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Stay Sparked #3 - "Getting Personal with the Plant Medicine, Ayahuasca"
7 Plays3 years ago
Ayahuasca is no longer underground. It has left the rainforests and is showing up all over the world as a transformative medicine. Each of us has 10+ years experience with it, so we share some of our reflections and learnings.
HOSTS
JANUS REDMOON is a 10-time Burner, and has spent the last several years as an advocate for psychedelic medicine research and treatment. He is the founder and CEO of NuWorld Nutritionals, a nutritional supplement company providing mushroom-based, all-natural products to improve and maintain health for both body and mind.
http://www.nuworldnutritionals.com
BETSY FINKLEHOO is a healer of massage therapy, CranioSacral and Dharma Coaching. She is an 8 year burner and has spent the last several years seeped in the personal development world, cultivating her passion for transformation and growth. Her recent project, The Power Affirmation Journal and virtual group empowers women to cultivate self awareness and healthy habits so they can live in greater freedom, mind body and spirit.
HALCYON is full-time Love Ambassador. He is the founder of Hug Nation youtube channel and daily zoom gratitude circles. He is co-founder of the Pink Heart Burning Man camp and the 1st Saturdays project for people experiencing homelessness. In his free time he coaches groups and individuals on how to live joyfully and authentically.
http://links.hugnation.com
MASSIVE Thank you to Dub Sutra for their beautiful opening music. Check out their incredible music catalogue online.
https://dubsutra.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Stay Sparked' and Ayahuasca
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In a world with increased negativity, division, and despair, how do we stay inspired?
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On this show, we explore the most profound life lessons from Burning Man, relationships, entrepreneurship, psychedelics, spirituality, travel, and more.
00:00:17
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Welcome to Stay Sparked.
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On this episode, we talk about ayahuasca.
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We get to talk about the power of the feeling called to participate in ayahuasca.
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We're going to share some of our own personal experiences with sitting with this medicine, learning about what is ayahuasca.
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As well as the power of intention and what we are looking to gain from this medicine, what this medicine has to offer, and how we can take what it has to offer and bring it out into the world so that we can live our best lives.
Meet the Co-hosts: Betsy and Yanus
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First, I want to say thank you so much to Dub Sutra for that amazing intro music.
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I want to start us off by introducing our co-hosts.
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I want to introduce Betsy.
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She is a healer.
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She is a coach.
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She is the author of the Power Affirmation Journal, and she is a joy in this world.
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Welcome, Betsy.
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Thank you so much, Halcyon.
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So grateful to be here with you guys.
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So Betsy, what are you feeling grateful for in this moment?
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Today I am so grateful for the beauty of nature.
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Every time I look outside and see the plants and I see the ocean and the trees and the birds, I just feel so much gratitude for the beauty that I get to see every day.
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Mm-mm-mm!
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I love it.
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As I am looking above this camera, I am seeing beautiful plants growing in my house and in the yard.
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And what a treat to be reminded of that and not to walk by and miss smelling the flowers.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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And also hosting is Yanus.
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Yanus is the founder and CEO of New World Nutritionals and a constant source of grounding wisdom.
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Welcome Yanus.
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Thank you so much, Halstead and Betsy, for having me on today.
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And in this moment, what are you feeling grateful for?
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I am feeling grateful for having spent the last couple days surrounded by friends and chosen family and having a really...
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fantastic, you know, time filled with good food and great conversation, good company, a lot of generous giving and open hearts were present and made a made for a really wonderful last three days.
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And waking up today feeling especially sparked from that and feeling, feeling, feeling the love still beaming and glowing from the last, you know, few days of the holiday weekend.
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So it's been a good.
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Yes.
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Yes.
Gratitude and Connection
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And I am Halcyon.
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I am the host of the Hug Nation YouTube channel and the co-founder of the First Saturdays Homeless Outreach in San Diego.
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And I am feeling grateful in this moment for a boys get-together that I had after the holidays with my oldest of friends that I've known since I was five years old and my best friend from high school.
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And just the incredible depth of laughter you have with people that you have shared years and years and years of experience with.
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Such a treat.
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So grateful for that.
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Speaking of that, grateful for all of the history and shared experiences that the three of us have, which makes it a perfect group for us to dive into another
Understanding Ayahuasca: History and Practice
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topic.
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And today the topic is ayahuasca.
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So Yanus, would you help us understand what ayahuasca is?
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Ayahuasca is a...
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traditional ceremonial plant, medicinal plant from originally from South America.
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It's kind of permeated throughout the world of late, but it is a, it is a plant medicine derived of two specific plants.
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Other added other plants could be added to it, but the main two components are the actual ayahuasca vine,
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And that is combined with a plant called chacruna, which is a plant that contains DMT.
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And those two together, mashed up and boiled and properly prepared over several hours, produces the brew tea, referred to as ayahuasca.
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And that is a...
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a concoction that you can consume, usually in ceremony, a ceremonial space, led by a facilitator or, you know, medicine, medicine man or woman.
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And
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Yeah, use for all sorts of, you know, whether it's that you're looking for healing or clarity or insight or just a reset.
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Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff that comes out of that, comes out of that space.
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So this blows me away that it's not like many people.
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plant medicines where if you eat it or you smoke it, you feel an experience.
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This has to be combined, right?
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You couldn't just eat or ingest one of these plants on its own and have an experience.
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So how the heck does this happen that people know to mix these up?
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Um, my own, um, personal, um,
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information on that what i was told from somebody who you know from from down in peru who uh told me about the history of it was that they the original indigenous uh tribes at shipibo who were among the first to um to experience this medicine or first to create this medicine they they were asked um how did they learn this and they said that the plants told them
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So and there is and that's as my opinion, that's as valid as any other like, you know, sorts of how did how did they come up with this?
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And so that said, you know, there's a lot of human trial and error that, you know, figures out like, OK, you know, this this this will this mushroom.
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Is this much remittable?
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Yes, this one, you know, well, it's all edible once at least.
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Right.
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But if you figure how many combinations of brewing something down for many, many hours must have there been to get to that.
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It's just, it's got to be some sort of divine inspiration.
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So speaking of divine inspiration and it, it feels like it is the,
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the path of medicine work that is the most tied to and integrated with ceremony.
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Is that as have you guys ever?
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Let me ask that.
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How much is ceremony a part of this experience, Betsy?
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It's for me and my personal experience with this medicine has been one of the primary things that comes out of this experience.
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I don't know anybody that has drank this tea on their own or participates in it recreationally.
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It really is a container that is set that is, like Janus was saying, provided by a medicine man or woman or shaman and prayed over and really set up in a way that can be a very deeply spiritual experience.
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And I feel like that that is a key component to bringing the most healing, the ceremony aspect of it.
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Yeah.
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I mean, generally my experience has been it is a two or three night weekend experience where you go through a bunch of meditational and ceremonial times with a group of people.
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And so to me, that has been as significant as
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the medicinal and the, you know, psychedelic experiences is this communal aspect of sitting with people and then spending time with people afterwards and processing with people and really having bonds with individuals after a weekend of this that is as strong as relationships I've had for, you know, decades now.
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Absolutely.
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You and I actually sat in our very first ayahuasca ceremony over 10 years ago.
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And it absolutely was a bonding experience.
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And in the ceremony itself, and every ceremony that I've sat in, it is a very individual experience.
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We're not talking or touching or engaging during the ceremony.
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But like you said,
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throughout the weekend, having the integration moments and to be able to have a place where we can share some of our experiences afterwards has really created deep bonds.
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It's such a beautiful gift.
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It is community focused.
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And one of the things I love about it is that what I've seen is it builds a
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what I like to call and hear is medicine family.
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So when I hear somebody that has participated in this experience, there is this heart connection, kind of similar to when you meet another burner, you know, there's like, Oh, you've been to Burning Man.
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Oh, okay.
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I see you.
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I feel you.
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I know you are you've participated in in sitting with the ayahuasca.
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Ah, okay.
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There's this
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this connection that is built and this understanding of our similarities.
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That's a great comparison because just as with Burning Man, it is not all fun.
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And there is a real struggle and a challenge as well as incredible
Choosing the Right Ayahuasca Journey
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gifts.
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And I think that in both situations also,
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They're not things that I would tell people, oh, you've got to go.
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You know, it's something where if you're called, then really think through, is this something that is right for you in your journey that you can commit to this and you can be willing to let go of your expectations of it?
00:10:13
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Yeah, that's an important thing.
00:10:17
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And I think a lot of us may – I only want to speak for myself, but I think a lot of us, whether it's our experiences with Burning Man or experiences with ayahuasca, my initial coming out of that first experience was, oh my God, everybody has to do this.
00:10:32
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Everybody has to go.
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And very quickly, you know, before, before my next time attending my next time participating, realizing like, no, this is, it's, this is not for everybody.
00:10:42
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Um, despite how much I got out of it or continue to get from it.
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Um, it's, you know, it's medicine and, you know, you're not going to take, you know, cough syrup if you have a headache, for example.
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So, um,
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So it's important to kind of really suss it out and be like, OK, is this something that is that I might benefit from?
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Is this something that might be good for me?
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And really be critical, critically assess whatever the experience is.
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Is this something that is going to benefit me that I will be able to carry forward?
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you know into you know into my life and sometimes the answer is no so um it's important that self-check and sometimes you can know by sussing it out kind of ahead of time and sometimes you have to actually dive into that experience and then come out the other side and be like yes exactly what i needed more please or be like yeah no no that wasn't uh that's that's not my jam so
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But yeah, that self-assess is critical.
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And another aspect of that being called to it, I think, is recognizing that there are many different people that lead this and many different schools and churches in different traditions.
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And that it's not like you just decide, oh, I need to get a physical, so I'm going to go to a doctor.
00:12:00
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There's many different ways.
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There's different types of chiropractor, different types of massage or therapy.
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If you need a therapist, you can't just go, oh, I'm going to just pick one out of the Yellow Pages and know that it's going to be a good fit for you.
00:12:16
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I've sat with probably 10 different
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people who lead ceremony and looking back, realized there are some that were very much not for me, very much not the vibe and very not even maybe a healthy experience for me and other people.
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And so can you, when either of you speak to that, is that a reality?
00:12:40
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Have you sat with people that are no good?
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Yes.
00:12:48
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Yeah, I love this whole conversation, one, around the calling and feeling an intuitive sense that it's time for you.
00:12:56
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And from my personal experience of what I've witnessed is when that calling is getting stronger, then the pathway reveals itself, much like anything, right?
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If you're feeling all of a sudden inspired to go to a yoga retreat, it's something inside of you that you feel, then all of a sudden you're going to be getting emails or emails
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different things, conversations will pop up that you're going to start to see retreats, yoga retreats.
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It's the same thing with my experience of ayahuasca.
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I don't know the mystery of how it works, but it just feels like when that calling is a yes, then the path reveals itself.
00:13:34
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And then speaking to your point on doing your research and finding who is the right facilitator for you is so critical.
00:13:42
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Because, yeah, I have sat with a variety of different ceremonialists, and some are really high level that are different.
00:13:52
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deeply integrated into the history and holding the frequency of deep prayer and very deep reverence.
00:14:01
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And I've also sat with other facilitators that are very surface level that don't really even go back into the prayer or the history or even the knowledge that some of the other facilitators have brought because I've learned so much from these beautiful medicine keepers
00:14:21
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These people that go into the jungles and sit with these tribes and bring back the information from these tribes, from the plants, I feel is a really important component.
00:14:31
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And I feel like, you know, it's an interesting time that we're in because it seems more and more people are wanting to serve the medicine, but maybe not necessarily having the training.
00:14:41
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in order to be able to bring it through in the highest way.
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And so there's, yeah, I think your and I first ceremony was a little chaotic.
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There was a lot of like cross singing and just the confusion and it seemed a little wild.
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Whereas the second time I participated, it was
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deeply reverent and very focused and very full of light.
00:15:07
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And it was an absolutely different experience.
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So I think it does make a really big difference to find facilitators that really work for you and that, that have training.
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I think that's a really, really helpful part of the experience, especially for your first time.
00:15:22
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And I think that's important to like, because it is,
00:15:26
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is no longer something that is very underground.
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And so you have to know somebody who knows somebody who then trusts you and tells you about it.
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Like you could now, you might hear this recording and go, this sounds awesome.
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And then you're going to see Facebook ads for, for, for retreats, you know, and you go, Oh, cool.
00:15:42
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I'm being called.
00:15:43
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I'm being shown the path.
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I would say sit with it a little bit longer that there, there are people taking advantage of the desire that are not,
00:15:53
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in the same kind of integrity as a true powerful facilitator is.
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And my experience, you know, after a number of experiences with different people is that the people that I am now trust to lead are obviously among the, no, absolutely the most impressive human beings I've ever met.
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And so even just spending time with someone and I even think it's more than just a training.
00:16:21
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There is a calling.
00:16:21
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There is something in the truly gifted people that is you cannot train enough to get there.
00:16:33
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You have to be led there.
00:16:37
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Yeah.
00:16:38
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And yeah, to both those, to both those points, you know, there's the concept of, you know, just because you can doesn't mean that you should.
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And with the birth, the proliferation of ayahuasca and the improved
00:16:54
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for want of a better term, access to the medicine.
00:16:57
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You do have a lot of people who are leading ceremony that probably should be finding another endeavor for themselves.
00:17:05
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But that's where the discernment on our end is important.
Personal Transformations with Ayahuasca
00:17:11
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If somebody is going into it for the first time, I think a lot of us have the experience of our first time sitting with the medicine.
00:17:17
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There was something that while the medicine itself is, you know, is is exemplary in many ways, the people providing the medicine like there's there's an aspect where there's a knowing like, OK, I like what's going on here, but I would like to find somebody else to do this with.
00:17:36
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And it's important that first time if you have that feeling like.
00:17:40
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If it's not your jam, it's not your jam, but don't let your alignment or lack of alignment with the facilitator dissuade you from continuing on that path and being like, okay, so I would like to experience this in a different setting.
00:17:54
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And that was my experience as well.
00:17:56
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The first time was an introduction to the medicine, the people that were holding the ceremony.
00:18:03
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wonderful people, but not particularly, I wasn't feeling particularly aligned with them, but I sat with them again.
00:18:10
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And then the person who I ended up sitting with multiple times happened to be there that second time.
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And it was, I was like, Oh, that, that guy, that's, that's the, that's the guy I want to be sitting with.
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And I continued to sit with him for many years after that.
00:18:24
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And that's how I found my way to
00:18:25
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you know, my specific path with that medicine was just kind of continuing to kind of, you know, heed that calling and make my way to the people who, you know, became some lifelong friends and some, like, like Halston said, are really some of the best people I've ever met and known.
00:18:41
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So, so yeah, stay the course if you feel that, you know, this is for you and don't be too, too quick to decide that this is not for you.
00:18:54
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So my first experience, as we've talked about, was a little wild and wacky, but there were experiences during the night with the medicine that forever changed me.
00:19:04
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You know, like I had an epiphany about my father that absolutely changed my relation to him.
00:19:11
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I was able to see him not as so different from me, but as very much like me, but just a parallel life with different experiences.
00:19:22
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specifics to it.
00:19:23
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Both of us, I saw him as a servant to the law, whereas I see myself as a servant to love.
00:19:34
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But in the way that we view ourselves, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm just like my dad.
00:19:39
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And it was such a beautiful epiphany.
00:19:41
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I'm wondering, Betsy, could you share something that has sparked you from your experiences with the medicine?
00:19:47
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Yeah.
00:19:49
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Yes, I love hearing that.
00:19:50
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I feel like the hearing each other's stories and each other's breakthroughs and talking about it after helps even bring it home even deeper and supports the integration.
00:20:01
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So I love sharing stories from my personal experience and hearing yours.
00:20:07
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I've had some really profound breakthroughs in my own deep relationship to the earth.
00:20:13
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I feel like that has been one of the biggest breakthroughs that I have experienced in this journey work.
00:20:20
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I've done ayahuasca, I think about nine times over the last 10 years.
00:20:24
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And each time it reminds me of the interconnectedness of the earth and my own relationship to the earth and how I choose to walk on this planet and how I choose to listen to my intuition and pay attention to the ocean and to the animals and to the trees and the forest and the mountains.
00:20:47
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Whereas before, I feel there was a sense of separateness.
00:20:52
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I couldn't comprehend this concept that we're all one, that we're part of this earth.
00:20:58
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I felt, you know, yeah, separate.
00:21:01
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And the ayahuasca and the experiences that I've had really have helped me to
00:21:07
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just connect on a much deeper level.
00:21:09
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And also it has helped me to come into a relationship to my own spirituality as well, because, you know, growing up I was raised Jewish, but sort of surface level Jewish because my grandparents were
00:21:27
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were very religious, but my parents weren't.
00:21:31
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And so there was kind of like a disconnect.
00:21:33
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My parents didn't really instill much practice for me and my siblings, except to, you know, celebrate the holidays.
00:21:41
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And so it wasn't really a deeply spiritual upbringing, but I'm a very spiritual person.
00:21:46
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And I think that we all are.
00:21:49
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And I feel like that the ayahuasca really helped me to find my own connection to my own faith.
00:21:55
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to what is unique to me.
00:21:57
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It helped me to connect to God, to source, to creator, to the universe in a way that I had never experienced through any other religion or any other pathway.
00:22:10
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And it's authentic to me and through the earth, the wisdom of the earth.
00:22:15
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And it is continuously inspiring me on a daily basis.
00:22:19
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I mean, I really feel like
00:22:23
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there is a very common experience of that connection to earth that I hear from people.
00:22:28
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And in fact, I had a download at one point from the medicine that the earth is this organism, there's this Gaia organism of the earth and that the rainforests are like the bone marrow of the earth and that they're producing these white blood cells
00:22:50
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And that the reason why ayahuasca is now gone from the jungles into the world is in the same way that when there's an infection, the body sends out white blood cells to try to deal with it.
00:23:00
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And that the sickness of the earth is disconnection.
00:23:04
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And that humans that are disconnected are doing things that are hurting and damaging the body.
00:23:12
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And so the process of ayahuasca is the natural organism functioning in this way of bringing the feeling of connection to humans, which are the sickness.
00:23:22
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yes so beautiful i have chills all over i love that so much yeah yeah that's a that's a common uh experience that a lot of people have and i think it's beautiful that you know we we get some people like some of us for the first time you know get that download like you say that that we are we are not apart from nature we are a part of nature we are we are
00:23:45
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we're interconnected with all of it.
00:23:47
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And once you really get that, you do start behaving in a different way.
00:23:51
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And so, yeah, so I think you can make a pretty solid case for, you know, the earth putting out its medicine of ayahuasca, among so many other things.
00:24:01
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I mean, okay, these people need to know that, you know, that we're all one, that we're all connected.
00:24:08
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And so, and then start behaving accordingly.
00:24:09
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And I feel like, you know, I am seeing
00:24:14
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I think we are seeing that message more and more from a lot of different directions.
00:24:20
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So that's good.
00:24:20
Speaker
Well, it's important because if you don't take the medicine, then the body gets a fever that kills off the thing.
00:24:28
Speaker
So if you look at the disasters in the world, you can make the argument that the body is saying, hey, we're going to raise the temperature.
00:24:35
Speaker
We're going to do something so that we heal ourselves.
00:24:38
Speaker
wow i'd never consider that like the earth is having a fever to eradicate the virus that is occurring wow i love that you know um i i feel like i want to touch on 1.2 in regards to healing and what's happening and what i feel that the ceremonies are providing for our collective healing is there something about the voice
00:25:02
Speaker
that is being liberated, not just through ayahuasca, but collectively there is
00:25:09
Speaker
It feels like there is a massive healing and a revolution and speaking our truth and being able to communicate in different ways.
The Healing Power of Voice and Sound
00:25:17
Speaker
And the ceremonies really focus a lot on singing.
00:25:21
Speaker
There's a lot of song in the ceremony.
00:25:23
Speaker
That's where it comes from, the tracrunas and the different songs that are associated to these experiences.
00:25:33
Speaker
in my personal experience has helped me to find my voice, has provided a place for me to express, whereas I was very insecure, especially about singing in front of other people.
00:25:48
Speaker
But to have a sangha or a medicine family that encourages singing together, it's such a gift.
00:25:57
Speaker
to be able to witness each other in our authentic voice.
00:26:02
Speaker
I think that's a really big component of what's happening in the healing.
00:26:07
Speaker
Yeah, there's the idea that sound can be healing is something that is, again, you know, kind of starting to really become, you know, popular, well known, at least.
00:26:22
Speaker
And there's lots of different ways to get there with that.
00:26:24
Speaker
Like, you know, we all we have many of us have heard of like sound healing, you know, ceremonies where somebody like playing, you know, gongs or or chimes or bells and such.
00:26:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:33
Speaker
But yeah, you know, whether that sound is being produced with an instrument or through singing, you really get that download in ceremony.
00:26:42
Speaker
There's been times where I've just been in ceremony, really feeling just sick or nauseous or what or what have you or just not in a good space.
00:26:51
Speaker
But then somebody usually the.
00:26:55
Speaker
you know, the, uh, Corandero, uh, Corandero, the medicine person holding the ceremony will start in with, uh, you know, shaking a rattle or, or, or, um, you know, or leaves from a plant or drums or what have you start with what they're usually the people who hold these ceremonies are usually very proficient musicians as well.
00:27:14
Speaker
And so as soon as they'll start,
00:27:17
Speaker
As soon as the sound kicks in or somebody's singing, it's just like you feel this this purge of whatever it is that was really holding you down.
00:27:25
Speaker
And you will kind of release that, whether it's through through deep breathing or crying or actually purging the medicine out of you in one of several ways.
00:27:38
Speaker
but there's a healing that takes place and you come out of the other side of that and really feeling, um, that reset, um, and that recharge, whether it's emotionally or spiritually, physically, what have you.
00:27:48
Speaker
Um, but it really derives from the sound.
00:27:51
Speaker
Um, so no matter how that sound is, is produced and if you, you know, whether you produce it yourself or it's, you know, you hear it, um,
00:27:58
Speaker
It has a very strong healing component to it.
00:28:01
Speaker
And I think that's where I first kind of learned via an ayahuasca ceremony.
00:28:06
Speaker
Like, wow, this healing via sound is a real thing.
00:28:10
Speaker
And once you experience it, yeah, it definitely kind of sinks that idea into, like, yeah, the healing sound is real.
00:28:18
Speaker
And especially that related to that idea of our voice, you know, and that we have, there is an expression to our own voices or even playing instruments.
00:28:27
Speaker
I know so many people that have been called to learn an instrument after being with the medicine.
00:28:32
Speaker
And I myself, like I, I, my story used to be that I can't sing.
00:28:39
Speaker
And now I make up and sing a song every morning on a live broadcast.
00:28:44
Speaker
Like there was something that released me from this fear.
00:28:47
Speaker
And so that was witnessing other people sing at the end of circles that were not gifted singers.
00:28:53
Speaker
And I had this old story that you're not allowed to sing unless you're a professional.
00:28:57
Speaker
And this idea that, that, you know, your voice is, if it's authentic, it is healing and beautiful.
00:29:04
Speaker
And you sing for your own joy.
00:29:06
Speaker
It was, was super transformative to me.
00:29:10
Speaker
Do either of you sing in ceremonies?
00:29:14
Speaker
I have had some practice.
00:29:17
Speaker
Yeah, I would say that some of the first times that I was in ceremony, I wanted to, but I was so scared.
00:29:26
Speaker
There's a moment where they asked if anybody has a song to offer, and my heart was racing, and I felt the call to do it.
00:29:34
Speaker
I was so shy, but I knew I had to do it, and I did.
00:29:40
Speaker
And it sounded probably not so good, but I did it anyways.
00:29:47
Speaker
And afterwards I was like, Oh my God, I did it.
00:29:50
Speaker
I, I've had some insecurities around it, but I did it anyways.
00:29:54
Speaker
And then, um,
00:29:55
Speaker
Somebody else after me sang as well.
00:29:58
Speaker
And then when we spoke after, she came up to me and said, I wouldn't have had the courage to sing unless you did.
00:30:07
Speaker
And so we got to have that breakthrough together.
00:30:10
Speaker
And then progressively after that ceremony, I started learning songs.
00:30:15
Speaker
I took a 90-day vocal training course that helped me to learn how to sing more efficiently.
00:30:21
Speaker
And I'm so happy because most recently I participated and I offered a song and I was reflecting on the first time that I sang and the level of confidence that came through my voice was night and day difference.
00:30:35
Speaker
And it has been one of the greatest blessings for me to be able to share my voice in a safe space and know that it's okay for my voice to crack a little bit and that I'm still loved and that it's okay.
00:30:48
Speaker
Nice.
00:30:49
Speaker
Nice.
00:30:50
Speaker
One of the best things I really experienced in my experience with ceremony was, again, back to that very first ceremony.
00:30:59
Speaker
Even with the people that I was not fully resonating with, one thing they did that really, the best thing, in my opinion, that they did that really stuck with me was they handed out songbooks of these medicine songs that were in Spanish or Quechua, the native language of these ceremonies.
00:31:16
Speaker
indigenous peruvians and they were like you are singing tonight and so they had like song books with like with words that you didn't understand but they were they would like sing and they would come and sit next to you on occasion uh and just be like okay like they would sing along with you and make sure you knew where we where we were um and it was a small ceremony maybe 10 of us but there was a moment after they kind of sat with everybody a couple times and then were singing and then
00:31:42
Speaker
in a room full of maybe you know half the people could sing half couldn't i was certainly in this in the second the latter half but there was a moment where we were all singing the song and we all just kind of hit these notes like you know for one of you know perfectly quote unquote for like almost entire song and then even the person out there at the end of the song was like ah there it is there it is and we all just were like oh we're singers i don't know and it it was a real like
00:32:06
Speaker
you know, eye opening experience like, wow, I do have I do have a voice or we all have a voice and we all like collectively get together and share our voices.
00:32:13
Speaker
Some really beautiful things can happen.
00:32:15
Speaker
And it was a real, you know, moment of like just, you know, creation that we got to participate in.
00:32:22
Speaker
That was a real, you know, peak experience for me at that time.
00:32:27
Speaker
You know, that's so awesome.
00:32:29
Speaker
So beautiful.
00:32:30
Speaker
You know, Lessa, you talked about that your singing gave someone else permission, which is an interesting callback to the radical self-expression topic that we talked about.
00:32:39
Speaker
And that when we authentically express, we do role model and allow other people to find that courage to do so.
00:32:46
Speaker
I think it's interesting that it happens with song as well as our dress and everything.
00:32:52
Speaker
We've mentioned that people talk about integration a lot.
00:32:55
Speaker
And I'm wondering, Betsy, could you speak to what that is and means?
Integrating Ayahuasca Insights into Daily Life
00:33:00
Speaker
Yes, I feel very passionate about integration.
00:33:05
Speaker
As a body worker for many years and doing healing work, I have found that one of the best ways for longevity of our transformation, our health, our vitality,
00:33:17
Speaker
is to integrate and to take what we've experienced in any healing experience, whether that is a bodywork session, acupuncture, ayahuasca, transformational retreat.
00:33:28
Speaker
It's important to bring those things, those breakthroughs, those insights, those
00:33:34
Speaker
just bits of wisdom that we get from whether it's from the body or from the spirit, from the mind into our day-to-day life.
00:33:41
Speaker
Because it's like this concept that I keep thinking is we remember and then we forget.
00:33:47
Speaker
Remember, forget, remember, forget.
00:33:50
Speaker
Right.
00:33:50
Speaker
And so if we do something like sit in ceremony and have this
00:33:54
Speaker
Profound insight, we'll use you as an example, about your dad, right?
00:33:58
Speaker
How you see each other and how he's so similar and you learn from that experience.
00:34:02
Speaker
But then you go into your day-to-day life and you fall back into an old pattern or old thought belief about who he is, then it's not integrating, right?
00:34:11
Speaker
You're still in the old pattern.
00:34:13
Speaker
And so finding ways to be able to remember and to stay in the practices that you received from the healing session is a vital component to the longevity of what we're doing here.
00:34:28
Speaker
Because what I have seen as well is that if the integration is not anchored, if it's not
00:34:34
Speaker
consistent, then there's a tendency for people to feel like they have to go again and they have to go again.
00:34:42
Speaker
And, oh, I need to go again, another round.
00:34:45
Speaker
And I have to go to another ceremony because they're not getting it, right?
00:34:48
Speaker
But the real work, from my perspective, is in your day-to-day life.
00:34:52
Speaker
And how do we implement these insights, these breakthroughs, these new belief systems about who we are, right?
00:34:59
Speaker
Janus, you just spoke so beautifully to believing in yourself as a singer, right?
00:35:05
Speaker
All of a sudden you went from thinking you can't sing to seeing yourself like, wow, I can sing.
00:35:12
Speaker
If you go into your day-to-day life now and actually hold that, you'll have a lot more confidence.
00:35:18
Speaker
You can sing, right?
00:35:19
Speaker
And the integration is a key component to keeping those neural pathways strong, keeping that belief in ourselves as very strong.
00:35:29
Speaker
The consistency is a key to the integration of my perspective.
00:35:32
Speaker
And I think that's part of the responsibility that you have to be gifted an experience that is so rare and precious.
00:35:41
Speaker
And there is, I think, an obligation to how do you bring that into the world on a daily basis?
00:35:47
Speaker
And that was one of the things that was really challenged to be my biofacilitator is like, you know, if you don't take the insights, these downloads and then put it into practice, this is meaningless.
00:35:59
Speaker
It's basically masturbatory.
00:36:01
Speaker
And if you're just like, you know, going about your old patterns and waiting for the next time that you can get high with people, that is not a medicine experience.
00:36:08
Speaker
And it is not the, the,
00:36:12
Speaker
really fulfilling your obligation as someone who has given this gift.
00:36:15
Speaker
Ghanus, can you speak a little bit to, you know, that idea of knowing when you've had enough?
00:36:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:27
Speaker
And it comes, it comes to that, you know, the idea of, like you say, self-responsibility.
00:36:33
Speaker
And that was really one of the big ones that I got from the medicine medicine.
00:36:39
Speaker
to realize, and this is such an expansive topic, so I'm gonna do my best to kind of bring it down into cliff notes or bullet points, but the idea that we have a personal responsibility in our lives.
00:36:58
Speaker
And having the medicine show me at one night, I was in a space of being in conflict with somebody and being like, why are they this way?
00:37:06
Speaker
And so on and so forth, and very quickly,
00:37:09
Speaker
being asked the question in my mind, like, well, why are you somebody who was bothered by that?
00:37:13
Speaker
It would always be turned around on, on me and be like, okay, so why does this bother you?
00:37:19
Speaker
Why are you somebody that is susceptible to this?
00:37:23
Speaker
And you, you get, you get it turned around on you enough and it's like, all right, all right, I got it.
00:37:28
Speaker
It's, you know, it's me, it's me, it's me.
00:37:30
Speaker
I need to, you know, we're the only ones we have any control over.
00:37:33
Speaker
So yeah,
00:37:34
Speaker
And realizing that and really taking that away from ceremony and out into the world and integrating that, you know, that newfound perspective, it's important to kind of realize, you know, that we're the ones that we're responsible for our own experience.
00:37:52
Speaker
And then you get to a point where you realize that one of the,
00:37:59
Speaker
A main realization is that we're never going to arrive at this place, this destination of being perfectly healed, where we're like this perfectly awesome.
00:38:08
Speaker
We got it all figured out.
00:38:09
Speaker
We're never going to get to that place.
00:38:11
Speaker
So you learn to be like, OK, so this is who I am.
00:38:14
Speaker
How do I navigate who I am in this world?
00:38:17
Speaker
And realizing that.
00:38:20
Speaker
The only, and this is not to just, you know, discount anybody's like actual physical ailments or, or maladies or experiences.
00:38:29
Speaker
But in a large part, you know, the only thing that really needs to be healed is the belief that we are not already whole.
00:38:37
Speaker
And so like this is, we can always, you know, there's always room for improvement, but we are who we are and you're never going to get it right 100% of the time.
00:38:46
Speaker
So realizing that and be like, okay, I'm, you know,
00:38:49
Speaker
I am who I am.
00:38:50
Speaker
I'm going to do my best in this world.
00:38:52
Speaker
And ultimately,
00:38:54
Speaker
That's all, you know, that's much of all there, all there is to really learn and take away from the medicine.
00:39:00
Speaker
And so realizing, like you say, that, like you say, Halcyon to, it's easy to get caught up into like, I'm going to go, you know, I'm going to go back to ceremony.
00:39:08
Speaker
I'm going to keep, you know, keep going back.
00:39:10
Speaker
And, you know, it's really, you know, you're going to be careful that you're not just going to get high with high with your friends anymore.
00:39:15
Speaker
Keep chasing those peak experiences.
00:39:17
Speaker
There comes a time where like the philosopher, uh, Alan Watts mentioned, uh,
00:39:22
Speaker
Like when you get the message, hang up the phone.
00:39:25
Speaker
And he's specifically referring to, if I remember correctly, he's specifically referring to psychedelics and how there's a lot of information that we're given.
00:39:35
Speaker
But after a certain point, you got to take this information and you have to integrate it and start living it and start practicing it.
00:39:42
Speaker
And it is a practice.
00:39:43
Speaker
It's something that we're, you know, it's not always going, we're not always going to get it right.
00:39:47
Speaker
But if you practice it on a daily basis, how you show up in the world, how you show up for your friends and family,
00:39:52
Speaker
how you show up with your, you know, your job or your, you know, all these relationships you have in your life, doing your best.
00:39:58
Speaker
And really at the end of the day, looking, being able to look at yourself in the mirror and be like, knowing I did my best, which is going to fluctuate from day to day.
00:40:07
Speaker
That is really all we can really hope to accomplish in life is doing our best and showing up for the world and the best ways that we know how best know how to do.
00:40:17
Speaker
I love that.
00:40:19
Speaker
Um,
00:40:21
Speaker
Betsy, if someone that you cared about deeply said, I think I want to do this, what would you tell to them?
00:40:31
Speaker
I would ask them, what is their intention?
00:40:35
Speaker
And I would ask a little more inquiry around what they're calling for and to give a space for my beloved, my friend, to be able to share with me what they're calling in in their life and why they want support from people.
00:40:53
Speaker
from this medicine, from ceremony, because we really do each come to it with different intentions.
00:41:00
Speaker
And I think intention is very, very powerful to be able to approach it from that place of knowing what it is that we're going for.
00:41:10
Speaker
I feel like we've cracked open a topic that we will never finish, but before we, any closing thoughts about this from you, Yanus?
00:41:22
Speaker
Uh, well, I like the idea of, um, there's, there's two sides of the intention, um, you know, concept, which I think is important to, um, kind of look at both angles.
00:41:34
Speaker
One is like, as you saying the, um, you know, so what is your, what is your intention for going into this?
00:41:38
Speaker
And it's an important to have, um, have a good handle on that.
00:41:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:41:42
Speaker
Here's my, my intention for it is this, uh, while also realizing that I've had,
00:41:49
Speaker
my own intentions going into ceremony and having them completely like blown out of the water.
00:41:55
Speaker
Like the medicine's like, no, we're not doing that.
00:41:58
Speaker
We're doing this.
00:41:59
Speaker
And the idea that you don't always get what you want, but you get what you need and doing multiple ceremonies and seeing how they all, you know, they all, all part of the whole thing.
00:42:10
Speaker
eventually coming around to the point where that intention I had maybe five ceremonies ago is now finally being addressed because I had to do all this other work in these other areas before we could even get to that and being like, oh, this is that thing I wanted.
00:42:24
Speaker
Then it's like, yes, this is that thing you wanted like four months ago.
00:42:29
Speaker
Now we can do it because then you see, yes, yes, I got it.
00:42:32
Speaker
I got it.
00:42:32
Speaker
So, you know, the idea that we
00:42:35
Speaker
We often get, you know, don't always get what we want, but we usually get what we need in life and being and allowing and having the grace to be able to be like, OK, I'm not going to be able to do this thing I wanted to do today, but trusting and surrendering to the process and being like, OK, I'll get there eventually.
00:42:53
Speaker
If I'm supposed to get there, we will get we'll all get there.
00:42:59
Speaker
I love that.
00:43:00
Speaker
Amen.
00:43:04
Speaker
Before we close off today, can you tell us about the product that you offer the world and where people can get it?
Tools for Growth and Healing
00:43:14
Speaker
Certainly.
00:43:14
Speaker
Yes.
00:43:15
Speaker
Speaking of medicine, speaking of plant medicines, my company is New World Nutritionals.
00:43:20
Speaker
We have a product that is a nutritional product that's all geared for, you know, helping anything neurologic, anything neurologically.
00:43:29
Speaker
If someone is looking to improve their focus, their memory, their retention and learning, you know, learning and retention and such.
00:43:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:38
Speaker
This is a good product for that.
00:43:39
Speaker
It's all natural based on a couple of different types of mushrooms and amino acids, herbal products as well, and herb as well.
00:43:50
Speaker
It's getting a lot of work.
00:43:51
Speaker
People are getting good results using it to treat symptoms of ADD, ADHD, even PTSD.
00:43:59
Speaker
Again, a lot of anything neurological, a lot of people are seeing improvements with that and seeing them pretty quickly.
00:44:06
Speaker
It's been a real...
00:44:08
Speaker
real labor of love for me and the company.
00:44:10
Speaker
The company is New World Nutritionals and New World Nutritionals.
00:44:14
Speaker
Our main product is called Micromosel Plus.
00:44:17
Speaker
I believe, you know, you might put a link up in the show notes and such, but yeah, yeah, check it out.
00:44:22
Speaker
Yeah, we will put the link in the show notes as well as a link to Betsy's Gratitude Journal.
00:44:27
Speaker
Would you tell us about that?
00:44:29
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:44:31
Speaker
So as a matter of fact, the Power Affirmation Journal was created as a tool for integration.
00:44:36
Speaker
From my own personal experience of doing plant medicine and transformational work, I found it incredibly valuable to journal integration.
00:44:44
Speaker
after these kinds of experiences.
00:44:46
Speaker
And so this Power Affirmation Journal is really set up to help to program our belief systems and help us to clarify what our belief systems are, what are the thoughts that we want to be thinking, how can we pump our mindset muscle by using affirmations and gratitude and self-inquiry and really going deep inside ourselves to be able to live the best life that we can.
00:45:13
Speaker
and you can find it on poweraffirmation.com.
00:45:16
Speaker
Thank you.
00:45:17
Speaker
Yeah, thank you.
00:45:18
Speaker
And I am offering daily gratitude circles and zoom that are free.
00:45:25
Speaker
And I hope you would join me there as well as the Hug Nation YouTube channel.
00:45:30
Speaker
And then I also have t shirts and my books available.
00:45:33
Speaker
All that is available at links.hugnation.com.
00:45:37
Speaker
So Betsy, would you close us off with an affirmation?
00:45:41
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:45:42
Speaker
So just closing our eyes and taking a deep breath.
00:45:49
Speaker
And we shall affirm to ourselves today that we are already whole.
00:45:54
Speaker
We are connected to the earth.
00:45:58
Speaker
We are connected to each other.
00:46:01
Speaker
Our love is powerful.
00:46:04
Speaker
Our intuition is strong.
00:46:07
Speaker
We have the ability to heal on a deep cellular level.
00:46:13
Speaker
And we are rising together, staying inspired together and staying sparked together.
00:46:20
Speaker
So it is.
00:46:21
Speaker
Thank you, Betsy.
00:46:25
Speaker
Thank you, everyone.
00:46:27
Speaker
Stay sparked.
00:46:28
Speaker
Stay sparked, people.
00:46:29
Speaker
Much love.