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
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.