In this episode of Ayahuasca Podcast, host Sam Believ (founder of http://www.lawayra.com) has a conversation with Jillian Acosta, a registered dietitian and licensed dietitian nutritionist specializing in functional medicine and the psychology of eating. Jillian is the founder of The Root Cause Method, where she helps clients achieve health and vitality by addressing trauma, often integrating ketamine therapy to transform relationships with food and emotions.
We touch upon topics including:
(00:58) Jillian’s personal journey with eating disorders and emotional eating.
(02:21) How ayahuasca revealed the root of her trauma.
(04:09) Her early ayahuasca experiences and integration challenges.
(08:45) Rebuilding her life after ayahuasca, including leaving her marriage and launching her business.
(12:59) The connection between trauma, eating disorders, and chronic illness.
(17:39) Jillian’s perspective on emotional and energetic weight.
(27:41) Guidance on processing trauma and reconnecting with the body.
(39:08) Comparing ayahuasca and ketamine as therapeutic tools.
(45:49) The gut-brain connection and its role in mental health.
(48:24) The spiritual aspect of healing and gratitude for past experiences.
If you would like to attend one of our Ayahuasca retreats, go to http://www.lawayra.com.
Find more about Jillian Acosta at therootcausemethod.com or on Instagram at @jillianacosta._.rd.
Transcript
Sam Believ (00:01)
Hi guys and welcome to Ayahuasca Podcast. As always with you the host Sam Belyev. Today I have an interview with Jillian Acosta. Jillian is a registered dietitian and a licensed dietitian nutritionist. She specializes in functional medicine and psychology of eating. She’s the founder of the root cause method, a nutrition private practice dedicated to guiding clients towards health and vitality through innovative approaches.
In her practice, Jillian emphasizes the importance of addressing the underlying causes of chronic illnesses, many of which she believes are deeply rooted in trauma. She collaborates with physicians who administer ketamine therapy, utilizing this tool to help clients transform their relationships with food, emotions, and themselves. Jillian, welcome to the show.
Jillian Acosta (00:48)
Thank you so much for having me.
Sam Believ (00:50)
Jillian, can you tell us a little bit about your story and what brought you to work with psychedelics?
Jillian Acosta (00:58)
Yeah, so I had been struggling with food, like an emotional relationship with food all of my life. didn’t really have a reference point of my life prior to when that pattern kind of came online. And so that was just the way that I was. It was the way that I operated. And it was really disempowering, honestly. I was constantly at war with my body, feeling like I needed to look a certain way to be worthy of love, needed to be attractive, beautiful.
all of that, but also using food in a way to kind of dilute my emotional experience and feeling really out of control when it comes to food. And again, I had no idea why, but I was deeply suffering and I, you know, it started with an emotional relationship with food and then it really kind of accelerated into a full-blown eating disorder where I was bulimic and had binge eating disorder and I checked myself into treatment when I was 22 years old.
And while that was supportive in some ways, in others it wasn’t. It was really just like behavioral modification therapy. It wasn’t really addressing what was triggering the trigger. It wasn’t accessing the root of why I was engaging in these patterns. And so it left me really seeking. It left me wanting answers for why this thing was even there in the first place. And after exhausting other options like,
past life regression and Reiki and hypnotherapy and all those beautiful modalities, but those weren’t really helping me understand or have get access to what was really perpetuating this. I heard a podcast in like 2014 about the healing potential of psychedelics for eating disorders. And like everything in my body was like, this is, this is the way, this is the way. And eventually I found myself in an ayahuasca experience in, in 2020, was
my
first experience with that medicine and repressed memories of being molested as a three-year-old, four-year-old surfaced.
And I had no recollection of that for three decades of my life. But in that experience, everything made sense. All of the reasons why I had been using food in those ways, the reasons I had not felt safe in my body, I’d found myself in situations where I was being objectified by men. Like all the world of that was, it just made sense. I understood it. And it flooded me with this incredible sense of compassion and really launched me on this path of like deep discovery and introspection.
and healing and that’s very much what I do in my work now.
Sam Believ (03:35)
Thank you, Jillian. First of all, for those who are listening and not watching on YouTube, you look great. You don’t look fat or skinny or anything. You look great. It’s interesting what you describe. I think this is a really common situation where people come to Alaska when they kind of tried everything. And I think that…
Jillian Acosta (03:48)
Thank you.
Yeah.
Sam Believ (03:59)
If it was in the other order, like Ayahuasca first and then all these modalities, then it’s great, but sometimes it’s just not enough to sort of break through all those layers. how was your, tell us more about your experience with Ayahuasca, specifically how were your ceremonies like? What did you feel? What did you not feel? then how was the integration process like?
Jillian Acosta (04:09)
Yeah.
Yeah, this is great. I I’m not going to name the name of the place I went to because I would not recommend it. This was like five years ago almost. And so I was quite naive to the psychedelic space and to reputable centers and all of the things. I was like green and I was honestly just like hungry for freedom. And this center kind of came into my awareness. I knew one person that went and I went and it was huge, huge ceremony.
lot of energy and the structure of it was like a ceremony on Friday night, another one Saturday morning and another one Saturday evening. And so it was quite intense. And my first one was…
challenging in the sense that it was overwhelming energetically and I didn’t actually fully surrender or drop into the experience. Of course I was in an altered state, but I was overwhelmed. But then the second one was during the day and it was in a forest and that’s really when I was able to let go, when I drank a little bit more medicine. It was a profound experience, super positive as Ayahuasca being incredibly intelligent. It allowed me to begin to trust her and her spirit and let go
a bit and showed me so many valuable things, but then towards the end of that experience, it got quite challenging. It got really, really challenging. I was incredibly nauseous. Honestly, what happened was that it was in a forest and towards the end of that ceremony, I flipped over. was on my back and I flipped over on my belly and I was laying in the grass in my belly just like I used to when I was a little girl.
I would lay in the grass for hours in the summers and just dissociate, I now know. And it’s almost as if like when I turned over and laid on my belly, it was like all of the memories that the earth was holding for me in the grass where I left it was like waiting for me.
like it was waiting for me in the same place. And so as I flipped over, I literally experienced the feeling of like flipping and falling down a rabbit hole like Alice in Wonderland style. And I grew incredibly nauseous. Like my throat started closing, I started sweating. It was really uncomfortable. And then the gong rang indicating that it was like the ceremony was over. And so it was like, I was about to probably access some really challenging material, but because ceremony ended, I then had to kind of like sit in that
nausea for hours. And of course my ego was like trying to discourage me from drinking again that evening just a few hours later. But I did. And that was the ceremony, that third ceremony that same day was when really everything was revealed to me about what I had lived through and…
You know, the medicine is so profound, so profoundly intelligent that I was not being re-traumatized, even though it was like really challenging information that I was being shown. I was not having to like relive the events in a traumatic way. It was uncomfortable and it was bizarre, but I was just receiving and it was like showing me this for my greatest good. Now, the second part of your question was like, what was integration? Like at that time in my life, I was in a relationship, I was in a marriage which was totally
totally
misaligned. We had no business being together at all. I did not feel like I was emotionally supported whatsoever. And so I didn’t even tell my partner at the time. I didn’t share anything with anyone. I just kind of held it. And it was so confronting that my ego was just like, it put it in a box. It was like, okay, that’s gone. Like, I’m just going to carry on with my life now. And
I started to really struggle with food. I started to feel this impulse of eating emotionally again. And that’s my indication that there’s something I’m not willing to feel.
I got, I ended up getting divorced like three months later after, because ayahuasca makes it really hard for you to lie to yourself. Like that’s one of the beautiful things about it. It just like really confronts you with the truth. And my truth was like, I was not happy in this marriage. And so I left that marriage and I launched my business in the same month and totally jumped off a cliff and
In that time, I started to waver with food and I felt a call to sit with the medicine again. So I sat in a different ayahuasca experience, like maybe six months later, and everything that I had not wanted to confront before.
like came flying out of Pandora’s box. And it was, that was a very, very challenging experience. And in that ceremony, I was deeply supported. And that’s where I met my teacher and worked with him consistently for like multiple months, basically living in the same space and just living, breathing, practicing every day of clearing this energy and making my way back into my own heart. And
creating safety in myself. It was just a total ego disillusion of everything that I thought that I knew of myself and others and a beautiful place to recreate my life. went into solitude for two years after that experience and just really deconstructed myself as I knew it and created this version that I have been, that I am now.
Sam Believ (09:56)
Thank you for sharing that. There’s a few things I immediately disagree with that first retreat you went to, and two ceremonies in one day, that sounds very intense, including kind of abruptly ending the ceremony in that way, I think is also a little bit unprofessional, but it’s interesting with ayahuasca, even sometimes even bad ayahuasca experiences can lead to good things eventually. It’s like in the end of a day,
Jillian Acosta (10:07)
It’s not advised.
Sam Believ (10:25)
It is really important with the shaman is where the medicine comes from, where you do it, how you do it, how you prepare yourself. But sometimes enough will come through even when like a terrible ceremony that eventually put you on the right path. This is kind of beauty of self-guiding with this medicine. So, it’s so you, you went through this experience yourself and obviously not only you recovered, but now you help other people with,
with recovery and it’s kind of like the typical wounded healer situation where you have a problem yourself, you sort of solve it or at least you’re a few steps ahead and you start bringing other people with you. Tell us about that transition, know, how, when were you, when have you felt ready to help others? How did you start and yeah, what is that experience like?
Jillian Acosta (11:21)
It’s interesting.
I’ve really been like fascinated and borderline obsessed with my own expansion and personal development really since I was 16. I was in like personal development curriculum and courses and seminars and things. And I really got bit by the bug of like service when I, when I finished treatment and I went back, I would go back every Saturday morning as an alumni and share what I was learning with like the new patients and their families. And when I realized that like the things that I was like the dots
that
I was connecting in my own process, if I shared that with other people, it was really beneficial and impactful for them. And so it gave me this sense of purpose, this sense of service that was really fulfilling.
And so I started coaching at a young age, like my early 20s, even like, even when I was still struggling with food, I was still coaching people. And, you know, I pursued the field of nutrition academically because I, at the time I was still in an eating disorder and really wanted to learn how to like hack the system. I wanted to learn how to get as thin as possible so that I could be hot and happy and all the bullshit that were fed.
But I ended up falling in love with the science and the field of it. And so I’d already gotten my degree, my license. And I named my business The Root Cause Method because I really believe that the root cause of chronic illness is trauma. I believe that eating disorders, obesity, chronic illness, addiction, et cetera, all like trauma is at the root of all of that. It’s just like how it manifests is nuanced from person to person. And so I became fascinated by this concept of like, if we could heal the trauma, then we
can heal the physiology. It’s not about putting people on a rigid diet. It’s about actually addressing the underlying thing, wound, that has them drowning their pain in a gallon of ice cream. It’s not the ice cream. You know what I mean? It’s what’s driving those patterns. And so it’s this really interesting blend of all that I gained academically, all that I gained from a coaching and development standpoint, and all the deep spiritual and energetic work that I’ve been
deeply steeped in that I kind of blend together and and watch transformation happen like every day which is just fucking amazing and then of course with the tools and the application of psychedelics it’s it’s the biggest it’s one of the greatest tools it helps us you know directly access the wounds that are buried in the subconscious mind and and that’s where 95 % of our behavior is driven so it makes sense to me that we access that if we really want to help people transform
Sam Believ (13:58)
Yeah, I agree with you. I love what Gabo Ramate says is don’t look for the substance, look for the pain. Same as in other words, what you say, all addiction comes from trauma. So it’s like, what is that pain inside you that can get you eventually we can get addicted to anything from work to to porn to alcohol, food, you name it, good things, bad things, everything can be.
Jillian Acosta (14:08)
Happy.
All of it.
Sam Believ (14:26)
Overused I’ve never seen anyone addicted to ayahuasca, but I’m sure I’m sure people can figure it out but So yeah, this is this is really true and I think especially with food because it’s it’s considered something You know, it’s good for you. You need food. So it’s like there’s nothing wrong with it And especially in US right now there’s there’s a lot of there’s that pain addict
Jillian Acosta (14:27)
Yeah, we’re creative.
Yeah.
Sam Believ (14:53)
pain aspect of addiction, but there’s also this manipulative aspect with, you know, big industry just making everything so extra tasty. And there’s relationship with food, I think is in a pretty poor condition. So I can imagine you have lots of clients because there’s, it’s a very necessary thing to do. So what have you noticed with, you know, in work with clients relationship with food, what kind of, what kind of conditions are most common? it
Jillian Acosta (15:02)
Of course.
Sam Believ (15:23)
anorexia or bulimia, your own experience, what have you dealt with? Talk to us more about that.
Jillian Acosta (15:31)
Yeah, I mean,
I personally was dealing with bulimia and binge eating disorder, but I would say binge eating disorder was like the fundamental kind of through line through the peaks and valleys of like restrictive or excessive or purging rather. But the truth is I don’t actually work with people that are dealing with acute eating disorders. Like if someone is anorexic or actively engaging in bulimia nervosa, like I don’t believe that I’m the best person for them. They need to stabilize. They need to get support.
and
more stability, but when they are actually ready for recovery, when they’re ready for something more, they’re a woman.
It’s like there what I look for in a client whomever I take on is like a desire for liberation a desire to be free in general but also of this pattern that has been so disempowering and so the majority of the people that I work with have What I call like a dysfunctional or a disordered relationship with food. They don’t necessarily have a diagnosis of an eating disorder so that could look like
you know, feeling out of control with food or eating past the point of fullness, eating till you’re physically uncomfortable or ill, you know, eating like large quantities of food in a really short period of time or, you know, like entering into a space of like self loathing after, after eating, like beating yourself up about it. Like that’s all emotional. And so my clients, regardless of what their, their physiology looks like, whether they’re thin or carrying a little bit of excess weight or carrying a lot of excess weight, there’s an emotional relationship.
with food that’s present in all of my clients that they’re really wanting freedom from.
And honestly, my perspective and like, I’m in an interesting place in my work because it’s starting to transition. I’m really like, it’s been about emotional eating because I’m a dietician and all the things, but what I’m really doing is like reconnecting a person back to themselves, to their body, to their intuition, to the truth of who they are using like food and, and weight and emotional eating as like the doorway, just because that was my story. But you know, it’s so much deeper than that. And I’m here to impact a lot of people, regardless of their expression. Like some people may use alcohol.
And people may, you know, jump from like toxic relationship to toxic relationship. Like whatever their thing is, I’m in the business of like reclaiming power and freedom. And so, yeah, that’s what I do.
Sam Believ (17:54)
Yeah, so
in that case, eating disorders or overeating, under eating, whatever it is, is just a symptom, right? So alcoholism could be another symptom. So if you’re going to root cause that makes total sense that you kind of look into all of them. I’ll tell you a story. And obviously it’s here. We don’t really choose.
Jillian Acosta (18:03)
Exactly.
Sam Believ (18:19)
We can’t really choose who comes and who doesn’t come. Obviously there are sometimes people who come to Loire that are in a pretty difficult conditions and we still receive them, work with them cautiously. But we had one girl about four or five months ago, her name is Justina and I can share it because she left us a testimonial and she’s coming back now as a volunteer. But she was anorexic, she was extremely skinny.
very skinny. think she also likes to listen to our podcast. So Justine, if you’re listening. And she obviously she’s done a lot of work herself to regain some of the weight. She was able to function and she was not as bad as on the photos she showed me, but she worked with that was cause she did 18 day retreat, very deep dive. She had challenging processes and
she left it was still challenging integration was very difficult however as i believe now she gained 10 kilos because she said she really wanted to come back as a volunteer and i said well if you gain five kilos you can come back and volunteer so she gained 10 and it’s pretty impressive like of course in the end of the day you yourself do all the work but ayahuasca and other psychedelics they can open that that door for you
Jillian Acosta (19:38)
Absolutely.
Sam Believ (19:41)
And it’s interesting, in your case, you found that the core was the abuse. And a lot of people account to the retreat as well, discover some traumas. What would you tell someone that, because I hear this a lot when people say, I’m afraid to do ayahuasca because I’m afraid I’m going to come up with some trauma.
Jillian Acosta (20:06)
Well, they will. But in my perspective, ignorance is not bliss.
In my perspective, ignorance is miserable. It’s numbness, it’s dissociation, it’s sleepwalking. It’s not blissful. And so whether or not you can directly confront your trauma, you’re still living in the swell of it. It’s still affecting your psyche every moment. It’s still affecting your nervous system and your physiology and the way that you can relate to others and your sexual expression and all of the things. You’re still bathing in.
the energy of the trauma you’re afraid of discovering.
And so, you know, I have compassion and give grace to the people that are willing to look. In fact, it’s something that I bow to. think it’s the most respectable, admirable thing a human being can do is look at their shadow, look at their, look at their pain, feel their pain. And so I get it that it’s confronting and scary. I’ve lived that, but I can tell you as someone who has faced that it’s the most liberating thing in the world. I’m so grateful to have learned this about myself because
this was the cage I was living in. I’m no longer living in it because I was able to move through it and and I…
You know, I don’t serve medicine. work with ketamine in my practice, but I don’t serve. I’ve never been invited by medicine, mushrooms, ayahuasca, nothing to serve it. So I don’t, take that. I have reverence and a lot of respect for the people that do that. My gifts are in the world of integration. I take integration extremely seriously because I believe that, you know, medicine illuminates things. It opens boxes, it shows you, but it’s like, what are you going to do with those findings? Are you going to just view them as like kind of a cool experience?
that you learned a lot of things and then go back to your cubicle and work in a job that you hate and be in a relationship where you’re unfulfilled, or you can actually do something about it. And I get lit up about like…
let’s do something about it. Let’s weave these things into the tapestry of your life and create, literally create a new emotional, psychological, spiritual, physical infrastructure. And because I’ve been able to do that myself, I have what we call the code. I have codes for that and I help people recreate their relationship with themselves, which really impacts every other facet of their lives.
Sam Believ (22:38)
So let’s say somebody who’s listening right now, as you describe those patterns for which you have codes, what should they do? What would be the good start and how should one, let’s say, heal from those kinds of issues?
Jillian Acosta (23:06)
So you’re you’re suggesting, you’re saying that like if someone sits with ayahuasca and learns that they were sexually abused, you’re saying, for example.
Sam Believ (23:13)
No, I’m sorry, I’m going back to the eating disorder topic. But sexual abuse as well. No, I mean, yeah, let’s do it this way. First, tell us what to do integration wise if you’ve been at an iOS retreat and you discovered sexual abuse. And then we’ll go back to the other question.
Jillian Acosta (23:32)
Yeah, I’d say find a trusted ally, whether it’s a coach or a therapist or somatic experience, you know, practitioner, find an ally teacher of some modality that resonates with you and don’t do it alone. Don’t do it alone. It’s a lot for the psyche. It’s a lot for the system. To be supported by somebody is, I believe, essential, at least in the beginning. You know, I worked with someone for consistently for four months rigorously.
And then I was able to like feel strong enough to integrate the teachings on my own and begin to like really practice what I was taught and build my own strong foundation and kind of prevent myself from depending on a teacher. But in the beginning, I let myself be held by them fully, fully, which was really, really incredibly supportive. And so that’s kind of that first step. And then, you know,
Sam Believ (24:27)
One more
question about that. What I notice a lot is people generally tend to doubt the reality of that information. It’s kind of like, you know, this first step denial.
Jillian Acosta (24:42)
Yeah, I went through that.
Sam Believ (24:44)
Do you have anything, any guidance on that or any advice?
Jillian Acosta (24:49)
What I now understand what was happening was that, you know, this egoic part of me could not, like did not want to accept that this was the reality. It was like fighting against what I had just learned because it was so confronting to all of the identity structures that I had created, all that I knew. And so it was really,
challenging me in terms of like surrendering to the truth that I was just told. And I had a, actually I didn’t have a therapist at that time. I didn’t have anyone at that time. I was in a marriage like I described, I didn’t have any support, so I told no one. And the first thing that I would do now is find support.
and just tell somebody trusted, you know, that this is what came up and I’m having a really, and I don’t know if it’s true, like that, you know, that ego is like, I didn’t want to believe it. I was in resistance to it. So just share what that, that part, like, this is what came up. I’m not sure. And, and hopefully the therapist or the coach or whomever is like qualified enough that they don’t have tried to tell you yes or no. They just kind of let you be with.
both possibilities and start to create safety for yourself in entertaining them.
Sam Believ (26:10)
Yeah, this is very useful and I remember this sort of little video or something I watched where I Think it can be useful in this case But some people when they find out something has been done to them their first intention is like, know vengeance or Finding, know how to pay back and this kind of direction or at least or like finding why has it been done to them? There’s this story where somebody is bitten by the snake
And instead of like running to the hospital, they’re trying to find a snake and like talk to it. It’s like, that’s, that’s not the point. So if you’re going through that, don’t, don’t focus on that direction. Just focus on yourself. doesn’t, you don’t need somebody to ask for forgiveness to forgive them. and, back to the original question, if somebody. Sure.
Jillian Acosta (26:50)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Actually, there’s something I would love to add real quick that’s just
coming through about this is like, hear a lot of people like, something came up in medicine, but I’m not really sure. And I wonder if I’m making this up. Like, I wonder if I’m fabricating it. And I hear that a lot. And my, my invitation for those people where there is like uncertainty is like,
You know, the ego wants the story. The ego wants the detail so it can analyze it and it can like, you know, have certainty and all those kinds of things. But like, that’s not actually what’s important in that first stage. What’s really important is that like the body knows, like the body keeps the score, the body, the body knows. And so like working towards reconnecting with the body and allowing the body to speak.
you know, allowing the body to inform because I wasn’t shown like all the details of every time I had experienced that as a child. And I now know that I was being protected. I wasn’t being re-traumatized. That was really loving of the medicine. But as I strengthened my capacity to hold the truth of what I had learned, I started receiving more in dream space, in other medicine spaces, like way more vivid memory that was confronting and uncomfortable.
And so as I got stronger in my capacity to hold what I was being shown, then I was shown more. And it just became like irrefutable. And there’s not a shadow of a doubt that that’s what I experienced now. But I hear a lot of people in the beginning like, I don’t know. I wonder if I’m making this up. People don’t make this up. People don’t make this stuff. This is not something you fabricate unless there’s like a mental condition, you know, like. But generally speaking, the level of pervade pervasiveness of this condition is it’s rampant.
And so if there was, if there’s a suspicion or there’s a memory that came through in a medicine ceremony, at least give it, like honor it as a possibility and let the body open and inform you as you progress on your journey.
Sam Believ (28:57)
Yeah, it is a very scary thing to discover trauma, but it still is a gift, a scary gift, but still a gift. So for those who are afraid to find the trauma, if you don’t find it, great. If you find it even better. So now going back to the original question, if somebody who’s listening is dealing with some sort of eating disorder, what should they do? What are the easy first steps? What are the
Jillian Acosta (29:05)
Totally.
Sam Believ (29:27)
recommendations from you who knows more about that.
Jillian Acosta (29:32)
I mean, easy? It’s a complex journey. Food is an interesting, like you mentioned earlier in the conversation, it’s not like alcohol or narcotics where we could just omit it from our lives because then that’s anorexia nervosa. That’s another condition. We have to learn to dance with this thing. We have to have a level of balance. And so,
It’s definitely charged and I guess to the first kind of invitation would be to take inventory.
of what your relationship with food looks like? Do you feel out of control? Are you able to eat with and really enjoy your food and maybe bring an element of sensuality and enjoyment and pleasure to your meal? Or are you inhaling to the point where you don’t even know where the food went and all of sudden you’re on your last bite? Take stock of how do I relate to food? Is it on my mind all the time? Am I finishing lunch and thinking about what I’m going to
eat for dinner? Like where am I at? What’s the baseline? And then the second thing is like it has nothing to do with food. Eating disorders, clinical obesity, anorexia nervosa, like none of the spectrum of the shapes of our physiology has anything to do with food. Sure we eat to look a certain way, but in my perspective
You know, weight is really just pain pushed down by food. It is just…
armor. It’s just a mechanism of dissociation of disconnection from our emotional experience from something uncomfortable we use to distract ourselves or dilute the sensation. And so it has so much more to do with how willing we are to feel than it does about like macronutrient distribution and antioxidant fucking profiles. Like, yeah, the quality of the food is great. It really matters. And it’s not even about that.
It’s about what are we using food for?
Sam Believ (31:42)
Yeah, it’s harder to get obese eating healthy foods, but still possible, right? Yeah, so talking about eating and eating to look a certain way, I know you talk a lot about body dysmorphia. I believe you also had a story of X-Plants. And that’s the first time I’ve ever heard this word in that podcast.
Jillian Acosta (31:50)
But you can do it.
Yeah.
Sam Believ (32:12)
Talk to us a little bit about that, know, body dysmorphia, how are you feeling now and what made you, you know, do an X-Plans surgery.
Jillian Acosta (32:23)
Yeah, I got breast implants when I was almost 22 years old and I did it from a very unfortunate space. I was lonely and I was
disconnected and I was desperate to get love and approval and belonging and feel desired and all the things and so I thought that this would
create a lot like a sense of lovability. I thought people would want me. thought somebody would, you know, yeah, it was from a very low self worth space thinking that I had to look a certain way to be worthy of love. And I had those implants that were like five pounds of silicone on my chest for 12 years to the point where like, I felt so unsafe in my body. was, I was attracting a certain type of man. I felt really self conscious and I couldn’t feel
I couldn’t really breathe deeply because they were so heavy, but I couldn’t really feel my heart. And after sitting with ayahuasca and going deep into this process in a medicine experience, it was like, okay, now is the time to get them out. And it was such a process, such a beautiful ceremony of purging energy from my body, of coming back into reverence and appreciation for my form, for my physicality.
And yeah, it was so beautiful, it’s so powerful. And I honestly have never felt better in my body, but that was kind of just like the, I wouldn’t say it’s the beginning, but that was a huge kind of hurdle that I was approaching that whole ceremony of ExPlan. But.
Even after that, being a dietician, being a functional dietician, knowing what to eat, knowing what supplements to take, deeply knowing endo and GI and nervous system regulation, all those things, knowing all those things and doing all the things, practicing all the things, my body was still carrying 10 pounds of excess weight.
And it was, I was so frustrated because I was like, what the hell? Like I’m exhausting myself doing all the things, you know, eating so well, all, all that shit. And it wasn’t until I really let go of so much of the emotional pain and forgave the person that did that, that my body just like dropped the weight.
And none of my behaviors had changed. All the food, all the things were still the same. And my physiology looked entirely different. There is absolutely such a thing as emotional and energetic weight. It’s not just the physical. So yeah, I feel great.
Sam Believ (35:13)
Yeah, I’m glad. I’m really glad for you. I remember it’s interesting thing about body dysmorphia. It’s not always unhealthy. Like people think that, you know, you’re either too skinny or like in my case, I remember before ever working with the OASC, I was, mean, I was never like the bodybuilder, but I went to gym quite a lot and I
I got big to a point where people were asking me if I’m taking steroids or not, which I didn’t and it felt like a compliment. But I remember I was really admiring fitness influencers and the level of fitness and I would be watching videos about how to do this certain exercise to grow a certain part of your chest, whatever, of like body dysmorphia. And I was like, if only I get this part, then I will be perfect, right? And I remember that
Jillian Acosta (36:05)
Yeah, exactly.
Sam Believ (36:08)
I don’t even recall exact moment, but I went from admiring them to asking when whenever I would see a person like extremely fit, like six pack and, you know, big, big everything, I’ll be like, why, you know, why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you so obsessed with looking at specific ways? Like what kind of pain or what kind of thing you should be carrying in you to dedicate so much attention to such a small
Jillian Acosta (36:32)
Exactly.
Exactly.
Sam Believ (36:38)
you know,
detailed that it’s not, I mean, it’s not going to make you from survival point of view, it’s not going to make you a better fighter and you’re going to be run faster or you’re not going to be, you know, living longer. So it’s like why? And it’s, it’s, it’s, I was just did it to me just all of a sudden I’m like, this is not important anymore. So, I mean, I wish it was as magical for people that are really struggling, but yeah, do you have any opinions?
Jillian Acosta (36:59)
Yo, it’s T.
Yeah, I agree. It’s connected with self-worth,
know, especially for really for all, but I think women are inflicted with this more pervasively, but it’s so connected to self-worth. we collapse, you know, our physicality, how attractive we are, how desirable we are to how worthy of love we are, and that’s just…
untrue and it’s been such a beautiful spiritual journey for me to go down that path and really recognize that nothing on the outside dictates or indicates how worthy I am because I just am inherently worthy. It’s been a beautiful process but a lot of healing and lot of transformation has happened for me to land in this place.
Sam Believ (37:54)
Yeah, for those who are listening, just make sure you remember you’re worthy of love. We all are. No matter how you look and how you feel. I know you had great experiences with ayahuasca and you also work with ketamine. For those who are listening, can you tell them, you know, what is similar? What is different? And just general educate them on
Jillian Acosta (38:03)
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Sam Believ (38:24)
on
especially ketamine.
Jillian Acosta (38:27)
Sure, I I’d say the only two similarities that I can think of right now, well, there are more, but they obviously both induce like altered states of consciousness.
They both plug us into the sacred and divine intelligence. They both suppress the activity of the default mode network in the brain, which is basically where the ego is housed and has all that negative critical chatter. It takes it kind of offline or disrupts the communication. I describe it as like it takes the microphone away from that complex, that part, so that other regions of the brain have the opportunity of communicating.
That’s why repressed memories come forth or alterations in perspective towards the self or others, deep compassion.
So they’re similar in that regard, but obviously in every other way they’re vastly different. Of course ayahuasca is a spirit and a master plant and ketamine is synthetic. It’s not really a spirit, it’s more of a tool. Whereas I see ayahuasca as like a teacher and a guide and spirit and ketamine is a tool, beautiful tool.
Why I like using ketamine in my work, and number one, it’s legal. I have a license and so everything is above ground in my practice. I figured out a way to kind of get people prescriptions and everything is kosher, if you will. But also, a lot of people that work with me, they’re new to the path of psychedelics. And so while ayahuasca can be beautiful at any point in anyone’s journey, I don’t necessarily think it should come later or earlier or where I think everyone’s journey is perfect the way that it is. I did ayahuasca before I did
mushrooms. You know, for people that are more concerned with more intense psychedelic experiences, ketamine is a really beautiful place to start because it is super gentle and it’s navigatable and it is heart opening. Not a lot of people think of ketamine that way, but the way in which I use it, it’s very loving and heart opening and beautiful.
And I also really like it because I’m working with people that have complex trauma. I mean, so are you, but in my perspective, ayahuasca or mushrooms, like every time I go into an experience with those beautiful medicines, my nervous system is contracted because I had experienced so much trauma that like I’m afraid of what I may encounter again, or there’s just this like level of fear that I have to kind of.
work through in order to like access the good stuff. Whereas with ketamine, I’m so wide open because it’s so gentle that I’m able to do like pretty powerful work right off the bat. And so that’s one of the reasons why. Plus it’s like incredibly anti-depressive. It can alleviate suicidal ideation within four hours of a single treatment. That’s profound.
It’s super anti-inflammatory, both neurologically but also really systemically. And the experience lasts about an hour and a half. It’s not an eight hour, six hour, eight hour endeavor. And so it’s workable in an afternoon, for example, or yeah, in a work day.
Sam Believ (41:43)
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. It’s good to have different tools for different applications. It’s interesting. also had ayahuasca before I had mushrooms and before I pretty much had any mind-altering experience. So yeah, straight deep, dive straight into the deep end. So you work with, in functional medicine. So first of all,
Can you explain to the listeners what is functional medicine and talk about, you know, plant medicines as a part of it? Can they be considered as a part of functional medicine?
Jillian Acosta (42:27)
So functional medicine is like root cause medicine. It’s like, it’s evidence-based, it’s still scientific, but it is, it’s like, instead of Western medicine, where it’s like, here’s a symptom, take a pill, it’s like, let’s explore why there’s imbalance in the body and treat it as naturally as possible. And so big pillars in the modality of functional medicine are of course nutrition, but also like lifestyle and stress reduction and spirituality and emotion.
regulation. All of these things are pillars in the realm of functional medicine, which is why I’m aligned with it, I support it, and I practice it both personally and professionally. For me, one of the most fascinating
concepts, I guess, in functional medicine are antecedents, which is like the thing that predisposes somebody to illness later on in life, either early fatality, mortality, or chronic illness, etc. And one of the biggest antecedents or predictive factors is childhood trauma.
And so they know, they bridge the gap of like, if someone has experienced trauma in childhood, adverse childhood experiences, they are proportionately more likely to deal with obesity or chronic illness or diabetes, cancer, et cetera, incarceration. They’ve bridged the gap between those two phenomenons. And I really deeply agree with that.
When I was really practicing, when I was in school for functional medicine, psychedelics were not something that we were talking about. I was writing papers on them because I was already fascinated and had already experienced what I had experienced. I wrote a paper in a class I had called Psychology of Eating.
which was all about how psychedelics can help heal trauma, the root cause, really allowing people the possibility of decreasing inflammatory status and overall physical health. And I ended up giving presentations and keynotes on this very topic. And I really deeply believe that plant medicine could be its own massive pillar in the modality of functional medicine, because it’s the most effective tool I believe there to be.
about healing trauma, for healing trauma.
Sam Believ (44:49)
Yeah, I agree with that a lot as well, because before ayahuasca, I was a bit of a biohacker myself. I had like an ordering and I would, you know, experiment with different diets and stuff like that. So I think I partially learned about ayahuasca through listening to those kinds of podcasts. So it definitely agrees with me as well that it’s a root cause medicine. It goes straight to the core of whatever is causing all your issues.
And but from from from health perspective as well, I think specifically ayahuasca and the purging, we see a lot of people improving their gut health, skin conditions. It’s like there’s this not just a mental aspect of it, but also physical that somehow it makes the physical ailments go away. So what do you think about that? And what do think about gut health?
nutrition and mental health as a combination? Is there a connection?
Jillian Acosta (45:55)
Absolutely. I mean, there’s there we don’t live in boxes, right? Like the mental and the physical are one. We’re in one container. And so if, you know, if somebody goes through an ayahuasca experience and in their purge, they are releasing energy, they’re releasing so much trauma that is absolutely going to impact them on a physical level.
Absolutely. mean also from physiologically speaking there is a gut brain access. There is a gut brain connection. It’s like a bi-directional highway from the gut to the brain. If there’s so much stress in the mind, it’s going to induce the growth of opportunistic bacteria in the gut. And if there is rampant, you know, if there’s a shitty diet where people are eating so much sugar and processed food and it’s like an overgrowth of really poor quality bacteria, it’s absolutely going to affect the mind.
Why? Because 95 % of serotonin is produced in the gut. Serotonin is like the feel good, happy neurotransmitter. If your gut is not happy, your mind is absolutely following suit. And so there’s this like reflective kind of dual mechanism going on between the gut and the brain. That’s why they call the gut the emotional brain. It’s like its own brain. And so it’s deeply governed by emotion.
and it affects and impacts every other system of the body. so releasing the energy, releasing the trauma that you had been previously holding or releasing the trauma that you have been trying to push down with copious amounts of sugar is absolutely going to benefit you systemically.
Sam Believ (47:36)
I agree with that a lot. we definitely there seems to be this separation between, you know, this part and this part, but yeah, it’s all connected. Yeah, without even touching the spiritual side of things. But yeah, let’s touch it. Why not? What do you think behind all this healing and functional medicine? What do you think about the spiritual side of it? Spiritual body or spiritual healing?
Jillian Acosta (47:45)
We don’t live in boxes.
I think that it’s impossible to avoid. I think that it is always, always at play regardless of people’s willingness to acknowledge it, revere it, explore it. It’s…
There’s so much more to this existence than the reality we can see with our own eyes and everything. There’s nothing in my perspective that’s not divine. Everything is divine. Even the stuff that sucks is there’s still divinity in it. You know, I’m really landing in a space of awe and profound gratitude and I have worked my ass off to get to this point but profound gratitude for what I experienced in my childhood.
because it gave me so much. It gave me my purpose, my drive, my fire to witness, especially women, freeing themselves, liberating themselves sexually, liberating themselves in their power, in their gifts, in their full expression, what they wanna do with their lives. Like, I have such a kink for this. It turns me the fuck on. And if I did not go through what I went through, I would not have this fire. It gave me my purpose.
gift and that that is so deeply spiritual because in my perspective this was written already i’ve just been like i’ve just been finding my way on this path that i’m already on you know and and it’s it’s only it’s getting so awesome it’s getting so
so good, so fun, and had that not happened, I wouldn’t be talking to you. I wouldn’t be lit up doing what I’m doing in the world, like just on fire with this passion. And I’m so grateful for that and that I am. It’s all spiritual.
Sam Believ (49:57)
It’s a compression that caused that expansion. So there’s no expansion without compression. So on that beautiful note, let’s wrap up where can people find more about you.
Jillian Acosta (50:07)
Yeah.
People can find me on Instagram at Jillianacosta.underscore.rd or my website which is therootcausemethod.com.
Sam Believ (50:22)
Thank you, Julian. Thank you for this episode. think it will be really interesting to a lot of people. And guys, you’ve been listening to IOWASCA Podcast, and I will see you in the next episode.
Jillian Acosta (50:29)
My pleasure.