In this episode of the Ayahuasca Podcast, host Sam Believ connects with combat sports legend Cain Velasquez. Cain is a two-time NCAA All-American, a two-time UFC Heavyweight Champion, and the first Mexican-American heavyweight champion in UFC history. Known throughout his career for an unstoppable, relentless pace that broke the toughest fighters on earth, Cain has since transitioned that warrior spirit into a profound mission advocating for ancestral healing and the transformative potential of plant medicines.

Cain opens up about how his early life in combat sports functioned as a raw mechanism for processing childhood trauma, how losing his mother and brother catalyzed a profound spiritual awakening, and how navigating legal trials and prison time became the ultimate training ground for his integration of ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT.

Key Discussion Points

  • 01:14 – Raising the Stakes: Cain discusses his transition from childhood wrestling—which he picked up at age 12 because it was free—to mixed martial arts, driven by an instinctual pull toward higher physical stakes and martial arts discipline.
  • 02:42 – The Mexican Fighting Spirit: Discovering right away that getting hit didn’t phase or scare him, but instead unlocked a deep, instinctual resilience and strength that allowed him to retaliate and put fight combinations together quickly.
  • 04:34 – Combat as the First Medicine: How the physical extremes of MMA served as Cain’s initial form of therapy, allowing him to release stored emotional trauma, build unbreakable poker-face boundaries against pain, and completely lose himself in the sport.
  • 08:45 – The Body Breaks Down: Navigating severe career injuries, back surgery, and an intentional daily relationship with THC and CBD to manage pain while completely changing his mental creative perspective on fighting.
  • 11:07 – Unmapped Grief & The Medium: Processing the sudden, deeply traumatic losses of his mother and brother within a two-month span, and how a session with a medium helped shift his mental loop away from their final moments and toward a higher spiritual perspective.
  • 14:54 – The First Ayahuasca Journey: Sitting in his first ceremony on the exact anniversary of his brother’s passing, where he instantly felt he “knew the plant more than he knew himself,” choosing to fully surrender his trust to the medicine.
  • 17:58 – No Accidents: Cain shares his visionary download regarding the perfection of human life, realizing that his soul and higher self mapped out his exact earthly timeline with Source before incarnating to guarantee maximum spiritual growth.
  • 24:32 – Dissolving in 5-MeO-DMT: Undergoing a shattering ego death during a high-dose Bufo experience, where his consciousness left his body, expanded into everything and nothing, and experienced an infinite existence of pure love and universal strength.
  • 28:07 – The Reintegration Crisis: Facing a severe midlife integration crisis over a two-month period where his perception of life had fundamentally changed, leaving him without a guide to help anchor his massive energetic downloads back into reality.
  • 29:41 – Prison as a Silent Meditation Retreat: How his subsequent time in jail and prison was divinely orchestrated by Source as a mandatory period of absolute solitude, teaching him to find total inner happiness and realize that the entire universe is stored within, regardless of external walls.
  • 31:42 – Synchronicities from a Cell Window: Learning radical gratitude for microscopic wins, including a profound moment where he manifested a wild hawk to fly six feet from his window seconds after mentally asking to see one close up.
  • 36:16 – The Prison Sweat Lodge: Hanging around the Native American circle in prison to connect with his own Yaqui ancestry, and learning the ultimate test of surrendering to the heat inside a traditional Lakota-style four-round Inipi sweat lodge.

Connect with Cain Velasquez:

Experience Safe, Guided Consciousness Work: To explore heart-opening, traditional plant medicine retreats in a deeply restorative setting designed for integration and profound clarity, explore our programs at: ayahuascaincolombia.com

Transcript

Cain Velasquez: The first time that I ever felt it, I understood Ayahuasca more than I understood myself. Wherever the medicine wanted to take me, I was willing to go. I understood that it was my guide, it was a guide of truth, that it was working with me, it was working with me in the journey, and that it’s here for my betterment in every which way, whether the healing, understanding, just all of it.

I had my full trust in this plant as soon as I, as soon as I felt it, almost as if I’ve been there before. I believe this is the best medicine. These medicines are the best medicines out there for us for everyone. For everyone. They help you just bring you back to yourself. It’s almost like you don’t even realize, like, how you’re interacting with your loved ones or anything until you go deep within and you realize the most important thing is, number one, your own happiness.

To feed yourself first. Feed yourself with all the good stuff, like everything good. Treat yourself a- as such. Love yourself, treat yourself as you are the most sacred thing out there. ‘Cause you are. Believe that the one that is within you, always guiding you. My consciousness left the body, but it became everything else at that moment.

I could feel everything in between, and I was everything in between, and I went on forever. Had no beginning, it had no end. I was all of it at that moment again. I was everything, and I was also nothing as well. It really helped me get closer to my kids in the sense of I was so strict and rigid and what…

Before this, where it was like, “This is what you have to do to be a good person.” I was so on that. To where there I was just i- in ceremony I was like, I just need to love them. You just need to love them. That’s it. They already know what they’re doing. Their life is the same way as mine is, where it’s all working for them.

They’re gonna go where they have to go. It’s already pre-written for them. All I can do is love and support them. They’re not even my kids. They’re my kids on this earth, but they’re my equal as a being in general.

Sam Believ: Hi, my name is Sam Belyev, and you’re listening to the Ayahuasca Podcast.

Hi, guys, and welcome to Ayahuasca Podcast. As always, with your host, Sam Belyav, and today I’m having a conversation with Cain Velasquez. Cain is a combat sports legend. He’s a two-time NCAA All-American, two-times heavyweight UFC champion, the first Mexican-American heavyweight champion in UFC history, and widely regarded as one of the greatest heavyweight mixed martial artists of all time.

Known during his legendary career for an unstoppable, relentless pace that broke the toughest fighters on the planet, he has since channeled that warrior spirit into a, a powerful new mission advocating for spiritual healing and the transformative power of plant medicines. This episode is sponsored by LaWayra Ayahuasca Retreat.

Cain welcome to the show.

Cain Velasquez: Thank you for having me, Sam.

Sam Believ: I’m very glad to have you, and yeah, first of all, I wanna congratulate you for being free again. I know there’s this whole situation, and I’m glad you’re back to freedom. And so let’s start with your youth.

What got you into fighting? How did that start?

Cain Velasquez: Yeah, so I s- I started wrestling from the age of 12. I think the reason why… the reason why I started wrestling was bes- was because, That was it was free. The, and schools out here in in the United States normally offer wrestling from a young age, junior high school.

It’s usually free, so that’s pretty much why I started doing it. And my brother wrestled. He was two years older than I was, and he wrestled as well, and I saw him and his matches and it was just something that I felt like I, I wanted to do. So I think just the physicalness of the sport really drew me to it.

So then when I was in college re- wrestling at the time, at that time now, wasn’t enough. I wanted to, raise the stakes, if you could say or even get more physical and and then I just saw MMA as a platform of, still get to wrestle, but now I also get to get to learn the striking karate.

So e- so I guess I just put myself in more, like, m- martial arts. Yeah.

Sam Believ: And do you remember the moment when you realized you were better than others?

Cain Velasquez: I guess it was right away. Even like the first time I started, like the first day I trained a lot of it just made sense to me right away.

And then even like getting hit and stuff, it didn’t do anything to me, like where it phased me, it wasn’t scary. It- I didn’t shy away from it. It even gave me more more strength, more It made it, it fired me up to to go back, to throw back, to to retaliate in that way.

So I guess the Mexican fighting spirit, the, the Mexican boxers I guess that, that was in me. But yeah, just me learning day to day, I felt like it was like it made sense to me, made sense to me. And then a lot of people around me I felt like I, I could make sense of it a lot more than a lot of people could, and put it together quicker, so I knew right away that I could do this. I just didn’t know to what level,

Sam Believ: yeah. When I was growing up from the age of seven till maybe 18 or so, I did close to probably 10 years of boxing. As an Eastern European, it’s kinda normal to pick up at least one martial arts.

And in my case I could really remember, especially in my teenage years, how for me it was like an outlet for, hitting a bag would release a lot of sort of stored emotions. Did you notice, maybe for you, was there any aspect of that where you really felt drawn to the sport because it made you feel better emotionally?

Cain Velasquez: Yeah. It did. So I think that even… And I guess that’s probably why I started doing MMA. In, in wrestling you can get to a point where you get so physically tired, you feel like you, you kinda give everything, but there are certain rules that you can’t do everything.

You can’t hit and kick and all that. For me to go in every day and train and really give all of myself that’s where I g- that’s where I grew. And I knew that’s what was happening. I was learning the b- the boundaries and the limits of myself in, in, in that aspect. And with when I’m talking about the strikes and being hit and then hitting someone else in that way I was letting go of my of my traumas, and getting hit as well, it was just like I’ve been through things that are harder than this, so this doesn’t phase me,” to, again to continue to not show pain, it was, it’s a very much like a poker game, you get hit but you don’t show that any of that hurts.

Even if you are tired, you don’t show that either, and you just keep going harder and harder. So I think for me it was very much a a learning process of myself in that aspect. I choose, I chose to learn about myself and to grow and to heal myself in mixed martial arts, if that even makes any type of sense.

But at that moment, that was a perfect I say medicine for me was to go in, in mixed martial arts and to just immerse myself in that sport. Lose myself into it, don’t… I didn’t held back, and I put myself in there. I gave all of myself. I gave my all of myself every day, and that was a form of of the highest therapy that, that I needed

Sam Believ: Yeah.

I have a feeling that if you do anything fully, and get super tired, there is no, there’s no tiredness like you get when you’re fighting because obviously you’re… It’s it’s live or die sort of situation, you go 100%. I think if you do something 100%, it becomes spiritual at some level.

So- Yeah … let’s talk about that, and I think your story is very fascinating and as I was getting to know you, like I realize you’re a deeply spiritual person. So can you tell us about that, that journey on how spirituality came into your life and, the role plant medicines played in it?

Cain Velasquez: So I think the spirituality has always been with me. It’s always in us as well. We’re just kinda navigating through life on this earth at this moment. And I think being told certain things, being taught certain things that have been passed down. So I think where I lie with it all on the in, in my base is it be- it being told to me in some way is one thing, and then me going out and experiencing myself is another thing, and I think I’ve always leaned towards I’m gonna figure it out for my own and make it make sense for my own.

Thank you for explaining or showing me, your perspective, but that only paints me in a little bit of the picture. I want to experience it myself and make it make sense for me. If it makes sense for me then, I’ll be good with that. I think just through life I grew up a Catholic, going into, to church with my family, and I got a lot of this great stuff from that.

I did. Just the teachings of Jesus and the sacredness of practicing all together, going into church. There was something sacred about that. There was. And then when I… There was a point in time when we didn’t go to church, so it was like I was on my own, but I was learning in a different way now, spiritually.

Even though I didn’t call it that at the moment but it was a spiritual learning. And then I think going into, to fighting like towards the end of my career, I started getting a lot of injuries. My mind was still going 100% and the body started to not respond as well to it all.

So I got to a point where I needed a a back surgery and I kinda didn’t want… I didn’t wanna do it at that moment I really got into THC and CBD marijuana. And I was using that for pain. And I’ve never really practiced like and really got to under- understand marijuana before.

I was always an athlete, so I always kept away from that, thinking that that it would it would damage my lungs, smoking and just all of that, right? So everything that was taught to us. But I started to really use it on a, on, on an everyday basis, number one for pain, and then I just started to use it on, so the only way that I could really work out the way that I wanted to was using that it would numb the body. But also it would make me think a little different. It would I would see things differently. So it’d be like I was in, I w- I was fighting for a long, for so many years, and all of a sudden I saw I started seeing things differently in fighting where I would try new things.

It’d make me be more creative. I started to fighting again because it was almost as if I was doing it again, but I was it was new to me again. It w- it was new to me now. So I really got to understand what marijuana was. I loved how it really opened up my mind a lot more, like started to think a lot more.

So I think I used that for a while. And then I’m kinda the guy where I use something for a while, then when I get to really know it, I like, I put it away. So marijuana now, too I used it so much where I really understood it, and I understood what it did to me and how it affected me on a every day to where I overuse it as well.

And then I said, “Okay,” “I’m okay to put it away now.” And every now and then, yeah, but very rarely I’m okay to not use it anymore.

Until, until I just want to or whatever.

And then it was more like to the end of my career where things started getting really hard. My body started breaking down a lot more at the high level of what I was trying to compete at.

And then I had I had a couple deaths in the family. My my mom passed away, and then my brother passed away within two months of each other. And my brother’s death was pretty traumatic. I was there for it, and what he went through at the end of his life was that hit me pretty hard. It did.

It left a lot of wounds that were very open just to seeing the way that he left. So then I s- I started seeing a, I saw a medium. A friend of mine suggested I see a medium to maybe help to see if it’ll help me. And I was just like, I went into it open arms, like open mind.

And she told me things about to see of the other side where we’re in spirit and w- where they are in spirit. So that, instead of me seeing the the last moments of his life and my mom’s life I saw them more so in spirit now to where I was able to put ’em away more, to know that they’re, yeah, they’re in a good place.

There’s, like all of the, the emotions that we have here, especially the negative ones, are not here anymore. We’re in a higher state of being there. Like it’s all love, it’s all good, it’s all understanding. So that really helped me just to oh, okay, like I don’t have to picture him in the last moments that I saw him.

I can picture him in a higher state of being, which is what he is in spirit, which is what we all are in spirit. We’re not attached to this very dense emotions that we have here in the three- So in about a year from that, A friend of mine told me about a ceremony that that he had just done with a weekend of Ayahuasca and a weekend of 5-MeO-DMT.

So Saturday, Sunday. Saturday, Ayahuasca, Sunday, 5-MeO-DMT. And he suggested that I do it. So when he suggested that I do it, it was, The date that he told me that it was gonna happen was the anniversary of my brother’s death. So I said, “Okay.” I just put it all I could read the signs.

I was like, “Okay, there’s something that if it’s on this day, you want me to do it, so I will.” It was that easy. It was like, okay, And I did no, no research on it at, at all. I just took it as, okay, I’m gonna do this. I have an open mind towards it. So I didn’t look up, what’s Ayahuasca what it all is, side effects, none of that.

Even the 5-MeO-DMT, I just said, “I’m gonna go in and kinda experience this and see what happens.” So going into ceremony first with Ayahuasca I just felt like I had to be there in a, in, in a way. Like, when I was there, I just felt like this is where I’m supposed to be. And then as we started going into ceremony, took, took a couple cups of of Ayahuasca the first time that I ever felt it, the first time that I felt it I felt like I, I understood Ayahuasca more than I understood myself.

And wherever, wherever the, the medicine wanted to take me, I was willing to go. I understood that it was that it was my guide. It was a guide of truth. That it was working with me. It was working with me in the journey, and that it’s here for my betterment in every and every which way, whether the healing, the understanding just all of it.

I had my full trust in this plant as soon as I, as soon as I felt it, as soon as I felt it. I felt like I knew the plant more than I knew myself.

So almost as if I’ve been there before. And I had this great ceremony with Ayahuasca. I I saw my, my life and everything that I’ve been through and I just loved and appreciated that I got to experience it, and that it was exactly what I needed.

It was perfectly made for me to grow. My experiences weren’t too much where I couldn’t handle them. They were perfect and that’s all a perfection every day of me and my higher self and with Source, we all had a meeting before I came in to this life, and we…

this, my whole life is perfectly made for me at that moment. Every, every instance, like there is no, there are no accidents. Like I’m supposed to be there and learning something. And it’s for my growth. It’s working for me, it’s not working against me. I just need to accept it, be a part of it, and make it the best that I can, or make it whatever I want to, number one.

But in, in my experience was make it the best that I can, so make it, make it magical if I want to, and and fully accept everything that’s happening. So like that was one part of it was like that the moment is so sacred, it’s made for me. And the other parts that I really learned in there was I started seeing just people around me, so like family.

Like I started I started focusing on one individual person So like my parents loved ones kids, cousins, all that like… I started understanding people that I didn’t understand before and fully accepted them, and it really helped me get closer to my kids in the sense of I was so strict and rigid and what before this, where it was like, “This is what you have to do to be a good person,” I was so on that to where there I was just like, in ceremony I was like I just need to love them.” You just need to love them. That’s it. They already know what they’re doing. Their life is the same way as, as mine is, where it’s all working for them. They’re gonna go where they have to go.

It’s already prewritten for them. Like, all I can do is love and support them. They’re not even my kids. They’re my kids on this earth, but they’re my equal as a being in general. So I just need to be there to love and support them. And I, So seeing all my people and seeing my kids and everything, man, I was laughing in tears for hours of how beautiful everything is, and just to not take life so seriously.

That th- this isn’t this isn’t my home. I come here to practice certain things. I’m here to learn, but this isn’t my home. Don’t take life so seriously, my, my life is up with source. It’s connected with source. Being here yeah we’re actors.

We’re playing a part, we’re learning of ourself. We’re in process of learning of ourselves. Like-

Sam Believ: Yeah

Cain Velasquez: And-

Sam Believ: Honestly, to get all of that just from one ceremony, that’s really impressive. You went straight to to the core. It takes a lot of people much longer,

Cain Velasquez: okay.

Sam Believ: There’s, it’s been, It’s been, it was supposed to happen. I like… You touched so many cool topics, like synchronicity, the fact that it was on a day of your brother’s death, and, … just like this learning of letting go and death. Recently- … I’ve been… Like everything you say comes super close to me right now because I’ve always been curious about death, and obviously Ayahuasca a lot of times is in some translations it’s it’s…

it literally means the vine of the dead or vine of the soul.

Cain Velasquez: Wow.

Sam Believ: And you relive the process of dying sometimes, and many people report dying several times within a ceremony. And I know you talk about also experience dying. But, ancient Greeks used to say, “If you die before you die, you don’t die when you die.”

It’s this rehearsal- … of death allows you to actually live. And my, my dad died recently, six weeks ago, and, I’m sorry. Thank you. And that put me into this state of acceptance and letting go. A lot of that what you describe as well. And I started watching those videos about near-death experiences and what you describe where you accepted that your brother passed and he- he’s in a better place.

I feel it and I connect with it so much. And also this notion of that we’re just souls and we come here to learn.

You can… Some people can read in a book or maybe they see a movie about it, but, … I’ve had hundreds of people drink the medicine and then tell it to me that they saw it themselves.

And then myself, of course, I experienced something similar many times. So it’s it’s kinda forming this sort of worldview where everything just fits all of a sudden. But my question to you is- yeah, if you wanna talk about any of those topics or how was it for you bringing it back with you to the real life?

Because as opposed to myself largely, like I, I have s- I had such a deep experiences, but time passes and then I forget and I get stressed again with, Yeah … small things. How did… Because you seem very peaceful, and obviously you went through hard times. How did you bring it back with you in such a nice way?

Or did you? May- or maybe you just look more peaceful than you are inside. Yeah.

Cain Velasquez: Okay okay, so that was one, that was my, my experience with Ayahuasca in that aspect, and I feel, okay towards the end of that ceremony there was more to let go, there was more to like even to purge a little bit, right?

But I told the medicine, I said, “I would never throw you up.” “You’re too good.” “I don’t wanna throw… if you want me to throw up, you’re gonna have to make me, ’cause I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna do that.” So that was my experience with Ayahuasca was that. And then I had an experience with the 5-MeO-DMT.

And it wasn’t that, that weekend. Like I took a high dose of 5-MeO-DMT, and it just felt it felt overwhelmingly strong. So much I couldn’t take all of it. But I know I wanted more, and I was asking for more. I was asking for more of what that feeling was, I felt like I was on a rollercoaster.

I couldn’t even absorb any, all this that was happening. It was too strong for me, but I still wanted more of whatever that was. So it wasn’t ’til the next month when I had a, another high dose of 5-MeO-DMT, and it’s, it really sat me down to die. Like going into it, did I know what I wanted into it?

No. It was indescribable of what I was looking for. And as soon as I took the medicine of the 5-MeO it did, it talked to me it told me, “Hey, this is what you wanted, right?” And in this death of I don’t know how l- how long this was as far as as far as time here on Earth.

But at this death within, it wasn’t then a minute or two, and I was filled with so much love that I was okay to go wherever the medicine wanted me to go to. But I didn’t want, I didn’t want to experience what I was experiencing for lifetimes is what I wanted. I wanted to have a full existence like this, like of what I, for what I felt.

Just filled with love, nothing else, just love and compassion. I feel like I had all the strength of the universe all, all within me at that moment. And then it built up to a point where I had to let go. I let go fully. I let go of everything. I let go of myself. I let go till I disattached totally.

So if you wanna say a, a death or an ego death, yeah. Like I died. I left my body at that moment. And my consciousness grew to… My consciousness left the body, but it became everything else at that moment. So I could feel everything in between, and I was everything in between, and I, and that went on forever.

It had no beginning, it had no end. I was all of it at that moment again, I was everything, and I was also nothing as well. And my consciousness was still working. It w- I could still feel, I was still there. So I just said, “Thank you for showing me what I am. Bring me back to my body so I can do whatever work that you want me to do.”

I came back to my body. So over the, the two months, I would say, yes, I had a, I had these, these major downloads Transformation. I learned so much. It was a lot. It wasn’t like, it wasn’t all peaceful. It was like people that really know me, all of a sudden you have this person here, then over these two months you have this different person.

There was so much that I learned where I saw life differently. And it’s like the more the more you realize you don’t know. The more you realize I saw more… it took me a while to integrate back, okay? And I had no one to necessarily help me or guide me through this.

It was like a, almost felt like a crisis, or like a midlife crisis it’s like something like all these things happened to me where I’ve learned so much. I learned so much about myself and others, where it was hard to see life the same. It wasn’t the same anymore.

I remembered and learned so much that it was not the same anymore. And I knew I had to give back. So in a weird way, God puts it all in order. Source already has a plan for it, so when I went to jail, in prison, like that gave me time of solitude, and I knew that was a part of it.

I needed that time of solitude to to learn to be happy with my- just myself, and that’s it. N- like the teachings to of myself as to, And then those moments were no matter what’s around me I create it all within me, even with everything taken away. But they can’t, but nothing can be, you can’t take it all away from the person.

You can take the exterior away, yeah, but that doesn’t define what the person is. The person is Everything’s already inside of you. The universe, all of it is right here. Everything. Yeah. So again, to if you want like a deeper learning that I got was, okay how do I wanna be in here even when this out here and looks, I’m trapped within the, these walls, right?

Like everything’s been taken away from me here, so how- … so how can I transmute that? And it was like I guess I explained it like if you’re wringing out a towel, water and you’re wringing it out, like there’s always a little bit of water in there, so how much can you wring out?

Especially when it’s pretty much dry, there’s still some in there, right? So then I started picking little things throughout the day like little positives that would pick out, speak to my higher power. And then when these little positives happened, like those, those for me inside were big wins.

So I s- really started appreciating the little things, the little… Whether it’s a good conversation, whether we connected, like I connected with another inmate in some way, conversation, helping in some way, whether it’s like hearing that, that my kids or my family out here were having a, they had a good day even with everything going on, like that was like s- just gratitude. To the point to like even okay, what like, what did I get for dinner that day? It was something that I like, that I, that it was a, a surprise and like even though that wasn’t good, but it was like, it was good for that moment. I was like- Ah … ah like this was like…

So I started seeing how everything was working for me- And all the little things were those things that I was asking. So there was one part, there was one, one little story that like… So all these little synchronicities started happening throughout my day, and there was one where I was looking outside my window, and I could see I could see the hawks over over the distance, right?

I was just staring at them and I said, “Man, I would love to see them close up,” and within a couple minutes one flew over the window, like not it wasn’t even that far. It was probably like six feet away over the window of where I was at, opened up and everything and it was exactly what I was asking for, yeah. So that connection grew stronger with me being open to the conversations and seeing the little synchronicities, seeing the little wins, seeing the little positives, and making those little wins and positives bigger than what anybody else would have saw them as, right? So I started… So that’s what I really started doing, was to like learn to be happy and grateful and appreciative of it all, of every day.

And saying to myself like, even if I’m being tortured, I will still be happy that I’m still breathing at that moment, and that I’m still experiencing some form of feeling Because in spirit, it’s all beautiful, it’s all good. So I get to see it all now and appreciate it all and learn from it all.

So that wa- that was kinda the work that I did when I was in solitude. And then I really appreciated, like, when else do we get to be in a place of solitude? Especially in this day and age, it’s like it’s rare, so like I know that it was for me. It was made for me to do that.

Sam Believ: This episode is sponsored by LaWayra Ayahuasca Retreat.

Most of LaWayra if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while. Some of you might have already been to LaWayra before. For those who don’t know us yet, we started LaWayra four years ago. At LaWayra, we combine authenticity, accessibility, and affordability. LaWayra is currently highest-rated Ayahuasca retreat in South America with more than 700 five-star reviews and an average rating of five stars.

If you come to LaWayra, you’ll experience powerful, authentic ceremonies led by our indigenous shaman, Fernando, in a very beautiful venue just one hour south of Medellín, Colombia. We’re surrounded by nature and have comforts like hot water, Wi-Fi. At LaWayra, our team has guided more than 2,500 people through this life-changing transformation of Ayahuasca experience.

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Visit lawayra.com to book your retreat or learn more. LaWayra, connect, heal, grow. L-A-W-A-Y-R-A.com. It’s interesting because I would… what you’re saying is really profound and I’ll be honest, I’m only now getting there gradually, trying to understand it, and obviously you’re older and how old are you, by the way?

Cain Velasquez: 43. 43,

Sam Believ: yeah. So definitely you’re ahead and you figured some things out already and the importance of gratitude and how easy it is to be not grateful. But just the nature of suffering is the resistance, right? If you were in the prison and you really wanted to get out as soon as possible, that resistance, and that’s kinda I guess is a Buddhist principle, that is what creates, I think it’s called dukkha.

Yeah. That’s what creates the suffering. So we create our own suffering. But- Yes … because you, you viewed it as “Oh, here I’m gonna have eight months of basically a silent retreat,” yeah. People pay money for that kinda stuff, and I’m gonna integrate my experience, and I’m grateful for solitude.

All of a sudden, the… obviously when people put you in prison, they put you there to suffer, not to rest. Yes. But because you were able to change your perspective, that completely changed your experience and- Yeah If we could just be more grateful like this about all the moments, and I think what I’ve been learning is sometimes you have to be grateful for the kind of problems you get to experience, because not everyone gets to experience those kinds of problems.

And like once again, going back to the notion that we’re here for a reason, we’re here to learn. So as soon as we stop resisting… And but, if I… I’m only able to be in that space for a week or two, and then something happens, it kicks me out again. I get frustrated and like I really wanna get back into that space.

Yeah, man, that that’s really profound. I’m so glad that you s- you saw it that way. I’ve h- I’ve heard in the, in one of the interviews that you even got, been able to do a temazcal in the prison. Is that correct?

Cain Velasquez: A what was it?

Sam Believ: That there was a temazcal in the prison or like a sweat lodge.

Cain Velasquez: Oh yeah. Yeah, there was. Yeah, in prison I I was hanging around the native group. I wanted to learn more about being Native American. I’m part Yaqui from the Sonoran Desert from Mexico and Arizona. So I wanted to learn more about like our traditions and stuff.

So I h- hung around them and they did a sweat lodge. Once every two weeks or so it is sweat lodge. And I’ve done one before, but I didn’t know necessarily what it all entailed, okay, like sauna, is it… Like I, I never really had a Kuwait, so what is a sauna, kind of thing is what my mind was where my mind was at.

And then when I first did the first sweat lodge I had a really hard time ’cause it was a test, it was a test of, it was a test in fully letting go. And I would say the heat has… was one of my I have, I had, I felt like I had problems with the heat like that. Like I grew up in Arizona and everything, one of the hottest places like here in the US, but that was like a different way of of a different test.

So I had a really hard problem the first time and knew, okay. But then I prepped myself okay, this is really, So we’re in the sweat lodge. Like you have to crawl when you go in. It’s not very high. It’s in a traditional Inipi and we do the sweat lodge according to according to the Dakota way of sweat.

So all prisons throughout the whole US, if they have a sweat lodge, they do it all according to the La- Lakota way of doing it. We basically do four rounds of sweat. So there’s not really a timer, but it’s like the guy, the person, there’s one person facilitating the sweat. So definitely trying to push everybody but not kill everybody as well, keep a good balance but make it, ma- make it a journey.

Make it pretty difficult where there’s a lot of prayer going in. And the first one, I think it’s we’re inviting the, the spirit world to come in, the creator and every- so we’re praying to the creator and praying to to those those higher realms. And then the, the second round we are praying to to all the men So that the masculine, we’re praying to all the masculine.

And the third it’s the women and children round. So we’re praying for all the women and children and everybody’s doing that. Everybody’s in their prayer of women and children. And then the last round is we’re sending all the spirits back home. Thanking them for the whole sweat.

So it wa- that for me was a really hard learning, but it wa- it was great. It was to let go even more of what I was holding onto to get to a point where I started, I got anxiety and everything, for how hard it was to where I really got comfortable in that. I got comfortable in the anxiety and I just gave it all.

I gave it all to the creator. I gave it all to, to the universe. Whatever happens to me, it’s okay. Like if you want me to die at this moment, then I will, and if I don’t die, then my brothers will drag me out, so no matter what, I’m taken care of, so you give up full and then in, in there, in the tipi it’s dark, right?

It’s as dark as like you’re closing your eyes. So you’re in this hot place, dark, you’re crowded. You’re like you’re all bun- bundled up with each other. There’s one entrance, so if you’re claustrophobic then it’s gonna be a hard place to be. So it was another extreme of like learning and I’m very appreciative for the growth of that.

And just all my brothers in there, that really, we just it was work of look, all these things that we’ve done in our past, they don’t define us, no matter what, we’re gonna see past all of our shortcomings in each other and help each other So it was a- Yeah

it was really a, a great form of learning. Yeah.

Sam Believ: Yeah. That’s beautiful. And it is a lot of bonding obviously because you’re- … you’re kinda suffering together. And once again- Yes … seems that the lesson is acceptance because the moment- Yeah … you stop, start, stop resisting it. I’ve tried the, it’s called Temazcal here or- Yeah

in IP as well. I’ve tried it before. It is very intense. We just finished building a sauna a few months ago, so once- … you’re here for the athlete’s retreat when we did the first one, it wasn’t finished yet. Everyone’s really excited, so we’re not gonna push it, but we’re gonna go. It’s a really nice nice European-style sauna.

What surprises me is that there is things like this in American prisons, because I’ve been having this idea, which is obviously radical and probably never would happen. But, we put people in prisons to in hope that they’re gonna change, and a lot of times prisons create even more hardened criminals because there’s, there’s activity and people are not always as peaceful and as comfortable, and that makes people become even more hard, and then they learn about more crime and join gangs and stuff like that.

So I was thinking, why don’t we just change the system and instead of… ‘Cause if the idea is to change the person, to transform them, the fastest way I know how to transform a person is through, through an Ayahuasca experience, right? Or- Yes … deep psychic- Yes … experience. So why don’t we just say each month of your sentence is a ceremony.

So it’s like you can- Yes … stay and just… Or instead of that okay, yeah, you got two years, so it’s 24 ceremonies. Let’s go. Let’s let’s do, three, four ceremonies a week- Yes … and you go hard, and you really just fix yourself, and then you come out and you become a new man. What do you think about that?

Cain Velasquez: Brother, I’m with you. I’m with you, brother, all the way. It’s something that’s needed. It is. And I, the way that I see it, I think we’re it’s all opening up to it, it’s being more accepted everywhere, it’s something, that people realize it was something that was taken away from us.

Why? ‘Cause it’s a lot of, it’s a lot of, It’s power to give it back to people is what it is. When you heal yourself and get your understanding and all it that’s when you come into your power. So with now the talks of it, becoming federally legal and all there are a lot of people that need it a lot.

And what you’re saying right now, yes. Yes, and I feel the same way. And if we’re living a pla- the timelines can be shifted all the time, this is something that’s needed. So yes

That would be one of the, one of the wa- one of the most profound ways that people can really change, heal, right?

All those things that we’re talking about especially in that system, in the prison system. So I believe that is possible. It is.

Sam Believ: Yeah. Somebody needs to take this on. Maybe somebody who’s listening to this episode, or maybe, a few years from now as we… There must be, like, a person that takes on that mission.

Because we’re, we seem to be on the right track, with all the legalization and how it’s getting popularized, but it is definitely a thing that could, that it can save us so much money and save so many lives. I think there’s there, there’s definitely space for it. Maybe it’s not perfect.

They’ll find a system, but it makes sense. So with,

Cain Velasquez: Yes …

Sam Believ: obviously we’re, we’ve done one retreat for MMA fighters. Next one is in September. You’re gonna come and join us, of which I’m extremely happy. And I’m looking forward to having you here. We’re gonna have four Ayahuasca ceremonies.

It’s gonna be profound. Obviously as we do those re- retreats, we also focus a lot on the science and on the traumatic brain injury, and we work with the Omnia Sciences, and they scan your brain and do the genetic testing. Have you maybe noticed yourself since you started doing work, work with plant medicines and generally have you had problems with traumatic brain injury?

Obviously, as a heavyweight you get some pretty heavy hits.

Cain Velasquez: Yeah.

Sam Believ: Have you noticed any pain there, any issues? And have there been any change with plant medicines or too early to observe?

Cain Velasquez: So when I fir- towards the end of my career, a couple things, yeah. My short-term memory would go here and there.

Even when I was really heavily sparring Definitely my, my speech like slur a lot. S- stutter as well, and I would say that was at its worst. Short-term memory, that, and then even just problems with with anger as well, so I could feel like I, I could I just took a lot, like I was taking too much of the beating whereas it was affecting me. So I felt yeah, when I did my ceremonies with Ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT, that I was that it helped me tremendously to the point where I was cured, where there wasn’t a belief, there was a knowing that my brain and everything else was, Was cured from w- from any of that stuff, any of that trauma, and I’ve done brain scans and stuff afterwards and I don’t know, I don’t know the technical terms, but I guess, they said that I’m good, right? There’s, that, I have a brain that, that’s lived, but not necessarily one that has trauma that, that’s ongoing. So I do attribute it th- to plant medicine.

The medicine helped me, but also me just the full knowing that I will live a long life, like I like I know now, like there’s nothing I need to worry about here. Yeah.

Sam Believ: Yeah. After speaking to you for now close to 50 minutes, I think you’re doing pretty great, given the amount of beating your brain had. So like- Yeah … i’m pretty impressed with the way you tell stories and how long you can speak for. That’s not someone who has short-term memory problems because-

…

Sam Believ: I, myself I use some notes sometimes I forget stuff in the conversation.

A lot of athletes and a lot of fighters that, they, who need this you know, they- Yeah … they need some help for their brain. They need plant medicine both because it’s like this complex mechanism to heal their body and heal their brain physically, and also help them mentally and spiritually.

But a lot of them have resistance against it. They might say, I’m gonna lose my edge. I’m gonna won’t be able to fight anymore.” Or m- maybe they’re just afraid to do it or think it’s too spiritual and too… W- what would you tell fighters that need to come but don’t wanna come to motivate them to come?

Cain Velasquez: What would I tell them? I would say there’s a perfect time and place for everything, and then their, and their growth as well. I understand with… The way that I see it is, look, we, the reason why we fight majority of the time is that we have s- some type of traumas, whether you wanna admit it or not.

It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter. But- So you are gonna get healing done in this space, and whether it be a little bit, whether it be so much that you realize that you realize the root cause of all your traumas to where will that make you fight? Will that not make you fight?

Who knows, we’re on a road right now, all of us are to learn ourselves, to go within, to learn of ourselves. So I think there’s a place and time for everything. When people think they’re ready, I would say yes. If it’s after you’re done with your career, if you feel more comfortable with that, okay.

I would say beyond all that just to be open with everything. Be open, if the opportunity comes up for you to do something like this then go ahead. I would invite people. I believe this is the best medicine. These medicines are the best medicines out there for us, for for everyone.

For everyone. They help you just bring you back to yourself, it’s almost like you don’t even realize like how you’re interacting with your loved ones or anything until, until you go deep within and you realize the most important thing is number one, your own happiness.

Yeah. To feed yourself first, feed yourself with all the good stuff, like everything good, treat yourself a- as such. Love yourself. Treat yourself as, as you are the most sacred thing out there, ’cause you are, believe that the one is with- it is within you always guiding you.

And number one, give that to yourself first, and then see how you start giving it to others. See how because you treat yourself as such, that you treat others as such. So I understand people wanna do something. I talked to one of my, one of my fighters as well who’s done some plant medicine, and he’s kinda on that fence too.

He’s like I don’t think I wanted to go so, so deep in.” Because of the healing and everything else, there’s also an aspect of look, it’s being brought to you, so why have resistance towards it,

But again, it’s your, it is your choice of when you wanna grow and heal.

And who’s to say that, that you won’t lose your edge, so you never know, but again it’s essential for our growth. It is. There’s no right and wrong way of doing it. But if anybody has a little bit of interest out there, just a little bit, like a tiny little bit of interest out there, or they’re not happy in a way with their life and how they ma- maneuver maneuver around life, if they’re not completely just happy with their lives, then I would say come. Come experience and do that work. Do that work that’s there for you to do.

Sam Believ: Yeah. That’s a cute cat you have there.

Cain Velasquez: Oh, thank you. Yeah.

Sam Believ: Came came to visit. For those watching on the video, it’s a very pretty black cat.

So yeah, all we can do is plant the seeds, right? Just talk about it. Yes. Yeah. Maybe some people will want it. If you do if anyone’s listening to this episode, come- Sure … if you’re an athlete, come join us for the special athlete retreat September 28th, O- October 6th. Otherwise, we do a couple retreats every month and, feel free to go somewhere else wherever you get, The opportunity.

Regarding like losing the edge, we had 11, no 13 people in the last group. A lot of them- Yeah … still very active fighters, and I can see some of them fighting and winning, so I, it’s not gonna stop you. It’s not gonna make you weak. But if you’re doing things from a wrong place, like to prove something to someone, it might lessen things up a little bit because it will change your assumptions.

But you’re gonna-

Cain Velasquez: Yeah …

Sam Believ: you’ll be able to do things from a different angle, right?

Cain Velasquez: Yeah. That’s one… you know what? When I’ve I’ve s- like for me me and what I did in fighting there was a lot of darkness in me, but it, but that’s the way that I felt it, going in to, to fight, like I was going into war, and I w- and I was experiencing that. I was living in that. When I see some people who really had really traumatic things happen, and they can’t even put their picture on it, it’s when they get into a place- Like, like that like a fight. Instead of some people don’t rise to the occasion, right?

When the time is right when it’s time to go, when it’s time to go and everybody’s watching and all the nerves and everything. I’ve seen some people revert back to almost being a child again. So they’re going back to their traumas, right? They they don’t rise to the occasion because there’s so many things in there that are keeping them down.

They may be really good in the gym. I’ve seen that a lot. They’re good in the gym and then when they go out and fight when the when it’s real they don’t perform. I think a lot of that has to do with a lot of growth that needs to be done, a lot of healing that needs to be done, you know, to it’s that confidence within themselves.

There’s there’s a little bit of doubt or a lot of doubt and they’re not showing it, right? They’re not saying it. They’re not being open, in the gym and everything when it doesn’t seem like it’s like it doesn’t seem like it’s a time to go, it’s not that it’s practice, so it’s not as real as it is a fight.

They could be really good, right? ‘Cause there’s not a lot of stakes involved. But when you get to the fight and there’s a lot of… I’ve seen a lot of people who don’t rise to the occasion because there’s a lot of things within them, a lot of traumas within them that are keeping them at a very low level.

That confidence doesn’t come up when they when it’s time. So that’s a little, that’s a subconscious thing that happens to them. But that’s not just in the fight. That’s the way they are in their life. So then in their life they don’t, they only believe that they’re worthy of so much.

So whatever you feel like you are worthy of, you’re probably correct.

I suggest yes, doing these medicines can help relieve a lot of that. To know that it’s always been a limit of what you put yourself to. If you say I’m good enough for this, then you’re right.

But if you take all those expectations away and you heal all of that to where you get rid of those traumas, and then you just you just from then on you just shoot for the stars, and you will be correct. You will be. But it’s a it’s a… I like to look at a lot of movies, and I see what they’re, like, what they’re giving us in movies.

They’re they’re giving all these lessons, but it’s up to you to dig deeper. Like Spider-Man, the Spider-Verse, like part one was like it’s a leap of faith. You don’t know when you’re ready, but you just you just have to go. You have to take that leap, and there’s no expectations, it’s just the ones you put on yourself or the ones that ev- what they, what other people believe as expectations.

But what if we all just shoot for the stars and had no subconscious fears of being put down, like, how beautiful would it all be? Like, it’s a… we’re abundant. There’s plenty enough for everybody to be at a high level. It’s not just a few here and there. No. Everybody could be there and higher.

It’s just how big do you wanna dream? So if you can get there with going that deep within, whether you plant medicine, meditation… I believe meditation’s a key too. You gotta be medi- meditation is a good, is a practice that needs to be done always. Before or after, like it should be a routine.

Meditation in some way or another. And then along with these plant medicines you’re, you have a good bal- a good platform to go ahead and a- and e- explore yourself within.

Sam Believ: Yeah. If if they’re good and with the trauma and they see trauma as something fueling them and they’re afraid to lose that, that fuel, then I think the reality is they’re gonna get even more powerf- even more freedom and even more energy without the trauma.

Yeah. And yeah, w- talking about the previous event, like a lot of people- i’ve just been impressed with, It was, it was one of our, if not the most popular group for us as the facilitators, as here at the retreat. We love the people that came, all the fighters and all the athletes- Yeah

because we as a society expect fighters to be aggressive and- competitive sometimes maybe not as smart and not as nice. There’s this sort of stigma, right? And what w- what we saw was the opposite. There were just- Yeah … amazingly beautiful people, uniquely traumatized, the, the- Yeah

y- when the medicine kicked in there was just the level of connection and brotherhood-

…

Sam Believ: It was amazing. So I’m really looking for- for the next event and I’m so happy you’re coming as well. And thank you for supporting us. You mentioned Spider-Man. There is the, there’s this quote where somebody told him “With great power cr- comes great responsibility.”

So I think- Yes … you have this great power, using your powers y- obviously the fame and people know you and respect you, and using that to help spread the word, help other fighters, help people. I think that’s very very noteworthy of you and I appreciate that a lot.

So if you just w- before we wrap up, wanna tell what’s the future, what would you want to do? I know you said that your dream would be to to do a plant plant church or something like that. What is in stock for you? And what, what would you, what legacy you would wanna leave in the world knowing everything you know now?

Cain Velasquez: Yeah, one of my, my, my passion right now is to work with plant medicine, to serve others, to help them on their healing journey. To serve, to be there on their journey through the traumatic side of it as well. Like seeing their demons come out, and just being there to guide other people, ha- giving them reassurance. They gotta do the work but being there to, to help them and support. That’s, once I’ve gotten into that space I love that space. That’s my new fight, I guess you would say. My, my new passion. So that’s the, so that’s one, one that I love of that.

So if I can do that or some way or another,

Sam Believ: I’m doing what I love.

Cain Velasquez: And I’ve also, I have been working on breathing as well, so doing seminars with breathwork. ‘Cause I’ve, like you said, there’s a lot of people that don’t wanna dive deeply completely into plant medicine yet, and that kind of shocked me when I first had my experiences, I was like, “I am ready to tell this to the world,” let’s the whole world do this, let this all be let this all be a thing where everyone does this as a rite of passage just to like families get together- even having just like we did it back in, with with the natives when we were, as they, they did their ceremonies, like kids being there and watching, like watching the healing process, and to know that it’s not anything to be like to shy away from. That’s a part of life,

Sam Believ: And

Cain Velasquez: to see somebody’s healing process, whether it be a loved one or somebody else but learn it that way, and when they’re ready, then they can go within as well. So I started doing this breathing as well, just to help with the healing as well, and I started doing it in prison. So I created a program in prison, and I’m working on something to get it out create more of a curriculum.

So helping others in plant medicine and the breathing helping others heal themselves. But those are my interests. Those are things that I like,

Sam Believ: that I

Cain Velasquez: love, and I’m passionate about. But number one it’s wherever Source takes me, I guess above all else is I have an idea of what it is and what I would like, but I know Source ultimately has a plan that’s already written.

So whatever that is I have to be accepting of it and know that things can change. And w- whatever way I g- I get pulled towards I’m gonna make the best of it. Yeah.

Sam Believ: Yeah. Thank you, Kane. And I think it’s a great idea to start with breathwork because not everyone’s there yet, yeah. You and in my case as well, I started, straight with ayahuasca. There was nothing-

Cain Velasquez: Yeah …

Sam Believ: nothing preparing me for it. I also didn’t know much about it. It was just this calling. But-

Cain Velasquez: Yes …

Sam Believ: we plant the seeds and but breathwork- Yeah … is a great tool. And, sometimes just with breathwork alone, you can do a lot-

Cain Velasquez: Yeah

Sam Believ: work done. So Kane, thank you so much for this episode. I am very impressed by how deeply connected you are to, to the spirit and everything you say. I’ve definitely learned a lot both from this conversation and as I was preparing for this conversation. So super happy you’re coming to visit us, and I’m looking forward to meeting you in person and all the other athletes that are gonna join us this time.

So thank you so much.

Cain Velasquez: Thank you, Sam. Thank you for your time, brother. Yeah, I can’t wait. Yeah. And thank you.

Sam Believ: Guys, you were listening to Ayahuasca Podcast. As always, with your host Sam Belyev, and I’ll 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 wherever it is you’re listening.

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