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.