In this episode of Ayahuasca Podcast host Sam Believ (founder of http://www.lawayra.com) has a conversation with Dr. Clara — German medical doctor and LaWayra’s Head of Facilitation for the past 10 months. Former hospital physician turned plant-medicine facilitator, Clara arrived as a guest, stayed as a volunteer, and now leads ceremony care and integration. She shares data from 689 patients and ~3,400 cups, lessons from bridging Western and ancestral medicine, and her own deep healing journey.
• [00:00] Role at LaWayra, patient stats, path from guest → facilitator
• [00:02] First psilocybin, travels, finding “Ayahuasca in Colombia,” joining LaWayra
• [00:04] “Das Vira”: German order vs. psychedelic flow; surrender & patience
• [00:07] Western vs. Amazonian medicine—where each excels; building a bridge
• [00:12] Mind–body link, prevention, and healthcare cost realities
• [00:16] Origins of disease: emotions, tools the medicine teaches
• [00:17] Clara’s healing: self-love, depression, reconnection
• [00:19–00:22] Uncovering childhood sexual abuse; facing big traumas safely
• [00:24] Intergenerational trauma and family ripple effects
• [00:26] Psyche in ceremony: “feline/tiger” processes; jaguar lore
• [00:28] Transformations: addictions, lifestyle changes post-ceremony
• [00:29–00:31] Common challenge: “not connecting” vs subtle connection
• [00:32–00:33] Spiritual openings; choosing healer path vs. shaman role
• [00:34–00:36] What a Head of Facilitation actually does (safety, team, container)
• [00:37–00:41] Integration philosophy: community, practice, therapy, percentages
• [00:43–00:45] Self-care routines for facilitators (yoga, meditation, breathwork, journaling)
• [00:47–00:50] National trauma, peace, and why Germany needs Aya; presidents drink free
If you would like to attend one of our Ayahuasca retreats go to www.lawayra.com
Transcript
Sam Believ: Hi guys, and welcome to Ayahuasca podcast. As always, we do the whole assembly lift and today I’m having a conversation with wonderful doctor Clara Al.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Thanks for having me, Sam.
Sam Believ: Welcome. So Clara has been head of facilitation here at Lower for 10 months. Since then, she has
Dr. Clara Porwoll: now, I’m curious,
Sam Believ: facilitated to 689 patients.
With 3.3 ceremonies on average per person, and one and a half cups on average per person. You’ve been around for about 3,400 cups. Wow. So that’s a lot. Before we get into that, Clara is a doctor from Germany. She came here as a patient. She loved it so much. She stayed as a volunteer, then eventually got promoted.
To a facilitator and then eventually had the facilitation. How does it make you feel? Car, so many people, so many cops.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: I feel honored. I feel very honored to have gotten the opportunity to be here and to help so many people heal. It’s the numbers I need to digest them. That’s a lot.
Took a little
Sam Believ: town.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah. It’s bigger than the village that I grew up in. It’s yeah. More people than my neighbors. I feel very honored very lucky that I got this opportunity. I know it’s, it was a very important, crucial part of my own heating journey. So I’m super, super grateful that I got this opportunity to be here and.
To support so many people.
Sam Believ: Tell us about your journey. How did you come into working with Psycho Ducks for your own healing? And then how did you get to the Wire? How did you find us? Tell us a story.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: I guess it started actually four years ago almost was my first psilocybin journey, and I just realized that the way things were going the way.
I practiced medicine was not very fulfilling. So I quit my first job and traveled in South America and actually was told about ayahuasca from the very first day when I arrived in the hostel Mexico City. And my first reaction was, no way. No way. That’s not for me. But then I met quite a few people through my travels who spoke very highly about the experiences, and I got more curious.
I read about ayahuasca a lot, and I knew I was gonna be in Columbia for the end of my travels, and by the time I felt ready to sit with the medicine and I just Google Ayahuasca in Columbia and there was a website that was called ICA in Columbia, and it just felt right. And I remember that when I decided to sign up, the retreat was fully booked.
And then I messaged you and asked if you can put me on the waiting list, if there’s any possibility. And you just happened to open up the weekend retreat before the week and I was able to to come and yeah, you let me stay for the week because I knew I, I had to stay longer. Yeah.
Thank you for making everything possible.
Sam Believ: My pleasure. Can you explain to our listeners what is it? Dust vira.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: So this vira is a secret project between Sarah and I where we will actually make ourselves irreplaceable and then take over the virus and make it everything very German.
Sam Believ: Okay. That’s that’s the part I didn’t know about, but yeah, the concept of Dasra, which is obviously the German version of Lara. Is we for a period of time, you were already here, maybe six months ago, 70% of the team were German speakers. Either from Germany or Switzerland. And I was like, oh my God, what’s going on?
And everything became on time.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: So much instructor and very disciplined.
Sam Believ: And yeah, in the summer we are leaving, we still keeping Sarah, our business coordinator to keep all the spirits of order. What the trains come on time or the buses, everything comes on time. What do you think about this concept of obviously this is a psychedelic space and we have to be loving and caring and flexible and but at the same time you need order
Dr. Clara Porwoll: To make
Sam Believ: sure everything doesn’t go off the rail. Like how as German
How does that make you feel? How have you been navigating that? In your own work as head of a sedation, because obviously you are the one that is in charge of order
In the ceremony at least.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah. It’s been challenging.
I, I have to admit it was definitely a lesson to be more in the flow of things and not be super, super rigid. I loved control. I saw I saw. Appreciate structure and order, but I’m not as rigid anymore. So working in the space where you cannot have any expectations and things are gonna play out the way they’re gonna play out anyways, and you just need to go with it.
I feel like that’s another big lesson of surrendering surrendering to the process, trusting the process, and my favorite word, learning patience. Yes. Of course medicine helps and working in the space helps as well. So yeah, that was a big lesson for me to learn is just continuous practice.
Not getting caught up when word circle doesn’t start at nine sharp, but a few minutes later. But
Sam Believ: it’s like a delicate dance between order and chaos. That’s kinda like work with ayahuasca to itself. Ayahuasca is this strict, motherly, strict, but loving motherly spirit. It is it’s it’s loving and it’s, but it’s also strict and it’s if you don’t follow your yetta, it’s gonna kick your ass because you know you’re disrespecting it.
Sometimes not every time. So you’re a doctor, right? And you went to medical school, and you worked in the hospital and all that stuff, and the stethoscope. And why didn’t you bring your stethoscope? How are people gonna know you’re a doctor if not wearing a stethoscope? I
Dr. Clara Porwoll: know, right?
Yeah. Now
Sam Believ: you wear beads instead.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: So a nice exchange.
Sam Believ: You were a doctor. You still are a doctor, and you’re actually gonna become even more of a doctor, right? As far as I understand. But western medicine, Amazonian medicine. What is the what did you learn?
What’s difference? Where should we focus more on Western approach? Where should we focus more on the Amazonian approach?
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah. I feel many of us are realizing that western medicine is not sufficient. It has its place that’s for sure. And we need it as well, but we also need ancestral medicine and we need ancestral wisdom.
The healthcare systems are failing. People are not receiving the medical care that they need because we are, especially with mental health, we’re against the wall, the means modalities that we have, they’re. Insufficiently working medication therapy. It definitely has its place and it’s very beneficial, but can only come so far as well.
So there’s definitely a need for ancestral medicine which is medicine in itself, but also the knowledge that comes from these traditions in how they live with nature. What they learn from nature, what connection to nature and mother earth actually means, and how you practice it, and how that is equally as important to our wellbeing.
So there needs to be both have their place, and both are equally as important. We need to find a way on how to implement that in our. Worldview and how we approach health and medicine in general. So I guess this will be part of my journey going back going back home, figuring out how to combine those two maybe be a bridge between the western medicine and the ancestral medicine, maybe helping people find.
Or helping people get access to, to plant medicine, to the ancestral medicine. In which form that might look like, I don’t know. I don’t, I’m not aware of it yet, but yeah, there’s definitely a need, an increasing demand, and there’s people coming. We see more people coming to La Vira and seeking help ’cause.
They’re lacking something. They’re missing something. Our approach, the Western approach to health is not it’s just not sufficient.
Sam Believ: We see doctors coming to lower a lot of them. It’s pretty cool. Yeah. There’s at least one a month. So it’s it’s good indication that something is missing in their own system.
It’s what’s a good analogy? It’s an owner of Italian restaurant coming to your French restaurant have to eat himself. If you were completely satisfied, then you probably wouldn’t need to come here, which is totally fine. I don’t think there’s there’s really any competition.
Like when T of Fernando had appendicitis, he didn’t go and do a special ceremony. He went to a Western hospital to get it cut out because there, there are many cases with you break your leg or anything. Traumatic, that’s, Western medicine is amazing for dental work and stuff like that, but for anything like chronic and slow and mental
We seem to be like completely at a, we’re completely lost. And I think I think the big part of it is that we still, as a western society, we still have not embraced the psychedelics. Did you know the first ever antidepressant was actually.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: How
Sam Believ: yeah, the first I read of the present was the MAOI from the Ayahuasca wine.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Oh, really? In
Sam Believ: fifties. Yeah.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Oh my God. No, I love that. So it’s
Sam Believ: like we, that’s how we figured out our first ever yeah. And to the presence and then they took it to the extreme synthesize bunch of weird stuff. It’s like taking things out of context. But anyway
Dr. Clara Porwoll: but that’s the interesting thing about medicine as well, how.
We are just really realizing that we know so little about the connection between the mind and the body and how much a mental health issue actually appears in somatic systems. How many people have we had come here with autoimmune diseases, especially gut diseases like Crohn’s or colitis who received.
A big part of healing through drinking medicine. Even patients coming who had suffered from cancer and who got the realization how their cancer was caused by stuck emotions. So there’s a lot that we have yet to acknowledge how mental health actually affects the body and. Hopefully in the future how many diseases can be prevented even by focusing on mental health And actually, yeah, because we’re like we are running behind, we’re treating diseases, we’re treating symptoms.
But if we started earlier, if we actually focus on prevention, which there is an awareness in western medicine, but there we are missing the modalities on how to actually prevent diseases. So this could be. A huge this could make a huge impact actually focusing on preventing diseases. Not only bettering mental health, physical health, but it’ll also be will be, have a big impact on cost of healthcare because it’s just immensely expensive.
It’s not sustainable anymore. So I feel like there needs to be a focus on actually figuring out how to prevent a disease.
Sam Believ: Ayahuasca cop a day keeps the psychiatrist awake. You know what they say? No. But in all seriousness, I think one ayahuasca treat a year would be like life changing for so many people.
I think that many diseases would just not be able to happen.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah,
Sam Believ: because you like, you have this accumulation of trauma, somatic stuff in your body that like this balances you and then eventually it has, it needs time to grow into a disease or cancer. And if you just kinda verge it and verge it regularly I have a feeling that wouldn’t work. But you as a doctor, like knowing how human body works and now being immersed in this shamanic tradition for more than a year and working with so many people, what do you think? What is the origin of the disease and like how do you think that. Now your understanding of human body and the disease has been formed by this tradition.
Like what is the, what is there any unifying theory that he, you can propose as a bridge between Western and Amazonian tradition?
Dr. Clara Porwoll: I feel like the more I’ve, I spend time in this place, I feel like the less I actually know about anything anymore. I think how to. Cope with emotions is a big thing.
And that’s what the medicine does. And not only helps you purge it out, but also gives you the tool how to cope with your emotions. So it’s actually much more than just the the time here. But if you implement what you, what the medicine teaches you, it gives you the tool to work on that, even when you go back and without preventing yourself to to, to not process what is happening in the moment and to not process these emotions. And with that as well, preventing anything to accumulate or to get stuck. I personally believe that is a big factor, but how that works on a biochemical level, no clue. That’s a mystery of the medicine. I guess it would be cool to find out though.
Sam Believ: Yeah. It would be cool if we could go back to medical school and like study to become an ayahuasca doctor. Because it’s like there’s definitely, we need both. We need both. And we need something uniquely in the middle. Yeah. There should definitely be an ayahuasca doctor category soon. It’s like physical, but also mental.
And a little bit spiritual. Yeah. Maybe you should like, go back to Germany and just tell them to start.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Just legalize psychedelics, please.
Sam Believ: Yeah. Tell us about your own healing journey. What was I was able to do for you that, let’s say Western approach or was not?
Dr. Clara Porwoll: So I guess when I first came to the medicine, it’s like a lot of people, I thought it was curiosity, but it was much more than that.
I struggled a lot with self-love. Self-compassion confidence. And I’ve always wondered why that is so difficult for me, why I was struggling with that. And also having had episodes of quite severe depression looking back and connection. I believe this is what most people are looking for.
This is a common theme that people are looking for when they come to La Ira, connection to themselves, connection to others, connection to mother nature. So it’s been a process for over two and a half years now since I sat with the medicine for the first time. And yeah, I’m struggling to find words.
To describe the magnitude of what I received from the medicine,
Sam Believ: show it with your hands.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: I cannot, I need work. But yeah, it’s not only working on my own healing, but knowing that my own healing is only possible with others as well. And being here helping others. And supporting them in their healing journey, these selfless acts of service that we provide is so healing in itself.
Apart from the community that I that I was allowed to be part of the family, the ho the home that that I built here. Yeah, it’s been. It’s been intense. Two and a half years, that’s for sure. But yeah, it’s not over yet. Definitely. My main I guess process was dealing with the sexual abuse that I had uncovered in my second retreat last year in March.
Which. I guess explains a lot on my behavioral patterns, on how I saw the world. The low self-confidence, the mistrust, so working through that step by step and also being here to help others work through that. The interconnectedness was just absolutely necessary to progress. And that just made me realize that we do, you can only do so much healing on your own, but then you need others to continue and to continue with the process.
Be it help, support, be it challenges that you encounter. Yeah. Yeah, it’s a lot.
Sam Believ: What would you tell someone that is afraid to do ayahuasca because they’re afraid to uncover big trauma? Like in your case? Childhood sexual abuse. What would you tell someone that is afraid of that? Would you reckon it’s it’s good that you uncover it or you’d rather keep it keep it there?
Dr. Clara Porwoll: No, absolutely. Incredibly grateful for the medicine because I knew something was there and something was off, and I knew I was. I had unhealthy behavioral patterns. It was so difficult for me to be genuine, authentic and it’s there, you can suppress it. You can try to suppress it the best that you can.
I did for over 30 years almost 30 years, but in the end, it’s still there and it influences you and you have the choice. Okay, do I go towards it? Do I want to get better? Do I want to work through it and then come out eventually on the other side, genuine, authentic not only being able to heal, but also supporting others in their healing journey.
Or do I hide from it and let it dominate my life? So it’s the question of do I want to take responsibility for my life? Do I want to live a better life? A more fulfilled life or do I let myself ruled by this thing that is there and it’s not gonna go away by itself? It is a difficult path, for sure.
There were times there were incredibly challenging, very difficult to navigate. And yeah, sometimes just excruciating sitting with not knowing. Sitting with not being able to move forward, not being able to move backwards. But it is possible to go through that. And I’m very glad I did. I feel like I’m a completely different person.
I’m able to show up genuinely, authentically and engage with myself, and most importantly, with the people around me, with this world in a completely different way. Yeah. If you need to do it, if you wanna be, if you wanna be happy, if you wanna live a fulfilled life,
Sam Believ: yeah. Repressing doesn’t work.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: And
Sam Believ: Hiding things from yourself doesn’t work. You eventually will have to confront them. And it’s better, the sooner the better. Because imagine you’re like 90 years old and you’re death bad and you’re like, your life was ruined. And it’s like the analogy I like to use, if you have like a.
Like a big past filled pimple on your leg.
And you say it hurt, doesn’t hurt too much, but a little bit. But if you touch it, it hurts a lot. So you don’t want to touch it because it hurts.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah.
Sam Believ: And going, drinking at asking and going right into it and the mess, it’s like doing a surgery on it.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah.
Sam Believ: But then it can heal and then you’re okay. But otherwise, like this will eventually give you a gang and you’ll have to cut off your leg.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah, absolutely. And especially. You only, you not only have res, most importantly, you have responsibility for yourself, but also having children or wanting to, having children and wanting to provide them the best life you need to work on your own stuff, otherwise you just pass it on genetically, but also through your own behaviors and your own unhealthy patterns.
So it’s. Also responsibility that you carry on.
Sam Believ: Speaking of this, have you observed much of the intergenerational trauma and how people facet on and what do you think? What’s going on there?
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah, I experienced it myself in my own ceremonies and I saw how how this trauma especially the sexual abuse has been passed on generation to gen from generation to generation.
And of course it makes sense for something that that painful to happen. So I feel like medicine helps to work on that, to heal that, not only for the generation that are to come, but also for the generation to who have been there, the generation generations who have been there already. And I can see in my own family as well that.
It’s been encouraging for my mom to continue on her healing journey. My cousin as well. I feel like something is moving and this very rewarding to see as well. That’s doing your own work. It actually helps others as well through inspiration and through the magic of the medicine itself.
Sam Believ: What are the, while you’re here.
What are the most interesting cases? Not naming any names, but like complicated people or complicated processes. Any you wanna share?
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah, I think the, yeah, the human psyche is just so fascinating. Especially when people go to places that where you feel like you’re really on the edge and navigating that what is real?
Where does, or being in this reality, but also experiencing where the medicine takes you and navigating those spaces is very fascinating. And yeah just the infinite or the vastness of the human psyche, people turning into. Into tigers and ceremony, guarding their tigers, then growling at the facilitators.
That’s just fascinating. Yeah, I think that was actually one of my most profound process that I was that I was allowed to witness like this feline process. People turning into a feline, into a tiger and just experiencing what it means to be a feline, the smells, the noises, the sensitivity.
I think that’s, yeah, that’s very fascinating.
Sam Believ: What do you think is going on there? Like any hypothesis.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: They say that or one of them. The legends of how medicine was discovered was that they saw a Jaguar stripping and they watched them what kind of vine they were eating. The, yeah.
Big cats have been honored. For many years, cats were honored in Egypt, so there must be some correlation. Cats are very intuitive. Cats here are very intuitive as well I don’t exactly know what’s going on, but it seems to be something very special Connecting with the feline of some sort.
Yes.
Sam Believ: What are the most interesting healing stories that you’ve observed? Like somebody that comes and then just transforms any names come to mind. I know I’d say it’s a lot of people, right? Yeah. People always don’t remember everyone.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah. I think what I found very impressive is people dealing with their addictions, drinking medicine, and then they don’t drink alcohol anymore, or they stop smoking sometimes, even just by two ceremonies, and then they’re clean.
They’re just, there’s no urge to engage in any distraction whatever drug it may be. And yeah, just starting to take care of themselves, eating more healthily quitting alcohol, quitting drugs. I think that’s the most impressive because it takes a lot, especially when they had this addiction for many years, and then suddenly there’s no, no need for it anymore.
That’s the most impressive, I would say. Yeah.
Sam Believ: What is your biggest frustration as the head of facilitations?
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah, patience and being with the impatience of others, which is my lesson for patients as well. I realized we’ve seen so many people, so many groups, and we know medicine works and medicine does its thing anyways, and by the end of the retreat.
People will have their connection. They will have received what they came here for, what they needed. And holding that frustration of, oh, I’m not connecting, I’m not getting what I want. I, and being with that and being supportive and encouraging and not getting annoyed myself, that’s, yeah. Yeah, that’s the biggest that’s one of the big challenges here, that’s for sure.
But medicine shows us every time to just have trust in her, so this has been very helpful in that. And it’s my own lesson of patience as well, so that’s also cool.
Sam Believ: How does it make you feel when somebody says they’re, they begin to share what saying. I’m not connected. And then they proceed describing a very cookie cutter.
I ask connection with pretty productive outcome.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah. Yeah. That’s that happens pretty common commonly, actually. I understand people come here for a lot. It’s, they’re desperate. They want to heal. They really want to heal. They’ve tried so many things. For so many years and nothing has worked.
For many it’s the medicine that’s often the last resort. I understand understand that need for having a connection, the more beautiful it is when they actually realize, oh, I had this connection all along. It was just in a different way. And maybe that even helps them when they go back to realize the subtle connections that.
The medicine provides not only through medicine, through ceremonies, but through to people most importantly. So maybe it helps them to be more aware of the different ways that the medicine actually works even after leaving the retreat.
Sam Believ: So as a head of facilitation, you’ve been there for 10 months.
It means, and every month we have 10 ceremonies. It means you’ve been a fire of hundred ceremonies. So whether drinking yourself or taking the service cup. Have you discovered any spiritual gifts or maybe have you accessed any shamanic states while you’re here? Because obviously facilitation is being there for people, but of course there is this other side.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah, definitely. I’ve definitely expanded my consciousness, that’s for sure. I haven’t had the cool travel through the universe experience yet, but, i’ve been very connected to the spiritual realm and feeling its presence right in this moment. So that’s been quite cool.
And the experience of Yeah. Being here and there at the same time, which is so difficult to explain. Yeah, there’s a lot that we don’t know of, that’s for sure. So I’m glad to have approached it like little by little. But yeah, there’s something opened up for me that I definitely want to pursue further.
I’m not really sure what it is yet, but there’s definitely an openness to exploring what is behind, what we perceive at the moment whatever that may be.
Sam Believ: Would you like to be a shaman when you grow up?
Dr. Clara Porwoll: I’d be all shamans of some sort. A little bit. Yeah, a little bit. I definitely wanna be. Work in the healing space.
The medicine gave me this confirmation working with people and guiding, helping them in their own healing journey. What Tata does is absolutely incredible is his work and how he approaches medicine, how he approaches the people and working with them. And it’s a lot of responsibility that he carries.
So I don’t know if I wanna be in his shoes, to be honest. Dealing with all that’s out there. But yeah, being in the healing space is definitely what I’m gonna be doing, that’s for sure. Yeah. I leave the shaman pass to Nico.
Sam Believ: Tell us more about your job, like for people.
Maybe people don’t, they haven’t been here before. What is what is head of facilitation or what is chief facilitator and what do you actually do?
Dr. Clara Porwoll: It’s a lot of everything. First it’s leading the ceremony team in the ceremonies, making sure that patients are safe that we are there if they need help, whatever it may be, just from handing out.
Napkins refilling the water cups to helping them go to the bathroom or even guiding processes of different sorts. I think that’s the most obvious. Then it’s being in the wood circle already. Helping the integrational part leading the word circles, preparing patients before they come with the speeches.
Preparing them before they leave with the preparation preparation speech. And there’s a lot of behind the scenes as well. We check in after every word circle with the team and kind of discuss who we want to look out for, maybe patients that need some extra guidance outside of ceremony. So we hold the retreat.
And the flow of the retreat in itself. Being there to to provide that safe container, not only inside, but also outside of ceremony. Offering support, offering guidance through conversations, through hugs, through whatever may be, just a smile. And we are keeping the team together, making sure that the team.
The team dynamic is working navigating that. So it’s a lot, it’s the own process that we’re working with. It’s the process of the patients individually, the process of the group, the process of the team members individually, the process of the team in itself and how everything flows together. Yeah, so it.
It’s a lot the in between, the like navigation of the retreat in itself and helping it or supporting it in its flow, giving it a bit of structure and order, but still letting it happen and maybe giving in like the bits and pieces of, okay, how can we support making people’s experience just a little better and a little nicer?
Basically make people feel cared for and feel listened to. I think this is what the basic need that everybody has. As a human, just being part of something and feeling like somebody actually cares about them. Which we do. Yeah.
Sam Believ: You also do the workshops and the trainings when people arrive. So that’s also important. And then we do the post retreat online.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: The integration calls. Yeah, exactly.
Sam Believ: So the topic of integration in the word circles. Yeah. Talk to us about your view on integration and regarding ward circles. What is the importance of the community and if you were to assign percentages of healing, this percent comes from my Alaska, this percent comes from shaman, this percent comes from team, this percent comes from the community, this percent comes from the place.
What would you, do you have a formula in mind?
Dr. Clara Porwoll: No.
Sam Believ: There was like three questions in one.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah. As we all know, integration is very tricky. And I guess I’m gonna be faced with it very soon as well, so I’ll let you know if I actually live by my own words when I go back. But yeah, it’s so difficult to explain if you haven’t actually put it into practice.
But it’s. It’s, yeah, no light tighter. Ti likes to say medicine is 10% and 90% is what you do with it. Medicine plays a huge part in just allowing yourself to take a step further, taking away whatever was limiting beliefs, mental constructs to then for you to step forward. It’s difficult to say percentages because I feel like medicine is of course what we drink, but then medicine works through everything around us as well.
So for sure, the ceremony is a big part. For retreat, I would say I don’t know, difficult to say percent. I would say half. Half. Half is the community, half is the ceremony. And we as a team flowing into both with our presence and what we have to offer individually and as a team as well.
But ulti, ultimately you, you need to do the work by yourself. Like you need to you need to continue practicing what you learned here. And I feel like that’s the, that’s a difficult part to understand. For many that medicine is not just taking away all your problems and fixing your life in one week retreat, but opening up to what is possible and what your capabilities are, which is a lot greater, are like, people wanna come and they wanna know, okay what’s my next job gonna look like?
Where, which city should I move to? That’s irrelevant when you actually realize what you get from the medicine, which is. Being able to look inside of yourself, being more connected to yourself, being more connected to your intuition, because from that place, when you’re in that place, everything else comes naturally.
If you’re aligned with yourself, everything else just happens very naturally. But you need to put in the work you need to have your practice of going inwards through meditation. Through somatic practices like yoga, like breath work by nurturing the ability to be with yourself to see what is arising, what is unfolding, and by that yeah, my favorite phrase, take the process inwards to see what is actually happening inside of you that is unfolding and that needs to be needs to be taken care of and attended to.
Yeah, integration is is very tricky. Therapy definitely helps. Simon was here the last week. He’s been my therapist for one and a half years now. He’s he’s been an amazing guide. So yeah, everybody needs to find out for themselves what works for them, in which way they can use other modalities in life to.
Facilitate their healing journey.
Sam Believ: Yeah. I’m probably gonna interview Simon in the next few days as well. Nice. Since he’s here. Yeah. Cool. It’s gonna be our second interview with him
Dr. Clara Porwoll: yeah.
Sam Believ: So you’re leaving now?
What’s gonna happen to Lara? What do you think about your replacement?
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Oh, wonderful.
Beautiful, beautiful ladies that are stepping into the, into this role and I’m very proud of them. I see that they will grow a lot. This role just being in the space, forces you to grow and that’s beautiful. They’re both amazing young women who will learn a lot and will also provide something great for this place.
I’m very proud of myself as well that I was. I able to help them step into the role and I’m very excited for them and their journey, but I know they’re gonna do an incredible job. They’re gonna be very amazing. Sammy, have a hand for picking good people working at Lucky
Sam Believ: you. It’s the right people.
Just good at
Dr. Clara Porwoll: manifesting.
Sam Believ: Yeah. In this this line of work, like facilitation. Y you, it’s really hard to care for others if you don’t care for yourself, what are your own routines or how do you stay sane in this? Yeah, this mess.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah. Yeah. You need to have your practice.
That’s that’s for sure. I do yoga and meditation every morning. And when I feel the need to do I have started, tried to start breath work, I feel a lot of resistance, so that’s exactly why I know I need to pursue that. Like I said, therapy has been very big for me. And yeah, and that’s also something that you need to learn the balance of realizing when you need to spend time with yourself.
I’ve gotten a lot better at knowing when I just need to retreat and just sit with whatever is happening and the rising and especially going back after my last retreat and being stuck in this place of yeah, just stuck was a big challenge. But actually I see it as a lesson that realizing sometimes you just need to be with what is and you cannot do anything to.
Awesome to speed up the process. It just needs to unfold in the way that it unfolds. And this is, I believe, a skill that can be obtained but also needs to be nurtured and needs to be practiced a lot. Yeah, there comes patience in place. Of course. So yeah, I journal a lot as well, but just being with yourself.
Just sitting and being still. I think that’s one of the most challenging things to do, but this is a very important practice as well, especially after an intense retreat where things may have come up that don’t make sense just yet. Just being with not knowing what it means, that’s yeah. Can be challenging to do
Sam Believ: so speaking about taking breaks. Every break you take and you travel somewhere, you like bring a person with you.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah. I try. You’re a
Sam Believ: great salesperson as well. Thanks. What do you tell them? What makes people just be like, yeah, I’m I’m, I don’t know you, but I like it and I’m coming.
Yeah.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: I don’t advertise like in a direct way. Tell ’em, Hey, come to La Vira. But conversation just happened to. Be about ayahuasca, and I tell them what I do here and people who are meant to come here, they, they feel it, they ask more questions and I give them information. And I feel like that’s very encouraging for people who’ve maybe heard about the medicine before, but they’re afraid to be able to speak to somebody one-on-one and in person realizing, oh, this medicine does help.
And we always, tell patients before they leave that the best way to help others in their healing journey is to lead by example. And this inspires people to be curious and be like, Hey, what’s happening? You seem so much lighter. You seem so much better. And I feel like the people yeah, that are meant to hear it, it’s just like planting seeds in their mind.
So it’s not directing them to go to ayahuasca, but. Supporting them and finding them, finding that out by themselves, that this is the bit of info, a bit of information that they needed at this exact moment in time. And then they’re like, okay, now I’m ready. So it’s just yeah, I guess synchronicity.
But just, yeah, speaking openly about it to people who are genuinely interested and they just know. They just know, and lara is the best place. What can I say? It’s, for me, it was the most important to find a safe and secure place. I wasn’t ready to go to, to the Amazon. And I feel like this is what a lot of people need to know, that this is a safe, a very safe space to go inwards, like external needs to be safe to go inwards, and the virus just provides that.
In the best way. So that’s that’s what convinces people. Yeah.
Sam Believ: So you’re going back to Germany now. So I’m expecting a wave of Germans flooding in. Everyone you touch or meet,
Dr. Clara Porwoll: I’ll try my best. I feel like it’ll be challenging, but Germany definitely needs it.
Sam Believ: Why do you, why does Germany specifically needs awa so much?
Dr. Clara Porwoll: There’s a lot of national drama, obviously that has not been dealt with in, in a sufficient way. And yeah, people comparing how people, of course not everybody, but the general perception is people are more reserved. They’re not as open, especially compared to Latin American countries and the mentality here and yeah, I just feel like it would help them to open up and to heal their national trauma, to maybe even get to a point where they allow themselves to be proud of where they’re from and what comes with.
With being German. Not in a nationalist kind of way, but just being proud of your heritage, being proud of who you are. I think it has a lot to do with this identity aspect, just of yeah. Being proud of your true self. I think that’s a big one for Germans identity.
Yeah.
Sam Believ: It’s interesting that you say national trauma. I’ve never heard this phrase before as people say, like national treasure or national identity or national goals, but it’s if like they always view countries interacting as if it’s two people interacting. There’s also collective trauma, so it’s how cool it would be if governments were like focusing on.
National trauma. It’s okay, we have this national trauma, let’s heal, let’s make a plan on how we’re gonna heal.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah.
Sam Believ: Millions of people.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: And without getting too political, although we had the World War and the Holocaust there’s, right wing parties are rising and it almost feels like it’s going in a direction where we’ve been before.
So even. Even though we had that trauma and the whole nation is traumatized, apparently we haven’t taken the lessons from it to prevent, also from repeating a cycle like this needs to be dealt with.
Sam Believ: Third time is the charm, oh, please know. I’ve seen someone on the news recently, this Germany is planning to put a lot of money in their military again.
Yeah, let’s hope. I come from. The opposite side of that culture. Obviously Eastern Europe and Lavia was part of Soviet Union, so there was war. Like first I remember my grandmother was teaching me. So my grandma like, comes from south part of Russia.
And she, was my first two German Learn awards that I learned.
It’s because that taught them that it means hands up.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Okay.
Sam Believ: Because they thought that to them when they’re there. Oh my God. So they don’t get shot. There was like, literally the line was passing right there. I, I’ll be walking back from school and after the rain has passed I’ll be finding like.
The lines of machine gun bullets.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Oh my God. I would
Sam Believ: Open them up and burn the gun powders, which was fun once I threw a bullet into a fire. Oh,
Dr. Clara Porwoll: really?
Sam Believ: Yeah. And it just exploded. And I, and then later on found in the tree. Oh my god, I got lucky. Another synchronicity there.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah.
Sam Believ: The God or universe kept me alive to be able to do this work.
But nevertheless, in a parallel universe right now, we could have been in the different trenches on different side of the war. You’re a lady, but maybe you would’ve been a medic, whatever. So it’s like crazy, right? Makes no sense. Like this famous thing where they had, there was this war and then they stopped it just to play a game of football.
It’s so bizarre. I think ayahuasca specifically makes it just impossible to understand, like, why would you kill another person? Because you’re basically like killing another person is like cutting your own finger. Yeah. It’s like your world connected. Yeah. I think it’s one of the two things.
It’s either we give ayahuasca to everyone or other psychedelics, especially the presidents, or we’re just gonna kill ourselves some somehow.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah. Yeah. That’s what it feels like. Either we facilitate that change and psychedelics is a big part already, and hopefully it’s gonna be an even bigger part.
Hopefully I can play my part in facilitating that, that progress or not. Yeah. So let’s do our best and helping bring the change forward.
Sam Believ: Yeah, I’d like to remind that here at Lair we have a special promo for that. Any president
Dr. Clara Porwoll: in come
Sam Believ: and drink Ayahuasca totally free of charge. Vladimir, if you’re listening,
Dr. Clara Porwoll: nice.
Come over.
Sam Believ: Let’s per purge some of that stuff out. Yeah, on that note, Clara, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you for working here with us for 10 months. Your support has been invaluable. He helped me get lots of weight off my shoulders. ’cause it’s a busy job. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah, that’s right.
Sam Believ: So yeah, you’re a brave woman. Confronting your own demons and then healing and healing others all simultaneously is a pretty, pretty rough journey. And whatever it is you’re going. I wish you best of luck and I hope you. Hope you come back one day.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Thank you, Sam. Thank you for allowing me to be part of this journey and seeing what I was capable of when I didn’t see it, and giving me this opportunity to step into whatever I’m stepping into.
I’m eternally grateful for you, for your presence here, for what you’ve. What you’ve created together with your wife and I’m, I feel very honored to also have been able to see the change from when I first came and how everything has made progress. And you guys are doing very important work. And I’m very grateful that, very honored that I was able to be part of that.
So thank you so much for giving me this chance and for allowing me to call this my home.
Sam Believ: Thank you. Thank you Clara.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Thank you.
Sam Believ: That’s why I will miss you.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Yeah, I’ll miss you as well. Thank you
Sam Believ: guys. You’ve been listening to Dasai was podcast.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: I like that and I’ll see
Sam Believ: you in the next episode. Bye.
Dr. Clara Porwoll: Hello
Sam Believ: Ira.
I hope you enjoyed that video. If you like it, give us a subscribe. Nothing is medical advice. We’re just a plant medicine retreat. Following a shamanic tradition, so we’re not doctors. If you’re having any health issues, go find a doctor. See you in the next month.