Is humanity healing — or is it falling apart?

Right now the world feels like it’s burning. And maybe it is. But what if that’s not the tragedy we think it is? What if we’re not dying — but in labor?

Tina “Kat” Courtney has sat with thousands of people at their most vulnerable self. As one of the very few Western women traditionally trained as an Ayahuasca shaman in the Shipibo tradition, she’s learned one thing above everything else — the hard part is never the enemy. It’s the invitation.

In this conversation we go deep into what this turbulent moment in history is really asking of us, why our shadow is not something to fear but something to befriend, and what an ancient plant medicine with thousands of years of wisdom actually sees coming for humanity.

Spoiler — she’s not scared. And by the end of this episode, you might not be either.

In This Episode We Cover:

• What Ayahuasca Actually Is — And Where She Really Comes From

Kat gives her definition of ayahuasca after 20 years of working with her, and shares where she believes this ancient intelligence truly originates from. The answer might surprise you.

• Why Choosing the Right Facilitator Could Be the Most Important Decision You Make

In a space that’s growing faster than its wisdom, Kat gets honest about what separates integrity from danger. What she says next is something every first-timer needs to hear before they book a retreat.

• The Shaman’s Basic Integration Kit

Kat breaks down the foundational daily practices that determine whether a ceremony changes your life or fades into a memory. This is the part most people skip — and exactly why they keep drinking without moving forward.

• Shadow Work, Karma & the Lessons That Take Years to Understand

Kat shares the personal homework ayahuasca gave her that took years to complete. Some of it she fought. Some of it broke her open. All of it changed everything.

• Why We Fear the Light More Than the Darkness

One of the most unexpected turns in this entire conversation. What Kat reveals about our deepest resistance in ceremony will stay with you long after you finish listening.

About The Ayahuasca Integration Podcast:

The Ayahuasca Integration Podcast with David Vox is a weekly show dedicated to the real work that happens after the ceremony ends. While plant medicine like ayahuasca can be one of the most profound experiences of a person’s life, the transformation it opens up only becomes real through integration — the ongoing process of bringing what was revealed in ceremony into everyday life, relationships, and identity.

Whether you are preparing for your first ceremony, processing a recent experience, or years into your healing journey, this podcast offers real tools, honest conversations, and the kind of depth that most plant medicine content never reaches.

Ready to hold space for others?

The world of plant medicine and deep transformation is growing fast — but most people who go through it are left without real support to integrate what they experienced.

The Sacred Integration Facilitator Training is a 6-month live program where you learn 12 mirrors to see yourself clearly, discover your own medicine, and develop the skills to hold space for individuals and groups through real transformation.

Over 24 weeks you’ll walk away with a complete integration framework, embodied facilitation practices, and a community that stays with you long after the training ends.

Cohort 2 starts May 20th.

Visit http://www.davidvox.com for more information.

TRANSCRIPT:

0:00

What is ayahuasca and where does ayahuasca actually come from?

This world or something far beyond it?

Do we get to skip the hard parts of our life if we drink the medicine?

And what is our shadow and our darkness really trying to teach us?

0:17

Today I’m sitting down with one of the very few female Ayahuasca shamans in the Western world that has been traditionally trained by true indigenous wisdom keepers from the Shipibo tradition.

And she is the founder of one of the greatest platforms in the plant medicine community called Plant Medicine People.

0:37

You might know her as the Afterlife Coach.

I am talking about the one and only Tina Cat Courtney.

I was so lucky to have Cat as my very first integration coach eight years ago and later asked my integration teacher and now after 10 years in this path, I could finally sit down with her and ask her some of the burning questions that I had inside.

0:57

Questions I feel no one can really answer me without having walked this path with complete devotion for decades.

And I have to warn you, some of the things she shares today in this conversation is things that I have never heard anyone speak about before or write about.

1:13

So buckle up, this is my deep time with Tina Cat Courtney.

1:50

So good to see you again I.

Know I might like inner child gets excited when I see you.

The first question I would love to ask you is you’re one of the few female ayahuasca shamans in the entire world.

2:06

We are less than 0.04% of the entire world population had tried or met our grandmother.

Ayahuasca.

How did you become devoted to this plant teacher?

Well, she saved my life, you know, she she took me from a space of self hatred and feeling like I was broken and would never know what happiness, real happiness felt like and just kind of said where’d you get this?

2:34

This is complete BS like let you know took me on this path of like why not you?

And as I found this genuine place of self love and trust and then of course, being so well, you know, I say indebted, but she doesn’t allow me to be indebted to her because she’s like you did the work, you did the work.

2:54

We always get the credit.

But I wouldn’t have found that inspiration and that truth without her.

Or at least there was nothing else in my life that ever brought that to me.

So and I just love her.

We just love her as a being.

I always want her in my life.

I’m so grateful to have that level of intelligence and integrity and all the things that she represents.

3:16

I’ve tried to leave that space, as you know, I’ve tried not twice.

Like I’m out and she’s like, you can run, kid, but you can’t hide, you know?

So like even if I try to leave the space, she and I are, we’re just a thing as she is with you and so many of us.

So, and I feel unbelievably privileged that that’s that’s the truth.

3:35

How would you describe what ayahuasca is?

Oh, that’s the $1,000,000 question.

It’s so hard.

But I in a very general sense, I just like to call her an expander of consciousness.

She is just a wildly intelligent ancient spirit that expands us more into our ancientness and our intelligence or helps to remind us of that truth.

4:00

So that it’s one of the things I tell to people that come to drink her is like, I can’t guarantee many things, but I can, I guarantee you’re going to have more awareness.

You’re going to, and, and that could be more awareness of your shadow, more awareness of the world, more awareness of your superpower.

I don’t know where it’s going to go, but I trust her and how she expands our level of consciousness and awareness.

4:23

So in a very simple way, that’s who she is to me.

And after now 20 years of working with her, what is it that you wish people would know about the sacred medicine?

Well, first of all, that she is sentient and conscious that she is not an inanimate drug or object.

4:43

You know, that she, she too is growing and expanding with us.

You know, she said to me a couple years ago, she’s like, it’s been so fun to grow with you.

And I was like, wait, what?

What you’re growing too.

Of course she is, of course.

And every one of us that’s come to her and partnered in any way she’s get, she learns too.

5:04

She’s learning from us and we’re learning from her.

It’s a relationship.

That’s really what I, I wish people understood more is that you’re not just taking something that’s going to do something in your body biologically.

You’re creating a relationship with a really remarkable being that has a personality and intelligence and sentience and all of those things.

5:24

And Huber and color and like for Beach is so sassy and unique and brilliant and, and she really gets me in a way that it’s like unbelievable.

Confronting.

Sometimes you can’t hide these parts of yourself from her.

5:40

Yeah.

And, you know, she just loves to reflect that.

You’re right.

She’s so funny.

I love that, too.

Her wit, her sense of humor.

Just, like, especially when it’s hard, when I’m going through shame or something painful and she makes a joke, I’m like, you know, how refreshing.

But also like, whoa, you know, can we laugh at this?

5:57

Why not?

Why not?

I also feel with ayahuasca that she can really meet you at your level of resistance no matter how much work you do.

So when you feel you have this a little bit under control, she sends you straight into kindergarten.

6:13

Do you still have those processes where you just don’t understand how you’re going to deal with them and how you’re going to integrate them?

Yeah, absolutely.

I still have my edges.

I still have my ignorance.

I still have my resistance.

I still have all of those things.

In some ways, it gets harder because there’s this part of me that quote knows better, right?

6:31

Sure.

You relate to this.

When I contract and I go through something hard, I have the voice that’s like, oh, come on, Cat, you know what this is like, Just just trust her.

Just surrender.

And something in me that’s primal will often still fight and be scared and be a petulant little girl.

6:48

Like, I don’t want this, you know, whatever it is.

And she teaches me to love that, too.

It’s like, that’s OK.

That’s part of being human.

That’s part of still being in a process of healing that you know she’s never looking for.

Perfection doesn’t exist in human form, so heck yeah, I still have dark nights of the soul.

7:07

Where do you think ayahuasca comes from?

Well, we have to remember there’s two plants in that brew, first of all, right, Ayahuasca and Chakruna.

Some traditions used Chalipunga.

Other plants, I would say, first of all, unequivocally, they’re not from around here where you know.

7:26

Multidimensional Teacher.

Yeah.

And beyond that, I don’t know, because it could be that they’re from many dimensions.

My experience of ayahuasca is that there is a specific dimension that is hers, like this lane of consciousness.

7:44

I agree.

That’s like, and a lot of beings, right, like the Doctor Sitas that we work with all these, these creatures, it seems like they’re associated with that dimension or planet, Galaxy, whatever it might be.

But it’s not Earth, that much I know.

It’s not duality.

Yeah, that’s what I also feel, and I feel the same for Iboga.

8:02

When you come into his universe, you’re in his universe, and you’re in the universe without time, so you can go anywhere.

And they all have their own frequency, their own universe that they’re cultivating, it feels like.

And it’s just fascinating also because every single ceremony she can show herself in a new way.

8:22

In which way does she normally communicate and show herself with you?

Well, in a very maternal way.

I mean, most of the react the, the dynamic I have with her is the very loving but very direct, honest, motherly energy.

8:40

She matches my own energy in that if I’m coming humble and cracked open and vulnerable, then she comes with her compassion and her love.

But if I kick into the petulant like, you know, resistance or whatever it is, then she will match that and be like, you’re doing this, you know?

8:58

So I think in a lot of ways, she is a mirror for what we’re presenting.

So that’s why she’s so multifaceted and she could just meet us where she’s at.

And so for the most part, I come with a lot of trust and a lot of openness.

And so we have this wonderful, you know, dance and trust, but not always.

9:17

Especially when I sit and do my own work and I’m coming in with every aspect of my humanness, then it’s all bets are off.

I have no idea how she’s going to show up because I can’t control what parts of me are coming out either.

And you have led thousands of ceremonies.

9:38

How do you know that you’re called to do this work?

That you can’t get away from it, but you know it shows up in the most unexpected ways.

I’ll tell you the moment I knew all I’m never going to hide from ayahuasca.

As I was trying to ignore the calling to learn to apprentice with her, I was in Vegas, and I sat down at a blackjack table.

10:00

Some guy drinking beer just sits and turns and looks at me.

And it’s like, do you drink ayahuasca?

I’m like, oh, dear God, am I wearing a button?

Like, are you serious?

I can’t even go to the blackjack table and hide.

And that’s when I knew, like, OK, I’m called.

She’s not going to let me pretend that this isn’t a thing.

10:17

So I think we just trust that there’s these synchronicities and mirrors everywhere.

And she comes in our dreams and like, we just can’t get away from it.

And then then we know it’s not just our mind either.

That’s ruminating that it’s an invitation.

Almost every single time a stranger talks to me, I know that they’ve been thinking about drinking ayahuasca and I know that we will have that conversation and they will be like, it’s so strange.

10:40

She’s showing up everywhere.

I’m like, she’s calling you.

And then they will normally say if they’re not fully ready, do you think I should go?

It’s like you don’t get sold to do an ayahuasca retreat.

You, you field calling it is not something you chase.

It’s something you’re invited into when you are ready.

10:57

What do you feel is the most important part to respectfully work with ayahuasca when people are coming into the retreat or into ceremony?

Because now ayahuasca retreats are popping up everywhere.

And it’s a bit terrifying for me because a lot of these retreats are without indigenous wisdom.

11:17

And you’ve been trained with real indigenous wisdom keepers.

And for me, it’s terrifying that some dude sad less than 1000 ceremonies are holding that Bruin their hand, giving it to someone because their energy, the minute it touches that cup, can amplify someone’s process tremendously on a spiritual level, on a physical and mental level, an emotional level.

11:40

And for me, it’s quite terrifying.

Same.

You just kind of answered the question the way I would too, that first and foremost, my gosh, be so discerning about who you choose to work with.

It goes in alignment with your previous question is what do I wish people knew about ayahuasca in the ceremony space?

11:58

The facilitator is the most important piece.

It’s so important.

You’re going to marinate in that person’s energy and they’re, you know, instrumental in the vibration of the container, in the experience because ayahuasca is going to mirror the energy of that person.

12:14

So we’re not looking for perfection again, but we’re looking for someone who has trained, who has faced their own shadow over and over again, who does carry Indigenous wisdoms and supports Indigenous people putting medicine back in the ground, like just the ethics of it.

And that also has the experience of understanding what it is to be a space holder helping people.

12:35

I use the language of helping people go from hell to heaven, like legitimate experience.

Not just I took an online course like they’ve been there, they’ve done it for themselves and others so that you can know you’re in a space that’s is is safe as much as safe can be.

12:52

We can’t even guarantee safety.

We can guarantee integrity and experience.

And yeah, there’s, I would say the majority of, of groups aren’t there yet.

There’s a lack of maturity in this space.

And so if somebody’s drank 12 times and they’re like, I’m a shaman, be very wary because it just doesn’t work that way.

13:12

And it’s also not something you can just choose because ayahuasca is not something you can just decide.

She doesn’t work for you, you work for her in the ceremony.

You are an instrument on her behalf.

So I find it also so interesting that people can sort of claim something when it’s not for us to claim it.

13:32

It’s the spirits that will call us to do this work.

And I’m terrified of getting that message that you have to step up and do more ceremony work because I feel already just supporting the Indigenous wisdom keepers.

I’m getting my ass kicked.

I can do my own process.

13:48

And then suddenly the child will be like Dave, you have to help him.

You have to do this and you have to snap out of it and you have to focus and be of service.

I can’t even comprehend the work that you do in all of the different facets.

I’m just so fascinated and in deep awe and just bowing.

For all of you who can do this with integrity and safety, what do you feel is the most challenging part of holding this space?

14:12

The responsibility that you’re naming the responsibility, you think of it a lot like I used to be married to a pilot and every time he got in the airplane, he had 400 lives in the back that he was responsible for.

You know, I feel the same.

I’m sitting down in a spaceship and we’re going on a journey and I’m responsible not only physically, but spiritually and psychologically for the well-being of these people and my own well-being too.

14:38

On top of that, also responsible of my own process and the team and like all of it.

So that responsibility and the inevitable projections that will come in of people, you know, not on purpose, projecting their fears and their frustrations and all of those things.

14:59

It’s very hard to sit sometimes in what people perceive is happening and, and deal with the complexity of consciousness and, and just just, it’s just the responsibility.

You know, you mentioned that you’re in awe of people that do this.

15:14

So am I including the part of me that sort of shows up for it because I can’t take credit for that on the level of my ego.

Most of the time in, in the retreats, I have no idea what I’m doing.

I’m just following directions, being very intuitive.

I don’t know how I get through them.

15:30

Sometimes it’s like, whoa, how did we do?

Don’t know.

Really grateful we did it.

But I feel, I feel that’s the real training.

You cannot really, well, you can learn certain principles and concepts and practices, but the real word with your intuition is going to show up there.

15:47

And then when someone is having a crazy process and you just need to really listen like you never listened before and let the plant guide you.

And I find it so fascinating what you learn in the moment.

Like that’s the goal for me when I get to be in ceremony and you get to learn about a plant or you get to learn about the fire.

16:04

We get to learn about the water in a completely different way and just feel like you’re carrying some of this indigenous wisdom like nectar for the soul.

It’s unbelievable.

Oh, I love that too.

Those pieces of like, aha moments of oh, you know, relationship with the fire and the water and the air and the earth and spirit and like, Oh my gosh.

16:25

But as you know, every time we step into these portals, there’s something new to learn.

It’s not like we’re like, well, I got it all.

You know, I have my joke with with the team.

I do this work.

I’m like, can I just have one ceremony where I didn’t have to learn anything, where I was like, Yep, knew it all.

16:41

Nope, doesn’t happen.

It’s constant, but it’s a, it’s just a classroom for all of us.

And that’s also hard to hold because it’s just, it’s a lot of work to always be present and listening, be refined.

See where my shadow and ignorance was, is, is and always will be showing up.

16:59

Like, yeah, I just want to be like, great, you got an A+, you’re graduated.

It won’t happen.

And there seems to always be another level of depth.

It seems to be an invitation to constantly go deeper into different intensity.

17:17

Last retreat, sitting on an outside toilet in Spain.

An angelic being.

It’s outside the door while I’m sitting on the toilet.

Not my most glamorous moment.

And I completely understand why they say in some religions don’t be scared because a life being with so much grace was more terrifying than any dark spirit I ever seen.

17:37

That’s a wild thing, isn’t it, David?

I wish more people knew that too, that I really think we have way more fear of the light than we do the darkness.

Way more resistance to that space of beauty and love.

And because my hardest nights with the medicine, I remember one that was like, what is this?

17:56

What is this?

She got saying it’s love.

I’m like, why is it so scary?

It’s like because it’s pushing on your non love like but it’s just love.

Like, wow, OK.

Whatever, she introduced me to the energy of pleasure, this beautiful black snake, like a feminine energy with gold.

18:15

And I was like, I was terrified of it.

And she’s like, no, no, no, you misunderstand.

Pleasure is not pain.

You may that you made that sort of weird little concept in your childhood, and then she literally made the whole retreat go into orgasms in the lung. 30 women in me for seven hours.

18:36

You could not stop it.

You were just like this intense Tantra energy in the lungs.

Nothing down there, nothing filthy, no thoughts.

It was just every breath was just deep orgasm, just this intense rebirth in every single breath.

And for me, it’s so interesting, like how she always can show you in a physical, spiritual and emotional, mental way, always in a new way, a different aspect of yourself.

19:02

And sometimes it’s also very, very challenging to know how to integrate that, especially when she shows you things that are coming from your lineage.

Have she shown you many things that are related that comes with your lineage that you have to work with and integrate?

Yeah, everything’s interconnected and related in that way.

19:21

And you’re right, this piece around, OK, I have this ceremony where I confront my resistance in fear of pleasure.

Let’s say the challenge is, OK, what do I do with that now, walking in the world.

And my focus then is like, OK, where are the places where I’m resisting small and large experiences of pleasure in my everyday life is to take what occurs in that container and then look it through the lens of my daily walk, which then often involves looking back at the lineage, what I was taught, what I’m from, what my family represents, which.

20:02

There’s a lot of resistance to happiness, you know, there we can look forward, we can look back and we can see that the common thread, But really the most important part is this present moment.

What did that ceremony experience point to that we can then integrate and work with in our daily life?

20:19

Because it’s never an accident.

It’s never like, oh, in ceremony I resisted pleasure, but in life, I’m great with it.

No, no, that’s not how it works.

So it’s just loud in ceremony, right?

It’s amplified, it gets our attention, but then it’s like, OK, what am I going to do with that?

20:37

To learn and to integrate it outside of that container.

And when you do this work for a while, you see that most of this work is in the integration.

And when you are guiding others to focus on their integration work, what do you feel is like the basic, basic foundation of respect and responsibility people need to carry with them from ceremony into their day-to-day?

21:03

We’re not going to integrate any profound spiritual experience if we aren’t showing up for ourselves every day in some form of ritual of self-care, of self introspection.

If even.

You know what mine typically involves, is the first thing I ask myself when I sit down at my altar in the morning.

21:23

Goes how you doing, kiddo?

Like really, how are you?

Which is such a simple thing, but people live their whole lives without really tuning in.

What’s going on?

What do I need today?

What am I feeling?

What am I processing?

And that’s the foundation for integration.

21:42

It’s like we don’t know really what we’re feeling and processing, what is in our field, so to speak.

How do we know what to do with it?

We first have to be inquisitive.

So that involves, for me, just some daily practice.

I have my altar, I have my whole thing, but it could be somebody sitting with a cup of tea outside in the morning in their garden, or it could be just watching the sunrise and just being introspective.

22:04

It can be very personal, but we have to be curious about what’s going on in our inner world or we’re not going to be able to shift anything.

I was really, really lucky when I started this journey.

I got to work at a retreat where they were training facilitators and integration, and then I got to have and work with you as an integration coach like 8 years ago and I got to be in your program for integration.

22:30

I’ve been really, really blessed with finding incredible teachers that have a lot of integrity, but where do you feel people can go to seek the support that they need in regards to integration?

Is this a solo activity or is this something that they should also look into in the form of community?

22:47

Very personal, right?

But I’d say that another thing that I think is universal is go to nature, have a relationship with the water that you drink, the earth that you live on, the air that you breathe, the fire of creation and destruction.

Core shamanism, we call that.

23:04

You don’t have a relationship with nature.

You don’t have a relationship with yourself.

We’re made of her.

We are nature too, so it goes together.

So integration has to involve a connection to nature.

Now, nature might guide you to have support in terms of a therapist or an integration coach or a community or your best friend or whatever it might be because I think we need each other.

23:28

But nature first because that’s what we’re made of, that’s what we’re from, that’s our mom, that’s our home.

So that’s where I think like, you know, I go to in, in order to feel what the next step is, to feel what my soul is asking for.

23:44

So that one is universal.

I love it.

I love this concept of being skin to skin with the earth every single day and literally being, you know, like the baby of the earth is standing on the beach or laying on the beach and just connecting with her.

24:00

And it was actually the reason why I got called to ayahuasca because I saw someone sharing a video about ayahuasca and they said I walked outside and I touched the tree and I could feel the love from the entire planet pouring inside of me.

And I had forgotten that connection and the love of the Earth.

24:17

And I just burst into tears.

I couldn’t understand why I got so touched by it.

And I think I was just craving that connection to our Earth that you could feel as a child that was so pure and so innocent and so real and raw.

And with Ayawaska, it’s like, wow, suddenly the stars are back and the whole universe is you can feel it, you can communicate with it.

24:38

We’re all craving that.

Aren’t we all craving that?

We think we’re all craving that.

And in our Western world, we have that wound of being disconnected from nature.

We’re connected to our minds more than anything else.

Our minds are beautiful, but they’re very limited and they’re very mired in separateness and suffering.

24:55

And so that’s not a good place to be permanently.

Yeah.

But nature, to be reconnected with just that love, that truth, that wildness, that possibility, like anything is possible in nature.

Anything wildly creative, Like, yeah, we all deserve that.

25:15

I had someone once asked me, why do you think you made it in your childhood?

Because of all the trauma?

And I always knew it was because of that relationship with nature.

Just walking on that mountain, being with my dog outside for hours every single day, it was the only thing that could tame me.

It was the only relationship where I could cultivate.

25:32

And it felt that it gave me something back that was not filled with like shame or suffering or whatever the humans could give.

It was this pure mirror from the animals and also from nature and the mountains.

And I just wish everyone could have that.

And I feel so sad sometimes because people have done the similar journeys me and they worked with Ayawaska also for 10 years.

25:52

And they say, well, you always have these very deep experiences with her and I can’t have it.

And I’m like, yes, you can, but you need to cultivate that with yourself also.

And I feel that relationship with nature can help you cultivate that deeper relationship with your spirit and your soul so that you can actually go deeper and have that relationship with Ayawaska as well.

26:13

Amen.

And there’s no excuse for not allowing that relationship.

If people live in the city in an apartment.

I mean, sure, you can have house plants.

I love my house.

They’re my friends.

But even beyond that, we breathe air, we bathe in water, we drink water where we work with the fire.

26:33

In one way or another, we live on the earth like it’s always available.

It’s not like you have to live in a forest in order to have a relationship with nature.

That’s just another limitation, so it’s always available.

What are other parts this core shamanism kit that you feel people need for their integration journey?

26:55

Well, I love being in relationship with the elements in terms of how they’re working in my body.

I love astrology because that helps to build a map.

But like I’m in a fire stage right now, for example, I’m well aware of like, like and, and when I feel that energy, I know fire can be either creative or destructive.

27:16

So I’m, I feel to be responsible.

It’s like I got to channel this into creativity and otherwise I’m going to be like, you know, out with my pitchfork.

Like what a village do I need burned down?

No, no, no, don’t don’t want to be destructive unless it’s necessary because destruction is is sacred too.

27:34

But just kind of being aware that’s that goes back to that poor question I asked myself of like, how you doing?

What’s what?

I wouldn’t know I was in a fire stage if I wasn’t paying attention and being like, OK, what is this heat energy?

What’s happening?

I just got out of an air stage last year.

27:49

It was really airy.

I needed freedom.

I needed movement, I needed, I needed mental clarity.

And now I’m like, I want to create.

Now I’ve got this different energy, but that’s another way we can work because that’s still being connected to nature, because I’m connecting to the elements within myself.

28:05

So that’s another creative and very personal way that we can be engaging with core shamanism because we’re made of these things too.

When do you think people need to take a break to integrate?

Ayahuasca has a funny expression with me around this is don’t do your homework on the teacher’s desk.

28:22

Integration is the homework and so if you, if any of us ’cause I’ll, I’ll include myself, I’ve done it.

Find that ceremony or spiritual experiences are what you’re chasing for the next bit of information or the next aha moment or whatever it might be.

28:42

And there isn’t anything intentional in between those experiences.

You’re doing your homework on the teacher’s desk.

Cause integration is the homework that we do that comes through these experiences that helps us basically be in a different state of consciousness when we go do the next journey.

29:00

And then another clue is when people work on the same thing over and over again and it feels like there’s no movement, there’s no change.

I’m like, well, are you doing your homework?

It’s like taking the same test over and over again.

I’m like, I’m still getting AB.

29:16

I’m still getting AB.

Like, well, did you study?

Did you do your homework?

Like it’s, it’s really quite simple.

It’s just we humans, we don’t necessarily like the homework.

We don’t like being responsible and accountable for the things in between.

We want the plants to do it for us quite often and they, they’re not going to do that.

29:36

So that’s the big clue.

And she can also give you quite difficult homework.

I resisted some of it for years because I I felt it was so scary and challenging.

And then you do it and you have this mega expansion and love and abundance and all of it.

29:53

I was like, oh damn it, why did I wait so many years?

She was right.

What has been some of your most difficult integration homework that you had to?

True, I came to the medicine as a woman who is very out of integrity because I had grown up in an environment that if I told the truth, I’d get in trouble, I would be in danger.

30:13

So my truth just got buried.

And so I just became very protective of myself by not being honest.

But I hated myself because I was totally out of integrity.

So I for years, David, I argued with ayahuasca in the beginning of like, OK, can I just start telling the truth going forward?

30:31

So I have to admit that I was basically a pathological liar.

And like, she’s like, you have to be transparent.

And I, I just felt like that was the end of the world, that people would hate me, that if I really exposed who I was, I wasn’t lovable and I wouldn’t belong on this path.

30:47

Like I had such deep stories around when I finally broke and started confessing the truth of who I was to the people around me.

The opposite happened, of course, people.

My best friend was like, yes, I’ve always known that first of all.

31:03

And I this big truth bomb, she’s like, yes, I’ve always known that.

God, I love you.

It’s fine.

That blew my mind.

And then the other people were like, Oh my God, how, how brave of you to admit that.

I relate to that.

So I became more credible, more lovable by finally doing the thing that ayahuasca told me for years to do.

31:20

I’m like, what, Why did I fight this crazy?

But that’s that was so difficult for me to own and to be honest about being dishonest because I had so much shame.

Yeah, I had a similar experience because she said to me, if you’re carrying secrets, they can create almost like a black hole of an energy field that sucks your life force and they can become more powerful.

31:43

As we do our expansion with ayahuasca, we’re also expanding those little black holes inside of our energy field or shadow, so they can create more polarity and more power as well.

It’s not like we just expand our life, we expand our shadow as well.

So, so she was like, go home to Norway and meet these foster family that abused you and tell them your story and own up to everything that you did wrong in childhood.

32:09

Tell your parents.

Don’t let there be any secrets.

And after two years I did it and it was so liberating because not only did I get to sort of expand the outer worlds, not just the inner worlds, I got to be completely free and be in my truth and share my story and my express my voice.

32:26

But I got to live without any secrets like me and truth got to be best friends and to live a life without any secrets and to just like I protect my integrity so much now because I’ve fallen out of it.

And I know how painful it is to go back because it’s like you lose all your feathers and your standard like a red chicken and you can’t fly.

32:42

I’m not doing it again.

It’s really painful.

AK dark diet.

It’s so I’m just fascinated by the way that she can teach us through the integration homework.

Like that’s when she sends you out and say, this is how you actually turn into your becoming of who of your potential.

33:00

And then people, they don’t do the work.

And I’m like, but that’s not really, that’s why we’re here.

And she also has this very interesting way of teaching you one thing, but maybe over a decade or two decades, what has some of those lessons been for you where she sort of plants the seed and short and sort of grows with you over time?

33:21

Oh, that’s a great question.

Well, the first one that comes in is early on I heard an expression repeatedly from Ayahuasca.

It’s the expression is very simple.

It’s handle it, cat handle it.

And I interpreted that for many, many years to be pretty direct of like, oh, I just have to keep handling all of this.

33:40

And she would throw so many different things in and out of ceremony of handle it, handle it.

I thought I was being trained to handle more things.

And then it occurred to me, I don’t know, 5-6 years ago, like, wait a second.

That’s what I say to myself.

33:56

And it’s abusive because I just assume I have to keep handling everything.

And I’m like, what if I have boundaries?

Do I have to handle everything?

Can I say no to something?

And she was like, Bing, Bing, Bing.

Like, that was your story from the beginning.

34:11

So she was just enforcing a story.

She wasn’t agreeing with it.

And that was so healing.

I mean, it may sound simple, that expression.

I believed it.

I have to handle it.

When I said, wait, wait, wait, do one.

Can I say no to some of these things and say yes to the ones I want to handle?

34:30

Well, of course.

Sovereignty, no.

But that was so huge for me that it took me years and years to shift and realize that wasn’t a direct from a message from her, It was a mirror of an abusive story I was telling myself.

I had a similar experience a few years ago, constantly hearing the story that I need to let go of everything that I have and I have to go on this like suffering spiritual path, just go to the jungle without anything and just hope I survive and sort of scrub the floor for Jesus and almost like abuse myself to be wordy and to be pure.

35:06

And then one of the shaman said to me, it might also just be you telling yourself that.

And she’s reinforcing it.

And I’m like, I don’t think.

And I was like, Oh my God, I’ve been sitting here sort of jerking off my own ego in probably 100 ceremonies thinking it’s ayahuasca when I know that when Ayawaska wants to say something to me, it’s crystal clear it is Ayawaska speaking to me.

35:26

And that has opened only happened a few times.

I remember asking her once, what do you think is my purpose in life?

And she just wrote on the wall teacher.

And I’m like, Oh my God, teacher, my sister’s teacher.

I love teachers.

Teachers are great.

What am I here to teach?

And she just said respect.

35:43

And I’m like, no, no, no, not respect.

I want to pick another one.

Not the respect, right?

Not very respectful self love, love for animal anything.

No answer.

So it’s very clear when she speaks.

But how can people know the difference between I’m just sitting here in my mind sort of self, you know, ruminating some weird narrative, AKA ayahuasca speaking to me?

36:05

That’s the $1,000,000 question that a lot of us work with.

And I think it comes down to sovereignty.

Like ayahuasca wants us all to be the sovereign beings of our own lives, the choices that we make.

So you and I know one of the the worst precursors of a sentence is ayahuasca told me to dot, dot, dot.

36:30

And when people say that, it’s usually like, oh, this is going to end in tears.

Why?

Because when we give her our power and assume that if she tells us to do something, we should do it, it usually ends in tears because we’ve given away our power.

36:47

Because typically whatever that thing like you just named beautifully isn’t what we wanted, doesn’t feel aligned with who we are.

It’s more a story of pain and wounding than the truth.

And so she tells us to do these things so that we have that realization.

37:03

So how do we know the difference?

Well, it’s very somatic.

Like, if I get a message of, like, Cat, it’s time to write your book.

I’m like, yeah, I want to write that book.

I’m scared of that book.

But, oh, you know, I get goosebumps.

Like, everything lights up in me.

It’s like, all right, That’s a yes.

37:20

But like I remember her doing this with me, with the men in my life at the time of like, hey, that’s your soul mate.

And I would jump into a relationship and it would end horribly.

And she did it again once, of course, she’s like, that’s your soul mate.

I’m like.

I don’t.

Think he is why do you keep doing this like because you keep letting me, you know, because I can feel it in my body.

37:41

That wasn’t my soul mate.

And finally I got the hints of stop doing what Alaska says.

Sit with it.

It’s an invitation to learn more about ourselves and if we feel it, just like we make any decision right, like this feels right.

I’m doing this.

37:57

That’s what she’s looking for.

Not that we’re pawns on a chess table, that she’s just manipulating our life.

She has zero interest in that.

I once asked her why does everything that I create in my business always feel out of alignment and asked masterfully as she can show you things.

38:14

She took me into sort of the DNA level of my soul strings and showed me that everything I’m weaving on the outside is coming from the inside and if you go to the core of where I’m reading from, you will find this wound of not being good enough.

So I’m always reading from not enough Ness.

38:31

So eventually I see something outside and it makes me feel not enough, so then I change it.

And it’s so merciful how she shares these very beautiful visuals and teachings.

But how do we know that they are for us to integrate and take serious?

38:50

Yeah, we kind of don’t until we try, you know, until we throw some spaghetti at the wall.

Yeah, because we don’t know if you remove ayahuasca from the equation, we’re still in the on the same boat is how do we know?

How do we know the next job is the thing that’s going to make us happy?

39:07

Or how do we know this guy that we’re dating is the person that is going to be this beautiful soul mate?

We we don’t know.

We got to try things.

So if I’ll ask if something comes in and has a ceremony with her and it gets our attention of like, OK, interesting.

39:24

I’m going to, I’m going to work with that.

And then in the integration, in the working with it, we might realize, oh, that was a big old left turn.

That’s not the right person.

But, but, but remember, I think it’s important for us to always remember the point of being alive is not to have successful businesses and successful relationships.

39:44

It’s to learn and grow.

So just because we do something that doesn’t end the way we think it should have doesn’t mean that we’re failures.

There’s no such thing.

So I will send us on all kinds of crazy adventures for the growth or the learning, not for whatever idea of success or completion or whatever that we might have.

40:04

She thinks that’s that’s the point of great, you learned.

Congratulations.

It’s like, oh, but we broke up or it was awful.

It’s like but.

You learned.

I remember one of the most challenging ceremonies that I had with her.

Not only did she showed me that my biological dad was not Spanish or Norwegian as I always thought, but he was Palestinian.

40:25

And she also showed me where he lived.

And I could physically prove this after the ceremony.

It’s just unbelievable.

But also that my whole life would burn to the ground.

I would lose my fiance, my house, my animals, all my things.

And it was my first fight with Aya where I said I will fight you to the end on this.

40:44

This will never happen.

Two years later, everything she had showed me had happened and I was this plucked chicken.

Going through the dark Night of the Soul Volume 2 and crawling back to ceremony and starting slowly but surely to realize that this was a very important walk through the fire of transforming a lot of ignorance.

41:08

And now I’m super grateful for the experience.

But because Oh my God, what I learned from it.

But I feel a lot of people think that we go to ceremony sort of to skip the hard part while I’m like, honey, no, no, no, we actually are going to go straight into the hardest part here.

41:25

And we applaud it.

Like, that’s good stuff.

So important what you’re naming because there’s no avoiding our lessons.

And by stepping into any space that’s about growth and healing, we are asking, whether we know it or not, to accelerate that.

And that’s what she does.

41:42

She expands consciousness.

She accelerates our spiritual journey.

So in fact, it’s more like hold on to your hats because here we go.

You’re not going to avoid anything you like.

You said you’re going in, you’re going into the biggest lessons that your soul wants to learn in this lifetime, and it’s the opposite of avoidance.

42:04

Absolutely.

So when people have this intention of I’m going to go to retreat and therefore I will live a life that is more just on the happy side.

I think people confuse the medicine.

It’s a medicine, It’s not a drug.

If you would always be happy, it would be, it would be a drug.

42:21

This is a medicine.

So you will have the full spectrum of the human and spiritual experience.

What do you feel now as this whole world is like a tsunami of transformation?

More and more people are awakening to this medicine, even though it’s a very small part of the human population that have had a chance to meet ayahuasca.

42:40

What do you feel is important for the world to be aware of now going into this new realm of transnational work with plants?

Definitely what you named in terms there’s no avoiding our shadows, there’s no avoiding the hard work, and you don’t need ayahuasca to prove that.

Look at the world we’re living in.

42:56

It is such a profound time of shadow, which some of us are like, yes, because we drank enough Ayahuaska or been on the spiritual path long enough to know this is absolutely necessary to get to where we belong.

43:12

And I think what the spiritual journey does is what Ayahuaska has helped me is to trust that shadow is, is not to get magnetized and to believe, well, this is permanent.

And it means that we’re broken and we’re screwed and humanity’s dying.

And like all of the things of like, no, it might seem that way, but that’s not true.

43:31

So be able to have the big picture to be in on the joke of like shadow is unavoidable.

And it’s also not what it seems in the end of the world or like whatever the shadow tries to tell us, it’s not true.

We’re just passing through and it’s going to bring us to better phases of our personal and collective lives.

43:50

It always does.

Look at all the hard things we’ve been through.

Once we’re far enough away from them, we’re like, well, I can see why that was absolutely necessary.

And I’m so much stronger and wiser and all of the things.

So it’s that piece of trust.

It’s like just trusting that this is exactly where we need to be and it’s gonna be OK.

44:10

Like, it’s, it’s just, it always is.

We have all the evidence to prove to that.

And.

And yet we don’t trust it when it’s time for another layer of shadow.

It reminds me of Cali in the new tradition of when it’s time to burn it all down.

We call her in.

And it’s not fun.

44:27

It’s not fun to watch everything be destroyed.

It wasn’t fun to have your life blow up the way I showed you it was going to happen.

That’s why you resisted it.

No, no, no, no, not that.

But in order to create something new, we have to destroy what isn’t working.

44:42

It’s the process that’s always existed here in duality and and the only thing we humans need to do is just trust it more, Let it happen.

It’s it’s for our benefit.

It’s for our greatest good, even though it’s hard as hell.

44:58

One thing that worries me a little bit though, with people that I’m seeing coming into this industry, and I’m so glad you’re you’re this example I get to follow in social media where I know where your energy is anchored.

You’re so honest and you’re very humbled.

But it’s coming from really walking this path.

45:16

But I feel a lot of leaders that are coming into this field that are not full aware of their shadow and how that is also expanding.

They can start cultivating a lot of fear and it can start cultivating a lot of everything is scary in the world and everything is moving too fast and AI is a monster and aliens is a monster.

45:34

Everything is a monster.

Well, what I’ve learned in my path is that we are so divinely guided.

Every spirit loves us.

Even the demons are our friends.

So I have this completely different understanding of it.

And yes, I see what’s happening.

I’m a part of it and still I’m able to hold the space that everything is going to be OK.

45:55

And you can almost feel like guilty to say that I’m having amazing, amazing time in the world right now.

It’s a challenge that I work with too, because I want to meet people where they’re at and validate that what is hard and what is painful is 100% real.

46:12

But it’s with that the lens from ayahuasca.

It’s always yes and yes, Oh my gosh, yes.

It’s things are burning down and we’re finding the truth of humanity and it’s ugly and what’s the end?

Because we have to intentionally place our awareness on the end.

46:32

And it’s awesome.

And we’re coming together in ways we never have before.

And the truth is coming out and we’re being more honest with each other and we’re awakening and, and, and, and, and it’s a long list, actually a long list.

So we just have to be both.

46:50

And yes, it’s hard, it’s scary, we’re contracting, it’s, it’s all the things and what else?

So in my coaching, that’s what I do with people is like, let’s stay with what’s hard.

Now tell me what is coming in, what you’re grateful for.

Tell me all the awesome things that are happening as a result of what you’re describing.

47:09

Because it’s always available.

It’s just usually hidden behind all the layers of the pain and the suffering and the scariness, etcetera.

So it’s both and that’s how I look at it.

I love that.

And it seems to be in the world right now sort of a polarity between shame and sacredness.

47:28

And we who get to work with ayahuasca, we get to step into the sacredness, step into a real ritual that has been going on for thousands of years with sacred wisdom, sacred econo, sacred music, sacred everything, sacred spirits.

And it’s like, Oh my God, every time you get to meet them, it’s like it’s sacred.

It’s so juicy, but then on the opposite side, I feel it’s all of that shame and that dark shadow that has been sort of captivating humanity.

47:52

And now it’s being transformed.

And I feel what’s going to happen is that as that shame and deliciousness energy gets to transform, we’re going to have more sacredness, more people coming back to what’s real, back to the roots, back to the earth, back to each other.

48:08

And AI Stevens going to help us with that because when AI takes over everything, human connection is going to be a premium and the plans and our nature is going to speak even louder.

I feel the consciousness will always find a way.

What do you feel we can say to people that are giving up right now or losing hope?

48:28

OK, let’s go back to nature.

Is she giving up and losing hope?

She lost her creativity and her life force and her beauty and vitality?

No.

You know, I look at my Kitty cat who’s like the happiest creature in the world.

I’m like, she’s living in the same world that I am and look at her just chasing her ball and eating her food.

48:45

Like life is so good.

It’s available.

It’s available.

So we have to be accountable, you know, for what we’re choosing to believe.

We’re not accountable in the same way for our emotions.

It is a very natural, normal thing to respond to what is happening with pain and grief and fear.

49:07

But what we do with that, again, is our responsibility.

If we just throw up our hands and like, well, this is what it is and we’re screwed and humans are going to be kicked off the planet and with just nothing but help, that’s a choice.

That’s a choice.

Instead, we can work with that and be like, well, you know what I always think about?

49:25

A lesson Aya gave me in a ceremony once is when a woman gives birth, we call it contraction.

And it’s incredibly painful and it’s incredibly scary and then outcomes life.

So whenever I’m in contraction, I’m like, oh, I’m giving birth.

Something’s coming forth and I can treat it as something sacred and wonderful and get excited about what’s coming instead of getting lost in the fact that, Oh my God, I’m being rid to shreds and this is so painful.

49:48

It’s a choice of where we put our attention and what we want to say is happening.

The story we’re creating around what’s happening.

That’s the choice that we have.

So it’s it’s always available to tell a different story.

So I ask people when they’re like, well, I’m hopeless and everything’s horrible.

50:05

I was like, is that story something that’s working for you?

Do you have evidence that that’s true?

Does it feel good in your body to to have that as a belief?

No.

It’s like, well, we can look for evidence that something else might be true.

That’s that’s our free will.

50:22

We can tell whatever story we want.

I had to tell myself if I truly believed in the spiritual experience I had with ayahuasca and the spirits that saved my life and everything else I experienced with the spirit realm, if I truly believed it to be true, how would I act and be in this world?

50:37

And I would honestly never doubt a second of my life or life.

Like I would just walk through life and be this smiley, happy gay guy that I am.

I, I whatever is going to happen is going to happen.

Iboga showed me this.

50:52

It’s like it’s already happened.

Everything has ever happened.

What are you stressing about?

Every reality, every moment of existence has already happened.

Just relax.

He even showed me the day I was going to die, which was the most beautiful moment of my life, where I was this old man, bald, skinny, laying in this little wooden bed in a small cabin and my eyes was just filled with gratitude.

51:15

I was so ready to go and I’d lived every piece of life I was supposed to live.

I’d received myself fully and I had expressed myself fully and I was the greatest gift I could have received.

Just to see yourself at the end of the journey being just so in love with this life experience.

51:33

So there’s just so much yumminess to actually stepping into those beliefs and turning that into reality.

And I feel it’s a little bit sad also that we have a tendency of always speaking about all of the negativity when there’s so much beauty everywhere.

51:51

Like if you look at your cat, that’s like it’s own little universe right there with so much joy and so much happiness.

I love your image of joy around the transitioning moment that feels so core to ayahuasca.

52:07

Her name means Vine of the Dead.

She loves to show us that death is a homecoming, that it is a beautiful privilege, a transition back to our normal states.

And her joke with me is like, gosh, humans, you guys got it backwards.

52:25

You think birth is the good part.

That’s the hard part coming into this world, right?

Like coming into duality and like doing it again.

It’s still a privilege and sacred.

But she’s like, death is the easy part.

That’s like surrendering back into, you know, the unity space, like where you, you get to integrate the work you’ve done as a human, Like just because being human is not easy.

52:50

She’s like, death is the fun part, Earth is the hard part.

You got it flipped.

And I truly believe that.

And I think that’s instrumental to those of us that can sit in the joy and the trust that everything is okay is that we trust death.

If you don’t trust death, then you’re not going to trust life.

53:06

Then even if life is graceful and easy and full of love, you’re not going to trust it.

Because if you don’t trust what’s coming, which we’re all coming, we’re one day closer to our death today, aren’t we?

If you don’t trust that, that that’s beautiful, that’s painful.

And that’s one of the things I love most about ayahuasca.

53:24

She can heal that wound of the fear of death in.

My experience, I was not really scared of the death, but being fully alive, what was on the other side was the orgasm and the desire and the loudness and the expression and the dance and everything that you were not allowed to fully be as a child.

53:41

You know, when you tried to make yourself into whatever package that would work in your family or surrounding.

So there is so many things also to learn from death.

And I feel without respecting death, we’d never learn to respect life and never get to respect ourselves.

And this world has been obsessed with disrespecting life, therefore also disrespecting death.

54:02

And we, I feel every time I get to die with ayahuasca, I have a more humble and I have a deeper gratitude for life and a deeper gratitude for death.

And therefore also I get to be in a deeper equilibrium with my surroundings.

So I wish that everyone could go through this process because I think you would appreciate your life and your life so much more.

54:21

But also this warm hug that comes at the end of it when you go back to all the spirits.

Beautifully said.

And that’s why when I do ceremony work and somebody is going through what appears to be the death process, the ego death, my internal dialogue, it’s like, congratulations, amazing.

54:40

You know, like die, just die.

This is the best.

It’s we can’t we can’t force that.

It’s a gift when it happens, whether it’s through ayahuasca or a near death experience or just an awakening, it’s such a gift to have the ego recognized that it is not the end all be all and that we are conscious without a body and that death is safe.

55:02

It is the best.

So I love it when people are Oh my God, I’m gonna die.

I’m like fantastic.

Do that.

Like cuz what’s on the other side?

I’m so good, so good.

I remember the first question you asked me 8 years ago when we met for the first call and I was reading some of your articles that you had posted online and there wasn’t many people in this space and there was no one talking about integration ayahuasca back then.

55:25

And I remember your first question being so tell me about your demons.

I love that one.

I love it.

Now people have a lot of fear towards maybe they have an entity or there are these dark spirits and all of this when they come into this work.

55:42

But what would you say are these entities of spirits that come with us on our Learning Ambassador course here on Earth?

Part of our team of teachers, part of our team of, of beings that love us by the way, they just love us through a different vibration.

55:59

And really I think of entities, if you know, usually we use that term to reference a dark or demonic energy that’s like attached to us or like we don’t normally say entity in a nice way.

So I think of of those kinds of energies as like spiritual parasites.

56:15

Like parasites exist in the, in the 3D World.

We know that like, and we all have them.

You know, sometimes that we have them to the degree that they cause dis ease, they disrupt our health and and then that becomes a catalyst for healing, for being like, Oh well, I need to be more intentional and I need to purify myself.

56:33

And like, we may vilify the parasite, but they’re doing us a huge favor of giving us more awareness around our well-being, what’s happening in our bodies.

So I look at entities as the same they and I normalize them.

I have to doing ayahuasca work as much as I do because they’re everywhere.

56:49

So to respond in fear is the worst possible response because then that becomes an entry point comes right at because that’s what they’re teaching us.

If we’re afraid of them, we give them our power.

If we’re curious, we’re protective of ourselves.

57:04

If we’re we’re in our sovereignty.

They don’t have any power.

They literally don’t.

So they’re incredible teachers and they’re everywhere in our world.

It’s just with ayahuasca, we tend to become aware of them because she helps us lift the veil and see, oh, there are spirits everywhere, but entities are not enemies.

57:22

They are not.

They’re just teachers.

And I wonder what is your perception around karma going into the ayahuasca ceremony?

One of my facilitators, he saw a person purge in one of the ceremonies and he walked over to the bucket and there was a spirit in the bucket and the spirit told him, I’m fine.

57:40

I was ready to be released.

But this person put fire on my forest many, many lifetimes ago.

And I decided to come back and teach him a lesson.

And now we’re done.

And I was like in all over this, that sometimes there is a karma that is connected to to these amazing teachers.

57:56

I remember myself trying to purge one of these energies out over many years did not work until I eventually surrender deeply.

And the teacher came out and said, now we understand you don’t push us.

We go when we’re ready, where you have learned your lesson.

So what I’ve learned from this is there might be some karma on my path, quite a lot actually, also with my lineage.

58:17

And my job is to feel it so fully and accept it so deeply that I can release it naturally.

Not try to push it out, not try to purge it, not try to do a little side tour.

And once I do that and I release whatever yuckiness that was around it, it naturally releases.

58:33

They say goodbye and nobody needs to pull it out or cut it out or do any weird magical tricks on it because it’s a natural, organic process.

What what is your take on this?

Beautifully said.

I completely align with what you share Karma 100% and but karma from a very loving and neutral space.

58:52

You know, karma isn’t good or bad.

It’s just a reflection of what we put out in the world.

And so, yeah, it and it, what’s mysterious about karma is the timing and the way it manifests, right?

Like it could have been lifetimes ago that we put a curse on someone and they put a curse back and like, whatever.

59:08

And then we’re playing it out.

What you describe around just being with it, saying, okay, this is my rite of passage.

I love that expression.

I’m just in a rite of passage, like just be with it.

And like, what triggers me in a personal way about what you shared is I was bulimic for many years before, before and during ayahuasca in the beginning, remember I had a series of four ceremonies that were unbelievably physically painful, just so much pain in my stomach and I was trying to purge and I was doing all the things to try to force it.

59:40

And I when I heard ayahuasca say, sweetie, this is karma, or the control of food and food out and what you did to your body, I instantly felt like, oh, what a privilege.

What a privilege to get to sit with the karma of my actions.

Like, yeah.

59:55

And that’s what made me shift and just say I will be with this pain.

What do you want to tell me?

What do you want to teach me?

And it was like an entity in me.

And by making friends with it, I perched.

And out it came.

And I didn’t even intend for that to be the case, right?

1:00:12

It was just the magic of saying this is me.

I chose this, this is this what?

Thank you for the karma.

Thank you for the honest reflection.

And out it came And I, I wasn’t bulimic anymore.

I didn’t have that desire to do that anymore.

1:00:29

I mean, that’s magical.

I got painful but so beautiful.

I also feel like sometimes our karma is not just sitting in the ceremony suffering or suffering in your life or having some type of illness.

But your karma also shows up in you stepping fully into your gifts and your expression into the responsibility of being a mom or a leader.

1:00:50

But your karma is also found in all the good stuff and you walking on your path and being true to who you really are.

Oh, yes, and to celebrate all the good things in our life as a reflection of that karma, too.

Like my Kitty cat, just the sweetest, most loving girl.

1:01:06

And I feel like that’s the universe’s way of saying thank you for putting so much love into the world, is that I get this creature that just gives me full body hugs and loves me unconditionally.

That’s good karma.

Yeah.

I like to receive that as such, too.

It’s all just a reflection of what we’re putting out.

1:01:22

Like AI is a reflection of what we’re putting out.

Everywhere we look is a reflection.

Individually and collectively, yeah.

In regards to our animals, ayahuasca showed me again and again that they are so much more than just some secondary beings that we get to invite into our homes.

1:01:39

Sometimes there’s an ancestor who is living there.

Sometimes what I’ve learned from having a best friend with a ghost was that they can be a grand maestro.

It can be a great teacher that comes into one of our animals simply because it was the only place where they could really reach our heart, where they could be a mirror to our purity, where they could be an anchor to our healing.

1:01:59

So they are also such powerful teachers.

And I feel so sad for those who never get to have that deep relationship with a cat or a dog or a parrot or a golf, because might be one of the greatest shamans you can have in your life.

I mean, for the record, they’re my favorite relationships.

1:02:16

Plants and animals.

People are hard.

I love people, but Oh my God, the plants and animals are such a purity in the reflection of what they bring because they don’t operate from the ego.

So I agree, like I, I want everyone to get to have the the beauty of the unconditional love and acceptance of a deep intimate relationship with a plant spirit or, you know, an animal which is not a pet.

1:02:39

I don’t even look at it there.

There are teachers and friends and partners in life.

Yeah, it makes life so much better.

And now as this industry is just growing and growing and growing every single year, where do you see this sort of moving?

1:02:57

Well, first of all, for the record, I never saw it becoming what it is.

You know, if you would have told me 20 years ago that everybody and their grandma would be doing plant medicine, I’m like, I don’t think so.

So that said, what do I know?

Right.

But I do see, well, one of the things that I’m a part of, that I love that’s happening is the bridge between the clinical and the shamanic spaces.

1:03:23

That there is this separation that still exists for most of like there’s clinical stuff and there’s shamanic stuff and 1 is better and one is worse.

I like the bridge between the two of allowing the wisdom of what we know from a research based, mind based clinical space to merge with the ancient shamanic wind wisdoms to bring all of us to the table and share what we know about healing, what we know about the body, you know, So that’s slowly happening.

1:03:52

And and I see that being something that a generation from now is more like, well, of course we can have things be clinical and shamanic instead of it being so just separated.

Now there’s the unfortunate reality that the Pharmaceutical industry and the governments and whatnot are getting more and more heavily involved.

1:04:10

It’s kind of a necessary rite of passage to create legal umbrellas that of course the institutions have to get involved.

In the meantime, though, those institutions are getting destroyed in the shadow that we’re going through.

So that’ll be fine eventually brewing growing pains with it now of like who who gets the authority of choosing who gets to serve medicine as an example.

1:04:32

Like all of this, our struggle, I think it will all work itself out eventually because that’s just a reflection of what we’re going through as a collective.

But yeah, I just see it expanding.

I mean, I series last year put out an article saying four and a half million people have drank ayahuasca, 9 million people have worked with mushrooms.

1:04:50

That’s gonna just grow.

I don’t see any reason why that isn’t going to be.

The truth is more and more people are waking up, more and more people are being called to reconnect with nature and themselves.

And so that means we’ll continue to have lots of growing pains of immaturity in the space and a lack of code of ethics and all of these things.

1:05:08

But we’ll bring that in.

We’re bringing it in more and more leadership and a container agreements of like how we do this work.

So it’s coming.

It’s just we humans, we tend to evolve on the collective very slowly.

But that’s fine, makes it more interesting.

1:05:24

Last but not least, it has been such an honor to witness you on your journey and to have you as a teacher, to have you as an inspiration, to truly have you as this pioneer in this space.

That gives us permission because I also did not believe that this was going to turn into sort of a job.

1:05:42

I was doing my healing job and supporting retreats for 10 years and then suddenly ayahuasca and the spirits are just creating this gift that no, actually we secured.

We secured your path.

You can actually do this work and you are uniquely skilled to do it.

1:05:59

I just found that fascinating that you just like focus on yourself and then you can go out and actually be of help and be of service and and have understanding that most people don’t have.

And you have been one of those inspirations for me and I’m just so grateful for you.

1:06:15

I’m so grateful for your heart.

I’m so grateful for you sharing about things that are not easy to talk about and being really transparent about your journey.

So I just hope everyone who’s listening to this that they go and follow you and type medicine people.

And I just absolutely love you, my friend.

1:06:30

Thank you so much for coming to this podcast.

David, I adore you too, and may our journey continue to be connected for until we get that awesome moment of transition.

Like, thank you so much for having me here and for being a friend on this path.

1:06:45

Like it’s just deeply appreciated.

And that is all that I have for you this week, my friends.

If you want to stay connected and be the first to know when new episodes drop or get early access to trainings before anyone else, head over to davidvox.com and join the newsletter.

1:07:03

And if you want the transcripts from these episodes, just go to ayahuascaintegration.org.

Twice a year, we open the doors to a new cohort for our online Integration Facilitator training.

For those of you who feel cold, not just do this work for yourself, but to hold this space for others.

1:07:19

If that whisper has been getting louder lately, you know where to find me.

And if this episode meant something to you, please leave a review or a comment.

I love seeing every single one of them, and I want you to know.

It genuinely moves me so deeply to know that you’re out there listening.

1:07:36

The greatest honor I have had in my life, starting on the ayahuasca journey, has been meeting so many of you at retreats and in integration circles.

It has truly been the greatest gift to have a soul communion, to have a soul family, all with the same grandmother, all in the same family doing this deep work.

1:07:57

So thank you for your courage, thank you for your brave beautiful heart.

Thank you for shining your light.

Thank you for being devoted and trusting your process.

Until next time, take care of yourself, go and spend some time in nature and give yourself a big hug and see you next week.