In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with Lily Eggers on the topics of psychedelic therapy for couples, keys for a good relationship, Ayahuasca for couples and more.
Find more about Lily Eggers at https://lilyeggers.com
Transcript
Sam Believ (00:01.156)
Hi guys and welcome to ayah Today we’re joined by Lily Eggers. Lily is a mom and entrepreneur, somatic coach, somatic couples therapist, medicine woman. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified in EMDR, masters in somatic psychology and she’s been helping couples for 12 years already. Lily, very impressive. Welcome to the podcast.
Lily Eggers (00:28.078)
Thank you so much for having me, Sam.
Sam Believ (00:31.296)
Lily, I think this podcast will be very interesting for many people who are listening to me as well, specifically, because I do have a couple as well. You met one of our kids just now. Lily, how did you end up working with couples and why, what drew you into this line of work specifically?
Lily Eggers (00:54.85)
Mm-hmm. I feel like from a very young age, I was always interested in human interaction. It was intriguing to me. I was curious. I was curious about relationships. I was curious about end of life satisfaction and how many folks say on their deathbeds they wish they had spent more time and energy on the relationships in their lives.
And to some extent, I feel like I was a student of relationship from a very young age. I was observing, I was interacting. My family of origin, we had very little conflict. And then I promptly moved out of my family and found a relationship that was very high conflict. It was like I had to learn how to do this thing that I didn’t really learn how to do in my particular family. And I feel in many ways like I…
treated relationships like little science projects, really. Like, is this complete? What did I learn? How did I learn from it? So I also love working with couples because it’s not talking about a problem. It’s right in the room. It’s so present moment. And I think that there’s both so much that can be accomplished by not talking about problems, by working with them in the present.
And it’s also very enlivening for me. So I find that work really fun. I also would say I love working with couples because it’s so rewarding that people can come in feeling disconnected and part of their disconnection leads to these thoughts that like, we can’t work this out or maybe this is a deal breaker or maybe we’ll never be together. And like they can come in feeling like that. And in such a short amount of time.
they can come to a completely different state of reality. Like, oh, we just had to hear each other. We just had to connect in this important way and remember that we care and feel accepted for certain pieces. And it’s really not as complex as it feels. And I’ve come to just enjoy that experience so much because I have so much faith in love. I have so much faith in human presence
Lily Eggers (03:14.762)
rewire through interaction. And I can say a lot more about that, but that’s, I tried to keep it brief. All the reasons I love relationships and couples.
Sam Believ (03:24.456)
Yeah, no, you, it’s, it’s very obvious you, you love it. It’s funny that you mentioned, uh, people mentioned, uh, people mentioning in the, in the end of their lives that they wish they spend more time with, um, with their loved ones instead of working so much because I just did a podcast episode, uh, on end of life.
and transitioning and all this stuff. So we just spoke about it. And yes, we, relationships are important, you know, our life, probably one of the most important things out there. You mentioned that there is this moment sometimes when there seems to be this unresolvable conflict and then magically you remove one little piece and then it all just goes back to normal.
How do you do that or how do you make couples remember that they actually love each other?
Lily Eggers (04:20.874)
Yeah. So part of my background is theater. I worked in the theater from a very young age, all into my twenties. And I almost treat it sometimes like a director might treat actors. Like it’s amazing how our bodies, it’s all wiring and inter, you know, there’s connection happening between humans. And so when we’re stuck and we’re like tight and we’re, you know, we’re like blocked and we have tension, there’s not a lot of goodwill.
and care that can flow between people. So sometimes I’ll just be like, OK, let’s do a meditation and let’s relax our bodies or let’s turn towards each other, keep your eyes closed and hold hands, or maybe go back to back so that you’re interacting but you’re not seeing the angry, resentful eyes that you look at and get defended against. So I sometimes work around people’s stuck ways of relating because they’re not going
So often that’s the problem really is there’s almost this, it’s almost like it’s, people get stuck in these patterns and then they think, well, it’s the only thing. It’s always gonna be this way. You’re gonna, I’m gonna come at you and ask for something and then you’re gonna retract. And then when you retract, I get angry and then I get angry and you walk out or whatever it is. It’s like, oh, it’s a pattern. It’s like a, it’s faded or something. And what I love about somatic work, which is embodied work is you just disrupt that.
You just don’t let that happen. So I do a lot of interrupting. I stop people. If I think someone’s going to say something that’s going to hurt the other person’s feelings, I might let it happen once or twice. And then I’m like, okay, that needs to never happen again. We’re not going to hurt each other like that. That’s just a rule. You don’t do that. Okay, no more. Okay, great. Now this is how I can help you do this. They’ll soften your voice or look at each other when you’re talking or turn towards each other. In these little subtle ways, you’re using their bodies to.
to bring back that remembering. And I would say in some ways it’s part of being a human is moving in and out that tension and release of the human experience. We have a startle response and then we calm down or we get stressed and then we go to bed and we have this kind of natural tension and release. And for couples, it’s about understanding how to have the tension, every couple has it, but then how to release the tension, how to soothe each other, how to soothe yourself.
Lily Eggers (06:47.746)
So with a couple session, it might be some of that direction of just, OK, let’s do this exercise. Let’s try that. Soften your voice. Close your eyes. Depending on where the couple is in their relationship, but I might say, tell them what you love about them. Tell them what you’re longing for. So you invite invulnerability instead of attack. Because that’s the most frequent thing I see, is people come in with, you’re doing it wrong. If you are different.
then I wouldn’t be so mad all the time or so disconnect or so angry, whatever. If you were different, I’d be better. It’s almost 100% of couples. It’s really compelling to think that that’s true. But what I see is a system, it’s always, always two people. It’s always two people in a system. So then how do we disrupt the system and shift the overall dynamic? Then it’s almost like…
I use the analogy of a garden a lot because I really think it helps when people think that a relationship is a live thing. It’s not stuck or stagnant. It’s not a noun. It’s a verb. You’re relationship-ing together. And that’s the practice and that learning how to do it, tending your garden is vital. Your garden will grow if you just throw seeds and then ignore it for weeks. You have to tend.
And tending is part of what you learn how to do with your partner. Oh, how do I tend? How can I love you better? How can I take care of you better? How can I know you better? And these are conversations that we may have in the first year. And then we have kids, and we have a mortgage, and we have all our responsibilities and our busy lives, and we forget that it’s a continued learning to how to love your partner better.
And having that be a real spiritual practice, how can I love you better is part of my growth for my partner.
Sam Believ (08:47.977)
Mm-hmm.
It just reminded me some people come here to the retreat one by one, not together, but and they say like, I want to learn how to be a better partner. I’m going to get married. I really respect those kinds of people because generally we’re kind of, we’re kind of selfish sometimes in this, in this work. And especially when you describe those couples, like being so deep into like this heart downwards
Sam Believ (09:20.122)
psychedelics and plant medicines common and be handy.
Lily Eggers (09:26.03)
I think that the key is it’s that stepping out of a pattern. So neurologically, it’s moving out of the default mode network. So when we have our way of being, like this is how I am, there’s a stuckness to that. And so I think somatics and I think there’s all kinds of ways in working with couples that don’t need medicine, that don’t need
plant medicine or psychedelics. And I think what’s amazing about plant medicine and psychedelics and entheogens are how they make the brain more available to itself so that the parts of the brain that you can access more insight and more depth and more compassion and more openheartedness, more forgiveness, all of that is more accessible, I would say, with most of those compounds.
And so it just speeds up the process. And it can be used. I also think, frankly, I think that most humans, this is my opinion, but most humans at some base level are deeply craving more ceremony and more ritual and more sacred in their lives. And that when we have a container, and again, this can be with or without compounds, but when we have a container of sacredness, we inherently like.
I don’t know how to say it, like rise to the occasion. We show up as better beings, I think, when we are more intentional and we have that. I like to think of it as like a North star. Why be a better partner? Well, because I want to be a better human or I want to be a better being or that gets to be an oriental. That gets to help us in those moments where we kind of want to be sarcastic or we kind of want to.
have a little contempt or maybe just not engage, just kind of shut down or something like that. These medicines help us have more options so that we don’t just do the thing that we always do.
Sam Believ (11:38.668)
I don’t know the exact mechanism, but I’ll just give you an anecdote from my personal life. Sometimes we’re in a conflict with my wife and I go Obviously we live at an ayahuasca retreat. We own one. I go to the ceremony and I participate. I generally drink one ceremony every month
And then I can’t even, I go back, I hug her, I love her again. And I can’t even understand. I can’t even remember what the conflict was because there is none. It’s just like an emotion like this. This is the complexity of relationships, right? Is that.
there can be five different truths depending on which emotional state you are right now. So when you work with couples, one is that you say, you know guys you should try psychedelic therapy instead and what do you normally recommend? Which medicine?
Lily Eggers (12:31.998)
Yeah, I generally I let us get to a place of a lot of stuckness. I don’t start people off with medicines because I really want them to feel empowered that this is something they actually can learn on their own. I usually introduce MDMA is my favorite for couples to start off with because it’s such an a heart opener. It’s really about it turns off the threat response.
so that people can hear each other. They’re also very lucid, so they’re not in other realms so much. But they’re lucid. They’re able to contemplate. They’re able to deeply hear each other. And the experience of being heard and held by another that’s not being defensive, because that’s what happens with the threat responses. We feel attacked, and so we defend. And then there’s this attack-defend thing that happens. When that is off the table, ugh.
humans are just so loving and so holding. And it’s almost like their innate goodness is awake and alive and they get to say, like, of course I want you to feel good. Of course I want you to know how sorry I am that I hurt you. And it flows so easily. So that’s a starting off point. It also tends to support couples if there’s trauma.
in the couple dynamic, if either member has trauma, MDMA is excellent for that. As I’m sure you have discussed before in past podcasts, the data is just becoming more and more supportive of how it’s one of the best ways for folks to access and resolve deeply held trauma. And for me, doing that within a couple…
Lily Eggers (14:25.814)
dynamic is actually the best way for folks to bring up trauma. They feel safe. They can be held by a safe other. Because even as our partners are both the most unsafe person, like they’re the ones that are activating us the most, they’re also the one we’re most open to. There’s the most room for healing. There’s the most room for growth, for a new way of experiencing ourselves with another. So.
It’s really beautiful. So I start there. I might do mushrooms at some point if the couple is really deeply into a more spiritual practice together. Then we may do that. I usually let them ask. I don’t necessarily invite, besides MDMA, which is usually when I’m starting to feel like, OK, we’ve done a lot of work in.
in the more traditional realms of, well, I’m not super traditional, but in the, in the somatic psychology, you know, office, I might do retreats or ceremonies without medicine. But, you know, if that, if those realms are, we’re still kind of regressing repeatedly, I will, I will, that, that might be a wonderful option for folks.
Sam Believ (15:37.984)
Okay, if nothing, if you ever come to the point where nothing else works, send them, send them to, to the wire. We did this to my wife because we had a couple once and they, they came over a bit more than a year ago and they said, basically they decided to get divorced and just said like, let’s just do this one last thing, just, just in case if nothing else worked. So they came to the retreat and I can luckily report now more than a year later, they’re still together. They just, I don’t know the mechanism.
Lily Eggers (15:43.291)
I will.
Sam Believ (16:07.978)
again that’s the biggest difficulty like you can’t explain what happened their journeys did not really have much to do with the with the couple specifically it was an individual journey two of them but somehow make them better people than together once again they started functioning and it’s fascinating to see that which kind of brings me to a topic that i noticed that
A lot of times couples when only one person starts their spiritual journey and starts working with the ayahuasca for example or other modalities, they start very slowly drifting away and they might even at one point feel like what am I even doing with that person? They just no longer vibe anymore. So I like to say couples that…
grow together, stay together. I don’t know if you ever in your couples therapy if you ever observed that phenomena.
Lily Eggers (17:03.466)
Yeah, I mean, I would say it’s really common for people to be at different kind of paces for spiritual practice. And some people are on a fast track, and they’re all about it, and another partner might be slow. And I think that difference couples can tolerate. I think they can deal with that. It’s when one of them may be very almost resistant to anything.
that those folks are hard to work with. They’re actually, there’s not a lot of room for workability. Like if you can’t receive, you can’t, you know, I don’t know, I’m going like this with my hands. It’s like, can you dance with me? If you can’t dance, if you’re like, no, I’m not dancing, then we can’t dance, you know. It’s just kind of how it goes.
Sam Believ (17:52.204)
I have a wild guess, maybe wrong, but I think people like this can really benefit from strong ancestral psychedelics because the only thing you need to do is to get them to come. And then when then the ayahuasca does the rest because it’s like dynamite that basically blows apart all those protective mechanisms that no longer serve the person. We have that happen a lot and normally it happens this way. There’s a couple and they want to come to the retreat together.
I’m just here for her or I’m just here for him. I’m not really here to drink I and then we know what to do We say, you know I maybe have a half a cup or something that and then gradually they realized they needed it more than the couple and I was really helps to Not like gently massage out the problem But like eat it out and then I believe somebody like you could come in and peace piece the pieces together and make it Make it flow very nicely again
Lily Eggers (18:36.941)
Right.
Lily Eggers (18:42.493)
Yeah.
Lily Eggers (18:52.522)
Yeah, it’s, I, ayahuasca is such a beautiful shock to the system. I think it’s, I think that is what is so deeply profound about ayahuasca is there’s no, you can’t really fake your way through. It’s just what it is. And if you integrate well and are conscious and let it be exactly what it was supposed to be, you know, and aren’t resisting it should have been this or that there’s just an infinite wealth. I’m still integrating my first ayahuasca journey 14 years ago. Like I’m still having moments of like, Oh, there it is.
Sam Believ (18:52.742)
Uh, you.
Lily Eggers (19:22.933)
It’s like, you know, it’s beautiful.
Sam Believ (19:23.96)
Yeah. Beautiful shock is a great way to describe it. So can you talk a little bit about your first experience or maybe the most meaningful ones, and your journey with Ayahuasca?
Lily Eggers (19:38.034)
Yeah, happily.
I would say my first, I’ll speak to the most meaningful, which was early on, I was in graduate school and it was everyone in graduate school was experimenting with eye well, I had never heard of it. I had no idea what I was doing. I was just like, well, if everyone’s doing it, I’ll give, sounds interesting, sounds really amazing. And I got this wonderful piece of advice from a dear friend who just said, accept that everything is happening.
exactly as it should. Like grandmother, the plant spirit is looking out for you and you’re getting exactly what you’re supposed to have. So whatever’s coming up is just right. It’s perfect for you at this moment. And I found that so I’ve used that just in my life. It has been such a relief as, as just as a principle of like, okay, this is, I’m not going to argue with reality. That’s a, that’s a waste of time. I’m going to work with
what is in front of me at this moment. But that actually wasn’t the point. That was all preparation for. The most profound eye journey was I took way more than I ever had before. And I completely, I was no longer Lily. I was interconnected to all things. And I had this experience, which was this shock of I am the chosen one.
And then I would have this like, oh my gosh, that’s so crazy. And then it would expand out to we’re all the chosen one. And then I would just laugh with like total delight and bliss. And then it would complete total amnesia. And then it would start over. I’m the chosen one. We’re all the chosen one. Oh my God, it’s so amazing. And then completely start over.
Lily Eggers (21:37.45)
the chosen one, we’re all the chosen one. And it was like, it was like the sands, like what like, like for all of eternity going through this incredible, like, like it was just a training in this principle, I guess in this, and I’m still making sense of all the meanings of this. But I, um, I reference it, I think about it. I, um,
The every piece of it has so much brilliance to me that I, yeah, it was undoubtedly the most profound Aya experience I’ve ever had. It was incredible. And it was scary in its own way because there was no beginning and end. Time really did not exist. It was forever that happened. But it was very pleasurable. The amount of just delight at.
like the bliss of realizing that I’m the chosen one. We’re all the chosen one. Like, ah, it just blew my mind every time. And it wasn’t until many hours or lifetime, or I don’t know, whatever it was time-wise, much later that I could actually even know that it was on repeat, you know, because I was in total amnesia at the beginning of each round.
I’m sorry.
Sam Believ (23:01.886)
Yeah, I felt that before and I felt the cyclical nature of it sometimes when it really wants to drive in the point, it does that. This realization that you had that everything is as it should be, it’s one of those things that really, it’s really hard for people to understand before they had that revelation themselves.
We’re just so used to be in the future in the past or but if you really think about it There is no other way like every molecule in the universe At the moment is exactly where it should be like there is no other way. Okay, it’s the only right way and It’s like one thing is saying it with words but the other thing is like really feeling it internalizing and then that’s the beauty of plant medicines they can like
Lily Eggers (23:40.45)
That’s exactly right. Yes.
Sam Believ (23:54.296)
teach us that, but then we like struggled to explain it with the words. Yeah.
Lily Eggers (23:58.474)
Yeah, yeah, it can move out of like a concept, like a theoretical and into the actual knowingness of it, which is a huge leap from understanding the concept to the knowing of it.
Sam Believ (24:13.268)
Definitely. On the topic of plant medicines, have you ever tried rapé?
Lily Eggers (24:19.263)
Yeah.
Sam Believ (24:20.792)
What I notice for myself, of course, not every time you have a conflict, you can go and drink ayahuasca or mushrooms or whatever. Sometimes I notice that what helps for me personally is working with tobacco. Let’s say I’m really in my head, really like there’s some stuck emotion, I’m just angry and it’s not going anywhere. In my work with ayahuasca, I learned how to work with tobacco.
which is basically a glorified way to say smoking a cigar, but like with an intention. And it’s been extremely helpful for me personally, not promoting smoking here guys, but like sometimes you just sit down and as you go through this process, you just completely change the way you see things and then it’s out of your system. But there’s many other ways that don’t include any substance or a specific plant.
What would you tell someone that let’s say they’re just like right now is they’re listening to this podcast You know their spouse is at home angry at them and they’re angry at them like any quick fixes anything they can do Right now to like ease the pain
Lily Eggers (25:29.306)
Mm-hmm. That’s a great question. I mean, I personally believe that really taking really letting ourselves bring our focus to ourselves can be such a gift. Bringing our awareness, our focus. So letting it be an energy and upset, whatever a feeling that’s inside of one’s body and tending to it as you would anything that’s not feeling good.
And the tending might be exercise, stretching, call someone, journal, meditation, breath work. I personally like to move my body. I feel like energy feels like it wants to move out of my body. I might do jumping jacks or push ups. I might sprint as hard as I can. I think that energetically when we move, I think it really supports us from that stuck feeling. I also think internal, again, that
internal work. So like even just putting your hands on your heart and your belly and doing some loving kindness meditation, just doing some may I be peaceful, may I be loved, may I be grounded, may I feel ease. That sending ourselves a prayer, giving ourselves permission to ask for help is often very, very soothing, very relieving for us when we feel like
our partner isn’t loving us, right? It’s activating an experience of abandonment, or maybe that’s sadness, or maybe it’s anger, or whatever, that disconnection. It’s activating something very old. So to give ourselves that which we’re wanting from our partner is so important. I recommend every partner member learn how to give yourself that which you
feel you so desperately need at times. And ideally your work with your partner, they’re gonna get better at that. That’s the growth. They’re gonna get better at loving you and holding you. But when they can’t or aren’t in the mood or are too tired or whatever, that you’re gonna be okay. You just, you know how to do that for yourself. I think it’s vital.
Sam Believ (27:40.376)
What is the key for a good relationship, Lily?
Lily Eggers (27:46.214)
Oh, how do I pick just one? I think one of the greatest gifts that we can offer our partner is the practice of saying yes to the whole person. So in the same way we were talking about arguing with reality, like that shouldn’t be that way. I don’t like how that is. When we do that to our partner, we are doing them a disservice. We’re splitting them. I like this about you, but I don’t like that.
You know, that creates an experience of like less, I don’t know, it’s just, it’s not how to love deeply and wholly. That when we can expand our love and say, I say yes to all of you. There are aspects of you that drive me nuts, that it’s annoying, that I would not choose. I wouldn’t pick those aspects of you. But I say yes to you.
that when we do that and then we just say, yes, it’s like, OK, I’m going to work with that part of you. I’m going to invite it in for tea. I’m going to say, OK, that distant or that angry or that resentful or that reactive part, I don’t like it, but I’m going to say it’s mine to work with because I say yes to you. I love you. And ultimately, that’s a way we practice with ourselves too. We can’t push out aspects of ourselves. We have to invite them in and say, OK, who are you? What’s happening? How do I work with you?
instead of against you as if you weren’t here. So I would say that is a major, it’s a paradigm shift for couples when they actually start.
inviting in that kind of consciousness in the way that they love each other. It’s a paradigm shift.
Sam Believ (29:32.408)
I don’t know why but the way you describe it, kind of like in loving yourself and that part of you that you don’t want to love, it kind of reminded me of a shadow work. Could it be that you’re pushing away the shadow side of your couple?
Lily Eggers (29:47.234)
Totally. Exactly, yeah, exactly.
Sam Believ (29:51.848)
Okay. Lily, what do women want? As I’m asking for all the guys that are listening.
Lily Eggers (30:02.43)
Oh, goodness me. I couldn’t possibly just say what women want. What I would say is what I see so much in every partnership, and frankly this goes beyond gender, is that people, humans, want to be accepted and they want to be loved and they want to be known. They want to be accepted, they want to be loved, and they want to be known. And that-
You know, what I was just saying, the key was about acceptance. And then through that comes love. I think love flows through acceptance. But it also comes from remembering the good parts of someone. So very often, when we especially live with our partner and we have to deal with them and we might see their annoying qualities more, we forget about the not annoying qualities, the beautiful qualities.
I mean, as I’m sure you know, our brains are negatively wired. So we naturally play out negative interactions. We play out annoying qualities. So it takes up a lot more space in our consciousness. So when we love someone, we actually practice balancing that out and remembering what we love, validating what we love about that person, what we appreciate. Thank you so much. I tell my husband this. Thank you so much for working so hard.
that you support our family in these ways, and that you’re tired after a long day, and you hang out with the kids, and I know you’re exhausted, and you have headaches and pain and whatever, and you work so hard for our family. Validation, we wanna be known. We wanna be seen for all of our life efforts. And I think that goes beyond gender. Because frankly, I think gender is sometimes a little, what’s more important than gender is attachment system.
and understanding the attachment system. Because sometimes you have a woman that needs space and a man who wants connection. And sometimes you have a woman who wants connection and a man who wants space. And so it doesn’t, it’s not super, I don’t think it says, it depends. It really depends.
Sam Believ (32:06.592)
Yeah, it was a very simplified question, but it was a funny one to ask. I’ll tell you an anecdote in our couple, because obviously we’re a plant medicine couple. We work here, both at the retreat. We started it together. So in a relationship, when there’s a conflict and there’s a lot of impatience, then you can say, you know, you should just calm down, which provokes a stronger reaction. In our relationship, we say like, you know,
you’re kind of not nice to be around like go drink ayahuasca that’s our way to say something is wrong. In one of your interviews you mentioned about this desire we have modern days modern day problems in a relationship as people they want this Instagramable perfect relationship that never really exists and then there’s another way of looking at it can you talk about it a little bit?
Lily Eggers (33:06.482)
Yeah. Well, I think the first thing people need to understand, kind of like I said in the beginning, is that you’re not choosing a partner. You’re not choosing a person who’s all the things you think they should be. What you’re choosing is a being to verb, this relationship verb with, until you don’t want to do it anymore with them. But ideally, you’re making some kind of commitment. I think people do better with some containment.
in the same way we hold a container for medicine work, it’s best held. Because if it’s too loose, it’s energetically confusing, or draining, or complicated. When it’s clear, it can be supportive. So that’s how I would think. I think it’s important that we understand that relationships are a verb and that humans are always growing. So they can look not very nice at times.
But when you believe in growth, when you believe that we’re always growing, we’re always growing, then relationships become simply, this is just a moment in time. It’s not a like, oh, this is who you are. It’s like, yeah, I’m having a moment in time. Like you said, your state of mind, it impacts your entire worldview. So I think it’s important for people to understand that when they’re looking at an Instagram post or a photo or whatever, they’re
Lily Eggers (34:35.678)
image that people want to represent an entire complex system. So whenever people are like, well, our relationship is so hard and all of our friends are so great, I’m always like, your friends are not great. Their relationship is fucked up too. Every relationship is messy. It hurts. It’s confusing. There’s leakages. There’s repair. There’s ruptures. And that is the truth and it’s okay.
And it is when you can just say, oh, this is natural. This is so natural. It is such a relief to so many people. And this is something I came to, Sam, on my own. My family was like, it was like we were disinfected. We had no conflict. And we were so great. We were the only functional family in the world. We were really special. Nobody fought at all. And it wasn’t until I got out into the world that I was like, wait.
Conflict is part of being vulnerable. If there isn’t conflict, then somebody’s holding back. That doesn’t mean it’s better. It’s when people are being themselves, which means they are different. That’s something I really, really stress with couples, that difference isn’t a problem unless you make it a problem. It’s actually something to accept and to expand around. Oh, you’re different.
How is it to be you? What’s it like to see things that way, or to respond in that way, or think that makes sense? And you see this a lot with especially folks who are parents, right? Each of you have your software download of how to parent. And then you come together with another person with different software downloaded. Suddenly, you’re going to get conflict. You should have conflict. And what I mean by that is I mean you should have conflict.
differences emerge that aren’t always easy to resolve. It means you stay in the discussion. You allow, you make space for the difference and let it be part of the enrichment that you share then with your children. But you certainly share with each other like, oh, you don’t need to agree with me, but I do want you to hear where I’m coming from. I don’t need to agree with you, but I want to know what the inner workings of your mind are. And when couples have those as values,
Lily Eggers (36:56.202)
Like, this is how we function. I hear you and I accept you, even if I don’t agree with you. That is a very nourishing, healthy way to be. And I would say, yeah, social media just completely sanitizes all of that, as if that doesn’t happen. And I think it’s unfortunate, actually. I think it’s too bad that when people don’t tell their stories of what was hard, what feels unresolved.
My husband and I recently had a beautiful, beautiful conversation where we shared some deep old resentments with each other. And then we realized we kind of have this like, okay, now we’ve shared them, like all is forgiven. And we were kind of like, you know, I’m not there yet. I’m not quite at the all is forgiven place, but it feels really good for you to hear about my hurt. And I want to forgive. I don’t want to hold onto this, but like honestly, I still kind of…
and pissed about it or, you know, I wish I hadn’t, you know, ah, so that’s what’s real. And now that gets to be part of our, something that we work towards healing and resolving. It’s not like everything has to be great all the time. In fact, there’s something off if people are saying that, frankly, in my opinion.
Sam Believ (38:14.112)
Yeah, when you just talked about how we should listen to each other and accept that there’s a difference, but then still move on as friends. I believe that’s not just couples. If you look at the society right now, especially in the US, there’s a lot of that like, oh, if you don’t think, hey, then we can be friends. You mentioned the word repair in a relationship. Can you talk about this systematic repair and how to practice it?
Lily Eggers (38:40.95)
Yeah. Mm. It’s so important. Repair, under, first of all, understanding that repair is a process and it has to be tended to. It’s a, it’s a process that every couple should really prioritize in their relationship. How do we do this? Because there will be rupture. So knowing that like, oh, I want to know how to do this. I want to learn how to do this. And I’d say the key aspects of repair are, first of all,
the person who’s been hurt.
really wants to be able to be heard without being defended against. So let’s for a moment say someone says, I’m hurt because you, um, you know, turned away from me when I was crying a few moments ago. Now the, it’s very compelling for the second person to say, well, I turned away because the baby was crying or I was fixing our food or I turned away because they want to, they want to reason with the feeling.
But that is a surefire way to not help repair. So I teach people really clearly, when someone says I’m hurt, you get, you put off, you compartmentalize all the reasons why you did the thing or didn’t do the thing or didn’t mean to do the thing. It doesn’t matter if you meant to or not. And you give a ton of space and care to the person who’s been hurt. And you make sure that they feel really heard. Oh, that didn’t feel good. That didn’t feel good when I turned away. Can you say more about it?
Come here. Then you comfort them like you would a child, right? Child cries, you’re not going to argue with their tears. You just comfort their tears. Oh, oh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. It doesn’t matter why. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t mean to. You don’t say those things right then. You wait. You just love the person and hold them. So that’s the first part of repair. Now
Lily Eggers (40:37.27)
The second part might be that the person, like for example, if it’s a thing that happens regularly, the first person that got hurt may need to hear something more. Like, I will really do my best to not do that again. I really get that hurts you and I don’t wanna hurt you. And so I am going to try to be better to not do that thing. Now that might be enough or it might not. It depends on the person. Usually people with trauma have…
harder time like deeply repairing or if they’re, you know, have attachment systems that are more insecure. But, um, but in general, those are the key pieces really being heard. And then there might be some sort of future acknowledgement. Now it might be the other person also wants to share, like, can I tell you, I really want to share with you like why I turned that feels really important because I don’t want you to think I was just being cruel. I like, I did have a reason. And then, and then you ask, that’s the thing about timing.
that you have to take turns and give each person a lot of space to finish. It’s like a completion process. They have to finish. So, for example, if you’re in a business meeting and you’re like, okay, we have four agenda items, folks. All right, let’s start with agenda item number one. And then someone’s like, well, item number two, I want to talk about that. Well, we’re not done with number one. Oh, but number three is really interesting. This is how most couples try to resolve conflict. And it never gets resolved because you have…
so many things on the table and you’re never finishing. So you finish that first person until they’re like, yeah, I’m complete. Thank you for hearing me. Thank you for acknowledging me. Thank you for assuring me that you will try not to do that in the future. And then it’s switching turn time for the other person to say, hey, I want you to, can I share with you why I turned away since I get that that.
felt like rejection or like whatever, like I don’t care about you, but I want you to know what happened for me. And then you’re switching sides. You’re changing roles. So then that person shares, Oh, well, I turned around because you know, I thought I heard the baby like choking. That’s a good reason to turn around. Right. And then the other person gets to be like, Oh, wow, I had no idea that’s, that’s what happened for you. Oh, thanks for telling me that I’m glad to, you know, but it’s a, it comes from a place of grace.
Lily Eggers (42:59.226)
it comes from a place of acknowledgement and it really is important that taking turns piece. You have to finish with one person before you move on to the next person.
Sam Believ (43:11.837)
That’s a great explanation because a lot of times we want to sort of bundle all the conflicts together where you know you’re less guilty than the other one and bring it up because like yeah but I did that but look at what you did the other time. When you… Go, go, go.
Lily Eggers (43:20.632)
Yes.
Lily Eggers (43:25.566)
Yes, yes, yes. That is so that can I speak to that because that’s so important. Because when we think like that of like that sort of winning and losing as if like I’m better or my feelings are more valid than yours or I have a better whatever it fundamentally means in that moment that we’re not on the same team. We’re not on the same team. We’ve moved into competitors.
You’re in competition. And what I like to really, really drill into my couples is that you are always on the same team. You might be mad at someone or they might have hurt your feelings or whatever, but it doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. It just means a cause and effect happened. No one’s bad. There’s no fault. It’s just a cause and effect. And if you think about like volleyball…
There’s two people on a volleyball team, and you have to work together all the time. Even if there’s a misunderstanding, you’re never like, I’m better than you, or I’m more right than you. That’s just not how you have the conversation, because it’s so consistently not effective. So if you or any of the listeners here find yourselves in that competitive moment of like, I want to catch you, or I want to.
Name how what you’re asking me to do, you haven’t been doing. That’s a favorite, right? Like to really step away and be like, I am dysregulated. It means you’re in a threat response. You’re in an attack or defend place, fight, flight, or flee, whatever, freeze. And it’s time to relax and soften and actually move away. So I teach couples how to de-escalate. Get away from engagement if you can’t help.
but be on opposite teams. Nothing beneficial comes out of that. Just stop, go take a break, go take a walk or a bath or shower, exercise, drink some ayahuasca, whatever, but come back when you’re on the same team again. No.
Sam Believ (45:32.808)
Go do some MDMA to switch up the threat response. Lily, I’m sure as a couple therapist, you noticed increase in the amount of patients after the COVID or during the COVID because we personally noticed that there was, you know, mental health crisis is a thing and it’s only getting bigger. And COVID was like this big catalyst. And I’m sure with couples, like all of them were just locked in same apartments
Lily Eggers (45:38.05)
That would do it.
Sam Believ (46:02.502)
places to escape to and a lot of things came up to surface. So my question is, did you notice it and then also what are your thoughts on the larger sort of mental health crisis and what can we do about it?
Lily Eggers (46:17.47)
Mm-hmm. What’s interesting about lockdown and COVID time is that I actually saw both happen. That depending on the couple and depending on what their area of struggle was, some couples actually did better when they were in lockdown because one member or both members of the couple needed more contact and they got it because they never left. So some couples actually did better and some couples did worse because they had been hiding or pushing down.
conflicts. And like you said, they’re now suddenly they can’t get away from each other. And so many couples did really struggle. So that was definitely, I think, both happened during COVID lockdown. I think the wider mental health issue is very serious. Just even as you’re talking about it and I connect to that concept, I feel a lot of heaviness and sadness. And I think it goes back, frankly, to parenting. I think it goes, it’s more than just adults.
suffering, it’s how we’re holding our kids through milestones and through their childhood. I think social media, I think introducing screens really young, I think teaching disconnection. I think human beings are, it is becoming so normalized to be deeply, deeply disconnected from yourself, from others. Our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter.
Um, so all of these, for me, it, it means that we actually can’t be nourished by some of the most nourishing aspects of being alive, which is interaction, human interaction, whether it’s laughter or play or whatever conversation, um, even just being in silence with another person you care about. We don’t know how to do it anymore because we’re so attached to our phones and it’s so normalized. You know, it’s not even like pathologized to, to have this.
this very small attention span. And then, not surprisingly, we have tons of anxiety. We have all this insecurity in our teenagers and depression. And to me, it all feels rooted to not having community spaces, not practicing, not having it even be part of people’s upbringings to have any kind of sacredness. I mean, we don’t even, it’s like we don’t even have
Lily Eggers (48:39.434)
sacred art in our homes. We don’t even have a concept of it. And I think that that’s a, I think it’s hurting people. And I think, I mean, it’s amazing to me how many couples don’t even eat meals without watching a screen. So there’s a lot, there’s a lot to that question. But I think, I think group healing is the way of the future because it’s super, it’s super inefficient to have individual therapy.
And it’s unnecessary. I mean, it is for some people, but I think that for most people’s actually group work is what they need, actually. They need that sense of community and collaboration. They wanna be reflected. They wanna feel held. They don’t wanna feel alone because that I think is the root of so much of people’s misery is this inaccurate perception of their aloneness.
Sam Believ (49:33.016)
I’m glad you’re mentioning community and groups because here at Lawara, one of our mottoes is you come for Ayahuasca, you stay for the community because people really bond through this process of both taking Ayahuasca together and also sharing and group sessions are amazing. Like what we do here, we call it word circles and people share before the
Sam Believ (50:03.09)
the version that they used to provide then we encourage them to go deeper then they go deeper and all of a sudden masks come off and during the week people just this vulnerability comes out and everyone just bonds like crazy and people become like families and it’s just beautiful to observe and I believe that here at the retreat at least half of the work comes from just a group
not the medicine place part and everything, but the group is where the magic happens. And a lot of times people, they’re worried about like, oh, I’m gonna go there, there’ll be 20 other people and like, what if I don’t like them? It’s because they experience group as we do them in our normal society. But then when they come here and then there’s group plus vulnerability.
Lily Eggers (50:40.28)
Totally.
Sam Believ (50:57.712)
It’s a totally different setting. Can you talk a little bit about vulnerability, its importance in relationships?
Lily Eggers (51:05.698)
Yeah.
I mean, I think to some extent it’s tempting to try to uphold these, like you said, the way that we present that feels comfortable. I’m strong and I’m independent and I’m really smart and I’m really good at these things and that’s comfortable. I’m cool, the world knowing this much about me. And then what happens in intimate relationships is all these masks, like you said, they come off.
And then we actually see like, oh, but I can also be grumpy and I can be inconsistent and maybe I don’t tell the truth all the time and maybe I’m, you know, like all of the things. People are just in, people are human. They have all these things. And vulnerability is the trust, I think, the willingness to take this risk of being seen in a perhaps less than perfect light. And I think it’s essential because it gives you,
confidence and security because you feel known. That’s why I said earlier, it’s so essential that people feel known, that they can trust being known. I do think it’s a deal-breaker for relationships is that when someone can’t hold your vulnerability, they’re not a good partner. I think
many people don’t know how to hold. So I like to teach people how to hold each other, but some people just won’t do it. And that is, I think, a deal breaker in relationship of like, this person is intentionally choosing when you are vulnerable to push you away. That I think is a fundamental deal breaker. And I don’t have many deal breakers. I actually think most couples can almost overcome almost anything, but that is one of them. Because it’s sacred, and I’m using that word again,
Lily Eggers (52:58.926)
sweet and tender about a vulnerability. It’s like you’re offering up this really tender part of yourself. And so it’s important that someone learns how to hold it with the same sacredness with which you’re sharing it. And that’s so beautiful. When couples do that, it’s so beautiful.
Sam Believ (53:24.052)
Yeah, that is very true. In one of your interviews, you mentioned that you once ended up in a yoga cult. Can you talk a little bit about that and also how you got out? And also, what would you tell people that come to work with plant medicines, for example, how to avoid retreat centers that are very cultish?
Lily Eggers (53:35.426)
I did.
Lily Eggers (53:54.118)
Yeah, yeah, that’s a great question, Sam. I’m so glad you’re asking it. Because I actually think within the psychedelic space, there’s a lot of potential and room for narcissistic people to like really get a lot of power and feel very, they can develop sort of
groups of people who idolize them. I think that can happen a lot in the plant medicine and in the sacred sort of space. So I’m really glad you’re bringing that up. In my experience, well, I think in my experience, I recently heard a quote that said something like, people don’t join a cult. They join a really good thing. And that’s what happens at the beginning. So when I started, I was 26. I was…
depressed. I didn’t know what I was doing with my life. I was kind of in that like post, you know, post college, like what am I doing? I just feel like my life is being wasted. I care about stuff. I really want a mission. I want to, I want to do something that matters. And I started taking this yoga class that changed my life. It was like Qigong. I felt energy move. We gathered energy in our, in our Don Tien and our lower abdomens. We held postures for really long periods of time.
And I felt myself just be like, oh, this is what I want to do. I want to awaken people to their bodies and to themselves. I want to teach people how to meditate and be conscious and aware in their lives. And so I can say that on the bottom level, it’s a beautiful thing. It’s a practice. It’s a community. Talk about community. We would have like tea ceremony after class and connect so deeply, so much more deeply than I connected anywhere else in my social life.
And then it’s like as you ascend, as you kind of do more programs and then do more programs. And then I started teaching, then I started, you know, teaching groups. And then and you ascend higher and higher up, you start to feel the pressures. And this is where I use the phrase narcissism, because narcissism is a very particular way of being. It’s very self-focused. It’s a it’s a personality disorder. But narcissistic traits are seen all the time. And.
Lily Eggers (56:11.262)
And what happens is they create questioning in the other person. So a narcissist will make you doubt yourself because you’re unhappy with something. And the problem is this comes under the umbrella of personal growth a lot. Oh, if you’re not a victim, if you’re not going to be a victim in life, or if you’re going to be autonomous and you’re going to take responsibility for your life, then you have to take responsibility for everything, which means if you don’t like something I did,
That’s your problem to look at. And it’s extremely dangerous because it turns people who are really seekers, introspective, they want to make a difference in the world, into like, oh, there must be something wrong with me if I’m questioning. There must be something wrong with me if I’m doubting. And luckily, I was not in it long. I don’t feel like I had deep psychological damage because I started to very quick. I was in about a year and a half, two years. But I quickly saw this isn’t.
This gets sick the higher up I go. Weirdly, it also was amazingly healing. They offered programs that chronic pain patients or people with MS or whatever would go to, and they would heal. They had spontaneous healing. So I feel conflicted by the whole thing, which is there’s a lot of good, but there’s fundamentally some really dark stuff that made you not actually feel. It’s called undue influence.
I think I’m in control of my choice, but I don’t feel like I’m in control because I don’t really have a choice. Because if I say no, that means I’m bad or I am somehow not choosing my soul. And that was the language they would use, is like, I’m not choosing my soul if I don’t do this expensive program that I’m not sure I want to do, but I have to. It’s that kind of, I think I have control, but I don’t have control. And I’m.
I think it’s really insidious because it can happen slowly and it can happen with so much love and care. So you hear a lot about narcissistic abuse in relationships, like the narcissist love bombs at first. They couldn’t be a more attentive, loving, compassionate, gracious, generous partner. And then little by little, they start to make you question yourself and question yourself. And then like, why are you have so many problems? Or why are you complaining so much?
Lily Eggers (58:33.878)
You know, your mom is really like this, too. I can see where you get that, right? These little digs that make the partner get really confused. So it can happen at a group level, too. And that’s where I actually really love you’re asking that because the group level, and I think psychedelics have a way of doing that. If you take psychedelics and then you look to the head of the room and they have their singing and they are burning incense and they put their hands on you and you’re like, oh!
Oh my God, I’ve seen God or something. You can get confused and there are people who absolutely thrive on that power. And it’s not always people who are well-intentioned. I mean, they might have good intentions in there, but alongside it is this real, real hunger for absolute power and control of other people. So I think it’s good that people be curious. There’s a lot of literature out there about what to look for.
about being in a high control group and what it means to be in a high control group. Like if you feel you can’t leave without somehow being shunned or punished, that kind of thing. That’s a high control group and it’s definitely worth reading. There’s so much stuff out there to look into.
Sam Believ (59:50.592)
Yeah, thank you for explaining it. I personally would add a few more things. One is if you come to a retreat, any spiritual retreat, plant medicine retreat, the place should be as neutral as possible, meaning like if they have a very specific belief system.
a special like religious sort of aspect to it, then your adjustability state on Ayahuasca, you’ll probably get drawn into that and so avoid that. And if, so basically you should learn from Ayahuasca and everything else should be instructions how to connect to Ayahuasca better. If a shaman or a chief facilitator tried to like,
Lily Eggers (01:00:12.817)
Mm-hmm.
Sam Believ (01:00:34.116)
you believe in a very certain type of truth and then it’s a red flag and also yeah of course people are very suggestible and you get a lot of gratitude and love when you
are the person that organizes it. So it’s kind of like important to not allow your ego to like, wow, look at me, it’s all about myself, I’m this and that. So you have to sort of be kind of like, I guess humble about it and not really make it about yourself. And then as time goes on, it worries often. So not taking advantage of this feeling. So if you have, and we had unfortunately facilitators over the years that.
they would try to be in the person’s face exactly at the moment when they’re going through this big breakthrough and then try to make it all about themselves. And I remember at first I was like, wow, this guy’s so great. People mention him so much in the word circles. I was like, and I was like, but we were as good before he came here and we’re…
Lily Eggers (01:01:19.391)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam Believ (01:01:31.204)
probably going to be same when he leaves and then I realized like what he was doing is just a very sort of low self-esteem was feeding on all those positive energies and but yeah you got to you got to be careful out there so look for the right place.
Lily Eggers (01:01:44.042)
Yeah, yeah, we want to feel people I think feel like they want to be involved, like they want it to be about them instead of about the plant or instead of about like for me, I see couples, it’s about the love between them. All I’m doing is helping them regenerate the love between themselves. It’s not mine. It’s not me.
It’s just me helping them do that thing, which is really what does the healing is the love. Love is healing. It’s a loving energy.
Sam Believ (01:02:15.78)
That’s a good point. It’s not about you. Also, if you go to the retreat, ask a shaman, like, who does the healing? If he says like, wow, I’m so great, I do the healing. Run. If he says like, no, I’m just channeling God, ayahuasca, they tell me what to do, then it’s a good thing. So yeah, to sum it up, be careful guys. Be aware of narcissists.
Lily Eggers (01:02:22.83)
Mm-hmm.
Sam Believ (01:02:40.416)
Um, Lily, thank you so much. It was very great episode. I think we talked about a lot. I specifically learned few, few new things. So when, where can people find more about your work or maybe where can they find, um, if somebody wants to like hire you as a therapist.
Lily Eggers (01:03:02.355)
Yeah. The best place to start is my website, which is just lilieeggers.com. I am at the moment taking a slight sabbatical as I finish my book. I’m working on a book that hopefully will come out in the next few months. So I’m not accepting new clients at this moment, but I really welcome people if you feel inspired to be on a wait list. I am planning on in the fall.
I’m certainly starting to run my couples groups. I have online couples groups. I see couples individually, privately, and I also am going to begin running retreats as well. So any of those areas, if you’re interested, please do reach out and I can put you on a wait list. You can reach out through my website or whatever feels good.
Sam Believ (01:03:48.664)
LillieEggers.com, right? I’ll add it to the show notes if I don’t forget. Lillie, thank you so much. Also, if you’re maybe for somebody who listens to that a year from now, if your book is already out, what’s the book’s name?
Lily Eggers (01:03:51.104)
Yes.
Lily Eggers (01:03:56.13)
Thank you.
Lily Eggers (01:04:00.181)
Yeah.
Lily Eggers (01:04:07.302)
Yeah, okay. It’s going to be called The Intentional Relationship. Ten weeks to generate more kindness, compassion. Oh no. Shoot, I can’t remember all the four things. Kindness, I came up with it like three years ago when I first decided to write a book. Anyway, look up intentional relationship. The last part might be edited. What’s that? And then ten weeks. That’s right.
Sam Believ (01:04:29.644)
And then 10 weeks. Yeah, 10 weeks and the last part is a surprise for you guys. So you might want to check it out.
Lily Eggers (01:04:36.186)
Exactly. Yeah, it’s it tended to be like a manual that you go through as a couple. So it’s not just getting information, it’s actual practices, and how to start utilizing them as soon as possible to shift that systemic relational stuckness. So
Sam Believ (01:04:42.753)
Thank you.
Sam Believ (01:04:56.88)
That’s great. Thank you so much, Lily. Guys, you’ve been listening to ayah As always with you, whole Sam believe. We were joined today by Lily Eggers and I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will see you in the next one.
Lily Eggers (01:05:13.038)
Thank you so much.