In this episode of Ayahuasca Podcast, host Sam Believ (founder of http://www.lawayra.com) has a conversation with Elizabeth Ramírez, a Colombian mentor, speaker, and former corporate strategist who left behind a high-powered consulting career in Switzerland to follow her heart into the world of ancestral medicine, spiritual coaching, and conscious leadership. Elizabeth now helps guide others in their own healing and awakening journeys through a blend of plant medicine work, meditation, and transformational teaching.
We touch upon topics of:
- [00:02:00] Leaving the corporate world and returning to Colombia for healing
- [00:04:00] First Ayahuasca experience and its subtle long-term impact
- [00:07:00] What “receiving medicine” really means vs. what people expect
- [00:08:00] Cultural conditioning, gender roles, and the pressure to be a “good girl”
- [00:13:00] Spiritual transformation after moving back from Switzerland
- [00:16:00] Rebranding Colombia away from drugs and toward nature and medicine
- [00:23:00] Meditation as a path to awakening and connection
- [00:29:00] Dangers of rushing Ayahuasca breakthroughs and the value of patience
- [00:31:00] Ego, integration, and learning the real lessons from the ceremony
- [00:38:00] Her mission to unite leaders through heart-centered, spiritual entrepreneurship
- [00:43:00] The role of mushrooms and their connection to creativity and integration
- [00:49:00] Life as ceremony and creating sacredness in the everyday
- [00:54:00] Manifestation, physics, and aligning with desired realities
If you would like to attend one of our Ayahuasca retreats go to http://www.lawayra.com
Find more about Elizabeth Ramírez at @elramirezdu on Instagram.
Transcript
Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.
Elizabeth Ramírez: I connect with the spirit of the medicine. I do feel her as a grandmother coming. I know exactly when she’s around. I know what are the messages that almost come from my mind and what are the messages that truly come through her? The medicine shows you how it feels to be in your truth, how it feels to be in the center and once.
We connect with that. The first time that happened that I couldn’t see myself in full transparency from then on, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. So every time that I would be out of alignment or every time that I would be lying to myself fully insured and not being truly authentic, I just couldn’t continue doing that thing.
I just couldn’t continue just lighting myself. This process that is so constant. I think that the teachings has mostly been how to be a good student, how to teach better, how to learn better, how to be teachable, and really like surrender to that process of not falling for an identity that becomes a most, like something more trapped in.
For me, it was a gel. It was just, this is who am I? And if somebody puts me in a pedestal or if somebody has expectations of me, I felt like it was my responsibility not to fail them. So I was being someone totally opposite to what my troop was.
Sam Believ: Hi guys and welcome to Iowa Podcast. As always. We the host, Sam, today having a conversation with Elizabeth Ramirez. As you can see it’s very different because we’re not coming from the usual studio, but we’re actually coming to you from Meine. You can see beautiful Meine in the background if you’re watching on YouTube.
So Elizabeth Ramirez is from Columbus. She’s from here. She’s from Meine. She has a diverse background and mentorship for leaders as strategic consulting for large international organizations. She changed her life. She went from doing this to working with ancestral medicines and coaching and becoming more spiritual.
So that’s in a nutshell. This episode is sponsored by Lara Ayahuasca Retreat at Lara, we combine affordability, accessibility, and authenticity. Lara Connect, heal, grow. Guys, I’m looking forward to hosting you, Elizabeth, welcome to the show.
Elizabeth Ramírez: Oh, I thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to have this conversation and I really appreciate what you’re doing and the information you’re sharing.
Sam Believ: And thank you so much for inviting me to your home.
Elizabeth Ramírez: Of course. You’re very welcome. You’re in your home.
Sam Believ: It’s pretty, that’s pretty interesting and very new format. So tell us your story. How did you go from working in corporate world to plant medicines and everything in between?
Elizabeth Ramírez: That’s, I think that’s a long story, but now that I look back, I was born here in Mein from the city and I feel that since I was a kid and I was going to school, I was always doing some research about indigenous communities and I didn’t know why.
’cause my family is not. Like directly connected with that as I started here in Colombia. But I was always curious about that. And growing up I thought that it was, that it had something to do with culture, with me looking into my lineage. But I grew up and I went to study business, and then I started working in the consulting world.
So I was working for McKinsey and different consulting firms around the world, but there was always this one thing that I felt like was missing. There was so always like a higher sense of purpose. I always, since I was active kid, I felt like I came into this world to do something meaningful. And there was this moment in which I was living in Switzerland.
I had a relationship. So many things were going the right way. And I just felt that it wasn’t me, that it was not what I wanted. And life showed me through very challenging situations. In the relationship in the way in which I was creating abundance, that was not my path. So I came from s Switzerland back to me, and I started that inner journey of questioning everything, especially myself.
And that’s how I came to medicines and how I started to connect with the spirit. One, especially through meditation and different modalities that are very rooted in this land that I appreciate a lot. So that’s like that transition. ’cause then I came back into business, but with this new perspective of hard, hard led impact and what we’re creating.
Sam Believ: What did you start with? Did you start with plant medicines or did you start with meditation? That you went to plant medicines?
Elizabeth Ramírez: My first plant medicine experience was 11 years ago now. It was with Jahi. But I remember that back in that time when I went to that ceremony, I didn’t know anything about a diet, I didn’t know anything about preparation intention.
I was just, somebody told me, I don’t even know how I find out about this experience. And I just went there, not prepared. I went by myself. I went driving and people was looking at me like, is this your first time and are you here by yourself? And I was like yep. And everybody was like if you need any help, let us know.
So I did have an experience 11 years ago, but I don’t feel I truly understood what it meant. And then afterwards, through meditation, I started to connect and to open that channel to talk with spirit. Now I’m integrating messages that I received back in those ceremonies when I when I started.
But it was not common at all in, in 10, 11 years.
Sam Believ: Yeah, for you guys to explain that. Ja is a, na is a name they use primarily in Colombian, Ecuador for Ayahuasca. But it’s pretty much the same thing. Yeah, I had a similar experience. ’cause my first Ayahuasca experience, it was profound and beautiful, but I didn’t really know what the impact.
I thought it’s whatever. I had it, I tried it and it’s all good now, but now I can trace a lot of things back to that day because from that, like many things started to change. Can you do that or do you think it’s just like a separate occasion that eventually the, is there a connection between your eventual spiritual awakening and the AYA experience, or you think there’s no connection?
Elizabeth Ramírez: Totally. In that ceremony, I was so into the business world that I was like, okay, do I follow my heart and my spiritual path, or do I stay in this business world that I think it’s for me? And then the medicine was like, you don’t need to be there, or here you’re meant to become bridge. And that’s what I’m doing now.
But back in that time, this is so interesting because I was having a conversation with some friends this week and we were talking about the connection with the spirit of ayahuasca. And I remember that back in that ceremony was all about my mind. It was, I was just seeing almost like this mirror of my own thoughts.
And now that I have developed this relationship with her, I connect with the spirit of the medicine. I do feel her as a grandmother coming, I know exactly when she’s around. I know what are the messages that almost come from my mind that what are the messages that truly come through her? So that it was definitely.
I feel that since that time she’s always living with me. I consider her a great mentor, a great teacher, a space holder, and I call upon her, even if I’m not sitting in ceremonies, she always gives me a different perspective.
Sam Believ: It’s like a virus, but a positive one. Very positive. Once you have it, it’s in you.
Yes. Yeah. It’s very interesting. And I think for people who are listening, a lot of people that come to my retreat, for example, or retreats you work at, and they want the, this result that you had 11 years later. They want immediately, they want okay, I drank ayahuasca. Like my life has to change tomorrow.
As I like to describe it, what ayahuasca does for you sometimes, because sometimes you get everything you want straight away, but and most of the times it changes your direction. You’re going this way and it changes it, but just one degree, it doesn’t seem to be a lot. But you end up in a totally different, better place years later.
And as I was getting ready for this podcast I listened to a few episodes of your own podcast and your story, and some of it resonated with me. Like one of the parts you describe is being trying to be the good girl and trying to like, just follow what society tells you. Talk to us about that and what is your perspective on, on that sort of way of living now since after your awakening and after all the self-work that you’ve done.
Elizabeth Ramírez: I’m gonna talk to you about being that girl as a Colombian, and I really appreciate that when people come to this land, I do believe that this is a land of transformation and a land of healing because of everything that we have been through as a community and growing up here. I was, as a kid, I learned how to thrive in survival, mood, where to go, where not to go, how to behave.
And we would always have, in the back of our minds that threat of maybe something happens in the corner, maybe somebody gets killed. And I felt that in order for me to survive in that world, I needed to first behave well. And second, I would see a lot of the narco culture. How the relationship between men and women was very transactional.
It was always like the person, the man that could show that they could afford the most, they will have the most beautiful women. And then women started to hate as products because they wanted to be viable because being viable mean you’re safe. So I always saw that relationship and I felt like it needed to be good enough to survive by myself, that I didn’t become something to betrayed, that I was capable of accomplishing my own things and proving myself that I didn’t need to repeat that story.
So growing up, I went to a school with nuns. Before I was born, my parents were having some trouble getting pregnant. And my mom was praying to God if you give us a child, she’s going to be in your service. So when I was born, my parents had this apartment in front of a, how do you call it? The house of the nuns.
A Mona story? Yes. A monastery. Because maybe I will grow up and I wouldn’t become a nun. And funny enough, no. That long ago, probably three years ago, my mom came to a mushroom ceremony and she had this meeting with God where she realized that she was like in the, because I didn’t become a nun.
And then God was talking to her like, but she’s in my service. And she’s doing our work that comes from the heart, but for very long then starting in the business world and always a very clear image of what society wanted from me. What. Family could want for me how it felt to be admire a role model behaving in a certain way.
I feel like that was safety. It was only like for admiration or to belong it back in the time it meant safety.
Sam Believ: Yeah. I think it’s we come from different culture and you’re a woman, I’m a man, but it’s as a man from LA it’s it’s a similar way, it’s like you have to have things, you order to have women.
It’s like in my culture, if you don’t have a car, like no girl is gonna look at you. So it’s yeah, you kinda, you do what the society tells you, you study well because then you can get to a good university and you have to get a good profession and same as you. I’ve done it all. I went through the whole stuff and I ended up on the top of what.
A person from my background can achieve I was making a lot of money and I had this profession that all my friends were envy yourself. And I did have a car and a department and a girlfriend and all those things, but I was like, I was, society sorta indirectly promises you that once you have all those things and once you buy all those things, the happiness will come.
And the happiness never came in my case. So for me I was like, what do I really wanna do? What do I want to do? Not with my sister or my brother or my mother things. It is good to me. And I was like, you know what? I wanna travel when have an adventure. And that’s what brought me to Columbia. And that it never really brought me to the medicine and now to this other line of work synchronistically.
Because yeah, I never really planned on any of it. And and your escape from this pattern was. Abandoning this amazing job that you landed and,
Elizabeth Ramírez: The job and then the difference in the culture and living in Switzerland and having this picture of everything. It’s so interesting ’cause when you’re asking me about the teachings of ayahuasca 11 years ago, I feel that the medicine shows you how it feels to be in your truth, how it feels to be in the center.
And once we connect with that, the first time that happened that I couldn’t see myself in full transparency from then on, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. So every time that I would be out of alignment or every time that I would be lying to myself fully insured and not being truly authentic, I just couldn’t continue doing the thing.
I just couldn’t continue, like sliding myself. And that’s what, that’s this process that is so constant. I feel that. The teachings has mostly been how to be a good student, how to teach better, how to learn better, how to be teachable, and really like surrender to that process of not falling for an identity that becomes most like something we are trapped in.
For me, it was a gel. It was just, this is who am I? Who I am, and if somebody puts me in a pedestal or if somebody has expectations of me, I felt like it was my responsibility not to fail them. So I was being someone totally opposite to what my trip was.
Sam Believ: Yeah. Yeah. I can definitely resonate with that very much very similar in a very similar way, just like a slightly different direction. But you mentioned you are living abroad and I we’re close to hundred episodes now, but I believe you’re only a third Columbia that I’m interviewing. My t and then I interviewed I’m forgetting his name, but a few days ago I interviewed another guy from I Sears.
And now you, so when I was living in Latvia, actually a lot of people don’t know that, but I already had this sort of pulled towards Latin culture and I started dancing salsa. So I went and I was taking salsa classes and for me it was like, LA is very cold and very sad and you kinda, it’s winter and you come to a salsa party and it feels like it’s summer again.
’cause it’s so hot. Everyone’s sweaty and the music and everything. Because before I even knew Spanish, so I didn’t understand the lyrics of most of the songs and I understand them and they’re pretty deplorable. So if you don’t wanna be disappointed, don’t learn Spanish. But I remember one time I met a Colombian person.
And it was maybe 10 years ago, I didn’t even know where Columbia was on the map. It was just like, it’s somewhere there, far away. It’s not a really well known country, at least in my culture. And he was like, oh, I’m Colombian. And I was immediately like, oh, PA Escobar cocaine. That’s just it’s the only thing I knew.
It’s like I didn’t really, there, there is no alternative information available for most people. It’s just like Pablo Escobar and cocaine and, bad women, yeah. So I remember I told them everything I knew about calling. I got really offended and I was like I’m sorry you’re offended, but it’s also not my fault that’s the reputation.
So it’s it was a weird interaction. How was it for you, traveling abroad, how does it feel being a Colombian and being exposed to the stereotypes like. Is it really the case or is it just something that I believe happens to Colombians?
Elizabeth Ramírez: It has changed lately, but I remember when I started traveling, I went to Europe when I was 15, and there was a line for Europeans, there was a line for foreigners and there was a special line only for Colombians.
Literally something like immigration only for Colombians. And the same that you’re expressing, I will see people in the street and it’s like Colombia powders, coad, and then cocaine and talking and making jokes about the white powder. And to be honest with you, I never experienced any relationship or any closeness to cocaine or Santa Maria marijuana, cannabis.
Yeah. Or any other substance living here. When I went to Europe, that was the first time that I was exposed to see that. And even in the states that I would see people doing cocaine. And what people wouldn’t understand is that it was being exported from here, but. Even because I was born in a poor area here in the city.
We were not, we were just afraid of that. Every single person in the city knows people who was killed in that time. We have been through wars in the streets like this used to be the most dangerous city in the planet. So much more dangerous than anything that is happening now in so many other countries that I really pray for everything to come back in order and in peace.
But it’s been trend. For me, I’m so proud to see the ways in which the city has transformed and how we. Receive people. What people love about me is how friendly people is, how open their heart are, the culture. And I think that is that resilience of going through the worst and just being grateful that we were waking up the next morning, that we are alive, that we have food.
You’re going to find that people here is so grateful and so joyful. So now I honestly wouldn’t change being Colombian for anything. I think that being Colombian is the coolest thing. I love my culture, I love everything that comes with that, but it was very challenging and I still, there’s a lot of st like stereotypes sometimes when I travel and sometimes sadly, with people that is coming here looking for those stereotypes and like minimizing the value.
Most of people come here for one thing and they get surprised. Yeah. Of everything that this land has to provide,
Sam Believ: I have I’m working on slowly rebranding Columbia from cocaine to ayahuasca. It’s a very small effort, but we’re working on documentary now, hopefully it’s gonna go big and then people will know it for, so un official slogan would be Comfort cocaine.
Stay Aya. Oh, I’m just kidding. Yeah, I will, I hope. But but in a way I’ve met people. For example, a lot of veterans you from us, they come here to escape from their pain. Yes. So they go, they come here for hookers in cocaine. There, there is no other words around it. I know it doesn’t sound nice, but what they really need is healing.
And what they can get it through is ayahuasca and then the other, the following work that can come through that. So it’s just about a matter of informing them. Better messaging and better branding because you cannot just take away the brand and just remove it. You can’t just be like, oh, Colombia’s oh, I don’t know Colombia.
No. Colombia for the things you know it for, you can’t just forget them. You have to replace it with something else. In my opinion, it has to be nature and plant medicines which come from nature. Yeah. Because Columbia is biodiverse. It’s a beautiful place. Even you guys can see in the background, the mountains and stuff.
It’s a very beautiful city. And met Gene went from being the murder capital of the world, number one, to not even being on the top hanging of the list.
Elizabeth Ramírez: And
Sam Believ: people ask me like, oh, can I come to Columbia? It’s so dangerous. I remember myself when I was coming to Columbia, I was afraid. I was like, I really wanted to come.
’cause many people told me it’s great. And I was like, I’m probably gonna be killed. Or Rob, I’ve been here for eight years now. Knock on the wood. Do you have any wood?
Elizabeth Ramírez: The probably very in the back.
Sam Believ: Yeah. Never ha. Nothing ever happened to me. And so yeah, it is changing. It just needs a different brand.
And I don’t know if if I can ever get attention of some big people in the politics. That’s,
Elizabeth Ramírez: that’s a
Sam Believ: strong brand,
Elizabeth Ramírez: and I feel that it is part of the story. I feel that this is the representation of a ceremony. When people get here and they get stretched, this is a portal for healing. This requires you to be resilient, and it is what the city as a whole has been through.
It is not to dismiss that was our past, because from that darkness, overcoming that and going to the deepest of darkness, and then come to the other side with joy, with like connection with nature, I feel like Columbia teaches you a different way of healing, not only through pain and suffering, but through gratitude, through beauty, through dance, laughter.
And always seeing the best in everything. People here is medicine and the music is medicine.
Sam Believ: That is the land of magical realism. And that’s why Colombians are always 50 minutes late because they’re just in a different dimension. At the retreat we always say tell people,
Elizabeth Ramírez: Colombians,
Sam Believ: There’s Colombian time and there’s the standard time.
And there’s ayahuasca no time. Yeah, there’s definitely, from a mental health perspective, there’s definitely something foreigners can learn from Colombians in a way that
so sometimes we’re like I’m like this, I like to be on time. For example, for this interview, we agreed one, and I came at 1240, even though I’m hungry and I wanted to have lunch, but I was like, I’ll be late. I just can’t do it. It’s just not, I appreciate it. Yeah. However, like Colombian will be like, I’m just gonna go have lunch.
They like they’re like, they’re in the moment. They’re just gonna enjoy the moment and the consequences is later. So it’s it’s an extreme to be honest, and it’s a little as painful to be on the receiving side of this, but I think somewhere there in the middle there is a balance where you can just release the tension a little bit.
And speaking of tension, let’s talk a little bit about meditation and your journey. ’cause you, the plant medicine, ayahuasca planted seeds and then then you went through your journey and then eventually your awakening came in the meditation session. It was really interesting for me to learn about it.
Can you talk to the audience about that?
Elizabeth Ramírez: I, it was more than a meditation session. It was a period in my life in which I had no other place to go. That’s when I tell you that everything around my identity shift that then I was back in Colombia with no relationship, no job. I wasn’t studying anything. Just this need of sitting with myself and going towards, and then I just, I started to enter in this states that where time will become different and I started to get so much more clarity.
I feel that in that search for who I was, I needed to start for start dis solving who I was not. And meditation helped me a lot to the point in which I started to experience. A connection and a sensibility with my eyes open and without any medicine that was even difficult to handle. ’cause I will look at people around me and I will see their energy around them, and I will feel the energy in food and I will go outside and literally stop and cry because I will see the most beautiful tree blooming and just so present in, in their rawness of reality.
That was also very challenging because I felt very misunderstood. I felt very lonely. I felt that I had no one to talk about these things and it didn’t feel like as something that I could understand with the mind. But this inner knowing and this certainty that I belong to something greater, that I belong to something bigger.
So it really opened my eyes to the one question which I feel is the guiding in life in my work, and it’s. Our potential as human beings. I discovered this technology and all the things that people used to tell me when I was a kid. Oh, it is so weird that people travel in their dreams. Or I would think about ghosts or energies, and it was also mystical.
But when I started to discover all the things that happened in my life and all the things that I had access to through those tools, it stopped being something so mystical and became just these doors to the unknown within myself. And I started to connect that a lot also with technology, starting to understand that science and the mystical world wasn’t a part, but our own bodies are the most spectacular technology there is.
How do hormones work? How does neuroscience work? And just that, that took me in a whole deep study of myself. Who am I? And from that place, I started to feel also much more at home with myself because I wouldn’t almost see. Myself as this house full of little rooms with different kids. And the more that I explore them, the more comfortable and the more spaciousness I feel within myself.
So it was a very interesting time. Also challenging. Very challenging.
Sam Believ: It sounds terrifying to be so open and not be able to close yourself. I think that’s that’s what I think it’s isn’t called like Kundalini or awakening. Yeah. Yeah. It’s people crave it, but it’s also very terrifying once you get there because then it’s like, how do you awaken yourself?
Like in my case I don’t think I’ve ever had it. Like when I’m drinking, I was, I’m like, I can see and understand all of this and feel it, but when I’m back I’m like normal, but I did for example, manage to unlock my emotions. I used to not feel much. Now I feel a lot and there’s no going back.
Like I feel so much. And I feel good things and I also feel good bad things.
Elizabeth Ramírez: Have you ever had an ego death or something that you have experienced
Sam Believ: before? Many times, yes. Oh no. Ask. Yes. And I wasn’t that, not just by myself. My ego is pretty like strong, but when ask it goes away occasionally.
Elizabeth Ramírez: I love touching on that topic because you just said like people think that they want the Kundalini awakening and everything, but there’s responsibility that comes with that.
And same when people come to the journeys and they want I want the ego death. I’m like, you don’t want that. Like I’m, that’s, that really is stretches people to information that it’s sometimes hard to integrate. Our ego is here. We want to integrate our ego before killing it. I’m feeling like it’s this part of you that you need to destroy.
It is much more about how do we reconciliate the parts of ourselves that we haven’t seen yet? ’cause I have also experienced ego death to the point in which every single concept in the universe just disappeared. Very recently, I had an experience in which the concept of ellizabeth disappeared in its totality that I was praying just let me be her, and whose hair I couldn’t relate and grasping to anything.
And then I started praying and I was like praying to what? I started to think about Jesus. And I was like, okay, I am gonna pray to Jesus that I come back and I am Elisa again. And then Jesus just became an idea and dissolve. I almost became, and this was during a ceremony, but I became this black hole.
Purging emptiness and the infinite. And it was raw and challenging. Of course, it taught me a lot. But I feel that these experiences that people is chasing, it’s not about what you go through in a ceremony, but how committed you are to take those lessons and apply them in life. And how do we compare in the process of surrendering?
It is a deep challenge. Yeah. And a deep test in surrender.
Sam Believ: Be careful what you wish for because for example, a lot of people come and they want, give five cup. I just want to break through. And the problem is if you go there too quickly, you can, you go so deep that you will never touch the medicine again.
You’ll be like completely turn away. So like we work, we like when people come to LoRa, we. Talk a lot about patience, like patience. Like we’re gonna start, we’re gonna grow, we’re gonna we’re gonna get you there, but not immediately. You need to learn. You need to be ready for what’s to come.
You need to like before you start like running, you need to at least learn how to crawl and then how to walk. But it is, I think, a part of our society that the instant gratification, it’s like they watched a video on YouTube about some guy that came to the retreat and they’ve seen his highlight reel and many others.
People highlights reel. And it’s I’m telling them, it’s like not only are you not gonna experience somebody else’s highlights, you will not even be able to experience yours from a ceremony a year ago. It’s every time it’s gonna be different, every time it’s gonna be unique and there’s nothing wrong with ego.
Ego is a good thing. Ego, the reason I’m here now is my ego. And you’re here because of your ego. And ego is fine. It’s like we just need to. Rebuild it a little bit, but not to just destroy it.
Elizabeth Ramírez: It becomes like a teammate when you learn that it is there to protect you from a place of fear. And it is there. I always said like he’s just not letting Diego go in the driver’s seat.
But you can take Diego, go as your copilot. Diego is not going to determine or choose where are we going, but you need to be aware that your fears are there coming, especially when you’re living your comfort zone and when you’re really facing your fears. And the amazing in Spanish, patience is cia, which means the science of peace.
And I always say coming to ceremonies is like coming to school. You’re here to learn a lesson. Your intention is the way in which you apply for that course or that lesson. You get the tools. But then once you leave the ceremony, it is your opportunity to take the test, to do your homework. Do not come back to a ceremony if you haven’t done your homework, because then the teacher is going to be like, first, learn what I taught you, and then you can come under more.
But people wanna go to the next level and the next level and the next level. And it is not about that. It is about taking what’s truly going to change your life, which are the tools you can see more and more. I appreciate there’s so many people that share beautiful visions, but what I truly appreciate is not the person that went to different planets in a ceremony, but the person that lives at ceremony.
Changes the way that they speak with their parents, changes the way in which they relate with nature changes something in their daily routine. It starts drinking more water and become more healthy. That’s something that I admire and I respect the willingness to apply the lessons.
Sam Believ: Yeah, that’s very important because you can drink ayahuasca hungry times and not take anything back.
So you went from having sort of everything that most Colombian women would dream of, right? And then you were not fulfilled, so you left it all and you started from scratch. Two questions. Are you fulfilled now and would you recommend people that feel the same way to, to try and start over?
Elizabeth Ramírez: That’s such a really useful question. I feel the way in which I touch base with myself knowing that I’m fulfilled is that some, there’s no other women. I would rather be in the world than the one that I am. And there’s no other life that I would rather believe that the one that I’m living. And that’s a question that I asked myself so often, and it was a shift between feeling like I was born Lizabeth, and I was born being this woman to every single day choosing to be this woman that I am and choosing to be with myself, with the things that I love about myself, with the things that I don’t like about myself, with my flaws, with my greatness and all of it.
That’s what makes me fulfill feeling that I do have this relationship with myself. And from there I relate with everyone and everything around me. Of course, I’m so human and there are moments in which I feel frustrated. I feel that zone. There’s this, once we connect with our potential, it is this knowing of what we can be, that at some point it becomes like detrimental to what we’re doing.
Because I found myself that when I connected to that vision of this amazing woman that changes the world and has all these superpowers that I won’t be like, but why I am not doing this thing? And why am I being slow in this thing? And almost like feeling guilty because I wasn’t showing up in that way.
And then for me, I do feel so fulfilled now and I appreciate, and I love what I do with all my heart. I feel like I do and I’m connected with the creative service of all. But I have changed the idea of potential to the idea of capacity. It is not who can I be, but it is not like what’s, who can I get to be, but what can I do today?
What is the greatest I can do in my levels of energy and what I’m doing right now? How can I best show up from this space? So it’s more than an state, is this, I would say that is our relationship. And the second question was for people that is feeling this way what would I recommend them or, yeah, that are not feeling fulfilled?
I feel that the first and on honestly only thing is shifting the relationship with ourselves and rewiring the way in which we see the world. I love. The Course In Miracles is a book that has taught me a lot. And Which movie? The, it’s a book. It’s called A Course In Miracles.
Sam Believ: A
Elizabeth Ramírez: Course in Miracles.
Sam Believ: In Miracles.
Elizabeth Ramírez: See? In that book, they have different lessons. And one of the lessons is you look around you and you realize that nothing that you’re seeing is real. Nothing has meaning everything. Every single meaning that you have given things is based on a past experience, something that you learn at some point.
So what we’re experiencing right now as reality is only the construct of that inner dialogue that we have had. And that is not something that changes with a ceremony. That is not something that changes with appeal. It is something that we start rewiring with the conversation that we’re entertaining in our mind.
So my recommendation for someone who’s feeling like that is how can you start developing a relationship to the human you are? And that is the only human who’s never gonna leave you. That’s your teammate based companion. And when that is worked. Not because you become a perfect beam, but because you accept yourself in all your shapes and forms and shadows.
From there, we can find real fulfillment.
Sam Believ: Yeah, it’s a great advice. But definitely, you can start with small steps. You don’t need to quit your job tomorrow. Or at least if you do quit your job, make sure you have some savings and before you dump your girlfriend at least try and talk about things.
You said you wanna bridge business and spirituality. How are you gonna do that?
Elizabeth Ramírez: Ah, this is something that excites me so much. I do connect a lot. I with a very specific type of human that has the call to create something greater than themselves. In the path of personal growth and personal development, we can only go as far as to, I develop myself up to this point, but then when you start to connect with service and impact, we are required to transcend everything that we build about ourselves that we created and we allowed ourselves to believe we are.
You transcend all that in service for humanity. And I have connected with these medicines that have spirit and I have connected with the spirit of all the elements on the earth around us. I recently had a ceremony, which I was here, imagine and sometimes imagine we have some problems with the air. And I literally felt a connection with the element of air.
And he would speak to me like, you know what? You are trying to develop all these things, but nobody has come and ask me how I clean myself. And bring the right people together that has the means, the technology, the leadership to connect with the element and to work with the medicine to develop technology which connects artificial intelligence, our own human intelligence, and our own human technology.
With ancestral technology, because there’s no greatest technology that Mother Nature, everything works in perfect balance. They have the greatest systems. So for me, my purpose is to bring leaders together around a collective intention instead of sitting with multiple intentions and individual drivers setting one main intention in service of humanity, how can we transform transportation?
Bringing leaders together from different areas to sit around the medicine and find solutions for humanity as a whole, not for one human. How can we shift the way in which we educate? How can education change and bring these leaders so that they can rule and create that? What impacts humanity and so many people from a place that is heart centered?
That is my vision, and that’s something that I believe so much in. I don’t believe that everybody, I believe the medicine can be for everybody, but I don’t believe everybody needs to drink it and everybody, and I don’t believe that everybody has a commitment and the willingness for the long, like lifelong relationship, the medicine is, I do believe the right people who’s willing to create mechanisms for the rest to be great.
They do take the medicine. We as a whole. Can create a better life experience.
Sam Believ: So basically giving medicine to leader leaders so that they can change things and then it affects the rest.
Elizabeth Ramírez: Yeah.
Sam Believ: Is that a similar concept to conscious entrepreneurship or is it somewhat different?
Elizabeth Ramírez: What do you mean conscious entrepreneurship as a brand or
Sam Believ: No the panel that we spoke together.
Yeah. Yeah. So I think it’s a similar concept, right?
Elizabeth Ramírez: It has some lines, but I feel that conscious, there’s
Sam Believ: there’s conscious leadership, I guess
Elizabeth Ramírez: unconscious leadership doesn’t require for people to see it. With planned medicine, I feel that conscious leadership means understanding your personal gifts, the impact you can create in the world, how you have been trusted with those gifts, and recognizing also the responsibility that comes with that.
If we keep creating products and services that are for one human that are making better someone’s life, but it’s destroying our planet or not doing anything. So how do we create things that really serve the planet, serve the whole, and if it serves the planet and serves humanity, of course it’s going to serve us.
That’s conscious entrepreneurship, like going beyond of an exchange and really talking about a legacy. What is the legacy that we’re creating and how are we living this earth better than we found it?
Sam Believ: Cool. I know you like ayahuasca, but you also work with mushrooms. Why mushrooms?
Elizabeth Ramírez: Mushrooms.
Mushrooms to me. They are the nervous system of the world. Everything that we see and all this nature is connected underneath by the mycelium. Mycelium and mushrooms are a web. They allow you to connect things in which you have never connected before. They also work in a specific area in your brain that’s called the fault mood network, and they create neuroplasticity in that, in specific area, which is the place where we save the idea that we have about ourselves.
So mushrooms, they, the medicines in general, have different personalities. Just a grandmother. Mushrooms are s which means the holy kids or grandchildren, or the kids from the stars. The grandchildren. And they connect us much more with creativity. With solutions. I visit Ayahuasca because she’s a root, she goes to the root of things and she cleans you from that space.
Mushrooms are much more about interconnect, interconnectedness. And I think that it’s also a very sustainable medicine because ayahuasca takes longer to grow and we wanna make sure we are also gathering these medicines in a responsible and sustainable way. And mushrooms are, they grow so much more faster and they are also amazing in for integration and microdosing.
So it’s being a very supportive medicine and I feel like a good entry point. My parents have done mushrooms and it’s been so beautiful for them that they were feeling this resistance to go straight to ayahuasca. My path was different. I started with ayahuasca and then I found mushrooms.
Sam Believ: Yeah, me too.
For me it was ayahuasca first and the mushrooms, which is unusual ’cause most people. Mushrooms is a gateway psychedelic to than stronger stuff. No. Mushrooms are children. They say Nino, Santos, because they do have this childish spirit and it’s very playful. Do you reckon they, they can also help you connect with your inner child?
Elizabeth Ramírez: Yeah, definitely. All the medicine can help you connect with your inner child. And that being said, I wouldn’t say that it’s a softer medicine. It is just different in the body may, there’s an aspect of purge that happens different with mushrooms, and it’s not so physical as it can be with aos. And the energy of the spirit of the plant is different and different because mushrooms are a whole different kingdom, the fungi kingdom.
That being said, it doesn’t mean. That they’re not super powerful and it is so important to meet them with that same reverence in a ceremonial way, to know that they’re also teachers to know that they can take you so deep. So we learn from them. We learn. We learn from what they do in the environment and something that many people don’t know.
And exactly the same thing that you were talking about, the person that went and saw the reels and the stories of somebody else, and then they create these expectations of what they’re going to be going through during a retreat. Mushrooms themselves, they are not psychedelic. Cytosine itself is not psychedelic.
When you eat mushrooms, it connects with your own neurochemicals and it creates a different substance, which is called oc, and that is psycholytic. So you are the medicine, literally, you are part of the mix that allows you to go in a journey. That’s why every single person has a different, at a different dose and with a different strain of mushrooms, it’s going to have a different experience.
Sam Believ: Yeah, I like I like mushrooms as well. I’ve I think it’s it’s a very useful tool as well.
Elizabeth Ramírez: What is the mean difference to you between mushrooms and ayahuasca?
Sam Believ: I think ayahuasca is more profound and more physically healing experience and also the purge aspect of it. And at least here in Columbia, mushrooms are illegal.
Ayahuasca is legal. If you have a shaman. When the things change. It is like also here, there is no tradition for mushrooms. They grow here everywhere, but they lost the tradition. So for me, that aspect of ayahuasca, that is oh, here’s the guy and his dad was ayahuasquero and like this for many generation, like a Tata, it gives you this comfort, especially in the beginning when I was starting with this work, it’s like at least you can, yeah, maybe you don’t really know exactly what you’re doing, but you’re grounding yourself on a tradition.
And the that’s missing for me with mushrooms. But I’m still a big fan. I have micro doses in my freezer as we speak.
Elizabeth Ramírez: That is available. And there are many traditions in the north, in Mexico, yeah. Yeah. In the north in,
Sam Believ: so we should bring it here. And I know there is a tribe near us in Este, that’s called Ember E.
See? And they’re trying to restore the tradition so they. They’re picking the mushrooms on the fields and they boil them and they, but it’s it’s different. It’s imagine you have like French cuisine and imagine it’s like everything was forgotten and you’re still in France and you’re trying to create French cuisine again.
It’s a difficult process. So maybe they should bring some people from Mexico and then like exchange information. But I know eventually mushrooms, because obviously mushrooms are as you said, with ayahuasca, you have to, you need a big piece of land in the jungle where you have to plant ayahuasca, grow it, wait for seven years.
So it is sustainable because it’s farmed. So the, my shamas, they don’t just go and just cut ayahuasca in the jungle ’cause they’re not, there’s not much left. You need to go really deep. So they farm it. It’s it’s cultivated with mushrooms. You can grow some in your cupboard. So I think that it’s definitely.
It has that potential. But I’m a big fan of all psychedelics. I think together in some weird shape or form, they will change the world. But for Columbia specifically, I think ayahuasca should be the focus because that’s what Columbia has that other places don’t. You can grow mushrooms in Antarctica but yeah.
Elizabeth Ramírez: And medicines, they’re a team and they teach you in different ways. And they come to our lives in the moment and we’re ready to learn from their wisdom and to really appreciate. I, it’s also we have Mabe. The Mabe is something that I really appreciate, which is powder. It comes from Coca and we have been very known about coca and cocaine, but there’s a big tradition.
Coca and tobacco and how when we connect with it, we connect the center in our minds and the center in our hearts. So that everything that we think and everything that we feel is what we speak. And we come from that place of alignment. And these are amazing that we get to connect in, in our routines to make life the ceremony, to learn how to live from this place of sacredness and ritual.
And it doesn’t have to be mystical. It is just the appreciation and the presence to acknowledge the magic in what we’re facing.
Sam Believ: Yeah. Life is a ceremony. You talk about in, in your process of growing and awakening, you were very afraid of people thinking you’re crazy has changed.
Elizabeth Ramírez: I think now I take it as a compliment.
Now I wanna, the more I have studied spirituality and energy first, the more that I realized that I don’t know anything. That’s part of the fulfillment question too. It is not, I thought the people will figure it out through an spiritual path and I realize that nobody has a figure out. The more, the deeper that I go, the more questions that I have.
But there is an acceptance of not knowing that feels like, that, feels like there’s curiosity, questioning things and there’s magic in that. So I have find my peace with no knowing and with just the great mystery. Yeah. And. About being crazy. I think that it is just being different and being authentic. I’m much more worried now to feel like I’m trying to fit in a place and I need to be something that I’m not just to fit in.
I feel that now that I have my tribe, now that I have people around me that I appreciate and my communities, it is not that I’m fitting in it is that I’m, I belong because I am who I am and I enjoy that.
Sam Believ: You describe like going to this meditation place and everyone looks like hippie and they have crystals and like white linen clothing and now look at you.
Elizabeth Ramírez: I see.
Sam Believ: What happens?
Elizabeth Ramírez: I have the, I have both mixes. First I was in the consulting world, always in my high heels and always own fashion and like trying to prove myself, trying to prove that I belong to that table. Then I wait, I went all the other way to, I just wanna live in the jungle in the trees and I don’t wanna wear shoes anymore.
And probably now for one and a half years I am in such a good place which I feel is the center and is not identifying with it, with anything. I can wear this and later at night I can wear a dress and high heels and red lipstick and go out and dance salsa and in the morning I can play some mantras.
It is not from a place anymore of this is good and this is bad. It is my choice and what is in alignment and what is not in alignment with me, even with alcohol and all those things. I was like, this is horrible. I do not drink. Every once in a while, I will have a delicious glass of wine that I enjoy a lot, but it is not from that space of judgment.
It is from a space of giving myself the freedom and of free will and give it to other people. The same happened to me with food. I used to eat very bad. Then I became a vegetarian for five years. Now I’m back to eating it for the last two years. And it is every single day a constant practice of what does my body need today?
It’s speaking to it’s been me giving me so much freedom. And I do not believe that it would make me spiritual because I’m wearing what I’m wearing right now, or that it would make me less spiritual if I wear something different. I mean everything. The skin itself is just a custom of the soul.
Sam Believ: So don’t break from a copper mug. You’re not spiritual.
Elizabeth Ramírez: For my what?
Sam Believ: Copper mug.
Elizabeth Ramírez: Yeah. That’s true.
Sam Believ: Yeah. I just lost all respect to you because you don’t have any Christmas. Okay. Last topic I know you like to talk about is manifestation. Teach people how to manifest good life.
Elizabeth Ramírez: This is going to sound this is probably one of the things that will make someone think I’m crazy, but there’s an study that comes from mathematics and physics, and it’s called reality Trans Surfing. And what reality trans surfing teaches us is that every single possible outcome already exists.
Imagine the, it’s, it explains something that is called the landlord, the field of possibilities. And in that field. All the versions of you, the version of you that took five minutes longer to come here, and that will make a totally different result. Every single reality exists and we experience time as we move in those realities.
What makes you move in a reality is what you normalize. Whenever we pray for something from the lack of it, and I really want this, just the act of wanting is creating that separation. Whenever we relate to something from a space of gratitude, it means that it already belongs into our lives. So knowing that it is not something for me, knowing that it is not something that I’m creating but is a reality I’m moving into.
It’s so powerful. Because I don’t feel like I’m stuck in anything and I can connect with a version of myself that is already experiencing that. Every single morning I open my eyes and my prayer and my mantra is, dear God, universe, source, whatever you connect with higher self. I am ready and willing to receive the most delicious miracles of life because it’s not only what you’re calling into your life, but how you wanna feel.
And for me, my favorite word in Spanish is dio. And just when I connect with that, I wanna feel spacious. I wanna feel in like I’m enjoying it. I wanna feel better about myself. I wanna feel more expansive. That emotion is what moves you to a reality that already exists.
Sam Believ: Speaking of the word de reso.
It’s time for us to wrap up and I can have my lunch. I’m doing this intermittent fasting, so I’m getting pretty hungry. And you’re talking about tele. Elizabeth, thank you so much for sharing. Yeah. I think you have a very interesting story. And you lost parting words for the audience and tell them more.
They can find more about you and find your courses, your coaching.
Elizabeth Ramírez: Thank you so much for inviting me, and thank you so much for doing this. I really honor the educational aspect of this path. Any group teacher I don’t really believe in gurus, teachers, healers. I think that there’s people that can hold a safe space for you to go as deep as you need to realize that you’re your own healer.
Your own girl. Your own teacher. Yeah. And. That’s our gift to the world. If I could only share one thing is for people who’s feeling in doubt of themselves, or for people who’s looking to start a path of self discovery, you are granted a uniqueness that it’s replaceable in the world. And it is a istic note not to explore that and not to give the best of yourself back to the world.
So I really appreciate you following your own path and inviting me to join it. And very happy to keep this conversation going and communicate, especially on Instagram. You can find me like Elisa Ramirez.
Sam Believ: Okay, thank you guys for listening. As always, will you the whole assembly and I will see you in the next episode. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you’d like to support us and psychedelic renaissance at large. Please follow us and leave us a like wherever it is you’re listening. Share this episode with someone who will benefit from this information.
Nothing in this podcast is intended as medical advice, and it is for educational and entertainment purposes only. This episode is sponsored by Lara Ayahuasca, retreat. At Lara, we combine affordability, accessibility, and authenticity, laira connect, heal, grow. Guys, I’m looking forward to hosting you.