is I think a great solution inevitably. But as of now, the numbers are 25% of people are depressed, but only less than 1% of people have had ayahuasca, and hopefully this percentage keeps going up.

So from your point of view, Oliver as a retreat operator as well, same as myself. What have you observed? In the, as it goes into increase of the popularity. And what do you think? Is the negative side of this increase?

Oliver Glozik: I think the first one’s interesting because we are here in Columbia and the Ayahuasca in some ways is more popular around the foreigners than it is with the Colombians.

And I think it has a lot to do with a lot of celebrities openly talking about their ayahuasca experience. Starting from Megan Fox, will Smith not even Jake Paul, but also. A lot of entrepreneurs thought leaders like Aubrey Marcus, he on last year as well, and very likely as well, that your favorite content creator is associated with some type of telemedicine, whether it’s ayahuasca or magic or like mushrooms because I think we are so over dominant on our left brain that we’re looking to.

Feel again, that we’re looking to become in our body as well. And of course, drugs are a big part of it, whether it’s alcohol, whether it’s some other sympathetic drugs. But then in some ways they offer a temporarily relief from like that over focused part on the left brain. But with these telemedicines, we can.

You reestablish that connection with our body, with our heart. For me, first time I drank ayahuasca, I didn’t feel anything the first three cups. And I think because I was so head focused, always overthinking, always thinking about the next problem. And yeah, these planned medicines can ground us a lot more in ourselves.

So I think that’s one of the. Big reasons for the gaining of the popularity. Also, because so many public figures are talking about it. But I also think it’s, it can be a drawback that it can be something, oh, it’s on my bucket list, or I want to be able to talk to my friends about it, that I did this as well, and.

I think ayahuasca, you should feel it in your heart because you feel like there’s something within you that you want to overcome, something that you, an emotional event that you haven’t been able to process to move past it, but also to create a vision for yourself, to get you to know yourself better on a deeper level, to see your blind spots, but not just something like, oh, I also did ayahuasca.

I can also like. Lead to the over glamorization of the experience and it’s oh, I need to have done it. And I think that’s not the way to do it.

Sam Believ: Yeah. Some of the example of our retreat here, we are as always reporting from Laira the, we. Four types of the retreats. We have four day retreats.

We have one week retreats. We have 11 day retreats, and we have 18 day retreats. So we notice that a lot of people that come for the four days, which is the minimum we provide they come for those reasons. Bucket list or just curiosity. And we notice how much different the groups are when they come for longer than those that come for a short term amount of time because the commitment is not there.

The research has not been done. The intention has not been set properly. So this is the dark side, you can say of the popularization of Ayahuasca because a lot of people do it for the wrong reasons. However, I personally believe even if you do ayahuasca for wrong reasons. There might be a part of you that is actually there bringing you to Ayahuasca for the right reasons, but you don’t have the connection for that part, and paradoxically enough, ayahuasca itself is the part that opens it up.

For example, when I first did Ayahuasca, as I like to say. The reason for it was a mix of curiosity and quiet desperation. It’s like I was curious to do it, but I was also understanding that something is wrong with me and I don’t seem to know what to do. So it, this combination led me to Ayahuasca and Owas was a perfect tool to actually open me up.

And eventually now, years later, I can go back to that event and, understand that a lot of things started from there and my growth and change started from there. But what we notice a lot of times with people account for the four day retreats and the four day retreat, you only have two ayahuasca ceremonies.

It’s important to understand when working with the ayahuasca, if it’s your first time, first ceremony, half of the group will connect. Second ceremony, 75% of the group will connect. Third ceremony. 90% of the group will connect, and then after every ceremony, two, 2% more. Ayahuasca is not magic mushrooms, ayahuasca is not like other drugs because it’s not a drug.

It’s very unpredictable. It’s very unique. It has a mind of its own. And sometimes people come in and they like, I just want this experience. I’m gonna have those two ceremonies, and then. It just happened to be Ayahuasca is not working for them. And then what we notice, whether the those short term people connected or not, some of them, because of the culture that we create at the retreat, where we explain to people, this is not about drugs, this is not about visions.

It’s about healing. Eventually, after having that experience, whether they have connected and had this breakthrough or whether or not. Then they book another one week retreat like few months later because they now understand what it’s all about. So my goal for this podcast, and that’s why I’m going in so much detail, is education about that topic to change the misconceptions about Ayahuasca as being a drug.

Ayahuasca is not a drug, ayahuasca is a medicine. It’s been so for thousands of years. It’s only been called the drug for the last 50 years. And if you come to ayahuasca with that mindset of. And being a sacred plant medicine that will heal you and help you, it will heal you and help you. If you start the communication early with the plant spirit, it will respond.

So first of all, Oliver, what do you think about that and what do you think about my maths, but people and their not connection because you connect to the ayahuasca before you even drank it. The moment you decided to drink it you establish a connection. What I’m talking more about is the breakthrough.

This big bang moment that a lot of people expect from ayahuasca. What do you think about my formula? 50 75, 90 and then 2% every

Oliver Glozik: night? I think the seven day retreats are amazing and because it also allows you to decompress. It’s not just like you come and you are gone right away again, but you have time to go deeper in your intention, discover more things about yourself.

Also, the more I ask you, drink, the deeper you go. Into your own process as well. At the same time, people also have a life, and for some people it’s easier to take off seven days than it is for others. It’s also understandable that for some people they have a lot of respect and it’s I’m not sure if like my first time I wanna go right away for four ceremonies.

And I start off with two is I think. In some cases also recommendable, especially if you wanna take your first steps with ayahuasca, if you want to get to know Ayahuasca. But if you want are really looking for that deeper shift, then I’m a big fan of the one week retreats. But also what you said in the end, the Ayahuasca does what the Ayahuasca does and.

We’ve even had people after one ceremony we’re just like, oh, I’m not even gonna need the second ceremony because I need to like journal. And I feel like I got all the answers that I was looking for. I personally don’t fall into that category, but there are people who then also say Hey, I might come back in three years, might come back in five years.

I looked within, I found the answers that I was looking for. Also many times it’s not that ayahuasca solves your problem. It shows you your problem in some ways even more. It confronts you with yourself. You see the things that you’re doing good, what you’re doing bad, and also shows your path to healing.

If we talk about mental health issues about had a person after a ceremony said I feel like I wanna be closer again to people. And I noticed that people start to become a lot more human through drinking ayahuasca, more compassionate towards themselves, towards others, wanting to create also those non-transactional relationships.

Because a lot of relationships in the West are based on, oh, I did this for that person. What is that person doing in return? And if you always. Calculating you, it’s not gonna serve you. But once you create those deeper non-transactional relationships in your life, you feel like you have a safety net, that’s when a lot of the anxiety, the depression goes away.

So that’s a little bit of a detour. More specifically about the numbers, I think it depends from. The batch of ayahuasca, how much ayahuasca you are sharing as well. Also depending if you’re there for four days or for two days, let’s say you’re there for four days, you can take it a bit slower in the, for four ceremonies, you can take it a bit slower as well.

Whereas if you’re there only for two ceremonies, you. Even though after two cer, two, two cups of ayahuasca, you’re tired, your stomach is upset, you’re just like, oh no, I don’t wanna drink. But then you remember your intention. It’s Hey, there’s a reason why I’m here. And then you take the extra step and then when you take the extra step, it’s also rewarded.

And maybe if you are there for four ceremonies, you say oh no, tomorrow is another day and tomorrow is also Notre Day. And it’s good to have that patience with these planned medicines too. But we do have a lot of people connecting strongly within two nights as well. And we also work with a purgative that on the per, we have a purging day in the seven day retreat where it really cleans out your body.

And it’s also an opportunity for people to drink before the ayahuasca. It’s before the, a short retreat, and that way their body’s really clean when approaching ayahuasca as part of the tradition that we follow. And that way if you do the extra credit, the extra homework, you’re gonna connect more in the two ceremonies as well.

Sam Believ: Definitely. But just a quick sum up from, for me personally. One week is perfect both for the people that are coming for the first time and those who did it before and do ayahuasca once a year. One week is just optimal. One week for ceremonies, if you have done ayahuasca before, several times, you don’t have much time.

All you have is like a long weekend and you want a reconnect or maybe get. Answers for a few questions. You have go for four days if you have not done ayahuasca before or if you’ve done it before and you wanna do a deep dive and go really deep where you have a specific issue to resolve, then choose 11 days or 18 days.

Generally we find that every month, couple people do 18 days, couple people do 10 days, but most people do the weeks. And I think one week is just just optimal. So that’s just a quick word of advice. But reality is it’s not about connection because you are connecting with the medicine.

Even if you’re just purging, you can go back in this podcast and listen. I think two or three episodes ago I interviewed one of the patients and he has. No, he has felt that he has not felt anything during the retreat. He did one week and he thought it was mostly just purging. It was very mild. Then when he came back home, his wife looked at him, he said, she said he changed his kids noticed he changed.

Parents noticed he changed. And then six months after that he realized that, yeah, I, I truly changed. I’m no longer depressed. He messaged me and said, can you send me the wire logo? I wanted to do it. Yeah. Awesome. So you might not even. A lot of stuff. A lot of work with ayahuasca is sub perceptual.

You might not even know that you’re getting the healing, but you will inevitably notice the results. Which, which brings us to the topic of, we’re in the exciting times of psychedelic renaissance. There’s once again, research and psychedelics. There’s once again people, working with psychedelics there is some, loopholes in the laws, which allow people to start retreats and people work with ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms.

They also work with St. Pedro, and people can now finally start to get long-term release. There’s also clinical studies, things like ketamine are being legalized and if done in the proper setting. Provide great results. So it’s a really exciting moment we live in because of that change. And a lot of hope that comes in to, to heal this mental health crisis.

But also it comes with another dark side, and that means that there’s a lot of unregulated space which allows for quick creation of, quick one week sort of retreats and that can bring some drawbacks as well. Meaning like maybe people that don’t wish the best or maybe they don’t respect certain rules or maybe they wanna take advantage of the patients.

What do you think about that Oliver? About that topic?

Oliver Glozik: It’s pretty interesting because in some ways we started out like that, right? It’s Hey, I, we have a I have a thinker here where we can do the retreat. I know a great shaman, I know some people who wanna drink ayahuasca. Let’s bring those three things together and let’s start it.

And we both had the heart in the right place and, you stay committed to the process and we see the fruits of our labors, years. After at the same time. Now looking back on it, it’s also a bit crazy to think about that. In some ways it’s, operation on the psyche of people and for me to just say oh, I know a shaman and I know a finca, and let’s go drink some ayahuasca and I’m going to give you even some advice and some recommendation.

Even though I’ve been like drinking ayahuasca for one year, it’s seems a bit absurd now, looking back on it, I think having the heart in the right place is very important and, it is also very delicate thing because for example, people are in very open states, not just in Ayahuasca, but also in the sharing circles after as well.

And everybody has their projections. I have my projections. And for me it’s very important to say, for example, in a sharing circle, when something is my personal opinion, that it’s like, Hey, this is the way that I see things. Look at it, feel into it for yourself and see if that’s, if you want to take that away with you because, and those are things that develop over time.

And I think that there can be those I. Those problems that somebody who’s just starting out obviously doesn’t have that. If you look at a therapist, he goes to school for how many years before he’s able to work with a patient. And here it can be, I know a title and I know a thinker where we can do some ihu ask a, but I also think in some ways.

You put out an energy and then somebody resonates with that and then it clicks. Because that person who comes to the very novice retreat center, and in some ways he decides to go to that place, he could come to a very well established retreat center. He could go to a luxury ayahuasca retreat center.

He can go to a more affordable ayahuasca retreat center. It can be go to the jungle and drink directly with the indigenous. So I think there’s a lot of a lot of, open market in some ways, which is good. And it goes back to also the responsibility of the participants to think, okay, where do I wanna drink?

Where do I feel safe? And I can say the people who first drank with me also had very powerful experiences and prices were a lot cheaper and they got great results as well. But now from. A little bit more of a mature perspective. It does feel a bit absurd as well that on such important of a topic like mental health, if you then even add maybe thoughts about suicide into the mix and all that kind of stuff, that all of a sudden somebody is in a position that they.

Maybe in the beginning he was like, I wanna help people bring, help, bring people to ayahuasca, and now I have to deal with that person with suicidal thoughts. It can be a lot for the facilitator as well. It’s it’s

Sam Believ: intricate topic. It’s much more complicated than it seems. It’s important to understand that.

With everything out there, somebody have started it someday. Because there does not exist yet, or is in the process of creation, the industry of ayahuasca retreats let’s say the first university was founded, a long time ago, but who was taught in that university? They couldn’t go to university to study.

Somebody has to, it’s like a chicken and egg sort of dilemma. What started first, somebody has to start it. What helped me personally? To feel good about starting a retreat, especially in the, in its very first rudimentary form, as you say, here I’m at the Finca, I know at, I know people who are interested in the healing.

What helped me was grounding myself in a tradition, obviously knowing okay, this person is a shaman and he comes from a family of a shaman and they’ve been doing it for thousands of years, which is really nice and very helpful and is a good start. However I must admit that. The indigenous way of doing things might not be exactly the perfect thing for the modern day people, because in the indigenous cultures, they have other containers which they can ground themselves in after the ceremony or before.

So for us then we. As we started organizing things and getting more professional, we started including more of a Western style integration and sharing circles and talk therapy, and I think nicely grew to the spot where I’m very convenient that what we provide now is a very. Very helping product because once again every year we have close to a thousand people and that talks, talks itself because they absolutely, they message us, they let us know.

But yeah, some, sometimes you get into situations where you get very difficult people and you have to path find and navigate new waters that nobody navigated before. Like when you get a person that is a suicidal and then they’re. They want to they think those thoughts and then you’re worried like, what if, tonight they’re just gonna kill themselves?

It’s it’s a very tricky topic, but with a lot of love, with a lot of care. Somehow it always turns out well. And then a lot of those suicidal people that came to our retreat as a last resort as far as I know, they’re all still alive, which is a really nice thing to think about. But in the end of the day.

We’re not alone. We also have Ayahuasca, which is the main star of the show, which is actually doing the most of the healing. So you have the retreat center, you have the medicine, you have the group, and when you mix the mold together, it brings out that healing, which makes those suicidal people stop being suicidal.

Feel the love of other people in the group, feel the love of the medicine, feel the love of the shaman. The facilitators really. Connect with it and really heal. But yes, occasionally, unfortunately because of how rushed everything is, there are some retreat centers that pop up for a few days or a few weeks or a few months that maybe start with not a best intention.

They just think they might look at as an established retreat center and think look at them. They have all these people and they make all this money. I’m just gonna go and make money. And I think we talked about it in our first ever episode about. How it is facilitating. So guys, go back and listen to it.

If you wanna start, and I’ll ask you to find a lot of wisdom there, but Yeah. And, but the reality is in this wild west of new industry being established the time always shows who has right intentions. And it puts everything in its places. And the good places I believe, survive and get improved.

And the bad places eventually. Nothing gets hidden forever, and they get brought to the clear water and slowly disappear. So that’s on the drawbacks of the psychedelic renaissance. But the posi, the positive side is much bigger because we are really. Desperate in the Western society for some kind of solutions.

And I myself when I felt like I was getting depressed and I didn’t really know the solutions, and last thing you want is to take an antidepressant that numbs you down and also takes away your libido and will to do anything. So having found Ayahuasca and having had that healing experience has been a blessing and then a motivation to spread the word and.

Exciting things are coming. I believe more nicest retreats will be started over the next few years here in Colombia and in the world in general. More and more studies will be conducted that maybe we’ll find a way to explain how exactly does the medicine work, and hopefully as the legalization increases and more places are allowed to drink medicine.

They will not forget the tradition because taking ayahuasca without the shamanic tradition is kinda like taking the roots off the tree. Then it’ll, I don’t know how you can abuse ayahuasca. It’s really difficult because it’s a really tough love kind of medicine, but definitely taking away the tradition will lead to, can lead to a lot of negative side effects.

Oliver Glozik: I’m also like, thank you very much for sharing and a lot of movement because it’s like a new field and so much need for people to find solution for their mental health problems. And for me, I’m more on the conserv conservative side of the spectrum. You mentioned ketamine and then there’s also MDMA therapy and also I believe scientific studies about the benefits of both of these.

As well, and I’ve never taken ketamine, so I cannot talk from firsthand experience. But for me, what I really connect with ayahuasca is what you said, the tradition and that people have been doing that for thousands of years that I met, meet people who’ve been drinking ayahuasca for. Five years, 10 years, 20 years.

And I see how they conduct themselves, how they live their lives, and I get inspired by that. Whereas with with MDMA, I can see that when you take that and you feel all the love, it can get you out of a funk that you might have been in. So I’m not say, and I think everything has its time and place as well at the same time.

Addictive properties. How healthy is it for the body? Is it something that, been there for 50, 60 years? It’s not something that I would want to lean on, not something that I would want my go-to thing to be. For me, knowing that there is ancestral path, knowing that there’s been people who’ve been walking this before me.

Gives me a lot of security in it. It’s not like I’m experimenting with it. It’s not like also they heard about some ketamine clinics where there’s then people are, on the bed and with some white lights and all that kind of stuff. And it’s more about injecting the substance then and taking away the ceremonial aspect of it as well, because the ceremonial aspect is huge when, from my perspective, when it comes to these planned medicines and to not over, overanalyze it again and have all this is how all of this works, but experience it for yourself. Talk with people who have done it. And of course I understand there’s also people who need to see the scientific evidence, but it’s also so much more than just the DMT that you’re taking in.

It’s a connection of the spirit of the plan and following that tradition gives me a lot of confidence. Personally, I’m a bit skeptical about ketamine and then mushrooms and then even people who didn’t do a retreat and add four different medicines in one thing and then after add another in there and this and that.

I’m like to mixing too many things is also something that I’m not a fan of.

Sam Believ: Yeah, it can be very confusing. I have a very similar belief system. My approach to. Medicines, let’s say if somebody calls them drugs, but I have not taken anything that doesn’t have at least a thousand year old tradition.

Yeah. I’ve tried marijuana a couple times. It has ancient tradition. Many thousands of years I’ve had Caliban mushrooms. They have thousands of your tradition. Ayahuasca alcohol, San Pedro alcohol. Yeah, it is some of them you always need to, have be careful when you navigate.

Because every plant is different. There are benefits and drawbacks, but it definitely helps to understand that there has been thousands of years of people doing it. So it’s let’s say they discovered some nice new, fancy psychedelic that you take it once and all your problems go away, but, okay.

What’s gonna happen in 10 years? What about your children? What’s gonna happen to your children? Does that affect your DNA does? Is there? So I’m very skeptical about new stuff and it’s just good to see. Yeah, like here’s a shaman and here’s his dad and his grandad was also a shaman and they drink IO for the life and they live to be hundred years old.

This is really reinforcing, especially those medicines. I like the aspect of the traditional plant medicines with. Pain first, pleasure later. For example, with ayahuasca, when you drink it I would say 70% of your ceremonies will be hard work. Hard work physical purging, mentally hard work.

And then when you go back to your real life, you feel the relief and you feel good. So it’s not an escape thing. It’s not something you will just do on the whi and be like, here I have some. So Ayahuasca in my bar, I’m just gonna go take a cup. There is no impulse. You will never see a junkie under the bridge taking ayahuasca, to escape from Spain.

It is not like this, it doesn’t have that tendency. But with ketamine, for example, if it’s done outside of the clinical setting. People die from ketamine people abuse, things like that. So when you go into this world of medicine slash drugs, because what we’re talking about now is arguably medicines of drugs.

Like whether you draw the line is very personal. But if you go into this world and start exploring, definitely think about it. And of course we are biased because we both run country. The reason I ended up in this work is because I’ve tried it myself, and I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the tradition. I’ve seen young children drinking ayahuasca in the jungle and being the most awoken and the most bright-eyed kids I’ve ever seen, and then everything till the old people.

And I’ve never seen ayahuasca being abused. However, you do see other substances being abused, so just be careful. Do your research. Make sure you’re going to right places, you’re going to drink right medicines. And yeah, be safe.

Oliver Glozik: I got a question for you, Sam. Yeah. Apart from Ayahuasca, what is something that you would recommend somebody to do when they have anxiety?

When they experience depression to overcome that, or people who even come here and have that awe inspiring experience, and then they’re just like, oh, but I’m gonna go home and then I’m gonna be in those fa familiar situations and those familiar situations. And those people, they’re gonna trigger certain things in me.

Apart from Ayahuasca, what are things that you can recommend people to overcome those mental health issues?

Sam Believ: So the, those are the good old advice that, your mom would give you kind of things because when people come to the retreat before they leave, we always say you now have the newly found flexibility in your brain.

You are suggestible, which means this is the best. Time for you to start with good habits. So for example, at our retreat, we always give people an integration journal, which is a journal there you can start journaling. So one of the best steps would be pick up journaling. If you have a thought, don’t allow it to bounce around your name.

Bounce around your brain like a stray bullet. Capture it, put it on the paper, analyze it. And this really helps meditation. Amazing tool. And if you start meditating right after Theoka retreat. You will feel like it’s gonna hit you so much Better. Breathing exercises. Wim Hof style breathing exercises.

Very simple. 40 deep breath. You hold your breath. It’s amazing. It can like. Yank you out of your, I re yank you out of your, negative state of mind very quickly. Ice bath, amazing. And once again, you get into the cult, all the thoughts magically go away. Walk walks into nature, doing sport, going to the gym.

If you are more advanced and you wanna take the plant path. Using rap also really helps to center your thoughts. I’m a big fan of work with tobacco, even taking tobacco, I’m not saying smoking cigarettes, but taking a tobacco and smoking it ceremonially doing cleanses. For yourself also really helps doing plant baths.

Amazing tool I guess hard to find in the western world, but there are certain plants that are very common. Cinnamon, you boil some cinnamon with some lemongrass and it’s already a cleansing plant bath. That really helps sometimes for myself personally, when I feel heavy to sort wash it away.

So all the good habits, everything your grandma told you to do is the kinds of things you wanna do, and in the end of the day. As I like to say, ayahuasca is the gateway. It’s a door to this world of self-improvement, self-growth, and spirituality. It doesn’t, you don’t have to be drinking ayahuasca every day for the rest of your life.

You start drinking ayahuasca, you create relationship with it. You can drink it once a year, once every few years, or when something happens and you need to process emotions quickly. But in between those retreats, the integration that you do, the real, applicable life change, that you do all the good habits that you implement and everything works, including, I know some people that practice religions in a very sustainable way that can also help, prayer can also help everything.

It’s everything you do matters as long as it’s in, in the right direction. And I ask can just be this catalyst around which your healing journey will, will begin. What about you, Oliver? Do you have anything to offer to, to add to that list?

Oliver Glozik: You have a pretty long list, and all of those are absolutely great.

What can I do right now to get rid of that anxiety depression that I’m feeling? And a lot of times once you start moving, once you start exercising, then you’ll start feeling better as well. What I found for myself is also in some ways recreating a different identity. Before I was comparing myself a lot to others, to their pro progress.

My progress, how’s that person doing? Always like evaluating where do I. Than in the social status and all that kind of stuff. And if you are, when I had those thoughts, like no wonder that I’m anxious, no wonder that I’m feeling judged and to, it was a big journey for me to. Myself to find myself on a deep level to accept myself the way I am, and to not have my self worth de dependent if that person says yes or no to me.

Whether it’s a romantic partner, whether it’s a rejection in business or friendship. So for me, it has been a lot about cultivating that, that self-love and letting go of those. Yeah, those ideas of, Instagram and everybody has a perfect life and how can I play towards it And I want to have that good job so then my parents are proud of me, or the people who I graduated with think that I’m a big shot or whatever.

I think those are thoughts that make us mentally sick and by changing that identity, those ways of thinking, by ways of being one thing that I notice. That people with ayahuasca I mentioned earlier, start to become more human. And that humanness, I think helps with that anxiety and depression because if, for me, I feel very little anxiety I can count it on one, one hand how many times I felt anxiety this year.

And every time I felt it, it was a signal to me that something is wrong in my life. And to feel into it hey why is that person, why is that situation so impactful that it gets me out of my state of inner stability? What does that person, what does that situation represent to me? Why do I think that has such a big impact on my life?

And how can I switch that to create that inner abundance within, to not be dependent on those people situations anymore? And apart from all these tangible recommendations that you shared, I think that in their journey process, which also of course Ayahuasca helps facilitate, has been very transformational for me to overcome those anxiety that unsureness wouldn’t mean.

Sam Believ: Yeah, it’s not just stuff that you add in your life, like good habits, but it’s also things that you take away toxic thinking patterns and also toxic people. If you, if I tell you right now, toxic person who does come in mind from your friend group, if you thought about a name or a face.

If you can just, take your distance from that person because you can come to Ayahuasca to experience healing and heal the trauma, but you can’t heal the trauma that’s being formed. And if you have a friend that makes you feel bad about yourself, then avoid that person. Or maybe have one conversation where you call them out and you say, you actually make me feel bad, and I don’t want that anymore in my life.

Because you can come and drink ayahuasca and feel better and then go back to them. And the reason I tell it is because people come here and then they report. It’s like I came here and I felt so great, and then I had this idea to go visit my sister. And my sister made me feel terrible. And now. I’m back to square one and I feel like coming back again and doing ayahuasca, which of course will lift you up from the pit.

And, but you also need to understand that if you’re doing that work with ayahuasca and you’re investing your time and your money to get the relief, you also need to cherish it and do all the good things and avoid all the bad things too. To allow you to stay in that space. And for those of you who have been to the retreat and have connected and felt amazing, best ever best you’ve ever felt before, what really helps as well to reconnect with that feeling is to listen to the medicine, music, to, meditate and do things that remind you of that experience and hang out with people that you met.

At an Ayahuasca retreat because they will be your family now. They are your, you’re in the same journey, you started at the same time, and you can find a lot of things in common. Me and Oliver, why do we meet up and talk and record this podcast is because he runs an Ayahuasca retreat. I run an Ayahuasca retreat.

We have problems in common and it’s nice to talk about that. So find people who have common problems with them. Remember that we are social creatures and a lot of your healing will come from the group dynamics. And we are very lonely right now as a society. Find thanks for watching.

That is a big topic. Yeah. Find people that you vibe with. Find people that you can talk to. Make your own mini word circles at at home. Yeah. I really love word circles. Like it’s such a magical, such a simple and such a magical thing. Like whenever I have a, any conflict in a team, I just collect everyone.

It’s guys, let’s speak. And if everyone speaks their truth and everyone truly listens, there’s almost no problem we can’t resolve. It’s just right now for us, the communication is missing. If there’s a conflict, people just shut down and they just avoid and leave and go to another environment where the same situation repeats.

But I think we’re losing our topic. What was our topic? Our topic was the

Oliver Glozik: gaining of popularity of ayahuasca

Sam Believ: mental health crisis. The growth of popularity. So it’s an exciting time to be alive. Definitely. It’s a time where I keep saying in the groups when people arrive, like my dad is an alcoholic.

He faced similar problems when he was in his he was young and he was starting to have family and distress, and when he was trying to run away from that pain or from that depression that was starting to form, he chose alcohol. So there was no Alaska back then. He didn’t know better. And he just followed that step and then it put him on the wrong path.

Now we live in the time where you have ayahuasca, where you have yoga retreats, meditation retreats. You have this whole wellness culture and you’re one Google search away from starting to change your life. And it’s amazing. It’s super exciting. Like I’m thinking, what if I didn’t find ayahuasca instead, when I was starting to get depressed, I would, I don’t know.

Smoke marijuana or start drinking a lot, or where would I be now? And it’s like how awesome it is to be alive in this time. And yes, there will be some negative moments. Maybe some people will try and abuse power that I was gives you and maybe try to take advantage of people. Or, my biggest concern is when you work with ayahuasca, people get in a very suggestible state. They really open up. So it’s really important for us as facilitators to maintain that neutral stance where we’re not promoting a specific way of thinking or religion or something like that, because it’s very easy if you’re some, there are some retreats I’ve heard about where the leader is a bit of a narcissist and they make it all about themselves and statically create like a little.

It starts to get like a cultish vibes. I’ll answer that later myself. But the tricky question for you, Oliver, what’s the difference between a cult and an AYA retreat?

Oliver Glozik: I think what’s important for me is to remind people of their power. That I like to say, we grow up and in the beginning we start to listen to our parents, then to school, society, university, whatever.

And now it’s not about now you need to listen to the shaman or to the facilitator or whatever, but that you discover your own inner voice and have the courage to follow that. And I think in a cult is more about putting the next person on the pedestal and he has all the answers and he has all the answers for your life.

But who is that person? To have the answer for your life, you need to connect with that own inner mastery, with your own intuition. And deep down, and sometimes it can feel more like a saying that you know all the answers are within, but what I ask you can remove, start removing that conditioning and figure that truth out within yourself.

And yeah, it’s for me too. Know that everybody ha carries that divine spark within them. And I want to cultivate more and more of that divine spark within me. So it inspires others to find that divine spark within themselves. And they don’t, they’re not gonna need me to solve their problems because they found that connection towards themselves.

And I think that’s, the way I see the differences is if the I was retreat is

Sam Believ: run in the right way. Great answer because we have not rehearsed that one. So I would explain the same thing, but only with different words. With a cult or a religion, you have a person that had a sacrament or had a vision, then they write a book and now you have to blindly believe in their vision or in their truth or in their interpretation of the divine.

At an Ayahuasca retreat, or especially at the good one, you are the ones as patients who are having the sacrament. Then you come to us in a word circle after the ceremony, and then you tell us what and you tell us about how the universe works. So nobody at, and if you come to any other retreat, and not our retreat or Oliver’s retreat observe that if somebody is trying to, the flow of information should be going from.

From the group participants to the organizers. So ex, except from obviously the organizational part they should ex teach you how to navigate your experience and stuff like that. But if you come to a retreat and they tell you what to believe in or use a certain me reli, reli religious methodology, or.

They might, basically guide you in some direction that feels foreign to you. This would be the red flag. So when you go somewhere, make sure there is there’s space for you. The good test would be no matter what religion you’re from, no matter what you believe it must all be acceptable because I do believe that all the religions, they talk about same thing, but in a different language. So I believe that we covered the topic pretty well about the growth and the, it is exciting, guys. It is really exciting and I think good things are coming for us as society. I do predict that within the next 10 years, we’ll go from. What is Ayahuasca to?

When’s the last time you did ayahuasca? Like it happened with the meditation? Yeah. I do dream of a world where one day we wake up and everyone has had ayahuasca, or at least similarly compatible experience, and people are more loving and more open. I’m an optimist. I believe it’ll happen and life will be great, but.

Maybe not. What do you think, Oliver? What do you believe

Oliver Glozik: in? It’s interesting because my mom is a yoga teacher for more than 25 years, and when she started yoga was. Not a thing in Europe it’s oh, okay, you do these poses or whatever. And now it’s like the most natural thing. Oh, what can I do to feel better?

Oh, try some yoga. And it’s, in some ways it’s like it came from India. Now it’s like the opposite side of the world, but I see it because people are looking for solutions. And if you look for a solution, you find an answer. And it’s obvious that I ask a. Can be that answer. And at one point there’s gonna be the tipping point where there’s, it’s gonna be even more socially acceptable to do it because, there’s people who come through research retreat center who say oh no, I don’t wanna be in pictures.

I don’t wanna have my face publicly be associated with ayahuasca because some social norms. And I can see that changing a lot in the next 5, 10, 15 years, that many people will see that as positive things when, somebody says oh, I’m doing ayahuasca. I’m I’m maybe even go going to a therapist.

I’m doing things to figure myself out to become a better human, and this is the path that I am, I’m taking for that. So I do see, just so I saw yoga expand from my mom in the last 25 years. I can hopefully we’ll see that same development with ayahuasca as well.

Sam Believ: And when that happens, guys, everyone and their grandma will be listening to this podcast.

So you’re the early you’re the early comers, the early birds. So on that positive note, guys, thank you again for listening. Thank you Oliver for coming. Once again, you listen to ayahuasca podcast.com as always with you, the host and believe. If you are interested in attending one of our retreats, go to lara.com.

Lara is spelled on my t-shirt right here. For those of you who are listening and not watching the video, it’s L-A-W-A-Y-R a.com. And thank you for listening, and I’ll see you in the other episode.

In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with Hamilton Souther on the topics of shamanism, growing psychedelic tourism, meaning of life and more.

Find more about Hamilton http://www.bluemorphoacademy.com

Transcript

Sam Believ (00:01.803)

Hi guys and welcome to ayah Today we’re joined by a very special guest, Hamilton Sather. He is a coach, an author, an educator. He wrote a book about ayahuasca as well called Medicine Versus Sorcery. Is that correct, Hamilton?

and he has more than 20 years of experience in the medicine world. Hamilton, welcome to ayahuasca podcast. It’s pleasure to have you here.

Blue Morpho Academy (00:33.442)

Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Sam Believ (00:36.555)

So Hamilton, first question, I know you found yourself in the jungle when you were about 20 years old. What brought you there? How did you end up there? Was it, were you looking for healing? Was it spiritual exploration? And how did you find about Ayahuasca so early, before it was mainstream?

Blue Morpho Academy (00:59.39)

Well, in my case, I had a consciousness awakening in my early 20s. And through that process, I was guided to the Amazon. And so I was already looking for an apprenticeship. I was looking for teachers. I didn’t know in which discipline I would be taught in. But it turned out to be ayahuasca practices and other Amazonian plant medicine practices. And I was led to my teachers. And I’m.

I’ve told the story many times, but they had visions for 10 years in their ayahuasca ceremonies of my arrival before I arrived. So they were kind of looking at me going, why did it take you so long to get here? And I had been growing up and living my normal life and ultimately leading up to that awakening. And so I got sent to the Amazon and I got introduced to ayahuasca when I was in my early 20s. And from the first ayahuasca ceremony, the visionary experience was so profound and consciousness expanding.

incredible that it started my apprenticeship right then.

Sam Believ (02:03.13)

So how old are you now, if I may ask?

Blue Morpho Academy (02:07.563)

I’m 45.

Sam Believ (02:09.251)

45. Okay, so that’s a long journey. It’s interesting. It’s hard to explain to everyday people about this visions and the guidance and the calling. I’ll give one example from my own experience. The shaman that I currently work with, he’s apprentice. A few years ago, he saw him working at our retreat here in Medellin and he didn’t believe him because there were no retreats in Medellin. So it’s interesting how they can have visions and actually they become the reality.

So when you talk about those visions and the guidance that you received, how did it look like? What form did it take for you? Was it a dream? Was it a vision? Was it an advice or?

Blue Morpho Academy (02:54.066)

Yeah, I was at that time a mixture of everything. I think that these kinds of experiences have become more normal as more people have started to go through consciousness awakening experiences and spiritual awakening. But in my case, I came through dreams and I came through meditations and trances where I was able to communicate with greater awareness, greater context of intelligence and that intelligence was able to guide me.

Sam Believ (03:22.103)

So a question that comes to mind is, if let’s say your arrival to the jungle and your journey was somewhat predetermined, in that reality or in that version of reality, how do you find the balance between what is your actual effort and the work you do with stuff that’s predetermined? I mean it can be a little difficult to just, you can just say, you know, I’ve been, my destiny is set and I can just sit in the sofa and relax.

and it will just all play in mind. So how do you find balance in that? Because I know you’re very productive.

Blue Morpho Academy (03:56.342)

And that would be your destiny. I think it’s, you know, what you’re describing is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you say your destiny is set and then you don’t do anything, that’s your destiny. If you say your destiny is set and then you do a lot of things, that’s also your destiny. And so I prefer to think of destiny as being a kind of determination that we have not predetermined. So in our determination, we set the course of our destiny and we change it with the choices and decisions that we make. And so…

there’s kind of a guiding force that can show us a general direction that we’re taking. But you know, maybe I never would have taken the calling and the guys who had the visions would have just had visions and I never would have shown up. That’s also a possibility, but because I followed the calling and I made the choices and decisions, then we fulfilled the nature of that vision and that vision came true. So I think we have a personal responsibility to play in destiny.

Sam Believ (04:52.397)

What if somebody else showed up? Another white guy.

That’s it.

Blue Morpho Academy (04:58.51)

That’s a great question. That’s up to them to figure out whether or not that’s the guy from their visions or not. To figure out that I was the guy from their visions, they put me through a lot of rites of passage and tests of virtue that lasted over a year and a half. So it wasn’t just like, oh, hi, you showed up from a vision. Great. It’s nice to have you here. It was a much deeper form of introspection that required many ceremonies, dietas, and a number of different rites of passage, including the willingness to live there.

prove my worth of their medicine.

Sam Believ (05:31.743)

Yeah, the destiny is also hard to fulfill. Hamilton, I really admire you because you went through the very spiritual journey, but you’re one of the very few people who can actually talk about it and explain with words, you know, what is happening. And so my question is simple, but also not simple at the same time. How do you think ayahuasca works? What it is that happens?

Blue Morpho Academy (06:02.222)

That’s a simple question and a very complex answer. There’s so many layers that ayahuasca is working in. It’s working on the physical body at the brain level of brain chemistry, which is a molecular phenomena. It’s working at a thought and sub-thought level, which is the electrical phenomena or energy phenomena within us. It then affects our consciousness, which goes into our subatomic and quantum aspects of us that is…

barely understood or barely studied at all. And then in the traditions, it’s described in a great mythology, which is how we navigate the realms of consciousness that we explore in ceremony. And so you have these various expressions within the body that are being changed or altered through the consumption of ayahuasca and the ceremonies. And it’s not just drink ayahuasca and all of these experiences happen. You drink ayahuasca and then you also

have guidance in many forms. And so all of that combined is how it works.

Sam Believ (07:07.363)

So Hamilton, you’re also not just a facilitator, right? You did the whole training to become a maestro or a shaman, in some other words. What is the role of a shaman, you know, in this process that you just described?

Blue Morpho Academy (07:25.022)

Yeah, I went through a formal apprenticeship and I was titled as a maestro when I was 25 years old. So I’ve been doing this for a number of years. And the role is a guide. The role is to understand how to know the energies and the different kinds of…

transformations of consciousness that people are going through. There’s the part that you can physically observe, which is the management of the space. And then there’s a part of it that happens entirely in shared visions and your ability to interject yourself into that visionary field that other people are experiencing. And so you have a tangible and an intangible role that you have to fulfill for others. And then if you’re trained as a healer, then your spirit or your energy

can interject into someone else’s visionary experience and also help perform healings. So there’s the role of the maestro that’s purely an intermediary between the energies and the spirits that are part of the ceremony. And then there’s the role of one who’s trained as a healer who actually gets involved and helps also guide and create the transformation of healing.

Sam Believ (08:31.255)

So do you do both sides of this? Or do you have any speciality? I know some shamans or some titans or maestros, they have like a very specific talents that you have. Which one is yours?

Blue Morpho Academy (08:46.706)

I think my talents are more broad and kind of, I think, cover a wider range of spectrum. I was very interested in my youth in learning all of the different skills. So instead of focusing just on one skill and becoming really adept at that, I was really interested in focusing on lots of skills and trying to become the best I could of all of them. And so I learned to be trained as a healer and I also learned to be trained as an intermediary and a support for the ceremony. And I can, depending on the need,

do both. And then I’ve also pioneered new techniques and new understandings of how to be able to manage ceremonies. So throughout my career, I’ve really tried to push the envelope and continue to evolve and really gain as much skills as I can.

Sam Believ (09:32.919)

you’re somewhat of a spiritual polymath.

Blue Morpho Academy (09:38.726)

That’s a fair description. I’m also interested in other subjects as well within the fields of science. So I think in that sense, yeah, I am a polymath.

Sam Believ (09:48.067)

Leonardo da Vinci of Alaska.

Blue Morpho Academy (09:54.321)

Well, we’ll see maybe further in our lives. I’m not sure we’re ready for that.

Sam Believ (09:54.348)

Um,

Sam Believ (10:01.151)

Do in your opinion so you’re a master so you’re a shaman, but you’re also a facilitator How do you find balance between you know obviously running a retreat or several? I know you have a school and many other venues. How do you balance? The business side of it because it is a business no matter how you how you try to do it You need to earn money to pay the people

and then the spiritual side of it, because that’s something I personally struggle a lot with. So I would really love to learn.

Blue Morpho Academy (10:37.006)

Well, you say a business is a business and you have to treat one like that. That’s a sacred relationship you have with government and with other people that are working to make it all happen. And you need to treat them fairly and give them the best life they can for participating and taking their time to support what you’re creating. The sacred relationship between us and our economic pursuits is personal. And so you have to look deep within your own heart and your own soul to decide.

what it is that you’re creating and why you’re creating it that way. And a friend of mine and I were talking today and he said the most important thing in running a business is that you care. And that there are a lot of businesses out there where they just don’t care, it’s just business. And I think when you bring in caring to how you structure the business, then it makes it a lot easier to balance the spiritual aspects of it with the parts of it that are business oriented. And you can also base it on need. There’s a tremendous variation in need within our society, especially economically.

Whereas the spiritual need is the same between everybody who comes for healing. Everyone who needs spiritual healing needs it the same, but many people have a wide variety of resources that they could contribute to that. And the traditional way of handling that in the Amazon is that people give what they can contribute. And so, you know, when you bring in a price and you bring in an idea of a contribution, you can help manage that. And in our retreats, we offer everybody the opportunity to donate more. We treat it as a minimum donation.

to come to our retreat, but if they have the means to be able to support others, we ask them to, and we also run scholarship programs so that we can support other people who just can’t afford to be able to come to the center. But the importance is to run a business that is a really solid one, that has a strong foundation, and has the ability to treat everybody involved in a fair way.

Sam Believ (12:26.835)

And what about, let’s say, you drink Ayahuasca every day and then at the same time you need to go on social media and post and talk to people and do podcasts and stuff like that. How do you find balance there? Because it’s a very different states of mind, you know. I would almost say they’re diametrically opposite. How do you do it?

Blue Morpho Academy (12:51.362)

The nature of working at Ayahuasca is about training your consciousness. And it’s not just one state of being and one state of understanding. You become flexible in your understandings. And then when you come back to the rest of the world, whether it’s social media or business or meetings, there’s another way of understanding, behaving and interacting, and that requires a certain amount of grounding. And for me, it’s often a recognition of why the world needs these kinds of plant medicines.

And so as you say, it’s like complete opposites. You go to something like social media and it’s an incredible form of promotion and a way to be able to link and unite with people who need to even know that you exist. But at the same time, it’s a very different mindset. And so often that just proves the need for these kinds of medicines more. And it also helps to have a team.

Sam Believ (13:43.312)

So you mentioned that the world needs ayahuasca. I absolutely agree with you, but I would like to hear your opinion as to why.

Blue Morpho Academy (13:55.022)

There’s an inherent conflict in humanity that has been in existence for many years. And when you hear people talk about it, and today, like what’s going on in the world now, they just highlight different kinds of things going on in the world that seem like there’s a lot of injustice and a lot of difficulty that people are having. And when I looked at that from a greater historical perspective, I thought it just represents conflict.

People are in personal conflict, internal conflict, conflict with themselves, conflict in their mind, in their emotional state, in their work state, with their families, with their community, with their society, with each other, in their romance. It doesn’t matter. All the media and feeds on conflict, all of the different kinds of series and movies is conflict driven. And so it just seems like this is a pervasive problem that we have in Eastern philosophical studies. They call it suffering. They say everyone’s suffering in one form or another.

And so when I look at the plant medicines, the purpose of them, or one of their purposes, is to help people transcend that kind of suffering. And so I think it’s a great kind of medicine to be able to support people in their awakening and the transcendence of this inherent suffering that it seems like so many people are afflicted with.

Sam Believ (15:09.235)

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I remember when I first started working with the Ayahuasca, I got really excited when I saw the potential and how it, for example, bonds the group. And the same would happen probably to the world largely. So I started dreaming about this maybe moment in the future where everyone has had Ayahuasca yesterday and you wake up next morning. And so imagining how the world would look like. So then I sit down with the calculator and did some basic math.

And it turned out you’d have to give ayahuasca to 200,000 people a day for 20 years in a row. So not very realistic. And also some people say, you know, that not everyone should have ayahuasca. So in your opinion, do you think we will get to the point where everyone is somewhat spiritual and works with some plant medicines or other modalities? And who do you think should not have ayahuasca?

Blue Morpho Academy (16:08.686)

There’s a great evolution in consciousness taking place that is beyond that of just our conscious choices. And so we have to remember that we’re part of Earth and that as being part of Earth, Earth is really the one evolving us. And as part of that globalization, sharing of culture, and with that, there’s the sharing of the plant medicines. And so this is the first time in history that there’s been such a vast way to communicate the sharing of these ideas, which I think is actually something very beautiful in the face.

of a lot of dystopian narratives. People are going to continue to utilize these plants and there’s a great psychedelic renaissance taking place. And so there’s a lot of interest in them. And when that happens, lots of people are gonna take them. It’s important that those people understand the rigors of the responsibility associated with it and have more training and understanding about the profound nature of these kinds of experiences. I think most people could have these kinds of experiences, the people that shouldn’t have them.

are ones that have already different kinds of mental illness where these are inappropriate substances for someone with that kind of mental illness. Or they need to be in a very specific kind of environment where these kinds of plants could be used as a treatment for that kind of mental illness. As in, you also have to look at different kinds of health concerns that if people have blood pressure issues or they have heart issues, et cetera, then they shouldn’t use these kinds of medicines. And at certain age group period of time, like mid-20s to mid-30s,

Blue Morpho Academy (17:37.022)

different kinds of mental illness in your family, it’s better to also abstain from different kinds of psychedelic medicines or visionary medicines during that time. So I think if you look at all of that, you take all of that into consideration, there’s still a vast number of people that could participate. There are people in the billions that could have these kinds of experiences. And some of the profound experiences that they have are generalized awakenings, a sense of greater connectedness to everything, a greater sense of humanity.

a greater sense of heart and generalized understandings of love. And all of those things I think are positive for society individually and collectively. And so I think it’s something that we need to welcome into societies and just instill a sense of responsibility associated to the use of the plants.

Sam Believ (18:27.415)

You said billions of people. When those billions of people are going to come, and a lot of them will come to countries in the north, northwest Amazon, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil. In your experience, as I know you spend a large amount of time in the jungle and you actually live or lived with indigenous people, what was the effect of the psychedelic tourism?

What are the positive sides of that? What are the negative sides? And when the billions come, let’s say, not all at once, but how do we mitigate the negative effects?

Blue Morpho Academy (19:05.57)

The positive effects are really easy to see. First, the indigenous cultures became popular again, including the cultures for their own people. And there was an influx of interest in the cultures, not just exploitation, but actual interest, which is rare and something that’s very beautiful. And there was also an expansive sharing of knowledge, which I think is very important for the world. We have to move beyond certain kinds of tribalism and…

and nation-state dominance collectively. We can maintain that as an identity and a way to understand where we’re from, but the sharing of knowledge transcends that. It’s a human act. It’s a species-oriented act, and we have to understand that. And there’s ways to really pay homage and respect the sources of ancestral wisdom. That isn’t a question of appropriation. It’s a question of support. And an understanding that all of that knowledge from around the world, from everybody’s knowledge.

needs to be brought together for a better species, for a better planet. And I think that the sharing of medicine with people that need that medicine is an incredible gift. These plant medicines are powerful tools. And so to restrict those sociologically and societally, I think is a crime against humanity. There shouldn’t be restrictions to the access of medicine when people need medicine and nature.

the universe, mother earth has provided those medicines for us. And so I think people need access to that. And that’s beautiful to see that kind of access growing in the world. The negatives are of any kind of unregulated space where there’s different kinds of abuses and, um, you know, you hear about them all the time. There’s charlatans in the space. There are people who don’t know what they’re doing, who aren’t trained. Um, you know, and then there’s a variety of other kinds of distortions. And so what’s needed is just.

a greater responsibility from the participants, a greater awareness of who are the people who are doing a really good job and to support them and to stay away from all the different kinds of distortions that are out there or dangers that are out there. And that’s something we can do as a community. That doesn’t have to be something that is even legislated. As a community, we can decide what are the fundamentals that you should look for if you’re looking for a practitioner, a facilitator, or a shaman. There can be a baseline for what.

Blue Morpho Academy (21:29.854)

spiritual retreats and ayahuasca retreats offer as a way of care and safety for you. And if people choose those, then those will be the centers that flourish and those will be the values that we protect.

Sam Believ (21:46.377)

You mentioned people not being trained properly, right? I know you have an academy, right? It’s called Blue Morpho Academy, if I’m not mistaken. If I’m reading it correctly. What is Blue Morpho? Is that a butterfly?

Blue Morpho Academy (21:59.446)

Yeah, Blue Morpho Academy. Yeah, no, it’s Blue Morpho Academy. Blue Morpho is the largest butterfly in the Amazon. It’s the giant one with the beautiful. The meaning of it is vast.

Sam Believ (22:03.759)

It means anything.

Sam Believ (22:09.002)

Okay.

Sam Believ (22:14.347)

Well, talk a little bit about it, I’m sure it…

Blue Morpho Academy (22:15.45)

Yeah, blue morpho has deep meaning. It’s about transformation and metamorphosis.

Sam Believ (22:20.643)

Okay, this is very deep. So because you mentioned training and people not being properly trained, I have encountered situations when people come to our retreat and after one experience, they feel the calling and they, I think, sometimes confuse a decision to go, let’s compare it with medical profession. They sometimes confuse a decision to go to study, to be a doctor with an actual

permission to become a doctor. So they quickly, you know, a few months later, after a few more ayahuasca encounters, they want to start giving the medicine. So in your experience, what is the safe amount of time somebody who wants to pursue that path, what’s the safe amount of time they need to train to? What is the regimen? What do they need to do to properly be able to step on that path?

Blue Morpho Academy (23:20.178)

At Blue Morph Academy, we have four layers of training. There’s the sitter, the coach, the facilitator, and master facilitator. And a sitter coach level training is about six months to a year. A facilitator is a year to two years, and a master facilitator is four to ten years.

Sam Believ (23:40.25)

At which part of time does somebody get the permission to serve the medicine?

Blue Morpho Academy (23:49.014)

But that’s a facilitator level training once they’ve graduated.

Sam Believ (23:49.333)

If any.

Mm-hmm. So the rock we…

Blue Morpho Academy (23:54.082)

So a minimum of two years of training.

Sam Believ (23:58.691)

two years. Okay. That sounds fair. The number I gathered from working with Taitas, the Colombian tradition is always something that has to do with about 10 years, but of course there’s different intensity in the training you can get. What is your opinion on sustainability of ayahuasca as a plant?

I have my opinion but I’m sure people would be more interested to hear from you.

Blue Morpho Academy (24:35.022)

I think the first thing to understand about ayahuasca is that it grows very easily. You can grow it from cuttings. You can grow it from little pieces of it. But it takes a long time to mature. So really good ayahuasca is minimum six years old, six or seven years old. So

People need to plant it. It grows great as a form of local agriculture, although it grows up trees. So you can’t clear cut the forest to plant ayahuasca. You need to leave trees and you need to plant it where it can grow up into the sunlight. A kind of sacred cultivation is necessary and I would prefer that people stop harvesting it from the forest and leave that for the indigenous people who live in the forest. It’s not necessary to go take.

native ayahuasca from the forest, there’s plenty of cultivated ayahuasca. And like I say, it propagates from its own cuttings. And so I think that what there needs to be is a great expansion in sacred cultivation so that there can be plenty of ayahuasca for the needs of the people of the world. And it’s possible to grow enough of it for ultimately all the medicine use and sacramental use that’s needed of it. It just requires dedication and time.

And I would like to see the community really embrace sacred cultivation and insist on the ayahuasca that they purchase or the ayahuasca that they consume, that it comes from sacred gardens where it has been grown and tended with intention and love.

Sam Believ (26:05.875)

Yeah, this is really the beauty of this plant is, as you said, it requires a tree to go around, so there won’t be deforestation. And my taita, taita is the word they say here in Colombia, they use for a shaman. And I know he and his family, they have five hectares of ayahuasca, or jahe as it’s called here in their language, ambiwaska actually in Inga language, that’s an Inga tradition.

What my title told me is a lot of times Zayaska grows where nothing else grows. So it’s actually very beneficial because it is, in the end of the day, it does provide sustenance for the local people because it’s a laborious process and people need to plant it and then take care of it and then harvest it and cook it. And so local indigenous people end up with a share of that.

that if economic benefits that come from all the ayahuasca retreats that might be working with that medicine. Hamilton in one of the podcasts that I listened with you, you mentioned something about nine universal definitions of human consciousness. You didn’t go into that and I’ll be really curious to know because you, if I understand correctly, you found a way to explain

basically everything with these nine definitions. Really curious.

Blue Morpho Academy (27:34.126)

Yeah, for a period of time in my career, I was very interested in the universal states of consciousness, which is something that we all experience or that we all share. There’s so much dissonance and fighting over how we understand things. I wanted to find everything that was universal to all of us. And so in the case of the nine universal states that I found during that period of time, it created a safe place for us to be able to have ayahuasca ceremony. And I call it Medicine World.

And the nature of it was universe, time, eye, consciousness itself, motion, interaction.

Totality or infinity and heart and our decision or choice. And the decision or choices for medicine for safety and well-being of everybody there. So universe time. I, we all share universe. We all share time. We all share. I, everyone has an eye that they understand.

Consciousness itself, we share it, it’s not mine and yours, it’s a ubiquitously shared phenomenon. Motion, the ever evolving, changing. The interaction of that, what we experience, and to your question around destiny, how we change the course of our destiny. Infinity, the totality of everything. And then our heart, which is where we experience our love, we all experience that together.

and then our choice or our decision. And we choose, and that gives us a direction in our life. And we choose medicine and the medicine practices. We choose the beneficial support and wellbeing and healing and love and compassion that we can share through the plants to others.

Sam Believ (29:26.275)

Well, I think I’ll have to re-listen to this podcast a couple of times to understand everything you just said because it is a lot of information. What I am really impressed with is how you were able to just take these nine things from your mind because normally, you know, as you describe, you know, all the presidents and stuff like that, one always gets lost. I’m impressed how you’ve been able to recall it just like this on the whim. And an interesting question is…

So you obviously possess a very high level of intelligence and ability to explain things. Were you always like this or did ayahuasca play a part in improving that and what do you think about general effect of ayahuasca on cognition, on the improving cognition?

Blue Morpho Academy (30:17.806)

I think that over time you can access greater amounts of your own intelligence, but that has to be your own intention. And it’s something that you cultivate within yourself. There are limitations on our intelligence that’s just hardware. It’s just our bodies. And we have to relate to that and understand that. But then there’s also the ability to tap into more of our own innate consciousness and more of our own innate intelligence. And I think that’s what something, that’s where we can use something like medicinal plants.

to be able to support that. And my teachers told me that it was unlimited what we could try to discover. And so awakening our own intelligence was always something that was very important to me. And so I think we can do that. You know, impart ideas like balancing your brain and creating whole brain function. I asked Ayahuasca to make me smarter. I asked Ayahuasca to help, you know, open the nature of my intelligence. And then there’s also a phenomenon where fear in our consciousness.

fundamentally makes us have less access to our own intelligence. So it makes us dumber to ourselves. And we live in cultures that are very fear-based, and so there’s a spreading of that. It’s kind of like its own mind disease, where we shut off our intelligence to stay in a state of collective fear. And our work is all dedicated to turning off that fear and turning on our collective intelligence.

And so I think it can play a role, and I think many of the visionary plants, ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms, San Pedro atruma, those three especially, are incredible at opening consciousness and helping turn on our cognitive capacities.

Sam Believ (31:56.887)

So I have my intention for my next ceremony, which is coming soon. I’ll ask I was going to make me a better interviewer and open my capacity to ask better questions. Because because I struggle sometimes, it’s like, should I continue the thread of conversation we’re going with? Or there’s so many questions I want to ask. And it’s a difficult one. So maybe I was can help. I know you have a podcast yourself. Is that correct?

Blue Morpho Academy (32:28.626)

Yeah, I do. I have one called Blue Morpho Podcast and another one that I’ve been starting that’s on artificial intelligence.

Sam Believ (32:36.679)

interesting. After I finish with this topic I’ll ask you about artificial intelligence. But yeah, it’s more difficult than it seems to ask questions and make it sound good. So

Artificial intelligence, you know, I first stumbled upon it a few years ago with an app called Mid Journey and I was creating a collection of psychedelic t-shirts for a little store that we have at the retreat. And I went into a deep dive into creating art with AI and setting prompts and all of that. And I would spend up to 4 a.m. at night sometimes, till I went into a somewhat interesting state where I could kind of feel…

You know, AI and the way it did things somehow reminded me of, of ayahuasca and like psychedelic states. I don’t know if you have drawn that parallel or like how come AI art tools are so amazing to create psychedelic art, for example, specifically. Maybe you can explain or did you notice that yourself?

Blue Morpho Academy (33:50.514)

I have noticed that I think part of it is the training data and the understanding of archetype. When you create AI prompts, you put in very clear archetypal direction into it. Apple, red apple, a rose, a flower, a man, a woman, a car, et cetera. You use words to prompt the AI that are archetypally very clear.

when you want to make psychedelic art, it can draw upon the training data that it has where different kinds of psychedelic states and different kinds of psychedelic artists have provided content that gives it a mathematical idea, not an actual human idea, but a mathematical construct to mix all of that together. And I think AI is very good at that specifically because the nature of the psychedelic state or the visionary state is a mixing of

colors and symbolism and sacred geometry, et cetera. That’s all part of our consciousness. And so there is a unique capacity for these systems. And it’s important to understand that the systems are using mathematics to mimic. They’re not sitting there, AI is not sitting behind the scene thinking things up, like we dream things or imagine things. It’s not there yet in that capacity, but it is using mathematics that is very good at imitating us. And so that imitation is so good.

that it can even fool us. And it’s a very powerful tool in that way.

Sam Believ (35:21.443)

So mathematics being a universal language and sacred geometry in that art, I can sort of kind of try and piece it together, but maybe over time as we work more with the eye on it and it gets better, we can understand it better. Hamilton, you seem like a kind of guy that can answer any kind of question, so I’ll just go heavy.

Sam Believ (35:50.055)

And I’ll give you my own opinion afterwards because I draw some opinions on that question from people after they come from their ayahuasca experience and they tell us what they have experienced. So yeah, long answer short, what is the meaning of life? Why are we here?

Blue Morpho Academy (36:12.142)

The meaning of life? The meaning of life is a continuous evolution that’s a direct relationship between you and the universe. It’s not something we typically think about, but where your body is also where the universe is. You’re not separate from the universe. To me, the universe is what we would think of as source or divinity or God. We’re the creations of that. We’re manifestations of that form.

And so we as expressions of the universe are living the nature of the meaning of life, which is to be conscious beings of the universe, part of God, expressing our totality. And I think that has been reduced by our cultures and society that have separated us in our mindset from this unique union that we actually have, both with the divine, the universe and spirit. And so I think when we take sacred plants, it helps awaken us to the fact

that we’re actually in this merged state. We’re not separate at all from divinity. We’re not separate from spirit, nor the earth, nor the universe, we’re made of it. And we’re acting that out and we’re part of that. And so a huge portion of our life is really the continued evolution of forces that are much greater than us. It’s not just about us. It’s about the fact that you’re earth at the same time as you’re also an aspect of the universe or an aspect of source. And so I think

The meaning of life is to live life to its fullest, to live it in the best way that you can as you’re continuing to evolve this relationship. That where I think of as Earth as a very, very small amount of time, our Earth life, our relationship with source is a very, very long process. So if you think about it from Earth life, you think 50, 60, 70, 100 years.

If you think about it as a soul, it’s billions and billions and billions and billions of years. And so really this part of our life is a very small part of what we’re living. And that nature of soul is actually something for much greater expanses of time.

Sam Believ (38:21.475)

It’s a great answer and it’s very close to what I have gathered. So here at Lawyra we receive about 700 people every year and then we do word circles after the ceremonies and a lot of people touch upon that topic and they explain what they’ve seen and what they’ve understood. And the worldview that I gathered so far about that and about life and what happens after that is that as you said we are part of one big consciousness, part of God, universe and then…

somewhat that consciousness has a desire to break itself into pieces so that each individual peace, let’s call it a soul, plays the game of life to learn something or as in like a form of entertainment to sort of… it’s kind of like if you imagine God as this entity then my understanding is that it creates those souls to sort of live those lives to kind of watch as a telenovela for them to like…

entertain itself. It’s a very rudimentary way of understanding it but it’s some it’s somewhat like that because when you drink ayahuasca then it all melts away and then all of a sudden you feel like we’re one again but then in that unity it’s almost as if because it’s so united and so beautiful and so homogeneous then it’s I guess it’s kind of boring you know to be almighty and to have no challenges.

So next question after that is, from that point of view, or from shamanic tradition, what then happens to the soul after we die?

Blue Morpho Academy (39:59.15)

What I really liked about the shamanic traditions is that they didn’t have an answer that was the same for everybody. I thought that was first a great idea because every other culture had presented me with an idea that, you know, this is going to happen to everybody. Whether it’s reincarnation or a kind of binary outcome like good or bad is going to happen to you. But in the shamanic tradition, it was first of all, when you die, you become spirit. And now what comes next for spirit?

is more vast than what it was for us to all be human at the same time. And so some people have different roles. Some come back to life, some go to other purposes, some they say just are part of the cosmos. They’re just out in the dimensionality of the cosmos. Some unite and unify with source and divinity again. Some go to live in other places. There’s no limit to the imagination around this. That was what was so beautiful about it.

I think very much akin to that, that we don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s part of the mystery and the beauty of life. But we do know from our ancestors that we can still communicate with, that there is something much greater beyond this life. And so I think of it as a kind of preparation for what’s to come.

Sam Believ (41:13.191)

And what do you think about that sort of elaboration on that topic as some people think that the souls, they come and then they come back if they need to learn and other lessons and as if they go through some form of hierarchy and eventually the soul graduates to then be completely reconnected forever. That’s another thought that I gathered from those word circles. And I don’t know whether they have

the people that tell about it, whether they read it somewhere else before, or did it come purely from ayahuasca, or… So that kind of notion, is it… Does it make sense, or do you think it just comes from ego, to say like, look at me, my soul is bigger than yours?

Blue Morpho Academy (41:55.862)

I think that’s one way of trying to rank them. But I think if you’re doing soul ranking, you’re probably set up for reincarnation. I don’t think you’re getting out by the stories of reincarnation. You haven’t gone through all the ranks levels yet to be allowed to leave, I think. So I’m not sure I would do any soul ranking. I think that the idea of learning things and still having more things to learn is a pervasive theory.

and something that a lot of people use as their personal philosophy. So I don’t see any reason to discount that. I think some people come back here to learn things. Other people here aren’t to learn. They’re here to do other things. Some people are here just to enjoy it. They’re barely learning anything. They really are enjoying it. They enjoy the suffering. They enjoy the moments. They enjoy everything about life. And there are other people who come here to have a really bad time. And part of that’s the responsibility of our own species. And part of it is just, I think,

an aspect of our destiny. And so, you know, I think that, one, we need to transcend ranking our concept of soul and just be glad that we are soul or we have soul. And the next piece of it is decide for yourself in your life what comes next. Decide for yourself what you need to do next. And if you want to transcend coming back to earth for more lessons, then fulfill all the lessons in this life. Like, get the lessons done and then there won’t be any reason to be here anymore.

Sam Believ (43:24.023)

That’s a great answer. Hamilton, I know you don’t have much time. Do we have time for one more question?

Blue Morpho Academy (43:31.822)

Sure.

Sam Believ (43:34.207)

I know you mentioned that regarding shamans or maestros or tithes being humans and also we can sort of couple it together with a bit of tribalism and dark magic and stuff like that. Can you talk a little bit about that and what you encountered in your own journey?

Blue Morpho Academy (43:57.61)

I think the importance is to understand that there’s lots of different kinds of spiritual practices first of all. And you have to decide what kind of spiritual practices you want to be a part of. And there are in the Amazon and in all different tribal parts of the world, what they call light practices and dark practices. And I wrote a book about it, Medicine Versus Sorcery. There’s the nature of the medicine practices, which are all about healing and about the union with the universe. And then…

There are these illusory practices and delusional practices that are about all of these other kinds of magics and things like that. They exist and I just put it out there as an understanding for people that you want to be very clear on what kinds of practices you’re getting involved in.

These are practices that have been pressed down for generation after generation over thousands of years. Just because we come from cultures that don’t believe in it or understand it, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. It just means we don’t have a frame of reference for it. So you want to be careful around it and pick the…

groups of people that you want to interact with that share the same kind of values you do. And, you know, otherwise I think you just know that those kinds of things are out there and you make that decision for yourself. I happened to come from a lineage that healed people that had gotten involved with dark arts and those kinds of practices. And so I learned about them because of that. And I didn’t believe in it at first. I was doubting and didn’t have any frame of reference for it until I encountered it.

And when I encountered it in others and then finally in myself, I understood that these kinds of dark or malevolent consciousness arts or spirit arts exist and there’s just no reason to have anything to do with them. There’s no reason to learn them, participate in them, or perpetuate them. And so that was the decision of our lineage, just to help people who had been negatively afflicted and then move on from it.

Sam Believ (45:51.639)

Yeah, pick the light side guys because the dark side always has a price. The price you pay in the end. I’ve heard some stories about some shamans that took shortcuts. Hamilton, thank you so much for coming. I could ask you a hundred more questions but I know you have to run. Maybe we can do it again sometime in the future. Hamilton, where can people find you? Where can they find your work, your books?

Blue Morpho Academy (46:20.598)

Sure, if you’d like to come on a retreat with us, you can go into bluemorphotours.com. If you’re interested in our academy and our mystery school, either going through the certification programs or our community, you’re welcome to check it out at blue You can check out anything about me and my books and everything at hami

Sam Believ (46:43.331)

Okay guys, check out Hamilton’s stuff, read his books, listen to his podcasts, they’re very interesting and very fascinating. I wish we had three hours to talk because there’s much more in him than it might appear. He has a wealth of knowledge and really, really interesting stories. Hamilton, thank you so much for coming, it was a lot of fun.

Blue Morpho Academy (47:12.714)

Yeah, thank you so much, Sam. It’s a pleasure to be on the podcast and I look forward to another one.

Sam Believ (47:17.399)

Guys, thank you for listening to ayah As always with you, the host, Sam Bileev, and I will see you at the next episode.

Sam Believ (47:29.347)

Okay.

In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with JoQueta Handy on the topics of Ayahuasca and autism, Ayahuasca and gut health, overcoming sexual abuse with help of psychedelics and biofeedback.

Find more about JoQueta http://www.mybrilliantblends.com

Transcript

Sam Believ (00:01)

Hi guys and welcome to ayah Today we’re joined by a very special guest, Joe Katta Handy. Joe Katta is a first of all, psychedelic executive coach, internationally recognized speaker, author, educator, natural integrative health practitioner. She’s a CEO and chief visionary of Brilliant Learning. She’s a co-founder of Handy Wellness Center.

where she practices with her husband Dr. James Handy. Joko Ara, welcome to the podcast. It’s a pleasure having you over.

JoQueta Handy (00:36)

Thank you so much, Sam. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Sam Believ (00:41)

Joketa, your expertise is very wide. There’s so many things we can talk about, but let’s start with autism. I know you’ve done a lot of work on autism. When I first started working with psychedelics, or especially when I went to drink ayahuasca with indigenous people in the jungle, I noticed that their children don’t seem to have that.

that ailment or you know, some might call it blessing or a curse, but they don’t seem to have autism that much. And they do give ayahuasca to their children. So the natural question that came to me, is there a way to use psychedelics, traditional psychedelics or ayahuasca to let’s say help with autism? What do you think about that?

JoQueta Handy (01:35)

I mean, that is so interesting what you’re bringing up. Honestly, I wasn’t aware of that link. I think that’s something that needs to be studied. In my background and my work with autism, and now working with psychedelics, it makes total sense to me. Wow, that’s really fascinating. You got my brain going.

You know, one thing in working with autism, we never use the word heal. Can we improve autism? Yes, 100%. And I have had the wonderful blessing of watching that personally with hundreds of children. Our brain is plastic. Our body has the ability to heal. So in the right environment.

with the right, I don’t want to say medicines, but with the right approaches, we can see incredible changes. So in looking, I guess, and kind of backing into what you were just sharing, I think that it would come from two sides. One of the doctors that I’ve followed throughout almost my whole career is Dr. Gupta.

And what he says is the genes load the gun, but the environment pulls the trigger. And this is what he was specifically referring to with autism. So I think you have two variables that need to be further researched. One, if you have the parents of this children, preconception, drinking Ayahuasca,

then their gut integrity, their toxicity level is already going to be at a much lower level. The body only knows a state of health and so it sees the fetus as a viable organ. So it will dump toxins to that fetus and we have seen this in studies because we see children

with autism come into this world with very high levels of fungus and bacteria and virus and heavy metals. And that’s why we never say that autism can be healed because by the time it’s diagnosed, usually around the age of two, so much damage has been done to the microbiome, it can’t be healed, but it can be improved. So you’re starting with a predisposition

would be my feeling with these indigenous cultures in the parents. And then you’re also not loading the gun, um, in terms of the environment that these children are growing up in. Um, so if it worked, I mean, that would be the two variables that I would look at specifically to see if this is making a change in

the level of autism that is occurring or the fact that it’s not occurring.

Sam Believ (05:02)

I’ll be really honest, Joketa, I probably learned more about autism when I was preparing for this podcast than ever before because I listened to a few episodes you’ve been on. And it’s interesting how you say, you know, you can’t really heal autism, you can only improve it. And also like, do you really need to heal autism? Is it really a…

Is it really just an ailment or maybe something else? Because I believe you say autistic people are here to teach us. And this is really interesting. Can you tell our listeners the story of Weston?

JoQueta Handy (05:40)

Oh, I love to. I always get emotional when I talk about Weston. He was, he is my greatest teacher. So we first met when he was about five years old, and he’s now 28, 29 years old. And when he was introduced to me, he was nonverbal.

He had probably the worst nystagmus I had ever seen, which just means that he couldn’t hold his eyes still. They rapidly moved. He was wearing his clothes backwards. He had on no shoes. And he didn’t even have sounds that you can make out like a yes or no. They were more just very primitive sounds of almost grunting-like sounds.

Um, and he wouldn’t allow me to even get close to him in the treatment room. So I say the way that our relationship began was through tapping. Um, there’s a form of therapy that’s used with stroke patients of tapping out a rhythm, um, of words, and they can recognize the rhythm even if they can’t recognize the sounds of the letters.

And so I would tap and Weston would echo it. And we were in opposite corners of this quite large treatment room. And this went on for quite a bit of time. We weren’t making much progress. And I found out about a energy healer that was a biochemist that was very close to the proximity of where I practiced in Orange County, California.

And so I went to see him. He began working with Weston. Weston started responding to his treatment. And so we were all together one day in Dr. Jones’ office. Weston had this behavior of where he would just rapidly look at a magazine or book and then he would toss it aside. And sometimes it was right side up and sometimes it was upside down.

And so Weston had a magazine and he was doing this behavior, rapidly flipping through it and out of the corner of his eye, kind of giving us this evil eye look of just kind of disgust. And Dr. Jones was just observing him and he said, wouldn’t it be interesting if Weston could read? And I said, yeah, no, he can’t read. He had actually just, when Dr. Jones said this, like I think two weeks before, been kicked out of his second private school kindergarten.

Catholic school and he would many times like become very disruptive in a classroom of overturning tables, pushing chairs over, being in a Catholic school. He was supposed to wear a uniform, wear shoes, didn’t want to do that. He wanted to wear his same pair of blue shorts and his same navy sweatshirt backwards and no shoes. So this conformity did not go well.

And I said, no, he’s just been kicked out of his second kindergarten. He, he can’t recognize letters. Um, he doesn’t recognize the sound of letters. He can’t write. That’s impossible. Dr. Jones just kind of appeased me very graciously and said, okay, but wouldn’t it be interesting? So it was about two weeks later and West and I were in our opposite corners in the treatment room. And I was.

I was just at kind of my wits end. I didn’t know what to do with this child. And I felt very guilty that I felt like I was taking his parents’ money and just not being helpful. And so I heard Dr. Jones’ voice. And Weston had just, he had a book that he had tossed aside and I picked it up and it was on clouds. And I think it was written on like probably a first or second grade level.

And I just read the first couple of pages and I had a piece of notebook paper in the room and I just tore off a piece of notebook paper and I wrote one sentence as a question. I don’t even remember what the question was. And then I took another piece of notebook paper, tore it in half and I wrote two answers. And I held it up as far as my arm could reach to Weston because again, he still wouldn’t let me get close to him and we’d been working together for about two years now.

And he kind of looked at it like this out of the corner of his eye. And I held up the two answers. And again, he looked at it, um, at the corner of his eye and he swiped at the answer and it was right. So I repeated it. And on the second time he pointed, I had never seen him actually point at something. And.

With that, he picked up the book and he started shoving it into my stomach and he started beating on the floor. And I couldn’t write the next, I couldn’t read the page and write the answer, write the question, write the answer fast enough. And this went on through the whole book. Every answer was right. And I couldn’t go out and tell his mom because I thought that I was crazy.

I’m like, how is this possible? And so for about two weeks, Weston and I tested this out. I would see him about two to three times a week, and we would have this back and forth, and he didn’t miss. And so I finally told his mom, I’m like, I think Weston can read. And I was just waiting for her to be like, you insane person. And she just smiled at me, and she said, OK, now what? And I said, I have no idea. I don’t know.

And so I said, I need to start teaching him. So she stepped in and started homeschooling him. Um, she, he was able to learn Spanish, which was her native language in two days. And he was able to learn Japanese, which was his grandmother’s native language in two weeks. And it just was this, you know, spiral, uh, to where his mom was like, I.

I, he’s, you know, surpassed me. I don’t know how else to teach him. And all along I was working with the school district. I was working with his last private school to see, you know, would they help? Would they test him? And I was told, um, my license should be revoked. How could I mislead a parent in this way? Um, I was completely crazy. But finally.

the public school did test him and he was about nine years old at the time and he tested out at a 12th grade level and so at that time then they finally brought him kind of under an umbrella of a home school situation and began providing materials to his mom and Weston works with people all over the world now. He

a language called heart talk. And it’s actually communicating telepathically. And he said, we all have the ability to do it if we just open our heart. And what a beautiful way to communicate. So to this day, Weston still doesn’t, he still, he does not speak as we speak. He still wears his clothes backwards and no shoes.

Sam Believ (13:29)

Yeah, my goosebumps.

JoQueta Handy (13:41)

and is surrounded by animals, which he loves. His parents moved to an area where he could have that. Mama, I don’t know what all he has. And he is just a beautiful soul. And he taught me, I mean, I was never the same from that day of being taught, don’t look at the outside. Don’t listen to the diagnosis. It’s what’s on the inside.

And every child is a brilliant learner when we recognize their talents and their strengths.

Sam Believ (14:20)

That’s a fascinating story and gives me a question, you know, if obviously he was able to learn languages so quickly that he obviously possesses some genius level, you know, capacity in some fields and, you know, some autistic children and grownups also they show amazing ability for maths and like genius level capability. So the question then becomes.

if we should try and sort of fix them and simplify it and just make them be like us, meaning like the way we communicate, or just try and figure out the communication issue, which is, you know, as Weston created this language, meaning like not trying to change them, but try to understand them and maybe, as you say, we can then learn from them and, you know, get maybe even as a society, get like a big, big…

big boost in our progress, but you mentioned something about autism being a problem of toxicity in a mother’s body, then this toxicity gets moved to the fetus. So you talk a lot about microbiome and the gut. When…

We only recently, I think in the Western world, started to look so much into the God and trying to study it. Correct me if I’m wrong, like within last 20, 30 years. But in indigenous culture, for example, the indigenous culture we work with, they focus on God primarily, meaning if you’re ever sick, one of the first things they ever prescribe is a purgative, is something that purges your intestines. Ayahuasca itself is also a purgative.

JoQueta Handy (15:53)

threat.

Sam Believ (16:13)

So do you reckon that maybe they figured it out earlier and they focus on this way of detoxing? What are your thoughts about, you know, gut, purgative plants, autism? I know it’s a very confusing question, but I believe you can piece it together.

JoQueta Handy (16:33)

Absolutely. Well, if we just take autism first, again, you’re right. I always say they’re here to be our teachers and they have taught us we have had to study the gut microbiome the most because of autistic children and trying to understand looking at the genome and the DNA structure and how that affects everything.

If we look at autism, what have they taught us? Well, they’ve taught us that our food, the toxicity in our food, they were one of the first, at least for us here in the United States, that looked at gluten as not being good for us and the toxicity, again, going back to the U.S. in our dairy products.

And what we see in autism is the reaction because of high toxicity levels. And when I’m talking about toxicity, I’m talking about parasites, fungal, bacteria, virus, heavy metals. And so that is what causes the destruction of the microbes that make up the microbiome. And

That also is what causes them to be very reactive to certain foods, medication, vaccinations, the environment itself. And the stronger what we’ve learned about the microbiome is it is our immune system and it is our second brain. So when we…

again, in backing into this, why could ayahuasca be helpful? I think just looking at psychedelics in general, I believe it was James Fadiman, who was the first in his research in the 50s and 60s, who said, we know without a doubt that psychedelics improve the gut, we just don’t know the mechanism in which it does that. And I think one of the first studies that I,

that I’ve personally read was done in the 1980s on ayahuasca and they found that it was anti-parasitic. So in drinking ayahuasca and reducing the parasite level, is that going to help heal the microbiome? Is that going to drive the immune system? Is that going to enhance brain chemistry? Yes. And then more recently…

In studies they have found that ayahuasca is antibacterial and antifungal. So again, as we move out the negative and allow more room for the positive and then that good bacteria begins to grow and thrive, serotonin, 95% of serotonin is made in the gut.

even though it’s a brain hormone. So what’s gonna happen with brain chemistry? Brain chemistry is therefore gonna be better supported. So I think it is a fascinating connection. And I can go on and speak about specifically in Ayahuasca, or again, if we go back to toxicity, one other thing that we wanna look at is leaky gut.

I think a lot of people should know what that is. It’s been a pretty popular term. Just to give kind of a very genetic or generic definition of leaky gut, the way I always explain it to my patients is the intestine is smooth connective tissue. And so it stretches way more than it was ever meant to. And so if you think of a rubber band, if you take a rubber band and you pull it back and forth and back and forth,

it’s eventually going to develop little holes in that rubber, right? And so what happens is that same thing happens in the microbiome. We get what’s called microperforations in that tissue. And then that just helps or makes the person more vulnerable to allergies, to the body causing a histamine effect. So it can be, you know,

smog, pollution coming in from the environment. It can even be down to a spice, a fleck of pepper, the cellulose off of celery or off of an orange. None of those things are bad, but the texture of the food can be more likely to get stuck in those little microperforations. The body says, oh, this is a foreign object. You’re in danger.

And it goes into then the fight or fight response, a cortisol response or a histamine response to swell, to wall it off. And so then that’s where that tissue begins to become inflamed. And from that, we develop cytokines. And so ayahuasca has been directly proven to reverse this process of leaky gut. So…

It’s not only a purgative. Um, so like if somebody says, you know, the new year, I’m going to do a cleanse. Okay. Wonderful. Yes. It’s important to clean house, but it’s also very important to close the windows and doors to heal those micro-properations in the tissue. And ayahuasca has been specifically seen to close those women windows and doors. So.

to me that’s where we really get to true healing. So why can people say, you know, I sat in ceremony with ayahuasca and I, this ailment that I had in my gut, and I’ve even heard witness to people with cancers, has healed and it’s not coming back because that tissue has been healed. And that’s not to make light of, you know, moving forward. Yes, you can’t go back to your same.

ways of eating and lifestyles. It does require diet and lifestyle change, but ayahuasca is helping us move hugely forward in the gut, not only as a purgative from anti-parasitic bacterial and fungal, but also in healing the tissue.

Sam Believ (23:37)

It’s great how you’re able to explain all of that because this is something I experienced and felt myself but couldn’t find the right words to describe. I originally came to Ayahuasca for healing because I was depressed, which now, you know, what you just explained with God being a second brain and serotonin production is obviously linked to the God as well. So I came to Ayahuasca because I was depressed and I was looking for mental release.

At the same time, around the same period of time, I was obsessed with diets. I tried all kinds of diets from vegan to carnivore to elimination diets, fasting, because something was wrong with my gut. I would have bloating and because of too much antibiotics, because of this virus, I got long story short. When I started working with Daywaska,

Obviously my mental health improved, but I also noticed down the line months later I just noticed because it’s easy to notice something happening, but it’s not easy to notice something Stop happening. I just noticed that my gut was no longer Bothering me so you know in that process of my obsession with the diets I learned everything about

fungus and candida and I was thinking I had the candida and I did kind of tests. I actually self-diagnosed myself with H. pylori. Then I went to the clinic, I conferred my test, I self-treated myself, healed that part. So basically Ayahuasca healed my gut and even now I noticed that

JoQueta Handy (24:59)

Mmm.

Sam Believ (25:13)

Whenever my God gets a little funky I drink ayahuasca and it goes away So the question is which part of that healing comes from? From the mental aspect of it because you know when you get stressed your God compresses, so it’s a both way direction both omnidirectional

communication, right? When you’re stressed you get diarrhea sometimes or when you get diarrhea for too long then you’re stressed. It’s like it goes both ways. So which part comes from the mental healing from ayahuasca and which part comes purely from the purging and just removing all those bad bacteria and bad fungi. As you said, now they’ve also proven that ayahuasca can be antifungal and antibacterial.

So yeah, there is no real question. I just want to keep talking about the subject. Maybe there’s something else.

JoQueta Handy (26:08)

I mean,

I think you said it so well. It is a gut brain connection, or it’s also called a gut brain axis, meaning that it works together. One of the first doctors that I studied under in natural medicine, he said to us, toxic people have toxic ways.

And when he first said that to me, I didn’t really understand. And I thought I was like, that’s so mean, like to say somebody has toxic ways. But what he was trying to say was when our gut is filled with toxicity, just as you mentioned, it directly affects our brain chemistry. We are electrical chemical beings. And so we can only react from.

what’s going on inside of us. And so the choices we make, how anger, you know, how fat, how quick are we to anger, fear, all of those things can go back to the gut integrity, the liver, the kidneys, the intestine. And most of all, with the microbiome being our immune system, if you don’t feel good,

then you don’t have a lot of vitality in the way that you move through life. And so just in removing toxicity, I was just working with a 68 year old alcoholic patient. And she wanted to begin working in medicine. And I said, we’ve got to do some cleanup here. And not only was

she drinking 32 ounces of vodka a day. But she was also using Red Bull. That’s what she was mixing the vodka with. So I guess, you know, she’s quite not sure how much Red Bull was going in, but many ounces a day. And she was pretty much living on like Insure shakes. So corn syrup.

of preservatives and additives. And then there were some other things that were going on in her diet. She had very little whole foods. It was a lot of foods, of processed foods. And I said, let’s start with this. Let’s just clean up the gut first. And you’re going to get so much more benefit from the medicine then. And I think, again, what have…

shamans taught us with ayahuasca. What do they say to do? A dieta. And you start with removing things from your diet before even going into ayahuasca. And so just by, we didn’t even talk about the alcohol. I said let’s just take out the

and let’s get rid of the insure shakes and let’s replace that with you know a whole food whatever that is eggs you know a grain something and i just gave her this prescription so that’s all we’re gonna do and we’re gonna come back in a month and we’re gonna see where you are and when i spoke with her a month later she was like

I don’t know what’s happening, but this is working. She was like, now I want to give up alcohol. I feel differently. I’m hiking four miles a day instead of sitting on the couch. I wake up and I don’t dread waking up. I’m happy that I’m awake and that I’m alive. All I had done was take out a couple of major toxins in her diet.

and replace it with whole foods. Not to say that was the cure in any way, but it gave us a huge step forward. And she’s on antidepressants and things like that. So now we’re able to begin to introduce some more of those healing things. And I have no doubt that we’re gonna get rid of the 32 ounces of vodka also.

Sam Believ (30:48)

Yeah, it’s a great story. We also have lots of success stories with people with alcoholism specifically. And also surprisingly sometimes as a side effect, somebody comes to just work on something else and then magically alcoholism goes away because where the psychedelics come in is that sometimes people drink or have a bad habit because they’re sort of running away from some specific discomfort or pain.

and when they can address it or a trauma and get rid of it, then all of a sudden the desire goes away. But what you described with this patient, I mean, body also learns to start using alcohol as its primary fuel source and then it just wants more alcohol for that as well. So it’s a very difficult habit to shake and yes, starting with the diet is a great idea. I want to ask you…

If you have noticed, so the connection between mental health and the gut, right? A lot of people talk about longevity or diets. And it’s always very physical, right? Like eat this thing or do this thing, but not much of it is about mental health. And I’ve noticed in some cases, for example, when I was really obsessing with the diets.

one day you fail on your diet and you eat a piece of cake and you beat yourself so much then I think the mental beating is almost stronger than the negative effect you would get from the actual cake. So how do people, you know, if let’s say somebody wants to do that, how do they balance that mental aspect with that, with the physical one? Or like where do you see is the importance? What should be the priority?

JoQueta Handy (32:40)

Great question. Well, first of all, I think you have to deal with each person individually. Again, we go back to autism, what have they taught us? You can have 10 children in a room with autism and you have 10 different children. So we need to look at each individual case. So if I have a patient in front of me, let’s say,

Perfect example is a 47 year old male that was in my office yesterday with severe gut pain. He actually thought he had a heart condition. So he’d had all a full cardiac workup because he would just get this gripping pain in the left side of his chest, like where he couldn’t move. And heart pounding.

Um, when he would try and exercise or even just at rest at night. And then, um, he was on about four different, um, Proton inhibitors or, or what’s used for reflux. And nothing was helping. And this has been going on for two years. And he came to me and it just said, you know,

I’m at Witsen. They’ve scoped me everything. They’ve looked at all of these things. So what we started with was just looking at his diet, his case, and beginning to repair and, you know, what can we take away? But this was a chronic case. So what we needed to do is…

get the inflammation down because that’s what was causing the most pain. Like he was having pain in his arm, pain in his knees, and you know, he was, he was an athletic guy. And so in doing that, I said, we need to take out the five inflamers, like right now. And five inflamers for everyone are red meat, white sugar, dairy, alcohol, and caffeine.

And so I wouldn’t do that with necessarily every single person. For another person we might say, well, let’s add in more specifically with the patient with alcoholism. If I would have done that with her, she would have been like, that’s it, I’m done. So you have to address it based on where the person is. But for this person, for this 47-year-old man, we needed to get him out of pain as fast as possible.

So by removing those inflamers, we’re going to see that gut be less reactive. I think I might, I think I got off topic. You redirect me with your question.

Sam Believ (35:37)

It’s okay, I think anything we talk about will be useful, but going back on topic, let’s get back to ayahuasca and psychedelics. I know you work with ayahuasca yourself and other psychedelics as well, and you are a psychedelic coach as well. So my question to you is, in your own experience in work with psychedelics, ayahuasca or others,

How did it affect your life? And what would you tell, let’s say, your younger self maybe some advice regarding that topic?

JoQueta Handy (36:17)

Well, you know, I say with psychedelics in general, it’s the healing journey I didn’t know I needed. I started on this journey in 2020 to help my caseload because I had seen a huge decline with the pandemic, specifically with my teenage population trying to commit suicide, being diagnosed with medication-resistant depression, a huge surge in insomnia.

the use of antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. So I was doing it for them. And as I began in the journey and exploring, learning more about psychedelics, I always – the brain is a huge passion, obsession of mine and learning about brain chemistry. And so I had followed the Johns Hopkins research for about

four years on specifically psilocybin and healing depression, anxiety, addiction. And so it was just every medicine that I sat with was a healing journey. And I actually shared this with my patients just in a very transparent way. When I started, I sent out a newsletter and said, this is what I’m doing here and this is why I’m doing it.

And I’m gonna blog about each one of my experiences. I understand this isn’t for everyone and if you if you don’t want to be a part of it, that’s fine. But if you do, you know, here’s an email list and just you can just put your name on it and I’ll be happy to share. And it was hugely transformative on many, many levels. Specifically with Ayahuasca.

you know, the medicine mirrors you. And the first night that I sat with ayahuasca was horrible. It was every negative thought I think that I’ve ever had or ever even knew about. And when I shared it with the facilitator the next morning, she was like, yeah, well, the medicine mirrors you. I’m like, okay, well that’s.

that’s not helpful, you know, so I guess I’m just this negative black ball walking around. And I had a, I was there with one of the people that were participating was the VP of the Chopra Event Center. And we were sitting on the deck that morning and she looked down at my foot and she said, does that say a para graha? Do you have a para graha tattooed on your foot? And I’m like, yes, I do.

told her this whole story about how my kids wanted me to get, I have five kids and they came to me and said, mom, let’s get a matching tattoo. And I was like, no, I don’t wanna do that. But I thought it was kind of cool that they wanted to get a tattoo with their mother. So I’m like, okay, I’m like, well, this is the only thing that I would ever ink onto my body. They’re like, fine, we’ll do it. So all of us have a par graha tattooed on the inside of our left foot.

So I tell her this story and my friend that was with me, she was like, I want to get that tattooed on my foot. She was like, what does it mean? And I said, well, it means I go through life with an open heart and an open mind. And Amanda very graciously said, are you sure about that? And I’m like, well, that’s what the book said. And so she starts talking about yoga and the different arms of yoga and it went over my head really fast.

And she was like, here, like, let me go get this manual for you. And she was like, here’s what it means. And as I began reading it, it was me a hundred percent about, you know, my cup always being half empty and about not feeling complete and even the examples were, were me and so the next night in Ayahuasca, I started with gratitude and just thinking.

being thankful for the 12 people that were sharing this space with me. And that went into family and friends, to the universe, to the cosmos. And as soon as I got there, it was just this jetway. And I recognized the spirit, but I didn’t know who it was. And I said, you know, what should I call you? And she said, you can call me Mother Ayahuasca.

You’re gonna walk with me now. And it was, sorry, it was the most beautiful experience of her listening for me exactly the way I needed to conduct myself as a doctor. And the way that I needed to start each morning by asking who needs to be healed, not from a physical standpoint, but going back to Weston, a heart talk standpoint.

and how we can work on an energetic field so much broader, so much bigger than we can ever work on this physical field. And that experience forever changed the way that I approach my patients, the modalities, the tools that I bring into my practice, and the way that I do practice.

So I feel that this medicine is such a transformative healing, truly body, mind, and spirit.

Sam Believ (42:15)

It’s a beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing and it’s admirable that you, you know, you still are able to analyze the way you are being a doctor and changing maybe the way you treat the patients. And speaking about you being a doctor, it’s also, you know, these days, unfortunately, still a risk to be in the medical profession or to work with people and openly admit that you’re…

you’re doing psychedelics or you’re working with plant medicines because you know, I don’t know, it’s a probably biggest mistake we ever made as a society but DMT and psilocybin is still illegal you know, if you take them to the airport you go to the prison which is crazy I myself am a big optimist on the topic I really hope that within the next 10 years we’ll go from

what the hell is ayahuasca to when’s the last time you did ayahuasca, kind of like with meditation. But from your perspective or from where you are right now and obviously still working with people, do you observe that shift? Is it happening or am I being optimistic unreasonably?

JoQueta Handy (43:34)

Not at all. You know, I think, that’s the best way to say this, I think there is a group of people, a very specific group that are being called forward to be a part of this transformation, to deliver this message, to be the part of change. And how can something,

that expands our heart.

our understanding of a visceral feeling of unconditional love, not just a knowledge being told, you know, oh yes, God is love, you are made in the image of God, but truly feeling that at a soul level and understanding it, I call it coming home. You know, how, how can that be something that

the government says you can’t take this, you can’t be a part of this, this isn’t yours to have. I don’t think that that’s anybody’s to be able to put that rule. And so we are being called forward to share and to experience and to love.

Sam Believ (45:00)

Yeah, this is one of the reasons this, I have started this podcast is to hopefully educate people slowly but surely to change the societal paradigm to accepting medicines as medicines and not calling them drugs anymore. You rightly so said that, you know, the government shouldn’t allow us to…

prohibit us to not take those medicines and especially in your case Joe Cata you are What would it be a quarter indigenous? Is that correct? Is it Cherokee?

JoQueta Handy (45:39)

Yes. Cherokee, Native American Indian. Yes.

Sam Believ (45:42)

That’s so cool. We work with the indigenous tradition here in Colombia. And you know, in the past, all the indigenous people of the world, including Europeans as well, had some sort of psychedelic tradition. Amanita Moscaria in North America, they had peyote, San Pedro. We always had something to sort of…

increase the signal, you know, connect us better to the cosmos. So we, I guess, as Europeans, or descending from that culture, kind of lost our ways with it. And luckily, the indigenous people of America has preserved their tradition and allowed us to enter it as well now. So I believe we live in very exciting times where they finally shared that secret with us because, you know, the story is that…

When the Spaniards came to South America and they were looting and pillaging and looking for gold, what the indigenous people were hiding in the jungle was those medicines because this was the real treasure for them. They didn’t care about gold that much and they hid it from us for, you know…

What is it? Hungrys of years now and all of a sudden 20, 30 years ago they started leaving their caves and their mountains and their jungles and going to cities and sharing the medicine because they’ve received the calling that the world is sick and we need it. Where am I going with this? So as a partially an indigenous person and a…

Do you feel any extra connection to those plant medicines? Have you worked with the cacti? And what do you think about the resurrection of those traditions?

JoQueta Handy (47:34)

think it’s so important. I didn’t appreciate it when I was younger, but I grew up on a cattle ranch in a very rural part of Oklahoma. And with my grandmother being Native American, my grandfather being an immigrant from Europe, we were always taught

to honor the land. And we were always taught to honor the culture of Native American. And it wasn’t until I began working with these medicines that I was reminded that coming home, standing in the pasture.

of that Cabell Ranch and it being the most beautiful place ever. The sun coming down on the dew of the grass and just the stillness, you know, looking at nothing and seeing everything. And from that memory, remembering the teachings of my grandmother and my grandfather. And I think that just brought

so much more of a presence to the medicine and honoring the medicine. I have sat with San Pedro. Grandfather is an amazing teacher. And as we move into here in the United States legalization, I think it’s even more important to have a remembering where this came from, what are the teachings.

so that we truly understand the power of the healing. Just as we’ve talked about in these few moments on how ayahuasca heals, how it heals our gut and from that healing strengthens our immune system and the ability of what that means and moving us forward as we see so much illness, sickness and disease right now. These plants are here to help us, they always have been. And when we come

to them with gratitude and intention, that healing power just multiplies 100%.

Sam Believ (50:06)

Yeah, the world needs it and we need a lot of medicine and a lot of support. And it would be sad if we lose the tradition in the process and it’s important to ground ourselves in that tradition. So you know, let’s say ayahuasca without the shamanism and indigenous tradition is like a tree without the roots. It will probably die and fall on somebody. We need that.

but also there are new modalities coming up in the work with psychedelics or mimic work with psychedelics. And that’s a good segue into my next question. What is biofeedback and how are you able, I see you smile because you like to talk about it. How are you able to mimic psychedelic use with biofeedback without actually consuming psychedelics?

JoQueta Handy (50:54)

Very much.

Yeah, thank you for asking that question. Well, first, quantum biofeedback, just to give a short brief summary of what it is. It’s working with frequency, okay? So we talked about we are just chemical electrical beings. Everything holds a frequency, whether it’s a positive frequency or a negative frequency. And we respond to that. A basic way to think about it is, let’s say you’re in a great mood

you walk into a room with people who are not in a great mood, you immediately feel that. However, however you interpret it, you’re kind of like, Whoa, what just happened here? There’s been a shift. So we’re constantly surrounded by frequency, whether we’re aware of it or not. And that exchange.

In quantum physics, we’re talking about that there is no time and space. Einstein was the first one who discovered it. And he said, it’s a spooky science because how can these two cells that aren’t even near each other, maybe they’re on opposite sides of the world. How can they be interacting? NASA was able to capture this on film about three years ago.

and they labeled it Einstein’s spooky science proven. So that’s the modality that I’m working with in quantum biofeedback. It’s just been captured in a software system. So within those frequencies, there is a huge library of frequencies that are housed in the software, so to speak. There’s about 17,000 frequencies.

And it’s supplements, medications, just about anything. And some of those frequencies are plant medicines. So in working with autism, we know that many times autistic children react to what’s in the food more than the food itself. Again, those preservatives, those additives.

Also because of the damage to the microbiome, they naturally have a low level of serotonin, especially on the severe end of autism. So they don’t all do well. It’s not about, oh, let’s cure autism by giving them a bunch of psilocybin. No, actually that doesn’t work well in many cases. So…

I started working with quantum biofeedback and digitally dosing. And what I found, the one that seemed to have the greatest impact was the frequency of ketamine. And I actually haven’t tried ayahuasca. I need to do that. I’ve tried psilocybin, LSD, and I have tried Bufo, DMT. So.

derivative of ayahuasca. And when we say digital dose, all we mean is that we’re doing an interface between the frequency, we call it the cellular blueprint of the individual, and the frequency of ketamine. And this was proven in 2008 in the Beijing Olympics using the device that I use today.

and the Chinese Olympic team, they weren’t supposed to show up that year at all. And they digitally, when they measured the men’s, they were digitally dosing testosterone and oxytocin. When they measured the men’s testosterone level, it was 1,000% higher than normal, and the females were 300 times higher than normal. Not that is healthy in any way.

But they meddled across the board. And so they could prove that, what do we do? We take on frequency. Can we impose a certain frequency? Yes, look at EMFs. Can we impose certain frequencies on the body and the body receive that and be able to use it? Yes. So I was just following that line of treatment, that research.

but using it around plant medicine and specifically using it with this population simply because it wasn’t something that they could naturally receive. And many times in autism, because they are so in tuned with frequency, they’re able to receive it better than the physical form of the medicine.

Sam Believ (56:12)

Yeah, that’s really fascinating. This is some new technologies and how they find a way to do it. Regarding the energies or the frequencies, or in a common culture, you would say vibes. You’re vibing with somebody or not. The easiest way for me to describe it.

is when we, at Lawara here, we have three retreats every month where people come for a week and then the group leaves and another group comes. And when we get a group from about that level of energy to about this level of energy through the week of four ceremonies of ayahuasca, word circles, and a lot of other work, they…

leave and by the time they’re leaving, it feels like everyone is floating and everyone is happy and the energy is over the roof and you just you can’t you don’t want these people to leave and then the new group comes and it feels like you just left the warm bath and you’ve been splashed by cold water because it’s just people and so professionally you would not be able to see the difference. I mean there’s still some smiles and some communication but energetically

nothing is harder for me than this first initial word circle where we get to know each other and because everyone is just so heavy but somehow through work with ayahuasca they get lighter and then once again they leave and another group’s come in so that’s uh that’s one of the most difficult parts of my work and this is how i can explain it the best like it feels really painful to go from

from somebody warm and like good energies to the other way around. Speaking about painful, I want to touch, last topic I want to touch upon, I know you have been an abuse victim and you were able to overcome it also with help of psychedelics. Could you tell our listeners a bit about that?

JoQueta Handy (58:14)

Absolutely. That actually came through in working with MDMA, which has been shown to be very helpful with PTSD. It was one of those huge situations of where a healing that I didn’t know that I needed. It was a memory of being sexually assaulted.

by a neighbor, next door neighbor, that I had grown up with when I was 16 years old. And it was a memory that I had suppressed so deeply, so much that I didn’t realize that it was real when it came through in the MDMA. And as I’ve read more accounts of people working with MDMA, I guess it happens quite a bit. And

It was, um, when I went to family members afterwards and said, you know, am I crazy? Did this actually happen? And I said, yes, it did. It allowed me, you know, at first I was just like, wait, what? And why wasn’t this talked about? Um, why wasn’t I sent to counseling? But it also explained so much of.

the insecurities that I had around relationship, around touch, especially touch from men.

And so in just that realization, it was such a healing of just being able to, to lay that down. And at the same time, instead of resentment, um, toward my parents, especially my father, I was able to see, you know, they, they were doing everything that they, they knew to do. They were doing their best.

at that time and I was able to see the pain that it had caused both of them, but especially my dad in not being able to protect me. And so it was almost like life stopped and said, let’s look at this moment and now let’s fast forward. And an understanding came from so many of his behaviors and reactions.

that I had always seen as he doesn’t, you know, why doesn’t he love me? Why do I make him so angry? And so that love and that healing just kind of all happened at once. And in moving forward in the healing of that relationship, you know, now as he’s 85 almost, I think that it’s, it’s so important. And I think so many times in relationships

How much time we waste of not talking about the white elephant in the room, not talking at all, right? I hear friends and colleagues all the time saying, I’m estranged from my mother, I’m estranged from my father because of an argument that happened.

Life’s too short for that. And most of all, that’s anger and resentment that we carry inside. And when we say, you know, anger kills, it truly does. Where does that sit? That sits in the liver. The liver is our door of disease state. And so in being able to go have that journey, but from a very loving place, hugely healing.

Sam Believ (1:02:16)

Yeah, it happens a lot here at the retreat that people come and they discover a trauma that’s been hidden by layers and layers of protections the brain have built around them. And it’s one of the most common fears people have when coming to an ayahuasca retreat. They’re afraid they’re going to discover something they don’t want to discover. I would say if there is something that needs to be discovered, the better, the sooner the better because…

This is sitting there and draining your energy every day. And as you said, those emotions and subconscious fears or maybe it affects your relationship and everything. It’s good. It’s kind of like you have a festering wound that is painful to touch, but all you need is a bit more pain and cut it open and clean it out and let it properly heal.

So yeah, don’t be afraid guys, if you think you have something, there is a chance you might have it, so come and address it. We… a very recent story about 8 months ago, we had a German girl who remembered during the ceremony, first time ever, that she was abused by her grandfather. And she came back to the retreat with her whole family, because apparently other members of the family were also abused. And there was this whole big trauma that they…

managed to heal together as a family and it was a very beautiful thing to observe. So I know you like to do things with your children like doing a tattoo together. So maybe an idea for the next activity come to the retreat together. Joe Kera, we’re getting close. We overcame an hour, which is a good, it was a good conversation. I’m sure we can keep talking for an hour more.

JoQueta Handy (1:03:50)

Thanks for watching!

Oh.

Sam Believ (1:04:07)

But I know the life carries on. So, Giochetta, it was a pleasure having you over. Where can people find more about you?

JoQueta Handy (1:04:17)

Sure. One of the best places is our website on adaptogens. It’s called MyBr You can reach out to me personally at jhandy at MyBr My husband and I, as you mentioned, we have a wellness practice in Newport Beach, California.

So if you happen to be in the Orange County, Southern California area, please reach out. And that’s just at handy wellness.com or drhandy.com, either one of those. And if you want to read more about my personal journey, as I mentioned the blog and in working with the different medicines.

That’s on our workshop link of the number 3 COS, which stands for connection, community, and co-elevation. So, any of those places, and I’d be happy to speak with you.

Sam Believ (1:05:31)

I found Joe Ketta on Instagram. So you can it’s not that common name. So Joe Ketta, thank you. Thank you so much. Guys, you’ve been listening to ayahuascapodcast.com as always with you the host Sam Believ, the founder of Lawyra retreat. If you want to visit one of our retreats, go to lawyra.com. If you’re watching a video, it’s right on my t-shirt. If not, it is L-A-W-A-Y-R-A.

JoQueta Handy (1:05:35)

That’s true too.

Sam Believ (1:06:00)

and I will hear and I will see you in the next episode.

In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with Derek Dodds on the topics of preparation for Ayahuasca ceremony, quitting alcohol, overcoming childhood trauma, advice on integration, Ayahuasca and entrepreneurship.

Find more about Derek www.derekdodds.com

Link to Derek’s book

Ayahuasca: A Beginner’s Guide: How to Prepare for Your Ceremony

bit.ly/48xImuq

Transcript

Sam Believ (00:01.42)

guys and welcome to ayahuascapodcast.com as always with you hosts and believe today we’re joined by very special guest Derek Dodds. Derek is a serial entrepreneur a surfer psychedelic enthusiast he’s a truth-seeker and a traveler. Derek welcome to the podcast

Derek (00:22.158)

Thank you for having me, Sam. Good to be here.

Sam Believ (00:26.144)

Derek, you know you have a personality of, it reminds me of that beer advertisement about the most interesting man you’ve ever met because to sum up your story which I’m sure is much more complex is you.

You grew up hunting, you started hunting with guns when you were like super young and then you became a federal officer. You were a surfer, a traveler, entrepreneur. You started multiple businesses. Now you switched to ayahuasca, to spirituality, so much so that you wrote a book about it. So can you tell us a little bit about your background and why are you, what makes you this way? What are you seeking, Derek?

Derek (01:12.738)

That’s a great question. I’ve always been seeking truth since I was very young, and I feel like there’s been this fire inside of me that I never quite understood. And that fire was, you know, sending me to a Buddhist monastery in Nepal and going to India to study yoga and sutra.

You know, that fire eventually led me to Ayahuasca, which is currently one of my North stars to the truth.

Sam Believ (01:54.176)

When did you start working with the Ayahuasca?

Derek (01:57.034)

Yeah, this is interesting. So my very first journey was in the early 2000s. It’s a crazy story. I went to Brazil and I had a girlfriend down there and I was flying to Peru to go surfing with a buddy of mine. And I had it in my mind that I wanted to do ayahuasca. I didn’t know why.

didn’t really know anybody that did it. I just had this idea and I got on the plane and our planes got, I missed the connecting flight in Sao Paulo. And basically what I did was, you know, they grouped five of us together that had missed the plane and they sent us to this hotel for the night and the next morning we were gonna catch another flight to Lima, back to Peru. And so we all went out to dinner, the five of us, you know, these kind of misfits that

all missed their flight. And there was, and I mentioned, we went at dinner, I just, I don’t know why, but I mentioned to this girl, I was like, yeah, I would like to do ayahuasca. I don’t know any, I don’t know why or where to go or who to talk to. You know, this is really before it was all over the internet and you could find it really easy, right? She’s like, well, I’ve been working with the tribes in Peru for 13 years. She was an anthropologist and she’s

She told me basically, I have a contact of a really good teacher. If you’d like to go, I’ll give you her number and she’ll feel you out. And if she feels it, you know, you’ll go. And I called her up and she said, yeah, come over. And I had a solo journey with this great teacher. But you know, I don’t think I was ready. It was a profound experience, but I didn’t follow the thread.

You know, I felt like basically what she told me, what Aya told me in those moments was not yet. And so then I spent another 10 years without her and came back to her recently when my mom died and kind of led me back to Aya.

Sam Believ (04:14.176)

So when your mom died and you came back to Alaska already for the healing side of it, how did it go? Did it help or not?

Derek (04:25.766)

Oh, totally, totally. Yeah. So my mom and I had a very complicated relationship my whole life. She left when I was one. So you can imagine, you know, what that does to a child and never had a relationship with her and then she died. And, um, I quit my job the day she died. I was working for a nonprofit foundation here in Ohio and like my whole life turned upside down. And, um, you know, I.

started doing therapy and reading all these books on childhood trauma and this and that eventually led me to ayahuasca. I was drinking a lot. I was drinking a lot of alcohol. I no longer drink alcohol, which was a huge change. I felt like alcohol was a way for me to numb the pain that I had inside of me. That’s been one of the biggest changes.

changing that relationship and really just being.

just being with whatever emotions were coming up as opposed to numbing them through some kind of substance. So yeah, that’s kind of the way it went down.

Sam Believ (05:42.316)

It’s interesting that we’re somewhat similar. I’m also changed my life from being an engineer to now running an iOS retreat in this podcast and also did my first year of traveling and truth seeking. And I just realized we have another one in common, the mother wound or mother trauma, because when I was three and a half, my parents had this great idea to send me to another country, to another continent, to my grandmother. And I think there was this…

abandonment slash betrayal situation which I’m sort of working through and I was helped a lot but I’m thinking maybe

Maybe we are so driven because we’re constantly looking for something and maybe that has some kind of roots in that trauma. You talked about overcoming alcohol addiction and ayahuasca being a helpful aspect in that we do have a lot of people that come to the retreat that experience that sometimes as a side effect, meaning they come for something else and then all of a sudden they realize they’re not drinking anymore. What do you think happens there?

on the mechanism of that.

Derek (06:53.346)

So tricky this one because I meet some people that drink ayahuasca once and then they never drink again. And other people who I know friends of mine who sit a lot, you know, they sit a couple times a year and they still drink, right? They still go back to drinking. So and I did that for the first year. You know, I sat in the last two and a half years, I’ve sat over a hundred times and I would say the first 30 sits.

come back after an I was to retreat and crack a bottle of wine. You know, I was, it was, I was right back in. So, you know, everyone has their particular, um, way that they need to relate and work through whatever it is they’re, they’re working on, you know, for me, it’s, it’s a, it’s a lifetime of, of work and, and search and, um,

But I have to say that I never, it wasn’t until my mom died that I really started to look at my trauma. Before that, I was really into spirituality, but I was like, oh, I don’t need to look at my trauma. There’s no trauma there. I was just, what do they call it? Spiritual bypassing, right? Like the one thing that I needed to really, I really needed to look at most in my life, I never looked at. And…

you know, of course, Aya, the beautiful thing about Aya is it doesn’t let you escape the shadows. It doesn’t let you escape from the hidden places that you’d rather not go. In fact, she takes you there a lot. She takes you there pretty directly, you know? And then I just realized in that journey that, and I, you know, and this is the other interesting thing that I think happens to people that are on this path is,

their group of friends start to change, right? Because if before all my friends, we’d go out and like drink, like that was our thing. Well, I don’t do that anymore. So if you’re a friend of mine that still goes out and parties every couple of days or whatever, we’re not hanging out anymore. But I am probably hanging out with somebody else that is.

Derek (09:14.014)

Yeah, that is basically has chosen either not to do that or to hang out with me in a different way, right? So that’s another big shift is it’s not only the alcohol but it’s also who I’m relating to in my inner circle. And as we do this work with people in medicine, we tend to hang out with people that are in medicine. I mean, that’s just the way it goes, right? They become our brothers and sisters.

And so I feel very fortunate to, and it’s hard sometimes, right? Cause it’s hard to let go of a friendship that you’ve had for 20 years. That’s, you know, maybe rooted in certain traumas actually that you were in that relationship because of the traumas. And then all now you’re further away from those traumas, let’s say, maybe you haven’t, you know, healed everything but you do have some distance.

And it’s a grieving process to lose those friends or to create distance with those friends. So that’s a tough one that not too many people talk about, but what I’ve seen in my life is my circle’s really changed, circle around me.

Sam Believ (10:29.684)

Yeah, when we get couples that come to ayahuasca retreats or people that are in a couple but they’re not drinking together, I always warn them that…

couples who grow together or drink ayahuasca together, they stay together. So if you have a friend or a couple that they’re not really working on themselves, slowly but gradually you sort of shift away and you float away. And then one day, years later you realize like why am I even spending time with that person when all of a sudden…

you can kind of see from a distance like how it used to be and that’s you know it’s maybe a negative environment or it’s a person might be a little bit toxic but you’re no longer toxic or no longer willing to accept that toxicity. You mentioned that your healing journey would really began when you started accepting that something was wrong. I think it’s an important part of it you know like

before you start anything you need to accept that something is wrong and that’s really hard because we create those stories for ourselves about how perfect we are and yeah some people hide behind that spirituality when they say you know I did that many ceremonies I did you know these kinds of medicines and in reality they’re not accepting to go deeper so for me personally also was

was a difficult shift to accept that I need to change. So you talked a little bit about, obviously, this is one of the pitfalls, right? So what are the pitfalls?

Sam Believ (12:13.896)

should people avoid people that come to ayahuasca for the first time because uh you written an entire book on the topic uh your book is called ayahuasca beginner’s guide how to prepare for the ceremony so uh can you talk a little bit about how to prepare what to what to avoid you know

Derek (12:32.938)

Yeah, sure. So I think one of the biggest things that I see is that people don’t take the De Etta seriously, right? So they, I don’t know how you set up your retreats, but all the teachers that I’ve worked with have been very, not strict, but you know, the protocols for De Etta have been very clear, right? And the whole…

as you know, the whole idea of a diet is that you’re preparing the vessel so that the ayahuasca when she enters, she doesn’t have to fight so hard with the toxicities and you know, all of the things that people normally put in their body. And I find that a lot of new beginners and people who and just some people in general, they don’t take the diet as seriously and

Derek (13:26.582)

that has a big influence on their experience because if you’re not restricting yourself and you’re doing all the things that you normally do, and that includes also taking time to yourself and being quiet and being in nature and slowing down, but we are vessels of what we put into our mouth. So, and Aya knows that, she feels that when you show up, if you’ve done the,

done a good diet then she’ll bless you with her, you know, her beauty. But if you haven’t, she’ll tear you apart. So diet is a big one for me. And then, you know, doing the digital detox like, you know, the day or two before getting off the internet, getting off social, being quiet, having clear intentions, thinking about your intentions. And then after is also a super important time.

right after is I would say that give yourself also a one or two day buffer on the backside too, because you’re raw, you’re like, that’s where a lot of magic actually happens in those couple days. And then integration is another, it’s not a pre, but it’s, I would say it’s just as important to have an integration. So that’s one of the biggest things that I see is not taking Dieta seriously. And then

not having the tools that I talk about in the book to help in those difficult moments, whether it’s breath work or it’s mantra or it’s positive thinking. I give some examples of using love where you’re feeling dark energies. And so there are a lot of things that, there are a lot of tools that we can bring into the ceremony to help us.

mitigate those difficult moments. And the other one that I have to say that I think is so, so important. If you sign up for a retreat and you have a difficult first night and it’s either a two or a three day retreat, do not leave. Like I see a lot of people, they get freaked out and they leave after the first day. You know, you don’t have that problem probably in the jungle because they’ve come there, but you know.

Derek (15:53.014)

A lot of people in this in the urban environment, they drive and they’re there for the weekend and you know, and I see people leave after one night. I’m like, oh, it’s so it’s too bad because so much happens, especially if you sit a first time. So much happens that first night. My one of my teachers, Natasha, she calls it the washer and the dryer. The first night is the washer, right? And the second night is the dryer. And I feel like

If you dedicate yourself to sitting, sit the whole ceremony. Do not leave, no matter how much you feel. And I felt this probably for my first, I would say my first 30 sits, bro. I would be in the sit on the first night, either a two or a three dayer, and I’d be like, man, there’s no way I’m doing this tomorrow. I am leaving this first thing in the morning. I have to tell my friend.

look, he’s got to find a ride, you know, somewhere else. And I’ve felt that many times. But of course I never did leave. I always woke up with a resolve and a dedication to keep going. So it’s okay to have the feelings, right? But like, what are the actions? Like we have to make a, really have to make a commitment to our actions. And it’s always been great whenever I’ve stayed, for sure. Yeah.

Sam Believ (17:16.604)

Yeah, I agree with you 100% on everything from preparation and the diet, integration, the tools, and especially that part about not leaving. For us as facilitators, nothing hurts more than when people come and they already did 99% of the effort. They bought the ticket, they came here, they came to the retreat, they drank ayahuasca and then…

they want to give up the last moment. We are very good at convincing people to stay. I have all my stories that I tell, especially because the situations are very similar and I’ll tell those stories now as well. And nobody ever has said, I regret staying.

But everyone always said, thank you so much for convincing me to stay. Sometimes it’s an intervention with me and the chief facilitator, we sit together and we talk to people for hours sometimes to try to explain and let them stay. A lot of times what I like to explain is, if let’s say you have a hypothetical.

arrow in your shoulder like that’s your trauma. Of course when you when you want when you start like it’s it sits there and it’s okay you know kind of hurts but you got used to it but when you start moving it around it hurts so much more so before it gets better a lot of times it gets worse and that’s what makes people give up so we talk to them through that a lot of time especially it’s kind of like a sediment you have in a glass and you start moving it and starts rising up

Why am I doing it? Plus the ayahuasca process a lot of times is very difficult. So one of the reasons I created this podcast is to educate people on that. If they have right expectations, then they can bear through it. But if they think, you know, ayahuasca is that highlight story that people always provide about everything, all the best parts that happen, but they try to omit the difficult parts, then people, when they face adversity, all of a sudden they don’t want to.

Derek (19:21.57)

Hmm.

Sam Believ (19:29.07)

anymore they’re like where’s the where’s the rainbows and butterflies why am I why am I puking and why does it hurt so much a lot of times with women especially there is a lot of physical pain that comes up and sometimes debilitating there they don’t expect it and they want to leave

Derek (19:43.009)

Hmm.

Sam Believ (19:52.232)

One time we had two women that had this situation. It was very physical for them. One left, another stayed. And next day she had the best experience of her life. Literally she said, this was the best night in my life. And so yeah guys, listen to Derek. He knows what he’s talking about. If you come to drink ayahuasca, stay. You can lead horse to the water, but you cannot make horse drink. You can lead people.

Derek (20:16.943)

the

Sam Believ (20:18.048)

So the ayahuasca retreat, but you can’t make them drink ayahuasca. Please drink ayahuasca.

Derek (20:21.558)

No.

Yeah, and so the other part I would say is another thing my teacher always tells me is during the ceremony When the second or third cup is being served if you can crawl to the altar you can drink So and I know that um You know everyone needs to figure out their own Rhythm and their own amount that they drink and

Sam Believ (20:41.237)

Mm-hmm.

Derek (20:53.346)

But look, you’re in an ayahuasca ceremony. You’re probably not gonna do this too often. So while you’re there, you know, drink as much medicine as you can is what I would say. You know, and a lot of people fear drinking more because they think that, you know, whatever they’re gonna go deeper into the shadows or, but it’s called medicine for a reason, right? So.

I always remember that when I can only crawl, I still crawl up to the altar for that additional cup. I think it’s important to remember that it’s such a great opportunity. If you fly to Columbia, you’re already there, they’re serving another cup, drink the other cup. Go for it. Yeah, I just wanted to say that.

Sam Believ (21:53.34)

Yeah, it’s, it reminded me of that Roman saying, if you’re ready for, if you want peace, get ready for war. It’s like, if you want the mental wellbeing and peace in your life, then you need to go through war at the retreat.

Derek (21:53.345)

Yeah.

Derek (22:01.527)

Yeah

Sam Believ (22:10.244)

It speeds up the process greatly of the suffering and it gets out of your system quicker There is another side to what you just described we have We have one of our patients as we like to call them Naomi if you’re listening Naomi She’s a great lady, but she’s just so ruthless with more ayahuasca She sometimes we have to carry her to the altar so we have another rule which is if you cannot get to the altar you not getting another cup because

Derek (22:34.431)

Yeah.

Derek (22:37.886)

Yeah, yeah, I think that’s totally fair. Like I said, crawling is fine. But yeah, if you have to be carried, that’s, that’s different.

Sam Believ (22:43.655)

Yeah.

Sam Believ (22:48.636)

Yeah, you also mentioned the post-retreat feeling or state in which you’re suggestible and you’re raw and you need to, you know, everything comes in so much stronger. What do you recommend people do with that opening in their conscious or subconscious?

Derek (23:09.838)

Mmm.

Derek (23:15.266)

Well, listen to the music, listen to ceremony music, which is after ceremony is great, right? Get a hold of a playlist of Ikaros, and if the teacher that you sit with has a list from the actual ceremony, one of my teachers, she released her list post-ceremony, which is such a beautiful way to anchor yourself back into ceremony while you’re outside of ceremony.

So I love that. If you play music, play music, you’ll find a sensitivity to your playing that isn’t normally there. If you sing, sing. But the Icaros for me are great. And then, you know, I would always sit with a teacher or a group, a facilitator that offers integration. I don’t think I’ve ever sat with any…

any teacher that didn’t offer integration, both, you know, usually have integration circle after the ceremony the next day, but also, you know, like, like next week or a few days after right because that’s kind of that becomes the for a lot of people when they go back to their own, you know, regular lives, they feel disoriented. So I find that people in that like that first week.

uh… they need the most help and stand don’t be afraid to reach out you know there i’m sure uh… boy no that there are a lot of integration coaches out there are you know if you have a therapist uh… i work with the therapist for a long time in she and i after every ceremony we would always do an integration call you know if you do it i was to tell your therapist please you know you got up you got it be honest about this stuff

That was always super helpful, right? Because she came at it from a particular point of view and really helped me integrate through the things that I was dealing with. And she already kind of knew my story, so it was perfect. So therapists are great, integration coach, stay connected, stay connected to music, pray, hape, I’m a hape user, so.

Derek (25:41.27)

you know, continuing hape use the days after ceremony is super, uh, super important. And you’ll, you’ll notice that you’re still open, right? I’ve, I’ve had some openings after like after ceremony bigger than while in ceremony, like they’ve just like, you know, just moments of clarity or, um, some Kundalini stuff might happen. So yeah, just, uh, you know, and then.

Keep your dieta going. I would say keep your dieta going for a couple of days. Maybe if you stop sitting on Sunday, run out to Wednesday or something, keep your dieta going. Do the things for your body like yoga and whatever, walk in nature. So that’s why when people sign up for a weekend ceremony, for me, it’s really a week ceremony because you have two days before

two days after and then your days of ceremony. So you really have to think about that whole, like getting off work, going to the ayahuasca ceremony Friday and going back to work on Monday, that’s really rough. And I would not recommend that. Look, it’s better than not going to the ceremony. If that’s all you can do, then go for it. But ideally you need space before and space after to really get in.

feel the flow, feel the magic. And there’s this thing that’s common also is this kind of sometimes there’s a post-Iwaska depression that sets in because you’ve come off this euphoric high and then you might feel depressed or low. So having somebody to talk to about that stuff, another person, what I find helpful is, getting the phone number of somebody that you went through the ceremony with.

Checking in with them, you know, do a little mini integration group with them. You know, you lived something with that person and so sometimes that can be helpful to just kind of reconnect in that way. Yeah.

Sam Believ (27:50.741)

Totally agree Derek, all is good advice, similar to what I tell to people including the music and rap as well. The post-thermo period is when you do everything that your mom told you to do or you’re…

All the good advice, this is the time for you to implement it because if you start good habits, they just take so much better. And you know, meditation being in the nature, journaling, everything. You mentioned integration, I think it’s an important topic for you guys that are listening. If you’re looking for…

Derek (28:20.526)

Hmm.

Sam Believ (28:29.004)

for a counselor, as Derek says, find somebody who at least knows you’re doing ayahuasca, but even better so, done ayahuasca themselves and understands what you’re going through. You can get a lot of therapists, and I’ve heard those stories, they will shun you for doing it. They’ll say, you know, you’re crazy, so fire that guy, don’t do it. And yeah, we, for example, we do have an integration coach that works remotely, so we normally send people his way.

Derek (28:38.775)

Yeah.

Sam Believ (28:59.958)

And a lot of times when people come to the retreat they get really bonded and as you say they create those little mini Zoom calls to keep doing with the word circles during the ceremony. They do them digitally and it’s hard for us because we have so many groups it’s hard to oversee all of them but they basically continue with the culture that has been created. So let’s talk a little bit about…

Sam Believ (29:30.685)

You’re a spiritual person, you had a spiritual practice before you came to Ayahuasca, now it’s Ayahuasca. So how do you combine your spirituality and your entrepreneurial journey?

Derek (29:47.618)

Hmm.

Derek (29:51.446)

Not easy, I’ll tell you that, you know.

Derek (29:56.67)

I mean, I think I go through moments where I’m, I forget everything but my journey. And then I have to kind of bring myself back, right? To remembering that, you know, like, I have to like have money and food and all these things. And so that’s been a real challenge for me is balancing the two, especially if I just went to the jungle, I went to…

to the Amazon and I was there a couple of weeks with the tribe and I came back and it was really disoriented, right? I was very, I was like, I was just looking around, looking around my house going, what is all this stuff? I just felt so overwhelmed by my life, after being in the jungle with just a backpack and…

So that hasn’t been a real easy journey for me. And it’s something I’m still dealing with. And part of me is like, well, maybe I combine the two, right? But I don’t know that that’s the answer either. Like, you’ve done that, right? You’ve combined it. You’ve started this retreat, which is beautiful. But I don’t know if that’s the answer. I think the two lives can live side by side.

Now of course…

there has to be an alignment. Like, you know, I’m a long time vegetarian, for example, so I couldn’t like be a butcher and then be, you know, have a butcher shop and then be a vegetarian, right? So like there has to be some alignment, some coherence between what you’re doing and the things you’re either learning or studying or feeling. So that’s probably the more important thing is there’s that coherence. And there are other ways that we can.

Derek (31:54.306)

contribute and this is why I wrote the book. You know, I didn’t write the book because I like wanted to I’d sell it and you know Push it into the market. I wanted to give back to To People that are in this space which I see a lot that are that are kind of in this in-between zone They feel called a little bit, but they’re not quite sure they don’t you know, they

they just haven’t got over a certain hurdle in themselves to go and actually sit. And so I wanted to give them an intellectual feeling that they could have the tools and be prepared to get over that initial fear and sign up. That was the original reason I did it. And the other part, and the reason I use ceremony in the title is that it is a ceremony. Like our society…

Has lost the feeling of what a ceremony is, right? We think ceremonies like Christmas and well it is for some people but you know, this is like Ayahuasca is a moment to connect with the divine it’s a moment to Really connect with the sacred The sacred spirit the sacred heart the sacred energy the cosmic

bliss that is available and you know that can show up in a lot of different ways and for and it shows up for people differently all the time but it really is a ceremony right it’s a moment that you put aside a part of your life and you say okay I’m you know I’m doing this thing and it’s really important you’re not just going to an event you know you’re not just like going to drink ayahuasca and you know it’s like

That’s why I love it so much. I really feel like the ceremonial aspect of ayahuasca is very important. And. You know, it’s, um.

Derek (34:04.51)

It’s a moment to honor yourself and to honor the things, the mysterious aspects of life that we want to know, that we want to feel, that we want to really get closer to. And so, yeah, that’s the way I’ve approached it.

Sam Believ (34:27.228)

Yeah, in our effort as a society to sort of simplify things and also unfortunately saw commercialized things, the ceremony was removed, it was one of the first things to be lost and I’m afraid something similar can happen to ayahuasca, the desire to sort of put it in the pill and just take it and not have the ceremony, but we need ceremony as humans.

grew up a species, you know, sitting up around the fire and it’s a ceremony in itself. What you talk about, I really vibe with, you know, how difficult it is to combine entrepreneurship and spiritual work because it’s kind of like they’re very opposite energies. It’s like…

When you create a business and you need to pay money, money comes in, money comes out and you’re building something and the stress and it’s like the opposite of this is the ceremony you calm down, you relax, you don’t think about money. If you ever tried talking to Iwaska about money, which I tried a couple times when money was a problem, it just told me, don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it, it’s not important. The money will come, like don’t worry about it. So

Derek (35:35.363)

Hmm.

Derek (35:41.503)

Yeah.

Sam Believ (35:48.44)

It’s an interesting thing, like in my personal work here at The Retreat, I try to, for example, take care of the money in the beginning and then not talk about money for the entire length of The Retreat, just like, because it’s a very different energy. Like…

Derek (36:05.015)

Yeah.

Sam Believ (36:06.036)

But at the same time, you also need to be open that it is a business and we have to pay taxes and pay the workers and pay for all the improvements. And yet it’s a difficult balance. But I personally for myself, I’ve decided I drink ayahuasca once a month and it helped me immensely when I get, you know, in a burnout state territory. I just go back, drink ayahuasca. It puts me back on my way.

And I’ve also had help from Ayahuasca because it was from Ayahuasca itself that I got the message that I need to work with the medicine, which led me to finding a retreat. So in your own experience with working with plant medicines, did you notice it being a help or maybe get some ideas or some specific push to guide your business or your businesses in a specific direction?

Derek (36:38.658)

Hmm

Derek (36:56.01)

Yeah, all of the above. For me, it really released creativity. And so I painted a lot as a kid. And so that came back. But also the creativity for business, right? So interesting how like first it came back through painting and drawing, and then it kind of worked its way into

the entrepreneurial side of my life and like was redesigning stuff. And so, um, for sure, it has helped me in that aspect. And, and it’s also helped me. This has been more recent after the jungle, I’ve been, um, more focused. Like for, for a long time, I felt like I was a little bit in this, in this

Derek (37:54.486)

I was only interested in that and wasn’t really caring for my businesses in a way that I needed to. I needed to show up. And I remember having several intentions in ceremonies. I kept asking, I was like, you know, what is my soul? What is my soul path? What is my journey? What you know, I was like, show it to me. Because you have some people that come into ceremonies. They’re like, oh, I saw my whole.

future and I’m gonna do this and I never have that right. I was like, okay, this is the time I come on show me. And what she has shown me over and over when I asked that question is she says, lead your life from your heart. That’s it. Like, that’s all you have to do is just drop into your heart and lead your life from that place. And everything will unravel the way it needs to unravel.

and she gives me that lesson over and over again. It’s so amazing, you know, and it’s, of course I want something more specific, but she gives, you know, she tends to give you like the more, well, she gives me the more broad, you know, strokes. She was like, okay, just leave it from your heart, you know. I’m like, okay. So, yeah.

Sam Believ (39:12.217)

Yeah, Ayahuasca rarely gives you what you want, but it almost always gives you what you need.

Derek (39:16.802)

you need for sure. Yeah.

Sam Believ (39:20.153)

You said once in one of your interviews that when you drink ayahuasca you kind of discovered the divinity and all the doubt was removed. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Derek (39:33.538)

Hmm. Yeah.

Derek (39:39.81)

So this is a bit of a, I wanna encourage people to really stick in the journey. I hear a lot of people say that they’ve, they drank once or twice or three times and they’re done. And I feel like, unless you’ve sat,

like 30 times I think would be a good goal. You haven’t really.

uncovered the magic. You know, you haven’t really explored the depths. Oh, yay! There’s a depth right there.

Sam Believ (40:27.49)

We have an intruder. He was knocking on my door, so. Hope you don’t mind, guys. Carry on, Derek.

Derek (40:29.174)

That’s okay. Oh, beautiful. Yeah.

Derek (40:40.846)

So what I feel is, for me, I’ll talk about a little bit about my path. It’s been like the first say 15 sessions are, it’s like dating somebody, right? Or meeting your partner. Like you gotta get to know them. Like you go in and you get to know who they are, they get to know you and you’re hanging out with them.

Derek (41:11.518)

And then like 15 through, I don’t know, 25 or 30, you’re starting to, for me is that’s when I really, the trauma was really revealed. So I got to know her in the beginning. And then as soon as I was also comfortable with her and she was comfortable with me, then we really worked on the trauma, right? We really went, we just went for it. And then after that,

maybe 30 or 35 sits, I started to feel a different energy when I sat, I felt I wasn’t getting to know her, she wasn’t getting to know me, I wasn’t, you know, I was no longer, there was no vomiting happening, I wasn’t purging, I was connected to the Ikaros in a new way, I was connected to the prayers, I was connected to the energies in the room, however they were showing up.

And I felt like, and this is where I sit now when I sit, the ceremony is a prayer. The whole ceremony is a chance for me to pray through the songs, through my breath, through my body. Like it’s a moment to really be in connection with the divine. And so that’s been my.

kind of the evolution of my journey and getting to that place was not easy and it took a lot of sits and it took dedication and work. But.

I’ve never felt more connected to something mystical and mysterious in my whole life. And, you know, I’ve spent my whole life kind of searching or, you know, working in different modalities and different traditions. I worked for the Christian Murdy Foundation for 16 years. So I was like, you know, in this spiritual organization for a long, long time. And

Derek (43:24.882)

I was brought me a connection that I never had in all that other work all that a lot of it was very intellectual like So it brought something it brought something into my heart and Opened something that allowed me to connect in a new way that I never like I never knew how to get to that place Right. I never I never imagined how to get to that place

And so, yeah. And I still don’t know what it is, right? I still don’t know, like, I don’t understand it. I don’t, I can feel it sometimes. And there are times I feel super disconnected. And this is where, like you said, when I’m starting to feel disconnected, I do a mushroom journey or I do a ayahuasca journey. I also sit once a month, which I think is a really good cadence. Once a month is a beautiful.

beautiful way to stay connected, but also give enough room for integration, right? So you’re not just stacking on top of each other, you’re giving some room sometime every two months. So yeah, it’s this dance, right, where I’m getting close, then I feel disconnected, then I go back, and I’m actually doing this course right now with the…

the podcaster, the Emerald. I don’t know if you’ve heard the Emerald. If you haven’t, you should really listen. It’s amazing podcast. And we’re doing a year long course on the mystic and being connected to the animate spirit. And so it’s just fun to be in this space where we’re talking about, you know, ceremony and offering and devotion, right? These are all words that I was very, I was very allergic to for a long time.

And so I’m starting to get to know that side of spirituality, which in the past I’ve always approached it with a very kind of intellectual mind, right?

Derek (45:33.204)

Yeah.

Sam Believ (45:35.328)

Yeah, that makes total sense and describing your psychedelic experience or your psychedelic work is very difficult. It’s like our language lacks words to describe it. The journey and the way it goes up and down reminded me of waves and I can’t talk to you without mentioning waves because you’re mostly known for your surfing and for your…

businesses associated with surfing. The question that I had when I was preparing for this podcast is when you think about nature and ayahuasca and pachamama mostly you imagine like a jungle or a mountain but you spend most of your time in the sea in the waves surfing you surf every day and I don’t really have that connection to the ocean so how

Derek (46:29.751)

Hmm

Sam Believ (46:31.32)

How is that and how does it tie into your spiritual journey?

Derek (46:37.259)

Yeah.

I think the ocean saved my life. You know, like I told you a little bit about my childhood and I’ve been surfing since I was like, I think 10 or something. You know, I was brought up by my grandparents actually, like you and like the ocean. So the ocean has always been in my life. It’s always been this anchor and much like my journey with Iosca, my journey with the ocean has changed, right?

my journey with surfing has changed. And what I know is that really the ocean and surfing have probably saved my life, right? It saved me from…

exploring other modalities to treat my trauma. So in many ways when I go surfing, I have this euphoria. I feel like it’s amazing, right? You’re like moving with the energy of the ocean. Like you’re, what a incredible way to spend a day or an hour or a lifetime. So I have so much gratitude to the ocean and to my introduction to surfing and my commitment and connection to surfing.

I could talk hours about that, but I think what is important for everyone is that they have some relationship with nature, whatever that is, whether it’s a mountain, the jungle, the garden, your garden, for example. And so I’ve always had this deep connection with nature through surfing that has taught me so many things, right? I mean, it’s much like ayahuasca, right? You’re like,

Derek (48:23.894)

You’re surfing and you’re with your friend and there’s a protocol in surfing where one person always, person in position, it’s their wave. Sometimes you take the wave even though it’s not your position from your friend, right? So you see your ego, you see your selfishness, you see your aggression. So all of life is revealed to you in these moments of surfing. You’re out there in a really big day, you see your fear.

Right, so all of life, it’s like this constant teacher has been with me for so long in both punishing me and giving me beautiful insights into myself and into the world and not to mention all the places I’ve traveled all over the world and I’ve surfed, you know, some of the best waves, usually with community, right, with friends, which is such a gift. And yeah.

Like, you know, mixing the two is like ayahuasca and surfing is it, it goes hand in hand, you know, and, and I know, I don’t know a lot of surfers that do AYA, but the ones that I do, I really connect with, you know, I was like, okay, you get it. You know? Um, yeah.

Sam Believ (49:40.441)

I believe surfing can be a form of integration as well.

Derek (49:45.206)

That’s beautiful. I love that. You’re right. Yeah. And sometimes I’ll actually surf during a during ayahuasca weekend because I sit here in Santa Barbara and like I’ll after Saturday after this after the Friday night I’ll go surf and then go back for the Sunday night and that’s amazing. Like surfing in the in the between glow of I am a ceremony. I always felt and I haven’t seen this. I always felt like a surfing.

Ayo retreat would be awesome, right? Even for people that don’t surf, just getting into the ocean between ceremonies or after ceremony would be a beautiful, or in a river too. I mean, we did that in the Amazon. We got into the river, but the ocean has something different, yeah. Maybe retreat number two. I know there’s…

Sam Believ (50:30.764)

It’s a great idea. Let’s do it Derek. We have our own. You have servings. Yeah. Yeah, if I open a second location I would probably go to the beach. There’s something about that.

Derek (50:44.786)

Yeah, there’s good surfing in Columbia. Actually, there’s actually really good surfing.

Sam Believ (50:52.06)

Okay, let’s throw it out there in the universe and if it has to happen, it will happen. It was a fascinating conversation, I really liked it, I enjoyed it. I think we brought up some topics that can benefit our listeners who are sort of trying to navigate their path in this ayahuasca world. Derek, where can people find you, learn more about you or

Derek (50:59.328)

I love it.

Sam Believ (51:22.208)

find your book for example.

Derek (51:22.262)

Yeah. If you go to my website, which is my name, Derek Dodds, d-o-d-d-s dot com, then there are my Instagram pages there. And then I also, I write about an article a month. So I wrote about my journey to the jungle. And there’s a great article on Hoppe there, if you’re getting, you know, starting out with Hoppe, and I write about, you know, some of my teachers, some of my guides, like

Ganesh or Hanuman really connected to the Indian lineage. I also went to Egypt last year and so I write a little bit about my connection to Ra and Osiris and that could be another fun conversation.

Sam Believ (52:08.796)

Yeah, definitely because on ayahuasca sometimes I see pyramids and very Egyptian style theme. I don’t know where it is yet to be explored. Guys, check out Derek’s website, check out his book. I’m sure it’s a good summary for the beginners. And Derek, thank you so much for coming and sharing with us tonight. Guys, you’ve been listening to ayah

Sam Believ (52:39.01)

and I will see you in the next episode.

Derek (52:42.158)

Thank you, Sam. Appreciate the interview.

In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with Mary Telliano on the topics of transitioning from life to death and psychedelics, fear of death, death as a life coach and we even go though a death meditation.

Find more about Mary at http://www.connectanamcara.com

Death meditation

https://on.soundcloud.com/eEKK4u5VDrdop9wa9

Transcript

Sam Believ (00:02.119)

and welcome to ayah Today we’re joined by Mary Taliano. She’s an end of life coach and grief coach. She runs a non-profit and she is on a mission to rebrand death. Mary, welcome to the podcast.

Mary Telliano (00:20.526)

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m really excited and honored to be here. Thank you.

Sam Believ (00:27.779)

Mary, what drew you to this work that, you know, you could say most people avoid thinking about death and talking about death, but you’re drawn to this work and to help people in this. How did you end up in this position?

Mary Telliano (00:47.21)

Well, I think I became friends with death at a very young age. And if I think back, and I get this question a lot, when my first memory of death, what is my first understanding of it, would be when I died at four. And I truly began to see the world differently after that. And if I look back now at that version of myself and really witness the different things I was.

feeling and seeing after that experience, it changed me. Even at four, I could recognize a difference. And, you know, then began volunteering at End of Life and Senior Care Facilities from 12 to end of high school. And I loved being there. I really saw an authenticity. I saw so many people at the end of life that had so many stories to tell. And as a kid, I was just excited to sit and listen.

to those stories and had a lot of patience. And so I think witnessing that experience and witnessing more life at the end of life through the eyes of a child molded and shaped the way that I offer myself now and how I feel into this work.

Sam Believ (02:02.939)

The way you describe it makes it sound less negative than we normally envision it. Mary, what is death doula?

Mary Telliano (02:12.618)

A daddhula is a wide range of souls. So I get this question a lot. And so when I’m a daddhula, my service is sound healing. It is meditation. It is grief support. It’s reiki and somatic work. It’s legacy and vigil, and also working with plant medicines. But then you might have another daddhula who doesn’t do any of the things that I do, but they’re really great at estate planning contracts.

and a lot of like the logical work that goes into wills. And so I think this is by design, every death is different. So there’s a lot of need for a variety of what death doulas can do. And so a death doula is a wide range of resources and support and we come in and we really complement where hospice leaves off. We really are able to spend that time supporting a family and supporting somebody during transition

Hospice doesn’t have necessarily the time to do. They come in and they handle the medical part. So we really hold this other space with hospice and with other end of life care facilitators.

Sam Believ (03:23.931)

Yeah, before preparing for this podcast, I didn’t know Wardula. It’s a new word for me. So you work with a lot of people that are on their deathbeds. Where do you think psychedelics and plant medicines come in? What can they help with in that transition from life to death?

Mary Telliano (03:30.359)

Hmm.

Mary Telliano (03:47.05)

Yeah, well first I’ll say that it’s not for everybody. And so I support people at the end of life who have no idea that I serve plant medicine. And then I support people who have actively sought out my services for plant medicine facilitation. Yeah, so it’s a variety of how I support people, but the people who are actively looking for this experience.

they’re looking to support themselves during a very transformative time. And what psychedelics is, I truly believe is a death practice, right? When you say yes to a ceremony, diagnosis or not, all the things bubble to the surface, all of the work starts to arise and it’s the same thing for end of life. And this really supports, you know, also transcendence, allowing this person to step outside of themselves for a moment, step outside the physical.

experience and understand transcendence and trying to make meaning outside of the body definitely supports them during that time.

Sam Believ (04:54.299)

Do you think psychedelics can be used as a form of rehearsal for death? For example, here at our Ayahuasca retreat, a lot of people report that they have died or have even died several times. And in our instructions for people before the ceremony, I say if you feel like you’re dying just die because you will be reborn. And I believe in ancient Greeks that were drinking Kikion.

Mary Telliano (05:16.405)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Believ (05:22.555)

The LSD-based plant medicine, they had the phrase that if I would ever get a tattoo, I’d probably tattoo that, but the phrase says, if you die before you die, you don’t die when you die.

Mary Telliano (05:37.314)

Yes.

Sam Believ (05:38.799)

So yeah, I kind of like tried to answer your question all with my own question, but yeah. What do you think about that?

Mary Telliano (05:44.69)

Yeah, I fully resonate with that and believe that plant medicine is one way that we practice death before dying. Losing a relationship and a job, losing a certain way of understanding the world when that changes, there’s a death. So we are offered all of these opportunities to practice death our whole life and I’ll even say down to when we fall asleep at night. What do you do? You

Shavasana corpse pose and you at some point whether you decide it or not, whether you want it or not, you will fall asleep and you go into a non-dual state. You are disconnected but connected still and you’re practicing that surrender and then you explore whatever you explore in the mind and the subconscious and then you come back to life, come back to this place. So we’re even practicing going to another side, coming back.

going to another side, coming back. And I see this a lot with people who are very close to the end of life. So they’ve already entered what I call the eternal sleep. They’re not responsive. They’re just breathing. And the breathing is a little bit different and they’re in that state. I can sometimes witness and they’ll show me, I’m coming out of my body. I’m coming back in. I’m coming out of my body. I’m coming back in. So I’m even seeing that kind of practice, you know, in other people at the end of life. So I see how it all connects.

Sam Believ (07:14.191)

When you say you see that, is that by using medical equipment or something else?

Mary Telliano (07:21.434)

Well, actually, I’ve seen it on pictures. I’ve seen souls leaving bodies in pictures for a client that I was facilitating his death. And then I see it typically, that was only one time, and I see it typically just within my, I’ll close my eyes and I’ll put my hands over where I feel I’m being called or allowed to put my hands over and just going into that state where I’m just witnessing.

things as they arise and sometimes that image will come up where they’re showing me in and out in and out in and out and what it looks like to me in my mind. So this is interesting, you know, intuition speaks to us differently. So we have a different psychic glossary. Each one of us have our own unique ways of understanding symbols and intuitive information. And so when I see it, typically I’ll see an outline of a body.

and then I’ll see a light come out, like the same form of the body, but light and dark, and I’ll see it kind of oscillating between it. And that’s how I understand, oh, they’re practicing coming out of the body and coming back in, if that makes any sense.

Sam Believ (08:34.999)

I know you teach people to be death duelists, but does that require learning that spiritual side of it and seeing energies and feeling energies? Can you even learn something like that?

Mary Telliano (08:47.342)

Well, we all have it. There’s nothing that I can see or do or feel that no one else has. It’s just really getting in touch with those subtle energies and being intentional about going into those spaces and trying to understand it for yourself. So having that natural curiosity, I think awakens a lot of it already. And it’s not a requirement to be an end of life doula, but it’s what my whole school is based off of.

I believe our intuition is one of the sharper swords that we can hold for ourselves in this life and at the end of life.

Sam Believ (09:24.295)

Okay, well that begs the question, if you see souls leaving, can you see how they look like or is it just a feeling?

Mary Telliano (09:34.058)

It looks like light to me. That’s primarily what I’ve been shown a lot from the other side is a series of lights, some tunnels. I’ve gotten little glimpses of tunnels. There’s been parts of supporting people in the end of life process where I know I’m not allowed to see where they’re at and what they’re doing. It’s not that I’m blocked, it’s just.

It’s a space that’s preserved for that moment, for that person that no outsider can witness, especially one that’s attached in earthly form. I just don’t think I would even know how to compute what I’m seeing. So there’s those aspects with that. So I mostly see it as light. And one of Sol’s recently showed me as they were in transition, he was showing me Earth and he was showing me that the energy from

this dimension when it leaves, it’s a big light and it shoots up kind of like a triangle. And then he showed me what it looks like when souls come in and then it’s like the opposite. And there was like this highway going back and forth. And I thought that, and it was moving like a pulse. And that was really cool. And we’re talking at a half of a half of a half of a half of a second of an image.

But I understand it just like we do in medicine when you see that image and it just solidifies and it speaks on all forms of your knowing. It’s very much like that.

Sam Believ (10:55.313)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Believ (11:04.619)

I mean, probably six, seven years ago, before I started working with the medicine, I’d probably say, this lady’s crazy. But now I have to, I learned a lot and I accept a lot of things. So now the doubt has been replaced with curiosity. I don’t know if I can ask you that, but all kinds of questions coming up. In that case, what is a soul? Is it?

Mary Telliano (11:13.822)

I’m sorry.

Sam Believ (11:32.813)

personalities that yeah what is a soul Mary I don’t know if you can answer that

Mary Telliano (11:40.528)

I know it’s precious and I know that a soul has the ability to really comprehend the oneness. And I think it oscillates between, a soul can oscillate when you’re in that soul form, it knows how to experience somewhat of…

an individualistic perspective, but also is very connected to the whole. And I don’t know how that looks or why it comes through that way for me, but that’s my answer for what I think a soul is. Something a part of us that remembers all of it.

Sam Believ (12:25.184)

What are you most passionate about in that work? Like what makes you keep doing it?

Mary Telliano (12:33.27)

The authenticity. I worked in finance and insurance for 16 years and it was fun. It was at a motorcycle dealership. So it wasn’t like, you know, I could cuss at work and I can throw up my shoes on my desk and it was very casual. And so like it fit this little younger version of me that wanted to be successful in a playful environment. And so that’s why I stayed there. But as I moved into this work.

the truth of this work outweighed anything that I could ever imagine doing ever again. Like there’s no, I just remember my evolution of finding what I want to do in this life. And each step of like work and career and trying to figure it out, there was always like the next thing, right? Okay, I’m doing this as a vehicle to get to that. Or I know there’s something else and there’s like this curiosity, where am I going to end it? Where’s my career going to really?

sink in, that doesn’t exist anymore for me with this work. It is just something that nourishes me each time that I support somebody at the end of life just as much as I’m nourishing them. And I can’t deny that realness and that purity that can be exchanged.

Sam Believ (13:53.999)

This is a very necessary work that you’re doing. And I know you’re also on a mission to sort of rebrand death. And you teach a lot of other people how to do this work. So in the training you provide, can you, for people that are listening that maybe are interested in this field, how does this look like?

Mary Telliano (14:16.678)

Yeah, so it’s a 90-day program and what it is a program that one, you can become a datula and create a business. There’s those teachings in it as well. Or two, you can really take this curriculum and just get closer with death in your own way. So for example, the first two weeks of my curriculum, I’m not going over what a datula does or how to do it.

or anything else, what I’m doing is I kill my students through a variety of meditations and different breathworks and different prompts during our one-on-ones and our group calls, where I’m taking them through their death. And I think that’s important so that they can understand where death is teaching them, so that they can best support themselves while they’re supporting others. And it’s just illuminating any blind spots. And so the program is just to get closer with that peace with us. And then if…

By default, this information is shared or a business is created or another school is created from it or retreats or however, you know, the students take the information and alchemize it. It’s beautiful. I’ve been doing this school for many years now and what I see when I look at all the people who have come through this program is just a variety of different flowers in a field and they’re all sprouting in their own unique way. And so the school…

I didn’t realize was a mystery school. I never made this school to be, I guess that’s how you know it’s a mystery school when it’s a surprise to me too. But looking back now, I just started understanding that this is a mystery school because you don’t really know what you’re going to do sometimes with this information, but by the time the program’s over, you know.

Sam Believ (16:06.267)

When you work with people that do have interest in using plant medicines or psychedelics in their transition, how does that look like?

Mary Telliano (16:19.63)

Well, there’s a lot of different considerations to go into first and foremost. So a lot has to do with their intention, you know, making sure that their intention is realistic. You never want to tell somebody you’re going to take this medicine and it’s going to change it all and it’s going to make it better and you know, or, you know, so I’m really looking out as their

communicating their intention just to make sure everything is in their consent and they know what it is and what it’s not. And so that’s first. And then the second thing is medical. Although I do screen medically my non-diagnosis clients, typically at the end of life, there’s a lot of different medications to consider. And so we go really heavy into that.

My goal when I’m serving end of life patients is to have the whole care team if I can, the doctors, the family, everybody. If we can all be on the same page, that is my ideal situation. And then something else that I highly consider before serving somebody is who’s going to be around them during integration. Because if somebody is not on board, right, we got cousin Dan from Tennessee who’s like, what are you giving grandpa?

Hell no, I’m calling them, you know, whatever it is. People get, you know, have their own opinions and they’re fine to have it, but I need to consider who’s going to be caring for this person during integration because they’re gonna be very vulnerable. And they, unlike people who, you know, will go do Alaska and come home and be like, you know what, I don’t wanna be home right now. I’m gonna continue like stay here for another couple weeks and do a journey and go see a waterfall and integrate. Like they don’t have that option. So I have to make sure that the people

who are going to be supporting the afterwards are on board and just as much a support as this person needs for this space.

Sam Believ (18:21.307)

Well, this is why we’re recording this podcast. So that Dan from Tennessee, Dan, I hope you’re listening, gets educated. And when the time comes, is ready to accept that. It’s a beautiful work because if you work with plant medicines and let’s say you work with the entire, the person that is dying and also the people that are ready to be grieving, they can sort of work through the maybe conflicts and.

Mary Telliano (18:29.242)

Yeah, yeah!

Sam Believ (18:51.451)

take the masks off and get really connected and the person that is dying can sort of rehearse the process a little bit and then when the person dies as well you also then help the people to grieve. So the two questions are what medicines do you work with in that process and is there a follow up for the grieving people?

Mary Telliano (19:05.972)

Mm-hmm.

Mary Telliano (19:17.694)

Yeah, so during the grieving process, the grief is the medicine. So I’m not gonna serve somebody who is in immediate grief. This is a part of what I do is just support them through that heavy, dark place. And hopefully we can get to somewhere down the line eventually, preferably maybe like a year after the person has transitioned to maybe then consider.

a plant medicine experience if it’s something they’re actively wanting to do. Microdosing psilocybin can be great not immediately, but maybe in between that marker of a year, maybe at the six month marker maybe, a little bit further in the process. So the grieving process, the grief is the medicine and I love to support people in that place because there’s so much that gets activated.

in the grief process that people can sometimes overlook or miss. And so having somebody to reflect a little bit back what’s going on in that experience for them can be really impactful for how they hold this grief forever. So yeah, I like to set people up with a healthy foundation of grief right away. And then…

later on consider plant medicine. But it’s definitely not something that’s in my scope of practice to do immediately.

Sam Believ (20:48.731)

Um, we have a lot of people that come to the, to the retreat that have recently experienced the loss of a loved one and not always, but I would say 50% of times they somehow through ayahuasca managed to, to connect to the spirit and to maybe have the parting words and sometimes the…

Mary Telliano (20:57.614)

Thanks for watching!

Sam Believ (21:11.355)

people tell them, you know, there’s something I forgot to say, especially when they didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. What do you think about that? Is that a real thing or is it just in their heads or?

Mary Telliano (21:27.994)

Who am I to say? I know for me when I’ve connected to the other side, it’s very real, it’s very intimate, and there could be nobody that could say, oh, that’s not real or that didn’t happen or you know. So for me, it’s a very personal experience. And I would say when it feels the most real for me is when it feels embodied and not in my mind.

And so if that’s the feeling and that’s the frequency and that’s where I’m at, I really interpret that as truth. And there’s so much like, I don’t know, the other side of the veil has never been louder. It’s just wildly obvious to me that there is something on the other side that really supports us. And the message that I get quite often is

We need them as much as they need us. This is still a collaboration and this is still a connection if we can allow it to be.

Sam Believ (22:27.747)

I personally believe it and I’m a skeptic I try to sort of question everything but I believe it because sometimes people also get messages that they personally had no way to know about like you know tell your mom to go do this with that person and then they pass the messages along and people get surprised like how did you know that so yeah I do believe in as I’m saying as the longer I work in this line of work the more I can learn about

the invisible and stuff that, you know, Dan from Tennessee would not approve of. So, yeah. What do you think about the topic of fear before dying and if plant medicines can help with that?

Mary Telliano (23:05.094)

Hahaha

Mary Telliano (23:23.614)

Oh, would you like to hear a story? I tell this one often about a… Yeah, I think that might be nice. So I’ve told this one before, but for me it’s quite captivating each time I tell it. And so I was working with a woman and she was nearing the end of life. I would say…

Sam Believ (23:28.407)

Story is the best way to go.

Mary Telliano (23:50.794)

I served her she passed within a week and a half. So that’s how close she was. But she was able to walk when I was supporting her with a walker and support with her of her daughter. And what we were working with was very low doses of 5-MAO DMT. And so what I do is I serve them a very small amount of the isolated alkaloid and they go through the experience.

Boom, they complete, we have a conversation, we do a little integration, and they have an option to go again. And then we kind of rinse and repeat that as many times as they like, but staying within a very safe buffer so they can’t keep going and going, but allowing them to really experience that for as long as they need to. And so her main concern was that separating from her body would be really painful. That was her fear.

And that was the fear that continued to ruminate in our intake process and before I served the medicine. And this was a deep fear. And I could tell this was something she thought about in her most quiet moments. And so we go for the first round and she’s in the medicine and she goes, oh, and she’s kind of moaning and turning her head a little bit. And she takes a sigh and she goes, oh, separated.

separated and she’s like making different tonings with the word separated. I’m just holding space and I’m a facilitator that I call myself a facilitator. I’m not a shaman, I’m not healer, I’m just a medicine facilitator so I don’t really have like the indigenous tools to kind of shake or just allow and witness and support when they call me in. And so after this loop in this first round and we’re talking and I said can I ask you something?

And she goes, yes. And I said, you were in there and you kept saying separated. You kept saying it in different ways and you would turn your head. Do you remember or can you share a little bit about what was going on with you? And she goes, yes, I was separating from my body and it was beautiful and it was like this dark void but I was like falling into it and I was trying to understand it but it didn’t end. And she was describing this place she was going to.

Mary Telliano (26:13.806)

And after she was done describing it, I said, did it hurt? And right when I said that, she kind of like smiled from one side of her face and she goes, no, huh. And at that moment, I watched in live time the contract between the fear and suffering of separating from the body change.

And when I think about that, you know, you asked me earlier, like what inspires you with stories like that? Because I wonder, I always am wondering like, what would have been like if she hadn’t had that connection? If she continued to ruminate on that fear and fear until it got so big that was all she could pay attention to was that fear. And something else got ironed out in that moment for her. And a week later, she died very peacefully.

surrounded by the people that she loved the most, and it didn’t hurt.

Sam Believ (27:12.367)

Beautiful story.

Kinda makes me wanna ask for another story. Do you have more stories like this? Makes you feel nice and fuzzy.

Mary Telliano (27:22.21)

Yeah, I have a beautiful story about another client of mine who I worked with him for quite some time. I worked with him in diagnosis all the way to the end of life and supported his family in a very big and intimate way, I would say. And as we got closer from now palliative care to hospice, he wanted to, and this is a family by the way.

long before his illness. For many years, this family was sitting in ayahuasca and going here to this retreat. So they were very familiar with Platt Medicine. And towards the end, this is something that they wanted to experience as a family. And so, the setup was here’s the living room, and this is where his bed was, and then there’s a wall here, and there’s a fireplace in between the wall to the next bedroom.

And so my client, we all hold space, his children are there and we, you know, beautiful experience and so we get done with him. And so the family dynamic is his ex-wife and new husband is his caretaker, but the family gets along really well. There’s a lot of love here. But now there’s this other man, right, in this home who’s going to be the father of these children when this man passes.

There’s an awareness of this, but it hadn’t been spoken quite like this. So the stepfather now went into the room and we began to open up the space for him to experience the medicine. And as soon as he started to go into it, I got the message, go to the client in the living room. Now he was already asleep and tucked in and, you know, doing very silent and well out there. So I was like, OK, I’m just going to listen to where I’m being called to go.

There was a facilitator and the wife in the room, so I felt good about enough people in the room to hold space while I went and to support the other, the man who was transitioning. So I go out there and I hold his hand, and immediately he’s just giving me all these messages that were so powerful that I still carry to this day. But one thing that was incredible is I’m holding his hand and he’s just showing me so much, all of a sudden that fire.

Mary Telliano (29:44.066)

crack, pop, poop, poop. And like the flake, like the, you know, when a fire pops and stuff comes out, the ambers, it was like popping out. And I was like, well, okay, interesting. And so I go back and I’m holding the client’s hand and I’m like asking what this is. And I’m watching these two energies in the room start to do this. Like there’s a merging. And I don’t understand it, but I’m like, cool. This is nice.

The new father or the husband that’s going to be stepping in comes into the room after his experience and he sits down and he’s crying and he says, I was in my medicine journey and he was passing me the baton.

Mary Telliano (30:27.838)

and he said it was happening through the fire. And I was like, so it was like this fire, this was an energetic merger of these two energies, like through the fire, through the transformation, through the destruction, through the realness of this, something was being reborn. And Jim was, sorry, I shouldn’t say names, edit that out, he was literally passing that baton.

to the new father and so eat.

That’s another story that lives with me, and I think about it quite often.

Sam Believ (31:07.335)

It is very beautiful. Yeah I don’t think you should worry about the name. It’s just one name. You don’t have the whole story. Social Security number. It’s going to be okay. Talking about stories and when you work with people and what do they talk about in the last days of their lives? Especially what are the regrets people mention?

Mary Telliano (31:15.106)

Yeah, whoops, yeah. I don’t know the name.

Sam Believ (31:37.199)

when they’re dying.

Mary Telliano (31:37.922)

It’s all around where they spent their time. If it’s a regret, it’s how they spent their time and what they were spending their time doing. And if it was truly the most valuable place they should have been placing their energy or not. I truly believe we’re in the right place at the right time always. I don’t know if that will necessarily be my regret, but I do see that one come up quite often. Family dynamics, how things have been handled within the family.

all variety of different ways that shows up come, you know family That kind of comes all too ahead at the end of life as well. Um But you know, it’s great to explore these we call it as an end-of-life doula rugs regrets unfinished business guilt and shame and so this is a there’s different exercises and prompting questions we can support people with to

kind of help them understand themselves and see if they can support them a little bit more in different shadow work. But it’s also a part of the work to enliven and see what is your legacy? What have you left behind? What are you leaving behind? What are future generations going to be able to experience because you were here? And so that’s a big part of the work as well.

Sam Believ (33:00.975)

I have heard somewhere, probably another podcast, because I’m such a big fan of podcasts, but that people say that a lot of times that the tendency seems to be that people regret spending less time with their family and more time working.

Mary Telliano (33:18.474)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sam Believ (33:20.175)

So it’s like family, they want more family and they hope they focus less on the money. And I noticed that a lot of times it happens to people at the retreat through that rehearsal of death when they realize that a lot of times people come and with the big ego and like in the first word circle they always mention this and that and how.

how successful they are and how more successful they want to be, as in trying to see if ayahuasca can help them achieve that. And then around ceremony three, four, all of a sudden the tone shifts and they start talking about love and family and God. And a lot of times they never go back to the other worldview.

Sam Believ (34:07.475)

First of all, have you personally worked with ayahuasca before? And because you seem to try to not want to mention what medicines you work with, which is cool if you’re not allowed to.

Mary Telliano (34:16.254)

Oh, yeah, no, I mean, I’ve worked with ayahuasca myself personally as somebody who’s sitting with the medicine. The medicines that I serve people in diagnosis or at end of life is sometimes MDMA, psilocybin, microdosing psilocybin, or 5-Meo DMT. Yeah, but I’ve had my experiences with ayahuasca and it’s definitely informed.

Sam Believ (34:40.047)

But do you reckon?

Sam Believ (34:44.071)

Okay, now I was just worried that maybe, maybe because you’re in US, you were not allowed to talk about it and I’m kind of like pushing for it and I felt a little weird. So what do you think yourself as you work with ayahuasca, first of all, has it helped you in understanding your work better? And also what do you think if people that, you know, instead of only doing it closer to their death, they’ve done it many times and sort of…

Mary Telliano (34:46.026)

work.

Sam Believ (35:14.047)

are better versed in that other version of reality, if that can help.

Mary Telliano (35:19.918)

Yeah. So ayahuasca, when I sat with it, one of the most profound experiences was I was sitting up and I did my purge and I was just kind of like, ugh, just feeling a little heavy at the moment. And it was just like this beautiful whisper, lay down, this is going to be your death. I was like, okay. So I laid down and I went through the whole dying process, decomposing.

deconstructing, going into the earth, going down into the middle of earth, coming back, going up into the universe, exploring it all, and then coming back and fragmenting back into myself. And I really valued that experience to have a full death. And I’ve experienced death in other medicines as well, but ayahuasca showed me just this other part of it that I think just awoken something in me, right? Just like a cellular memory.

Like whatever frequency that was waking up in me is a part of the presence that I hold. It’s not necessarily telling people about my ayahuasca experience, but that medicines in me, that memories in me, and just by me being open and vulnerable and sharing myself, that medicine gets transferred to them and that whatever that is.

Yeah, that’s how Ayahuasca has showed me to share that experience with others. Just being there and having that already inside of me. And you too. And you,

Sam Believ (36:52.935)

And have you.

Sam Believ (36:56.983)

Yeah. And have you noticed that people that, let’s say, dedicated some part of their lives to spirituality, whether through plant medicines or other ways that they have easier time navigating the last days of their lives?

Mary Telliano (37:13.774)

I would say so. The more familiar you are with death, the more exposure you have to it, the less you’re afraid of some things towards the end because it’s already been demystified. I’ve seen enough death to know a little bit about my death. And for me, that brings me comfort and it shows me a little bit of what that platform looks like. And because I have that exposure…

There’s nothing in my nervous system that is like, turns away from it. Well, I’ll have my own fears and I’ll have my own sorrows and my own burdens at the end of life. I know I’ll always be a student to my last breath and no one knows what that really, I don’t know what it feels like to be dying. You don’t either yet, so I know the stakes change, but yeah, I do believe that these practices are informing us for the end of life.

it’s an important thing to serve to ourselves, is just getting closer with death and the end of life process.

Sam Believ (38:15.587)

You say we should make death our life coach.

Mary Telliano (38:19.51)

Mm-hmm. Death is my life coach. Yeah. It’s everybody’s life coach, whether you want it or not.

Sam Believ (38:21.796)

Why?

Tell us more.

Sam Believ (38:31.431)

So why should we do it and how? What should we focus on in that making death our life coach?

Mary Telliano (38:42.858)

Yeah, I would say if this is something that you’re new to, this is a new concept of making death your life coach, I would say maybe listen to a death meditation. And I can, Sam, I can send you one of my death meditations and maybe you can put a link in the bottom so that they can just click it if they want to. But listening to some kind of death meditation and then when you’re done and you come out of it.

evaluate what was the most important for you, you know, thought for you in that experience, who were the people there, who, what was the energy surrounding you, like just gather information from this meditation and write it all down and when you kind of put it in front of you, you can kind of see what is your value, what are you valuing today, what is your impact to yourself and others, are you doing the thing that you really want to do, are you not doing the thing you really want to do?

And so it’s kind of like a pendulum to kind of be, where are you at on this spectrum of life? And so if it was today, well, now you have a lot of information to kind of lean into how you want to experience right now, because it’s all we have. So using death meditation is a beautiful way to start to be guided by this process.

Sam Believ (40:01.159)

Is it kind of like asking yourself, what will people talk about me when I die? What will be written in my obituary?

Mary Telliano (40:07.158)

No, yeah, I mean, yeah, not wait, I don’t put emphasis on that because like, who cares? You know, like, as far as like, you know, I don’t really necessarily want people to really focus on like how people will, well, I mean, it’s important to know you’re going to be remembered, but I really like them to focus on like, what’s happening right now? What is important right now? Because that’s what brings them to the present moment. And I think kind of worrying about what people think.

or how they perceive you is kind of putting a little fear into the future. But I think if by consequence, if you can just be the best version of you now in this kind of spectrum of death meditation, by consequence, people are going to have wonderful things to say to you or about you at the end of life.

Sam Believ (40:55.863)

How long is the death meditation?

Mary Telliano (40:59.35)

Uh, this particular death meditation, I think it’s like, or I can tell you right now, uh, it is…

Mary Telliano (41:14.523)

Mm-mm-mm.

Mary Telliano (41:20.358)

Sorry, I’m pulling up my SoundCloud. So.

Sam Believ (41:26.055)

I’ll tell my videographer to cut this part out. Don’t worry. Take your time.

Mary Telliano (41:29.234)

Yeah, sorry. It’s, okay, I’ll start right here. So you just asked it. The death meditation is eight minutes and 55 seconds.

Sam Believ (41:40.519)

Okay, so it’s not that long. Can I ask you for a favor? Can you give us like a simplified version like a 3 minute one right now and then we’ll link to the full one.

Mary Telliano (41:42.862)

Mm-mm. Yo-

Mary Telliano (41:50.35)

Oh yeah, well I mean, I don’t know if this one will necessarily mirror that one. I’m just going to channel and see what comes through and then we’ll make that an option for them. So just go ahead wherever you’re at and… What?

Sam Believ (42:01.735)

sleep. Just one second. Please guys, if you’re driving, don’t drive while meditating. Okay? So just stop your car and then let’s go. Mary, thank you.

Mary Telliano (42:08.302)

I’m going to go to bed.

Mary Telliano (42:14.818)

This death meditation is not supposed to kill you, so please pull over or listen to it later. So go ahead and just close your eyes.

and soften any places in your body where you’re holding on to any tension, the space between your eyes, your jaw, your shoulders.

and softening your belly.

Mary Telliano (42:47.838)

And for a second here, just witness your breath. The breath is the first thing you do and the last thing you do.

Mary Telliano (43:00.29)

witnessing the rising and the falling.

Mary Telliano (43:10.118)

Now I want you to imagine yourself at the end of your life. You can be any age.

Mary Telliano (43:20.862)

and your transition can be whatever you would like to see for your death.

Mary Telliano (43:31.766)

And I want you to begin to notice the room with a place that you’re at. It could be any place on this planet, a place you’ve been or never been.

Mary Telliano (43:47.97)

It can be in nature or in a room.

Mary Telliano (43:54.902)

but just observe your surroundings.

Mary Telliano (44:05.026)

thinking of your life, how far you’ve come.

Mary Telliano (44:13.378)

What have been your triumphs? What have been your challenges?

Mary Telliano (44:21.89)

Can you see where your life has impacted others?

Mary Telliano (44:32.738)

taking it all in without trying to change anything, just witnessing your life story.

Mary Telliano (44:46.486)

And all of a sudden, as you’re in this space, you begin to witness people.

starting to enter wherever you’re at.

They can be souls who have transitioned, or people who are present in your life now.

Mary Telliano (45:08.77)

having those conversations with your loved ones, saying what you need to say.

Mary Telliano (45:19.166)

relaying your love and your gratitude in whatever way feels right for you.

Mary Telliano (45:29.298)

as the space you’re in becomes more crowded.

Mary Telliano (45:35.75)

Are people celebrating you? Are they mourning you? What is the nature of your relationships and your interactions?

Are there things that you need to say?

anything that you need to compassionately close.

Mary Telliano (46:00.034)

taking it all in.

as each person begins to fade away.

Mary Telliano (46:11.518)

leaving you and your number one ally in this life, your body.

Mary Telliano (46:21.718)

banking your body for what it’s done.

and for what it will do no longer.

It has served you well.

Mary Telliano (46:35.682)

thanking your body as you begin to see a white light flickering in the corner of the space.

The more awareness you bring to this light, the more that it engulfs your entire view.

It feels warm. It feels like home.

as you begin to dissolve into this infinite light, feeling weightless, buoyant, and free.

Mary Telliano (47:12.75)

taking a moment in this space.

Mary Telliano (47:22.042)

and bringing it back to your breath.

taking in a deep inhale.

exhaling it out.

another deep inhale just connecting you back into your body.

Mary Telliano (47:41.315)

And wiggling your fingers and wiggling your toes. Blinking your eyes open. And for your listeners, I will say take a moment if you need, write things down if you need. And just use all of that information as information for how you can be your best, most whole version of yourself.

today.

Sam Believ (48:12.231)

Thank you Mary, great meditation. I’ve learned something from it. Yeah, it’s important to think about it guys because there’s few things that are certain in this life and one of them is that we are going to die one day and better get ready and use that notion to propel us to…

Mary Telliano (48:14.722)

You’re welcome.

Sam Believ (48:41.891)

better decisions in life. But for most of us, I would say, probably who are listening, the death is not soon yet, but maybe if we do lose a loved one or family member, friend, you mentioned the concept of a healthy grief. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Mary Telliano (48:44.398)

Yeah.

Mary Telliano (49:06.47)

That’s such a good question. Healthy grief is just the kind of grief that doesn’t turn away.

Mary Telliano (49:15.466)

Well, healthy grief is just being in the full ecstatic and realness and somatic realness of that experience, allowing yourself to scream, allowing yourself the silence, allowing yourself the space, allowing yourself the right foods or whatever foods you desire. And it’s just about continuing to say yes to self-care and seeing somewhere.

Sam Believ (49:15.683)

What does that mean?

Mary Telliano (49:44.274)

in all of that if you can find the diamond in the ashes. And usually, well, not usually, but I’ll go ahead and make a very broad statement. Grief has always left us with something more for ourselves. It’s given us gifts every single time. And so if you can sit in the ashes long enough, you’ll find that.

Mary Telliano (50:10.434)

Grief is just one that is an allowance and one that has compassion for self. Because your whole nervous system is rewiring itself to understand a world without this person or thing or place or experience in it.

Sam Believ (50:29.691)

Thank you, that’s very wise. Mary Waters and Amkara.

Mary Telliano (50:36.734)

Anamkara is a Celtic, well the word itself is the Celtic phrase for soul friend. And I thought that, you know, as I was becoming a doula, I was like, that seems appropriate. That’s kind of what I’m doing. I’m a soul, seeing another soul, befriending it. And so the Anamkara Academy is my end-of-life school, but the word Anamkara directly is soul friend.

Sam Believ (51:00.615)

Okay, so Mary thank you so much for sharing. It’s been very, very profound. I’ve definitely learned a lot from it and I’m sure the listeners as well. We’ll definitely link to the full death meditation and the captions. You’ll send me that afterwards, please. For those who want to learn more about your work or…

Mary Telliano (51:21.878)

Yes, absolutely.

Sam Believ (51:28.599)

you know, learn how to become a death doula or maybe they’re dying themselves or a loved one is dying or they want to learn more about grief, where can they find more about you?

Mary Telliano (51:40.646)

You can visit my website at connectanamkara.com. So C-O- You can locate me on Instagram, Mary underscore Taliano T-E-L-L-I-A-N-O. Those are really good places to start. And send me an email, send me an Instagram message. Pretty open, however people come through.

Sam Believ (52:12.527)

Definitely do that guys and thank you Mary it was very interesting.

Mary Telliano (52:20.747)

Thank you. Have a beautiful day.

Sam Believ (52:24.707)

Guys you’ve been listening to ayahuascapodcast.com as always with you the host Sam Belyev. I hope you enjoyed that episode and I will see you in the next episode.

In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with Lily Eggers on the topics of psychedelic therapy for couples, keys for a good relationship, Ayahuasca for couples and more.

Find more about Lily Eggers at https://lilyeggers.com

Transcript

Sam Believ (00:01.156)

Hi guys and welcome to ayah Today we’re joined by Lily Eggers. Lily is a mom and entrepreneur, somatic coach, somatic couples therapist, medicine woman. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified in EMDR, masters in somatic psychology and she’s been helping couples for 12 years already. Lily, very impressive. Welcome to the podcast.

Lily Eggers (00:28.078)

Thank you so much for having me, Sam.

Sam Believ (00:31.296)

Lily, I think this podcast will be very interesting for many people who are listening to me as well, specifically, because I do have a couple as well. You met one of our kids just now. Lily, how did you end up working with couples and why, what drew you into this line of work specifically?

Lily Eggers (00:54.85)

Mm-hmm. I feel like from a very young age, I was always interested in human interaction. It was intriguing to me. I was curious. I was curious about relationships. I was curious about end of life satisfaction and how many folks say on their deathbeds they wish they had spent more time and energy on the relationships in their lives.

And to some extent, I feel like I was a student of relationship from a very young age. I was observing, I was interacting. My family of origin, we had very little conflict. And then I promptly moved out of my family and found a relationship that was very high conflict. It was like I had to learn how to do this thing that I didn’t really learn how to do in my particular family. And I feel in many ways like I…

treated relationships like little science projects, really. Like, is this complete? What did I learn? How did I learn from it? So I also love working with couples because it’s not talking about a problem. It’s right in the room. It’s so present moment. And I think that there’s both so much that can be accomplished by not talking about problems, by working with them in the present.

And it’s also very enlivening for me. So I find that work really fun. I also would say I love working with couples because it’s so rewarding that people can come in feeling disconnected and part of their disconnection leads to these thoughts that like, we can’t work this out or maybe this is a deal breaker or maybe we’ll never be together. And like they can come in feeling like that. And in such a short amount of time.

they can come to a completely different state of reality. Like, oh, we just had to hear each other. We just had to connect in this important way and remember that we care and feel accepted for certain pieces. And it’s really not as complex as it feels. And I’ve come to just enjoy that experience so much because I have so much faith in love. I have so much faith in human presence

Lily Eggers (03:14.762)

rewire through interaction. And I can say a lot more about that, but that’s, I tried to keep it brief. All the reasons I love relationships and couples.

Sam Believ (03:24.456)

Yeah, no, you, it’s, it’s very obvious you, you love it. It’s funny that you mentioned, uh, people mentioned, uh, people mentioning in the, in the end of their lives that they wish they spend more time with, um, with their loved ones instead of working so much because I just did a podcast episode, uh, on end of life.

and transitioning and all this stuff. So we just spoke about it. And yes, we, relationships are important, you know, our life, probably one of the most important things out there. You mentioned that there is this moment sometimes when there seems to be this unresolvable conflict and then magically you remove one little piece and then it all just goes back to normal.

How do you do that or how do you make couples remember that they actually love each other?

Lily Eggers (04:20.874)

Yeah. So part of my background is theater. I worked in the theater from a very young age, all into my twenties. And I almost treat it sometimes like a director might treat actors. Like it’s amazing how our bodies, it’s all wiring and inter, you know, there’s connection happening between humans. And so when we’re stuck and we’re like tight and we’re, you know, we’re like blocked and we have tension, there’s not a lot of goodwill.

and care that can flow between people. So sometimes I’ll just be like, OK, let’s do a meditation and let’s relax our bodies or let’s turn towards each other, keep your eyes closed and hold hands, or maybe go back to back so that you’re interacting but you’re not seeing the angry, resentful eyes that you look at and get defended against. So I sometimes work around people’s stuck ways of relating because they’re not going

So often that’s the problem really is there’s almost this, it’s almost like it’s, people get stuck in these patterns and then they think, well, it’s the only thing. It’s always gonna be this way. You’re gonna, I’m gonna come at you and ask for something and then you’re gonna retract. And then when you retract, I get angry and then I get angry and you walk out or whatever it is. It’s like, oh, it’s a pattern. It’s like a, it’s faded or something. And what I love about somatic work, which is embodied work is you just disrupt that.

You just don’t let that happen. So I do a lot of interrupting. I stop people. If I think someone’s going to say something that’s going to hurt the other person’s feelings, I might let it happen once or twice. And then I’m like, okay, that needs to never happen again. We’re not going to hurt each other like that. That’s just a rule. You don’t do that. Okay, no more. Okay, great. Now this is how I can help you do this. They’ll soften your voice or look at each other when you’re talking or turn towards each other. In these little subtle ways, you’re using their bodies to.

to bring back that remembering. And I would say in some ways it’s part of being a human is moving in and out that tension and release of the human experience. We have a startle response and then we calm down or we get stressed and then we go to bed and we have this kind of natural tension and release. And for couples, it’s about understanding how to have the tension, every couple has it, but then how to release the tension, how to soothe each other, how to soothe yourself.

Lily Eggers (06:47.746)

So with a couple session, it might be some of that direction of just, OK, let’s do this exercise. Let’s try that. Soften your voice. Close your eyes. Depending on where the couple is in their relationship, but I might say, tell them what you love about them. Tell them what you’re longing for. So you invite invulnerability instead of attack. Because that’s the most frequent thing I see, is people come in with, you’re doing it wrong. If you are different.

then I wouldn’t be so mad all the time or so disconnect or so angry, whatever. If you were different, I’d be better. It’s almost 100% of couples. It’s really compelling to think that that’s true. But what I see is a system, it’s always, always two people. It’s always two people in a system. So then how do we disrupt the system and shift the overall dynamic? Then it’s almost like…

I use the analogy of a garden a lot because I really think it helps when people think that a relationship is a live thing. It’s not stuck or stagnant. It’s not a noun. It’s a verb. You’re relationship-ing together. And that’s the practice and that learning how to do it, tending your garden is vital. Your garden will grow if you just throw seeds and then ignore it for weeks. You have to tend.

And tending is part of what you learn how to do with your partner. Oh, how do I tend? How can I love you better? How can I take care of you better? How can I know you better? And these are conversations that we may have in the first year. And then we have kids, and we have a mortgage, and we have all our responsibilities and our busy lives, and we forget that it’s a continued learning to how to love your partner better.

And having that be a real spiritual practice, how can I love you better is part of my growth for my partner.

Sam Believ (08:47.977)

Mm-hmm.

It just reminded me some people come here to the retreat one by one, not together, but and they say like, I want to learn how to be a better partner. I’m going to get married. I really respect those kinds of people because generally we’re kind of, we’re kind of selfish sometimes in this, in this work. And especially when you describe those couples, like being so deep into like this heart downwards

Sam Believ (09:20.122)

psychedelics and plant medicines common and be handy.

Lily Eggers (09:26.03)

I think that the key is it’s that stepping out of a pattern. So neurologically, it’s moving out of the default mode network. So when we have our way of being, like this is how I am, there’s a stuckness to that. And so I think somatics and I think there’s all kinds of ways in working with couples that don’t need medicine, that don’t need

plant medicine or psychedelics. And I think what’s amazing about plant medicine and psychedelics and entheogens are how they make the brain more available to itself so that the parts of the brain that you can access more insight and more depth and more compassion and more openheartedness, more forgiveness, all of that is more accessible, I would say, with most of those compounds.

And so it just speeds up the process. And it can be used. I also think, frankly, I think that most humans, this is my opinion, but most humans at some base level are deeply craving more ceremony and more ritual and more sacred in their lives. And that when we have a container, and again, this can be with or without compounds, but when we have a container of sacredness, we inherently like.

I don’t know how to say it, like rise to the occasion. We show up as better beings, I think, when we are more intentional and we have that. I like to think of it as like a North star. Why be a better partner? Well, because I want to be a better human or I want to be a better being or that gets to be an oriental. That gets to help us in those moments where we kind of want to be sarcastic or we kind of want to.

have a little contempt or maybe just not engage, just kind of shut down or something like that. These medicines help us have more options so that we don’t just do the thing that we always do.

Sam Believ (11:38.668)

I don’t know the exact mechanism, but I’ll just give you an anecdote from my personal life. Sometimes we’re in a conflict with my wife and I go Obviously we live at an ayahuasca retreat. We own one. I go to the ceremony and I participate. I generally drink one ceremony every month

And then I can’t even, I go back, I hug her, I love her again. And I can’t even understand. I can’t even remember what the conflict was because there is none. It’s just like an emotion like this. This is the complexity of relationships, right? Is that.

there can be five different truths depending on which emotional state you are right now. So when you work with couples, one is that you say, you know guys you should try psychedelic therapy instead and what do you normally recommend? Which medicine?

Lily Eggers (12:31.998)

Yeah, I generally I let us get to a place of a lot of stuckness. I don’t start people off with medicines because I really want them to feel empowered that this is something they actually can learn on their own. I usually introduce MDMA is my favorite for couples to start off with because it’s such an a heart opener. It’s really about it turns off the threat response.

so that people can hear each other. They’re also very lucid, so they’re not in other realms so much. But they’re lucid. They’re able to contemplate. They’re able to deeply hear each other. And the experience of being heard and held by another that’s not being defensive, because that’s what happens with the threat responses. We feel attacked, and so we defend. And then there’s this attack-defend thing that happens. When that is off the table, ugh.

humans are just so loving and so holding. And it’s almost like their innate goodness is awake and alive and they get to say, like, of course I want you to feel good. Of course I want you to know how sorry I am that I hurt you. And it flows so easily. So that’s a starting off point. It also tends to support couples if there’s trauma.

in the couple dynamic, if either member has trauma, MDMA is excellent for that. As I’m sure you have discussed before in past podcasts, the data is just becoming more and more supportive of how it’s one of the best ways for folks to access and resolve deeply held trauma. And for me, doing that within a couple…

Lily Eggers (14:25.814)

dynamic is actually the best way for folks to bring up trauma. They feel safe. They can be held by a safe other. Because even as our partners are both the most unsafe person, like they’re the ones that are activating us the most, they’re also the one we’re most open to. There’s the most room for healing. There’s the most room for growth, for a new way of experiencing ourselves with another. So.

It’s really beautiful. So I start there. I might do mushrooms at some point if the couple is really deeply into a more spiritual practice together. Then we may do that. I usually let them ask. I don’t necessarily invite, besides MDMA, which is usually when I’m starting to feel like, OK, we’ve done a lot of work in.

in the more traditional realms of, well, I’m not super traditional, but in the, in the somatic psychology, you know, office, I might do retreats or ceremonies without medicine. But, you know, if that, if those realms are, we’re still kind of regressing repeatedly, I will, I will, that, that might be a wonderful option for folks.

Sam Believ (15:37.984)

Okay, if nothing, if you ever come to the point where nothing else works, send them, send them to, to the wire. We did this to my wife because we had a couple once and they, they came over a bit more than a year ago and they said, basically they decided to get divorced and just said like, let’s just do this one last thing, just, just in case if nothing else worked. So they came to the retreat and I can luckily report now more than a year later, they’re still together. They just, I don’t know the mechanism.

Lily Eggers (15:43.291)

I will.

Sam Believ (16:07.978)

again that’s the biggest difficulty like you can’t explain what happened their journeys did not really have much to do with the with the couple specifically it was an individual journey two of them but somehow make them better people than together once again they started functioning and it’s fascinating to see that which kind of brings me to a topic that i noticed that

A lot of times couples when only one person starts their spiritual journey and starts working with the ayahuasca for example or other modalities, they start very slowly drifting away and they might even at one point feel like what am I even doing with that person? They just no longer vibe anymore. So I like to say couples that…

grow together, stay together. I don’t know if you ever in your couples therapy if you ever observed that phenomena.

Lily Eggers (17:03.466)

Yeah, I mean, I would say it’s really common for people to be at different kind of paces for spiritual practice. And some people are on a fast track, and they’re all about it, and another partner might be slow. And I think that difference couples can tolerate. I think they can deal with that. It’s when one of them may be very almost resistant to anything.

that those folks are hard to work with. They’re actually, there’s not a lot of room for workability. Like if you can’t receive, you can’t, you know, I don’t know, I’m going like this with my hands. It’s like, can you dance with me? If you can’t dance, if you’re like, no, I’m not dancing, then we can’t dance, you know. It’s just kind of how it goes.

Sam Believ (17:52.204)

I have a wild guess, maybe wrong, but I think people like this can really benefit from strong ancestral psychedelics because the only thing you need to do is to get them to come. And then when then the ayahuasca does the rest because it’s like dynamite that basically blows apart all those protective mechanisms that no longer serve the person. We have that happen a lot and normally it happens this way. There’s a couple and they want to come to the retreat together.

I’m just here for her or I’m just here for him. I’m not really here to drink I and then we know what to do We say, you know I maybe have a half a cup or something that and then gradually they realized they needed it more than the couple and I was really helps to Not like gently massage out the problem But like eat it out and then I believe somebody like you could come in and peace piece the pieces together and make it Make it flow very nicely again

Lily Eggers (18:36.941)

Right.

Lily Eggers (18:42.493)

Yeah.

Lily Eggers (18:52.522)

Yeah, it’s, I, ayahuasca is such a beautiful shock to the system. I think it’s, I think that is what is so deeply profound about ayahuasca is there’s no, you can’t really fake your way through. It’s just what it is. And if you integrate well and are conscious and let it be exactly what it was supposed to be, you know, and aren’t resisting it should have been this or that there’s just an infinite wealth. I’m still integrating my first ayahuasca journey 14 years ago. Like I’m still having moments of like, Oh, there it is.

Sam Believ (18:52.742)

Uh, you.

Lily Eggers (19:22.933)

It’s like, you know, it’s beautiful.

Sam Believ (19:23.96)

Yeah. Beautiful shock is a great way to describe it. So can you talk a little bit about your first experience or maybe the most meaningful ones, and your journey with Ayahuasca?

Lily Eggers (19:38.034)

Yeah, happily.

I would say my first, I’ll speak to the most meaningful, which was early on, I was in graduate school and it was everyone in graduate school was experimenting with eye well, I had never heard of it. I had no idea what I was doing. I was just like, well, if everyone’s doing it, I’ll give, sounds interesting, sounds really amazing. And I got this wonderful piece of advice from a dear friend who just said, accept that everything is happening.

exactly as it should. Like grandmother, the plant spirit is looking out for you and you’re getting exactly what you’re supposed to have. So whatever’s coming up is just right. It’s perfect for you at this moment. And I found that so I’ve used that just in my life. It has been such a relief as, as just as a principle of like, okay, this is, I’m not going to argue with reality. That’s a, that’s a waste of time. I’m going to work with

what is in front of me at this moment. But that actually wasn’t the point. That was all preparation for. The most profound eye journey was I took way more than I ever had before. And I completely, I was no longer Lily. I was interconnected to all things. And I had this experience, which was this shock of I am the chosen one.

And then I would have this like, oh my gosh, that’s so crazy. And then it would expand out to we’re all the chosen one. And then I would just laugh with like total delight and bliss. And then it would complete total amnesia. And then it would start over. I’m the chosen one. We’re all the chosen one. Oh my God, it’s so amazing. And then completely start over.

Lily Eggers (21:37.45)

the chosen one, we’re all the chosen one. And it was like, it was like the sands, like what like, like for all of eternity going through this incredible, like, like it was just a training in this principle, I guess in this, and I’m still making sense of all the meanings of this. But I, um, I reference it, I think about it. I, um,

The every piece of it has so much brilliance to me that I, yeah, it was undoubtedly the most profound Aya experience I’ve ever had. It was incredible. And it was scary in its own way because there was no beginning and end. Time really did not exist. It was forever that happened. But it was very pleasurable. The amount of just delight at.

like the bliss of realizing that I’m the chosen one. We’re all the chosen one. Like, ah, it just blew my mind every time. And it wasn’t until many hours or lifetime, or I don’t know, whatever it was time-wise, much later that I could actually even know that it was on repeat, you know, because I was in total amnesia at the beginning of each round.

I’m sorry.

Sam Believ (23:01.886)

Yeah, I felt that before and I felt the cyclical nature of it sometimes when it really wants to drive in the point, it does that. This realization that you had that everything is as it should be, it’s one of those things that really, it’s really hard for people to understand before they had that revelation themselves.

We’re just so used to be in the future in the past or but if you really think about it There is no other way like every molecule in the universe At the moment is exactly where it should be like there is no other way. Okay, it’s the only right way and It’s like one thing is saying it with words but the other thing is like really feeling it internalizing and then that’s the beauty of plant medicines they can like

Lily Eggers (23:40.45)

That’s exactly right. Yes.

Sam Believ (23:54.296)

teach us that, but then we like struggled to explain it with the words. Yeah.

Lily Eggers (23:58.474)

Yeah, yeah, it can move out of like a concept, like a theoretical and into the actual knowingness of it, which is a huge leap from understanding the concept to the knowing of it.

Sam Believ (24:13.268)

Definitely. On the topic of plant medicines, have you ever tried rapé?

Lily Eggers (24:19.263)

Yeah.

Sam Believ (24:20.792)

What I notice for myself, of course, not every time you have a conflict, you can go and drink ayahuasca or mushrooms or whatever. Sometimes I notice that what helps for me personally is working with tobacco. Let’s say I’m really in my head, really like there’s some stuck emotion, I’m just angry and it’s not going anywhere. In my work with ayahuasca, I learned how to work with tobacco.

which is basically a glorified way to say smoking a cigar, but like with an intention. And it’s been extremely helpful for me personally, not promoting smoking here guys, but like sometimes you just sit down and as you go through this process, you just completely change the way you see things and then it’s out of your system. But there’s many other ways that don’t include any substance or a specific plant.

What would you tell someone that let’s say they’re just like right now is they’re listening to this podcast You know their spouse is at home angry at them and they’re angry at them like any quick fixes anything they can do Right now to like ease the pain

Lily Eggers (25:29.306)

Mm-hmm. That’s a great question. I mean, I personally believe that really taking really letting ourselves bring our focus to ourselves can be such a gift. Bringing our awareness, our focus. So letting it be an energy and upset, whatever a feeling that’s inside of one’s body and tending to it as you would anything that’s not feeling good.

And the tending might be exercise, stretching, call someone, journal, meditation, breath work. I personally like to move my body. I feel like energy feels like it wants to move out of my body. I might do jumping jacks or push ups. I might sprint as hard as I can. I think that energetically when we move, I think it really supports us from that stuck feeling. I also think internal, again, that

internal work. So like even just putting your hands on your heart and your belly and doing some loving kindness meditation, just doing some may I be peaceful, may I be loved, may I be grounded, may I feel ease. That sending ourselves a prayer, giving ourselves permission to ask for help is often very, very soothing, very relieving for us when we feel like

our partner isn’t loving us, right? It’s activating an experience of abandonment, or maybe that’s sadness, or maybe it’s anger, or whatever, that disconnection. It’s activating something very old. So to give ourselves that which we’re wanting from our partner is so important. I recommend every partner member learn how to give yourself that which you

feel you so desperately need at times. And ideally your work with your partner, they’re gonna get better at that. That’s the growth. They’re gonna get better at loving you and holding you. But when they can’t or aren’t in the mood or are too tired or whatever, that you’re gonna be okay. You just, you know how to do that for yourself. I think it’s vital.

Sam Believ (27:40.376)

What is the key for a good relationship, Lily?

Lily Eggers (27:46.214)

Oh, how do I pick just one? I think one of the greatest gifts that we can offer our partner is the practice of saying yes to the whole person. So in the same way we were talking about arguing with reality, like that shouldn’t be that way. I don’t like how that is. When we do that to our partner, we are doing them a disservice. We’re splitting them. I like this about you, but I don’t like that.

You know, that creates an experience of like less, I don’t know, it’s just, it’s not how to love deeply and wholly. That when we can expand our love and say, I say yes to all of you. There are aspects of you that drive me nuts, that it’s annoying, that I would not choose. I wouldn’t pick those aspects of you. But I say yes to you.

that when we do that and then we just say, yes, it’s like, OK, I’m going to work with that part of you. I’m going to invite it in for tea. I’m going to say, OK, that distant or that angry or that resentful or that reactive part, I don’t like it, but I’m going to say it’s mine to work with because I say yes to you. I love you. And ultimately, that’s a way we practice with ourselves too. We can’t push out aspects of ourselves. We have to invite them in and say, OK, who are you? What’s happening? How do I work with you?

instead of against you as if you weren’t here. So I would say that is a major, it’s a paradigm shift for couples when they actually start.

inviting in that kind of consciousness in the way that they love each other. It’s a paradigm shift.

Sam Believ (29:32.408)

I don’t know why but the way you describe it, kind of like in loving yourself and that part of you that you don’t want to love, it kind of reminded me of a shadow work. Could it be that you’re pushing away the shadow side of your couple?

Lily Eggers (29:47.234)

Totally. Exactly, yeah, exactly.

Sam Believ (29:51.848)

Okay. Lily, what do women want? As I’m asking for all the guys that are listening.

Lily Eggers (30:02.43)

Oh, goodness me. I couldn’t possibly just say what women want. What I would say is what I see so much in every partnership, and frankly this goes beyond gender, is that people, humans, want to be accepted and they want to be loved and they want to be known. They want to be accepted, they want to be loved, and they want to be known. And that-

You know, what I was just saying, the key was about acceptance. And then through that comes love. I think love flows through acceptance. But it also comes from remembering the good parts of someone. So very often, when we especially live with our partner and we have to deal with them and we might see their annoying qualities more, we forget about the not annoying qualities, the beautiful qualities.

I mean, as I’m sure you know, our brains are negatively wired. So we naturally play out negative interactions. We play out annoying qualities. So it takes up a lot more space in our consciousness. So when we love someone, we actually practice balancing that out and remembering what we love, validating what we love about that person, what we appreciate. Thank you so much. I tell my husband this. Thank you so much for working so hard.

that you support our family in these ways, and that you’re tired after a long day, and you hang out with the kids, and I know you’re exhausted, and you have headaches and pain and whatever, and you work so hard for our family. Validation, we wanna be known. We wanna be seen for all of our life efforts. And I think that goes beyond gender. Because frankly, I think gender is sometimes a little, what’s more important than gender is attachment system.

and understanding the attachment system. Because sometimes you have a woman that needs space and a man who wants connection. And sometimes you have a woman who wants connection and a man who wants space. And so it doesn’t, it’s not super, I don’t think it says, it depends. It really depends.

Sam Believ (32:06.592)

Yeah, it was a very simplified question, but it was a funny one to ask. I’ll tell you an anecdote in our couple, because obviously we’re a plant medicine couple. We work here, both at the retreat. We started it together. So in a relationship, when there’s a conflict and there’s a lot of impatience, then you can say, you know, you should just calm down, which provokes a stronger reaction. In our relationship, we say like, you know,

you’re kind of not nice to be around like go drink ayahuasca that’s our way to say something is wrong. In one of your interviews you mentioned about this desire we have modern days modern day problems in a relationship as people they want this Instagramable perfect relationship that never really exists and then there’s another way of looking at it can you talk about it a little bit?

Lily Eggers (33:06.482)

Yeah. Well, I think the first thing people need to understand, kind of like I said in the beginning, is that you’re not choosing a partner. You’re not choosing a person who’s all the things you think they should be. What you’re choosing is a being to verb, this relationship verb with, until you don’t want to do it anymore with them. But ideally, you’re making some kind of commitment. I think people do better with some containment.

in the same way we hold a container for medicine work, it’s best held. Because if it’s too loose, it’s energetically confusing, or draining, or complicated. When it’s clear, it can be supportive. So that’s how I would think. I think it’s important that we understand that relationships are a verb and that humans are always growing. So they can look not very nice at times.

But when you believe in growth, when you believe that we’re always growing, we’re always growing, then relationships become simply, this is just a moment in time. It’s not a like, oh, this is who you are. It’s like, yeah, I’m having a moment in time. Like you said, your state of mind, it impacts your entire worldview. So I think it’s important for people to understand that when they’re looking at an Instagram post or a photo or whatever, they’re

Lily Eggers (34:35.678)

image that people want to represent an entire complex system. So whenever people are like, well, our relationship is so hard and all of our friends are so great, I’m always like, your friends are not great. Their relationship is fucked up too. Every relationship is messy. It hurts. It’s confusing. There’s leakages. There’s repair. There’s ruptures. And that is the truth and it’s okay.

And it is when you can just say, oh, this is natural. This is so natural. It is such a relief to so many people. And this is something I came to, Sam, on my own. My family was like, it was like we were disinfected. We had no conflict. And we were so great. We were the only functional family in the world. We were really special. Nobody fought at all. And it wasn’t until I got out into the world that I was like, wait.

Conflict is part of being vulnerable. If there isn’t conflict, then somebody’s holding back. That doesn’t mean it’s better. It’s when people are being themselves, which means they are different. That’s something I really, really stress with couples, that difference isn’t a problem unless you make it a problem. It’s actually something to accept and to expand around. Oh, you’re different.

How is it to be you? What’s it like to see things that way, or to respond in that way, or think that makes sense? And you see this a lot with especially folks who are parents, right? Each of you have your software download of how to parent. And then you come together with another person with different software downloaded. Suddenly, you’re going to get conflict. You should have conflict. And what I mean by that is I mean you should have conflict.

differences emerge that aren’t always easy to resolve. It means you stay in the discussion. You allow, you make space for the difference and let it be part of the enrichment that you share then with your children. But you certainly share with each other like, oh, you don’t need to agree with me, but I do want you to hear where I’m coming from. I don’t need to agree with you, but I want to know what the inner workings of your mind are. And when couples have those as values,

Lily Eggers (36:56.202)

Like, this is how we function. I hear you and I accept you, even if I don’t agree with you. That is a very nourishing, healthy way to be. And I would say, yeah, social media just completely sanitizes all of that, as if that doesn’t happen. And I think it’s unfortunate, actually. I think it’s too bad that when people don’t tell their stories of what was hard, what feels unresolved.

My husband and I recently had a beautiful, beautiful conversation where we shared some deep old resentments with each other. And then we realized we kind of have this like, okay, now we’ve shared them, like all is forgiven. And we were kind of like, you know, I’m not there yet. I’m not quite at the all is forgiven place, but it feels really good for you to hear about my hurt. And I want to forgive. I don’t want to hold onto this, but like honestly, I still kind of…

and pissed about it or, you know, I wish I hadn’t, you know, ah, so that’s what’s real. And now that gets to be part of our, something that we work towards healing and resolving. It’s not like everything has to be great all the time. In fact, there’s something off if people are saying that, frankly, in my opinion.

Sam Believ (38:14.112)

Yeah, when you just talked about how we should listen to each other and accept that there’s a difference, but then still move on as friends. I believe that’s not just couples. If you look at the society right now, especially in the US, there’s a lot of that like, oh, if you don’t think, hey, then we can be friends. You mentioned the word repair in a relationship. Can you talk about this systematic repair and how to practice it?

Lily Eggers (38:40.95)

Yeah. Mm. It’s so important. Repair, under, first of all, understanding that repair is a process and it has to be tended to. It’s a, it’s a process that every couple should really prioritize in their relationship. How do we do this? Because there will be rupture. So knowing that like, oh, I want to know how to do this. I want to learn how to do this. And I’d say the key aspects of repair are, first of all,

the person who’s been hurt.

really wants to be able to be heard without being defended against. So let’s for a moment say someone says, I’m hurt because you, um, you know, turned away from me when I was crying a few moments ago. Now the, it’s very compelling for the second person to say, well, I turned away because the baby was crying or I was fixing our food or I turned away because they want to, they want to reason with the feeling.

But that is a surefire way to not help repair. So I teach people really clearly, when someone says I’m hurt, you get, you put off, you compartmentalize all the reasons why you did the thing or didn’t do the thing or didn’t mean to do the thing. It doesn’t matter if you meant to or not. And you give a ton of space and care to the person who’s been hurt. And you make sure that they feel really heard. Oh, that didn’t feel good. That didn’t feel good when I turned away. Can you say more about it?

Come here. Then you comfort them like you would a child, right? Child cries, you’re not going to argue with their tears. You just comfort their tears. Oh, oh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. It doesn’t matter why. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t mean to. You don’t say those things right then. You wait. You just love the person and hold them. So that’s the first part of repair. Now

Lily Eggers (40:37.27)

The second part might be that the person, like for example, if it’s a thing that happens regularly, the first person that got hurt may need to hear something more. Like, I will really do my best to not do that again. I really get that hurts you and I don’t wanna hurt you. And so I am going to try to be better to not do that thing. Now that might be enough or it might not. It depends on the person. Usually people with trauma have…

harder time like deeply repairing or if they’re, you know, have attachment systems that are more insecure. But, um, but in general, those are the key pieces really being heard. And then there might be some sort of future acknowledgement. Now it might be the other person also wants to share, like, can I tell you, I really want to share with you like why I turned that feels really important because I don’t want you to think I was just being cruel. I like, I did have a reason. And then, and then you ask, that’s the thing about timing.

that you have to take turns and give each person a lot of space to finish. It’s like a completion process. They have to finish. So, for example, if you’re in a business meeting and you’re like, okay, we have four agenda items, folks. All right, let’s start with agenda item number one. And then someone’s like, well, item number two, I want to talk about that. Well, we’re not done with number one. Oh, but number three is really interesting. This is how most couples try to resolve conflict. And it never gets resolved because you have…

so many things on the table and you’re never finishing. So you finish that first person until they’re like, yeah, I’m complete. Thank you for hearing me. Thank you for acknowledging me. Thank you for assuring me that you will try not to do that in the future. And then it’s switching turn time for the other person to say, hey, I want you to, can I share with you why I turned away since I get that that.

felt like rejection or like whatever, like I don’t care about you, but I want you to know what happened for me. And then you’re switching sides. You’re changing roles. So then that person shares, Oh, well, I turned around because you know, I thought I heard the baby like choking. That’s a good reason to turn around. Right. And then the other person gets to be like, Oh, wow, I had no idea that’s, that’s what happened for you. Oh, thanks for telling me that I’m glad to, you know, but it’s a, it comes from a place of grace.

Lily Eggers (42:59.226)

it comes from a place of acknowledgement and it really is important that taking turns piece. You have to finish with one person before you move on to the next person.

Sam Believ (43:11.837)

That’s a great explanation because a lot of times we want to sort of bundle all the conflicts together where you know you’re less guilty than the other one and bring it up because like yeah but I did that but look at what you did the other time. When you… Go, go, go.

Lily Eggers (43:20.632)

Yes.

Lily Eggers (43:25.566)

Yes, yes, yes. That is so that can I speak to that because that’s so important. Because when we think like that of like that sort of winning and losing as if like I’m better or my feelings are more valid than yours or I have a better whatever it fundamentally means in that moment that we’re not on the same team. We’re not on the same team. We’ve moved into competitors.

You’re in competition. And what I like to really, really drill into my couples is that you are always on the same team. You might be mad at someone or they might have hurt your feelings or whatever, but it doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. It just means a cause and effect happened. No one’s bad. There’s no fault. It’s just a cause and effect. And if you think about like volleyball…

There’s two people on a volleyball team, and you have to work together all the time. Even if there’s a misunderstanding, you’re never like, I’m better than you, or I’m more right than you. That’s just not how you have the conversation, because it’s so consistently not effective. So if you or any of the listeners here find yourselves in that competitive moment of like, I want to catch you, or I want to.

Name how what you’re asking me to do, you haven’t been doing. That’s a favorite, right? Like to really step away and be like, I am dysregulated. It means you’re in a threat response. You’re in an attack or defend place, fight, flight, or flee, whatever, freeze. And it’s time to relax and soften and actually move away. So I teach couples how to de-escalate. Get away from engagement if you can’t help.

but be on opposite teams. Nothing beneficial comes out of that. Just stop, go take a break, go take a walk or a bath or shower, exercise, drink some ayahuasca, whatever, but come back when you’re on the same team again. No.

Sam Believ (45:32.808)

Go do some MDMA to switch up the threat response. Lily, I’m sure as a couple therapist, you noticed increase in the amount of patients after the COVID or during the COVID because we personally noticed that there was, you know, mental health crisis is a thing and it’s only getting bigger. And COVID was like this big catalyst. And I’m sure with couples, like all of them were just locked in same apartments

Lily Eggers (45:38.05)

That would do it.

Sam Believ (46:02.502)

places to escape to and a lot of things came up to surface. So my question is, did you notice it and then also what are your thoughts on the larger sort of mental health crisis and what can we do about it?

Lily Eggers (46:17.47)

Mm-hmm. What’s interesting about lockdown and COVID time is that I actually saw both happen. That depending on the couple and depending on what their area of struggle was, some couples actually did better when they were in lockdown because one member or both members of the couple needed more contact and they got it because they never left. So some couples actually did better and some couples did worse because they had been hiding or pushing down.

conflicts. And like you said, they’re now suddenly they can’t get away from each other. And so many couples did really struggle. So that was definitely, I think, both happened during COVID lockdown. I think the wider mental health issue is very serious. Just even as you’re talking about it and I connect to that concept, I feel a lot of heaviness and sadness. And I think it goes back, frankly, to parenting. I think it goes, it’s more than just adults.

suffering, it’s how we’re holding our kids through milestones and through their childhood. I think social media, I think introducing screens really young, I think teaching disconnection. I think human beings are, it is becoming so normalized to be deeply, deeply disconnected from yourself, from others. Our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter.

Um, so all of these, for me, it, it means that we actually can’t be nourished by some of the most nourishing aspects of being alive, which is interaction, human interaction, whether it’s laughter or play or whatever conversation, um, even just being in silence with another person you care about. We don’t know how to do it anymore because we’re so attached to our phones and it’s so normalized. You know, it’s not even like pathologized to, to have this.

this very small attention span. And then, not surprisingly, we have tons of anxiety. We have all this insecurity in our teenagers and depression. And to me, it all feels rooted to not having community spaces, not practicing, not having it even be part of people’s upbringings to have any kind of sacredness. I mean, we don’t even, it’s like we don’t even have

Lily Eggers (48:39.434)

sacred art in our homes. We don’t even have a concept of it. And I think that that’s a, I think it’s hurting people. And I think, I mean, it’s amazing to me how many couples don’t even eat meals without watching a screen. So there’s a lot, there’s a lot to that question. But I think, I think group healing is the way of the future because it’s super, it’s super inefficient to have individual therapy.

And it’s unnecessary. I mean, it is for some people, but I think that for most people’s actually group work is what they need, actually. They need that sense of community and collaboration. They wanna be reflected. They wanna feel held. They don’t wanna feel alone because that I think is the root of so much of people’s misery is this inaccurate perception of their aloneness.

Sam Believ (49:33.016)

I’m glad you’re mentioning community and groups because here at Lawara, one of our mottoes is you come for Ayahuasca, you stay for the community because people really bond through this process of both taking Ayahuasca together and also sharing and group sessions are amazing. Like what we do here, we call it word circles and people share before the

Sam Believ (50:03.09)

the version that they used to provide then we encourage them to go deeper then they go deeper and all of a sudden masks come off and during the week people just this vulnerability comes out and everyone just bonds like crazy and people become like families and it’s just beautiful to observe and I believe that here at the retreat at least half of the work comes from just a group

not the medicine place part and everything, but the group is where the magic happens. And a lot of times people, they’re worried about like, oh, I’m gonna go there, there’ll be 20 other people and like, what if I don’t like them? It’s because they experience group as we do them in our normal society. But then when they come here and then there’s group plus vulnerability.

Lily Eggers (50:40.28)

Totally.

Sam Believ (50:57.712)

It’s a totally different setting. Can you talk a little bit about vulnerability, its importance in relationships?

Lily Eggers (51:05.698)

Yeah.

I mean, I think to some extent it’s tempting to try to uphold these, like you said, the way that we present that feels comfortable. I’m strong and I’m independent and I’m really smart and I’m really good at these things and that’s comfortable. I’m cool, the world knowing this much about me. And then what happens in intimate relationships is all these masks, like you said, they come off.

And then we actually see like, oh, but I can also be grumpy and I can be inconsistent and maybe I don’t tell the truth all the time and maybe I’m, you know, like all of the things. People are just in, people are human. They have all these things. And vulnerability is the trust, I think, the willingness to take this risk of being seen in a perhaps less than perfect light. And I think it’s essential because it gives you,

confidence and security because you feel known. That’s why I said earlier, it’s so essential that people feel known, that they can trust being known. I do think it’s a deal-breaker for relationships is that when someone can’t hold your vulnerability, they’re not a good partner. I think

many people don’t know how to hold. So I like to teach people how to hold each other, but some people just won’t do it. And that is, I think, a deal breaker in relationship of like, this person is intentionally choosing when you are vulnerable to push you away. That I think is a fundamental deal breaker. And I don’t have many deal breakers. I actually think most couples can almost overcome almost anything, but that is one of them. Because it’s sacred, and I’m using that word again,

Lily Eggers (52:58.926)

sweet and tender about a vulnerability. It’s like you’re offering up this really tender part of yourself. And so it’s important that someone learns how to hold it with the same sacredness with which you’re sharing it. And that’s so beautiful. When couples do that, it’s so beautiful.

Sam Believ (53:24.052)

Yeah, that is very true. In one of your interviews, you mentioned that you once ended up in a yoga cult. Can you talk a little bit about that and also how you got out? And also, what would you tell people that come to work with plant medicines, for example, how to avoid retreat centers that are very cultish?

Lily Eggers (53:35.426)

I did.

Lily Eggers (53:54.118)

Yeah, yeah, that’s a great question, Sam. I’m so glad you’re asking it. Because I actually think within the psychedelic space, there’s a lot of potential and room for narcissistic people to like really get a lot of power and feel very, they can develop sort of

groups of people who idolize them. I think that can happen a lot in the plant medicine and in the sacred sort of space. So I’m really glad you’re bringing that up. In my experience, well, I think in my experience, I recently heard a quote that said something like, people don’t join a cult. They join a really good thing. And that’s what happens at the beginning. So when I started, I was 26. I was…

depressed. I didn’t know what I was doing with my life. I was kind of in that like post, you know, post college, like what am I doing? I just feel like my life is being wasted. I care about stuff. I really want a mission. I want to, I want to do something that matters. And I started taking this yoga class that changed my life. It was like Qigong. I felt energy move. We gathered energy in our, in our Don Tien and our lower abdomens. We held postures for really long periods of time.

And I felt myself just be like, oh, this is what I want to do. I want to awaken people to their bodies and to themselves. I want to teach people how to meditate and be conscious and aware in their lives. And so I can say that on the bottom level, it’s a beautiful thing. It’s a practice. It’s a community. Talk about community. We would have like tea ceremony after class and connect so deeply, so much more deeply than I connected anywhere else in my social life.

And then it’s like as you ascend, as you kind of do more programs and then do more programs. And then I started teaching, then I started, you know, teaching groups. And then and you ascend higher and higher up, you start to feel the pressures. And this is where I use the phrase narcissism, because narcissism is a very particular way of being. It’s very self-focused. It’s a it’s a personality disorder. But narcissistic traits are seen all the time. And.

Lily Eggers (56:11.262)

And what happens is they create questioning in the other person. So a narcissist will make you doubt yourself because you’re unhappy with something. And the problem is this comes under the umbrella of personal growth a lot. Oh, if you’re not a victim, if you’re not going to be a victim in life, or if you’re going to be autonomous and you’re going to take responsibility for your life, then you have to take responsibility for everything, which means if you don’t like something I did,

That’s your problem to look at. And it’s extremely dangerous because it turns people who are really seekers, introspective, they want to make a difference in the world, into like, oh, there must be something wrong with me if I’m questioning. There must be something wrong with me if I’m doubting. And luckily, I was not in it long. I don’t feel like I had deep psychological damage because I started to very quick. I was in about a year and a half, two years. But I quickly saw this isn’t.

This gets sick the higher up I go. Weirdly, it also was amazingly healing. They offered programs that chronic pain patients or people with MS or whatever would go to, and they would heal. They had spontaneous healing. So I feel conflicted by the whole thing, which is there’s a lot of good, but there’s fundamentally some really dark stuff that made you not actually feel. It’s called undue influence.

I think I’m in control of my choice, but I don’t feel like I’m in control because I don’t really have a choice. Because if I say no, that means I’m bad or I am somehow not choosing my soul. And that was the language they would use, is like, I’m not choosing my soul if I don’t do this expensive program that I’m not sure I want to do, but I have to. It’s that kind of, I think I have control, but I don’t have control. And I’m.

I think it’s really insidious because it can happen slowly and it can happen with so much love and care. So you hear a lot about narcissistic abuse in relationships, like the narcissist love bombs at first. They couldn’t be a more attentive, loving, compassionate, gracious, generous partner. And then little by little, they start to make you question yourself and question yourself. And then like, why are you have so many problems? Or why are you complaining so much?

Lily Eggers (58:33.878)

You know, your mom is really like this, too. I can see where you get that, right? These little digs that make the partner get really confused. So it can happen at a group level, too. And that’s where I actually really love you’re asking that because the group level, and I think psychedelics have a way of doing that. If you take psychedelics and then you look to the head of the room and they have their singing and they are burning incense and they put their hands on you and you’re like, oh!

Oh my God, I’ve seen God or something. You can get confused and there are people who absolutely thrive on that power. And it’s not always people who are well-intentioned. I mean, they might have good intentions in there, but alongside it is this real, real hunger for absolute power and control of other people. So I think it’s good that people be curious. There’s a lot of literature out there about what to look for.

about being in a high control group and what it means to be in a high control group. Like if you feel you can’t leave without somehow being shunned or punished, that kind of thing. That’s a high control group and it’s definitely worth reading. There’s so much stuff out there to look into.

Sam Believ (59:50.592)

Yeah, thank you for explaining it. I personally would add a few more things. One is if you come to a retreat, any spiritual retreat, plant medicine retreat, the place should be as neutral as possible, meaning like if they have a very specific belief system.

a special like religious sort of aspect to it, then your adjustability state on Ayahuasca, you’ll probably get drawn into that and so avoid that. And if, so basically you should learn from Ayahuasca and everything else should be instructions how to connect to Ayahuasca better. If a shaman or a chief facilitator tried to like,

Lily Eggers (01:00:12.817)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Believ (01:00:34.116)

you believe in a very certain type of truth and then it’s a red flag and also yeah of course people are very suggestible and you get a lot of gratitude and love when you

are the person that organizes it. So it’s kind of like important to not allow your ego to like, wow, look at me, it’s all about myself, I’m this and that. So you have to sort of be kind of like, I guess humble about it and not really make it about yourself. And then as time goes on, it worries often. So not taking advantage of this feeling. So if you have, and we had unfortunately facilitators over the years that.

they would try to be in the person’s face exactly at the moment when they’re going through this big breakthrough and then try to make it all about themselves. And I remember at first I was like, wow, this guy’s so great. People mention him so much in the word circles. I was like, and I was like, but we were as good before he came here and we’re…

Lily Eggers (01:01:19.391)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sam Believ (01:01:31.204)

probably going to be same when he leaves and then I realized like what he was doing is just a very sort of low self-esteem was feeding on all those positive energies and but yeah you got to you got to be careful out there so look for the right place.

Lily Eggers (01:01:44.042)

Yeah, yeah, we want to feel people I think feel like they want to be involved, like they want it to be about them instead of about the plant or instead of about like for me, I see couples, it’s about the love between them. All I’m doing is helping them regenerate the love between themselves. It’s not mine. It’s not me.

It’s just me helping them do that thing, which is really what does the healing is the love. Love is healing. It’s a loving energy.

Sam Believ (01:02:15.78)

That’s a good point. It’s not about you. Also, if you go to the retreat, ask a shaman, like, who does the healing? If he says like, wow, I’m so great, I do the healing. Run. If he says like, no, I’m just channeling God, ayahuasca, they tell me what to do, then it’s a good thing. So yeah, to sum it up, be careful guys. Be aware of narcissists.

Lily Eggers (01:02:22.83)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Believ (01:02:40.416)

Um, Lily, thank you so much. It was very great episode. I think we talked about a lot. I specifically learned few, few new things. So when, where can people find more about your work or maybe where can they find, um, if somebody wants to like hire you as a therapist.

Lily Eggers (01:03:02.355)

Yeah. The best place to start is my website, which is just lilieeggers.com. I am at the moment taking a slight sabbatical as I finish my book. I’m working on a book that hopefully will come out in the next few months. So I’m not accepting new clients at this moment, but I really welcome people if you feel inspired to be on a wait list. I am planning on in the fall.

I’m certainly starting to run my couples groups. I have online couples groups. I see couples individually, privately, and I also am going to begin running retreats as well. So any of those areas, if you’re interested, please do reach out and I can put you on a wait list. You can reach out through my website or whatever feels good.

Sam Believ (01:03:48.664)

LillieEggers.com, right? I’ll add it to the show notes if I don’t forget. Lillie, thank you so much. Also, if you’re maybe for somebody who listens to that a year from now, if your book is already out, what’s the book’s name?

Lily Eggers (01:03:51.104)

Yes.

Lily Eggers (01:03:56.13)

Thank you.

Lily Eggers (01:04:00.181)

Yeah.

Lily Eggers (01:04:07.302)

Yeah, okay. It’s going to be called The Intentional Relationship. Ten weeks to generate more kindness, compassion. Oh no. Shoot, I can’t remember all the four things. Kindness, I came up with it like three years ago when I first decided to write a book. Anyway, look up intentional relationship. The last part might be edited. What’s that? And then ten weeks. That’s right.

Sam Believ (01:04:29.644)

And then 10 weeks. Yeah, 10 weeks and the last part is a surprise for you guys. So you might want to check it out.

Lily Eggers (01:04:36.186)

Exactly. Yeah, it’s it tended to be like a manual that you go through as a couple. So it’s not just getting information, it’s actual practices, and how to start utilizing them as soon as possible to shift that systemic relational stuckness. So

Sam Believ (01:04:42.753)

Thank you.

Sam Believ (01:04:56.88)

That’s great. Thank you so much, Lily. Guys, you’ve been listening to ayah As always with you, whole Sam believe. We were joined today by Lily Eggers and I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will see you in the next one.

Lily Eggers (01:05:13.038)

Thank you so much.

In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with Ashley Townsend on the topics of can bling people see psychedelic visions, are visions important, her personal work with Psychedelics and overcoming trauma with men.

If you want to reach out to Ashley via WhatsApp this is her number

+1 (386) 871-4016

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.

Hi guys, in this episode of ayahuasca podcast.com. We speak to Ashley Townsend, who is a blind person that came and stayed in Lara for 10 days. We talk about her experience. We talk about what do blind people see on Ayahuasca. We talk about importance of visions versus other psychedelic experiences.

We talk about her personal work as a psychotherapist and her healing process with her trauma with men that she experienced during this retreat. I’m sure you will enjoy this episode. Ashley just did a. 10 day retreat with us here at LoRa. What’s different about Ashley is that Ashley is visually impaired.

Ashley Townsend: I’m blind.

Sam Believ: Blind. I’m

Ashley Townsend: a lot closer to blind than visually impaired these days. Okay.

Sam Believ: It’s I’m still learning this terminology, but first of all, Ashley, welcome to the podcast.

Ashley Townsend: Thank you. Yeah. It’s awesome to be here, Sam.

Sam Believ: Ashley is a fascinating person in my opinion, because she’s blind. She can’t really see much.

She walks with a stick. However, she was brave enough to counter the retreat in a foreign country navigate her way here. I know you’re a psychotherapist.

Ashley Townsend: Yes.

Sam Believ: So you actively work and you have a complete life and nothing seems to stop you. First question actually. What brought you to Ayahuasca?

Ashley Townsend: Yeah, great question. So I came here with my fiance, Matt, and we’ve been together about four years now. When we first met Matt had actually recently done ayahuasca at So Quest in Florida. And so we had talked about it for years and I thought it was really fascinating. I wasn’t ready to jump into the deep end and do it, but I was very interested in it.

And I would say somewhere in 2023, something just clicked for me and I was like, you know what? I’m ready. I really wanna take my own healing journey to a different level. And I wanted that to be in a more embodied sense. I love being a talk therapist and. At the same time I think that Ayahuasca and Plant Medicine has this incredible power to help us tap into our own answers and our own strength.

And just this deep well of love that is who we really are. And I think talk therapy helps you. Helps you move things for sure. And I had to do a lot of my own therapeutic work with my therapist, who’s amazing, shout out to her to get to a point where this felt safe for me and where it felt like it was the right time.

So this was definitely the right time, and I can’t wait to come back and see you guys again.

Sam Believ: As a therapist, Ashley, you listen to a lot of people and you collect a lot of pain this way. Would you say ayahuasca helped you to release that or do you carry some of that or not?

Ashley Townsend: One of the most challenging things I think about being a psychotherapist is figuring out how do you filter. All of the things that you hear like I obviously want to remember people’s stories and really be with them in that journey. I also I don’t want to feel like a sponge that needs to be rung out.

So it’s that balance of, you don’t wanna get away from being empathetic because you filter too much but you also don’t wanna hold people’s trauma because holding, you can’t really hold someone’s trauma for them. It’s in them. So one of the biggest takeaways I had was in my second ceremony, I was having the hardest time.

On my first cup, and I was also up in the gazebo more away from the group because I was menstruating. And so there was this feeling of isolation and I was struggling to connect to myself and the medicine and I really wanted to sleep, but I was really disappointed in myself for being so tired.

And I had a lot of physical pain coming up. And then I had this huge realization going into the second cup that, I have struggled with sleep so much ever since my brother was deployed, and that’s not blaming it on him, it’s just a thing that I experienced. And then I felt this really deep sense of connection to my brother and everything that he’s been through in life and in being deployed in Iraq.

And the medicine said, you need to hold your brother, not his trauma. And it said that he holds his trauma and he’s gonna work through it in his own way. On his own time. And that I just need to go to him and be available and be loving. And that was so freeing. It simplified something that felt so stuck.

I think a lot of times in families, we have a sense of each other’s pain, but we don’t know how to go to each other. And I think a lot of that stems from this confusion around I have to hold someone else’s pain and in truth, we need to just hold them.

Sam Believ: That’s a great revelation. Yeah, we cannot really.

Hold somebody else’s trauma. It’s theirs. To have an us holding it does not necessarily help them. It might actually make them feel worse, if it’s a close relationship. The question that I’m sure some of the listeners are asking themselves is you’re blind so you don’t see what does the blind and. And a lot of people focus on visions when it comes to ayahuasca. Very much. Yeah. A lot of people come here for visions. And so what does the blind person see in their visions? And a little spoiler for guys that you are having probably more visions than some of the other people in the group, right?

Ashley Townsend: I don’t know. So it I’ll say this. I wanna preface it with blind people are very different in that, some of us go blind earlier in life. Some of us go blind later in life. Some of us retain some amount of functional vision and are living more of that in-between life, where you can rely to some degree on your functional vision and rely to some degree on your blind skills.

So I would be fascinated to get to connect with more blind folks who are getting to have this ayahuasca journey. I would love to encourage other blind and visually impaired people to come specifically to LoRa. And that is because I had such a safe experience here in every sense of the word around just being blind and doing this.

It was a safe experience around. All of my trauma, and it was really healthy for me to have this mix of moving around independently and then also knowing that it was okay to accept help. People are also at different points with accepting, being visually impaired or blind, and all of that is valid too.

I really, at this point in my life. I’m 32, almost 33. I gradually lost my vision all the way up to the age of 27. And now I just have light perception. So I’m in a really pretty comfortable place with my blindness. And there are some people who wanna regain sight, and that’s totally valid. I just don’t fall in that camp.

Personally, so I would be fascinated to know how other people experience it. But getting back to your question, Sam, we say bu pinta, which is like an English saying like good patterns, right? Like Pinta is to paint or Pinta is to paint. And so originally people you would get through the first couple ceremonies and we would have a word circle and people would describe seeing these beautiful geometric patterns and colors.

And I didn’t experience that in the first couple of ceremonies. What I did experience was ayahuasca. In my first ceremony, she spoke to me very much like my paternal grandmother, my Grandma Townsend, and I call her mama because she just talks like mama to me and my grandma Townsend was a mama and.

She talked to me the whole time, very gently, and she would ask me questions, a really good psychotherapist and just have a dialogue with me the entire time. It was beautiful. And then, the ceremonies vary and some of them feel more painful at points are dark and then you get realizations out of it.

Then I got to my fourth, fifth, and sixth ceremony. So the last three got a lot more visually. Imaginative and expansive, which was interesting for me ’cause I don’t have visuals that have a lot of like acuity and detail to them, like how people were describing these like geometric patterns. What I have is like lights.

So I had this really powerful experience in my fourth ceremony, reconnecting to music and the music within me and how I’ve really let that go In the interest of. Being a psychotherapist for the past like 10, 12 years. And so as I’m listening to Titha and the band playing music, I just had these waves of rainbow lights that I could physically feel and I could visually see.

It was almost like. Like when I looked at the fire, ’cause I can see the fire in a sense because it’s a light. It was like, there was like rainbow smoke blowing outta the fire and the band was surrounded by this rainbow bubble. And I felt like I was in it with them. It was also a very physical feeling.

Other visions I had were of speaking to some of my relatives who have passed away and seeing them. It’s a very like di de los Muertos kind of image, but seeing them in a, like a castle that was a cloud in the sky and they were like neon skeletons dancing. And then mama told me that sometimes people dance for seven years in between incarnations.

I thought that was such an oddly interesting, specific thing that she said. And then I saw my paternal grandfather. As a white cloud dragon breathing, rainbow fire. And then a lot of the other stuff was very conversational. Like the conversations were honestly, in many ways the most powerful for me.

Just the way she speaks to me and the way I get to speak to her. And the, you start to realize that you are the medicine. That was more powerful for me than anything else is yes, this is coming from her, this is coming from spirit and it’s also very much coming from me. And that, that unity that you feel internally is just, I think it’s the most beautiful thing people will talk a lot about.

They can’t decide to keep their eyes open or to keep their eyes closed. Originally, I couldn’t open my eyes if I wanted to. And then in later ceremonies, I found myself opening my eyes more. Not so much for the visual stimuli, but just because it felt safe to open my eyes when Taito was in front of me. I used to feel like it was like disrespectful to try to open my eyes and look at him in the way that I look at people, and then towards the end, that was something I felt really compelled to do. It was just, it was really beautiful. To you get a sense that like it’s a visual experience for people who can see, but it’s also very much not because it’s so internal, and because you’re connecting so deeply with yourself.

Sam Believ: Yeah. People that come here to Lara, a lot of them are very obsessed about vision specifically. And we tried to talk them out of it to not focus on that, because I do agree with you. It’s the conversations and this intricate dance between medicine, you, yourself, and the group and the healing that happens.

And visions are nice, but they’re not always the most significant part of it. But of course with you, we focus on visions because just so curious to know what and, I noticed in the group and the sharing circles, I noticed that you probably had more visions than other people and that that’s really fascinating.

Oh, I

Ashley Townsend: wasn’t asking for it. I think that has a big role in it. Maybe I’m not saying this is what I need, this is how it has to come. I was really trying to work on, my biggest overarching intention in coming here is surrender, which is very hard for me, and I was really trying to work on however it comes.

And just allowing that. I had another vision at the very end when we did our closing ceremony. The drums come in and Titha is going around and cleansing everyone and blessing everyone. And I had this vision of my old drum instructor, Baba Hamza, who’s a beautiful man who I got to study with in college and studying like West African drumming.

And he was a king in the sky. And he had like beautiful white and gold robes and he’s playing this huge gold drum. And mama said this is the image of his eternal spirit. So whatever incarnations he’s in, they might look different. He might do different things in that life. And that ultimately that was the image of his eternal spirit.

And I thought that was so beautiful and it was less about the image and more about learning about. We don’t really die. We have an eternal spirit.

Sam Believ: Interesting. What you mentioned about eyes closed and eyes open, they, it reminded me, my, my first ever, I ask experience one of the, one of the moments I was lying with my eyes.

And for some reason when the shaman would go through the space, I could know where he is. Yes. In this mental vision. Like I was almost sure that, and he was displayed as like a. Like a bubble of light, kinda similar to the visions you described. So it’s it’s curious in a way if there is some other kind of vision that can be unlocked through psychedelics that can actually allow you to see the space without your eyes.

I’ve heard about it being mentioned somewhere. Do you, have you experienced that or do you believe in that? Yeah,

Ashley Townsend: absolutely. I believe that. And so for me. I’m a mixed bag because I have visual memory growing up as a child with some vision. So I imagine that probably plays a little bit of a role for me.

I also think it’s very possible that people who are born blind from birth. Would experience that as well. Because I think it unlocks a lot of things that we can’t explain. So even people who have never even been able to perceive light, I think it’s very possible that they would have a different sensory perception or maybe even see like lights behind their eyes.

So much of vision is not in the actual eyeball, it’s in the mind. And vision’s a very different word than sight. Sight is very much about looking around and what you can see. Vision, I think, is a more integrated word that that really shows that you are able to look inward and that’s so much more than sight, and I think that’s why we’re here. We’re not just here to look around and go, oh, Columbia’s beautiful. Look at that bird. That’s great if you can do that. And if that helps you. But that’s not really why we’re here, whether you can see or not.

Sam Believ: And psychedelically speaking even visions, that’s also not the main goal.

I also remember seeing the music, so I think it’s called what’s it called for it? Synesthesia. Synesthesia, yeah. Do the, like bright lights and stuff. I could see the music and as the music was dancing and the. The rhythms. I could also see the visions that I had react to that music.

It’s kinda I dunno if you’ve ever seen it. If you, if you’re able to see still back then, but in the old, like Windows 98 music player, there was this it would, whatever you’re listening, it would automatically create this dancing pattern and it would dance. I do remember that.

Yeah. So this was similar to me on, on, on my first experience, but it was much more than that because the complexity, comparing it to the, the pattern on the computer screen is it’s 1% of that there, it’s much more complex than it. You can almost taste the music.

It’s like all the senses mix in. Yeah. And I think also there, there’s this condition, I think it’s called aphasia athia. It’s like, when. People they can see visually, but they cannot see in their mind’s eye. So let’s say if you would tell yourself envision a green car, then in, in your mind’s eye you’re envisioning green car of whatever, and there are people who cannot do that.

Ashley Townsend: Yeah. They have to actually see it in real life to see it. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Believ: So a couple people like this came here because apparently there is some studies that ayahuasca can help unlock that ability. I know where I’m going with that, but it’s fascinating, this whole mental eye vision, seeing stuff you shouldn’t be able to see and then, the brain is so fascinating, like where it happens and how it happens.

No idea. Yeah. Do you, is there anything you know about that?

Ashley Townsend: I don’t know a ton about that. But it makes a lot of sense. A lot of us are. So we say we have five senses. We have way more than five senses. And I think Ayahuasca also really touches on that because people will sit around in word circle and we will try to put words to some of the physical sensations.

That we experience. And it’s so hard to put into words. There were times where I felt like I, this is going to sound very disturbing, but it didn’t feel disturbing. I felt like I was burning alive inside. That sounds horrifying. It was very pleasant. And we talk about with ayahuasca, you can experience a death.

You don’t actually die, but it feels like you’re dying. And I felt. Like I was burning alive inside. And she told me, what if you just enjoy it? And I was like, what? And so I was like, okay, I’ll try to do that. And I did. And it was this weird like intense, icy hot feeling all through my body. And then.

Again, it was this dio de los Muertos kind of image where I felt myself turn into a skeleton, but not in a scary, creepy way. It was almost cute, if you’ve seen the movie Cocoa. And then she called me a pretty little skeleton and she said, I’m gonna bring you right back. And then she said, you’re such a beautiful baby.

And then I heard somebody else, one of the patients had a really strong experience. And she said, I feel like I’m reborn. Like I feel like I’m a little baby right now. I’m just a beautiful little baby. She said exactly what I had experienced days before. So it’s so interesting how like in the group you’ll experience all of these connections and how interwoven all of our experiences are.

Sam Believ: Speaking of the group you mentioned that you had trauma with men and how did this week tie into that?

Ashley Townsend: Yeah. It’s been remarkable. It’s been so healing. I was nervous at first at how many men there were. I was nervous at first, like coming into the retreat. I was really struggling with, that Tata.

Is a man, right? And that there’s a lot of men that are like leading this experience and like holding this safe space. And that was really hard for me to trust initially. And they say that the medicine starts working with you. As soon as you decide that you’re going to come to Ayahuasca, she starts working with you before you ever actually take it.

And I definitely experienced that ’cause I would have like really triggering stuff come up for me before I came to Columbia. And then I get here and I felt it move more and more every day. Guys where I was like, Ooh, that’s really intense jock energy and I’ve avoided that my whole life.

Men that I perceive as being more like intensely masculine or something. And that has lifted for me so much because everyone was able to be vulnerable. And like people have so many different sides and I know that boys and men are conditioned and really. Poisonous harmful ways, that we are keeping boys and men from feeling deeply and being human.

And so of course that has a lot of manifestations and a lot of those manifestations, of course they affect men and they also affect women and they affect people of all genders that had a lot of talks with mama about people of all genders and how. We are all a mix of energies. We put things in the binary of just men and women.

That’s not how everybody exists in this world. And I think that’s really important too. Like why are we all seeing rainbows if everything’s black and white, this or that? So I just felt a lot safer with everyone’s mix of energies, if that makes sense. Including that more masculine presenting mix that has been.

Really scary for me in light of my sexual trauma. And in light of just feeling like I couldn’t really have male friends or I couldn’t really connect with men in terms of dating for many years. That was awesome. And by the time I got to my last ceremony. I was just around all of the guys I wasn’t even trying to be.

And I felt very safe and held and protected and loved and there was just no sense of threat at all. And in my fourth ceremony, which was very much about the music, I was right in front of Tita and the band, and I was mesmerized. And it was this really deep spiritual healing that was going on, and it felt like the music was just in my body and in my spirit.

And I was crying so hard, but I was really joyful. It is the most intense joy I have ever felt in my life, and I had this epiphany. I was like, oh my God, I am literally being healed by men right now. And that was something I could only ever dream of, but never really believed that would be possible or that I would experience that in my life.

So just. I could not be more grateful for everybody here and for you, Sam and how gentle you are with everybody and how understanding you are and how you’ve really helped bring everybody together and really see that message that hurt people, and that we can forgive ourselves for that, and we can forgive each other and we can go out into the world and we can do things differently and we can help other people to do things differently.

Sam Believ: Thank you. Yeah, it’s a lot of women that come to the retreat they get surprised when they see men cry, when they see men share the pain. And this man trauma is a lot of times is being healed in women. And the women trauma a lot of times is being healed in men because it goes both ways.

Absolutely. We just hurt each other. I don’t know for what reason. But largely as a society. We all have preconception about who is who and what to expect from them, and we think we know who they are. And then when people come to the word circle and the retreat starts and people start sharing deeper and deeper every day, take off their masks, all of that goes away.

And then all you left with is you just realize. We’re all human and we all suffer in a very similar ways. And then I think it really helps to, to bond. And I think we need it in the society at large because we all think we know who’s what and we kinda have those prepared ways of judging them automatically.

And but the Ayahuasca definitely lifts off that veil and just shows you that. That we’re more similar than we would like to think.

Ashley Townsend: Yeah. And my experience of that was she’s very understanding of all the ways that you protect yourself. I would have moments where I felt really intensely angry and she would say, I understand.

I understand why. And just really safely would guide me through that. And help me arrive at a place where I could see that I could release that it was safe to release that. And there’s a lot of crying. There’s a lot of different types of purging that people experience so that they can get from one point to another.

But there were just things I thought I was always gonna need to move through this life as. If you look at my physical form, I am a tiny blind woman. And it’s not that I’m not still gonna be safety conscious because there are bad things in the world but I don’t carry it like this sense of hypervigilance and pain.

And that’s really new for me. And that’s a process and I’m gonna have to stay with that process. I’m just so grateful to be getting to such a different point.

Sam Believ: What would you, what would your message be to blind people interested in trying ayahuasca or psychedelics?

Ashley Townsend: Yeah. Blind people. All people have a lot of challenges in life and some of us have a lot of trauma.

So blind people are not just facing the trauma or the loss of losing their vision in a world that is very focused on site. They have all the other things that any other person can have too. They have family trauma. They, maybe were bullied. They we’re actually at a much higher risk for sexual abuse.

So yeah there’s the baggage around feeling like a burden. There’s ableism, there’s this belief that people tend to hold, whether they realize it or not, that people with disabilities are lesser or that their lives would be better or more valid or worth living. If they didn’t have that disability that weighs on your soul.

And so I would say, to, to blind and visually impaired people, whatever your reasons are for coming here. We’re all human beings and we all have very good reasons for coming here and. I would love to connect with people who are curious about it and just talk with them and hear where they’re coming from.

And yeah, I love that I can say to people like, beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lara is a really safe place and that, as a blinder, visually impaired person, you can ask for whatever you need here in terms of help or in terms of independence and how you wanna get around and navigate.

And you will get it. You’ll absolutely get it. So yeah, I, I don’t know if there’s a way for me to give out information or connect with people. Yeah. A

Sam Believ: hundred percent. Yeah. If you want people to reach out to you work and they find you,

Ashley Townsend: I guess WhatsApp would be a good one. I

Sam Believ: can just add your number in the show notes.

Ashley Townsend: That’s perfect. That would be great.

Sam Believ: Okay, Ashley, thank you so much for sharing. You do have great capacity to describe things in the words. And I’m fascinated by you. There’s there’s so many people that can see and can have all the senses and they don’t do much with their lives for some reason or another.

And definitely not seeing is not easy. I can imagine. However, you just. You’re productive, you’re successful, you’re positive. That’s amazing.

Ashley Townsend: Thanks. Yeah, that’s a big shout out to my mom and dad that they really encouraged that in me and they had the strength to not overprotect me. And I can understand that desire to overprotect your child, especially when they have a disability.

And that’s been very freeing for me. And I had a lot of. Connection to my parents around that and just feeling very proud and very grateful for everything they’ve done for me. So thank you so much for recognizing that, Sam.

Sam Believ: Thank you Mom and dad. Ashley’s mom and dad, if you’re listening, thank you.

Okay guys. You’ve been listening to ayahuasca podcast.com as always, with you, Sam, believe the host. And our guest today was Ashley Townsend.