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.