0:00
Imagine someone you love and trusted said to you today they have a big surprise waiting for you.
Meet me at this location and don't be late.
And you can see on their face and their smile something beautiful is about to happen but you don't know what.
0:18
And you're asked to arrive without any expectation.
You might feel the excitement rising in you as you walk towards the experience.
What is there, who is there, and what is going to happen?
It's just like the moment you entered an ayahuasca retreat and open yourself to the unknown.
0:37
Suddenly you step into the room of the surprise and you can see twenty faces looking back at you.
People from childhood who loved you.
People from your teenage years, colleagues from different jobs and careers and chapters of your life who supported you.
0:57
People from activities, communities, friendships and worlds.
You have moved through all the different facets of your life, gathered in one room, all around you in a circle.
They don't know each other, but each person knows a different part of you.
1:16
Each one has seen a different side of the diamond that you are, and together they begin to reflect the part of you that they have seen.
One by one, they begin to speak.
They tell you what they appreciate about you, what they love, what they admire, how you have inspired them, what your presence has given them, what has changed in their life because you were in it.
1:43
They begin giving you the words that most people only hear spoken after they have died.
But you are still here, alive, being celebrated while you can feel, receive, and connect to those around you.
2:00
What happens inside of you as you imagine this?
Does it feel beautiful, or do you meet resistance, feel awkward, exposed, vulnerable?
Celebration as a medicine touches the parts of you that are still not fully open to beloved parts of you that are still hiding, waiting, or do not know how to be honored, witnessed, or to feel worthy.
2:24
It can be the same parts that know how to serve and give and hold and support everyone else but struggles to receive.
That is the medicine of celebration.
I want to enter with you today the power of celebration in our integration work and the sacred art of receiving all of you while you're still alive.
2:47
And what becomes possible when every mirror reveals a different facet of your being until you can finally see yourself as whole.
This ritual is integration in its purest form.
Seeing yourself through the ice of love for every side of you is mirrored back.
3:05
And for this episode, please download the workbook called The Celebration Circle A7 Day Celebration Experience, where we work on integrating and expanding our ability to receive and celebrate all the goodness that is in your life already.
It's free and it's ready to be downloaded in the episode description.
3:23
And this, my friend, might be one of the most important episodes that I will ever make.
And I cannot wait to share how this circle also transformed my life from living a life of constantly trying to earn my life to living a life that celebrates it.
3:40
Because when you learn to receive the goodness in your life, life becomes an expert in sending this goodness towards you.
And when you learn to celebrate your life, you create a life that celebrates you back.
Let's dive in.
4:27
When you entered your first ayahuasca ceremony, there is often a very similar movement for all of us.
On the first night.
You arrive, you connect, you begin listening.
You don't hug everyone super closely, and you might even feel afraid of arriving, afraid of what is waiting for you and afraid of what might open.
4:50
On the second night, something begins to loosen.
You start releasing what you have been carrying for so long.
Grief moves, anger moves, fear moves, and your body speaks in ways your mind could never organize into land with.
You begin hugging people as friends and family.
5:08
You feel that you belong.
You're no longer as afraid of being there or of opening yourself to life.
And then by the third night, something else appears.
You and everyone around you starts dancing.
5:24
You move like a child, you shake, you love, you wiggle, you sing, your face softens, your body is less guarded and the world is vivid again, filled with awe.
For a moment, you are not managing life, you are celebrating it.
5:42
You celebrate your body because you can feel again.
You celebrate connection because the walls of protection between you and the people around you are gone.
You can receive life again and the people in it.
You celebrate nature, the medicine, the universe, spirit, music, breath, touch, tears, and the awesome miracle of being alive.
6:08
And you are not celebrating because everything has been resolved.
You are celebrating because you are present enough to recognize and receive what is already here.
Now you hug everyone deeply, and the fear you felt when arriving has been replaced by the fear of leaving this beautiful container of awe, connection, belonging, and celebration.
6:33
But what if this were not only the final movement of an ayahuasca ceremony?
What if celebration became the beginning?
What if you did not always have to enter through the wound or the pain or the problem?
What if you did not need to break apart before allowing yourself to feel alive?
6:53
What if celebration were not something you earned after completing the work, but one of the ways the work was actually completed?
Today I want to share a ritual that I've offered for many years to students, clients, and people arriving at our retreats.
Remember to download the workbook, The seven Day Celebration Experience, The Celebration Circle.
7:13
We will work on integrating and expanding our ability to receive and celebrate all the goodness we already have.
And the foundation for this is very simple.
Just imagine, you walk down the street today and look at another person.
You see a body, a face, A roll a moment.
7:32
You see an old woman buying bread, the father waiting outside of school, the man sitting alone at a cafe, the woman rushing to work, a person standing in front of you in a queue, and you place a label on them almost immediately.
Mother, teacher, stranger, successful, difficult, lonely.
7:50
But what you cannot see is the invisible depth surrounding them.
You cannot see the child who calls them when life becomes unbearable.
You cannot see the friend who still remember something they said 20 years ago that meant the world to them.
8:07
You cannot see the student whose entire direction changed because this person believed in them.
You cannot see the sister who knows exactly how much they have survived.
And you cannot see the colleague who felt deeply protected by their courage.
And you cannot see the people who laughed differently when this person enters the room.
8:29
Every single human being walks through the world surrounded by an invisible bed of loving relationships, a golden tread that ties people together through their hearts, that ties all of us together if we're open to receive it.
Memories, gratitude, unspoken love, and stories that we might never hear.
8:52
And if you stop for a moment and just imagine the thousands of love stories that took place to create you, you are a miracle of love woven together by an ancient lineage of love stories.
9:10
And there can be so much love around you or any person that you meet that has never found a place to land.
So it exists in fragments, in thoughts that people never voice, in conversation that almost happen in gratitude.
9:27
You assume the other person already understands.
So you save the words.
You wait for the perfect moment.
We wait for the birthday, the retirement, the farewell, the diagnosis, the hospital room or the funeral.
9:44
And often the only person who does not fully understand how loved they are are the person at the center of that web.
And that is one of the tragedies of life.
Not that love is absent, but that it remains unexpressed, not received.
10:04
And not that the person has no value, that their value has never been reflected clearly enough for them to reclaim it and receive it.
And this is where we enter the celebration circle.
It creates a place for that love to land while there is still time for it to be reflected back to you.
10:23
While there is still time to speak differently, to call more often, to forgive, reconnect, to stop pretending that what matters can always be said later, to actually receive what life has already given you, of relationships and also of your inner qualities that shine so brightly but might not be seen fully by you.
10:46
That is why we do this integration work.
Because when everyone holds up a mirror to your light and reflecting it back to you, it doesn't only touch every part of you.
It strengthens your roots, your connection, your ability to receive yourself.
11:04
It moves shame and self doubt and transforms it.
And it reconnects you to the people that nurtured your soil as a soul on a human journey.
And it also always touches everyone else that participates in a circle like this.
Because we all get impacted.
11:21
We all receive the love that we share.
Because what moves through me when I share how much I love you.
When I send it to you and I'm open, I can also receive it.
This is integration in real time with the medicine that we already have available.
11:38
And this is not a space where you can escape into the past or the future.
Who you are at the center of the circle is enough, and that stops a lot of mental narratives in its tracks.
Suddenly the body can feel, the mind and eyes can see, and the heart can receive.
11:58
I am enough.
Suddenly you are not searching through the past for another wound.
You're now waiting for a future version of yourself to finally become home.
You're using the medicine and the mirrors that are present in your life already.
12:14
And the people who love you, They all carry different pieces of the truth.
They've seen your courage and moments that you probably only remembered survival.
They've experienced your generosity through actions.
Maybe you'd barely remember.
They have felt your presence when you thought you were doing nothing.
12:31
And they have seen your gifts, probably so many gifts in you that feel so natural to you, you just assume everyone else has them.
The circle, it gathers all of these reflections.
One person might speak about your courage, another one might speak about your humour or devotion.
12:51
Someone from your childhood, they might remember your imagination, and a colleague that you once had might speak about your leadership or your loyalty.
And maybe a friend talks about your tenderness, or maybe a child speaks about the safety they feel around you.
13:09
Every person holds up a different mirror because no single mirror can show the whole of you.
But when the mirrors are gathered, the diamond begins to appear.
Not the perfect version of you, not the spiritual identity, but a fuller and truer 1 The wholeness of who you are becomes visible because you are no longer looking through 1 distorted reflection of your inner narratives.
13:37
You are seeing yourself through the many lives that are woven into your life, through the web of love, the many relationships and chapters and roles and characters that you have already created on your paw.
And learning to receive that reflection is medicine.
13:56
Because receiving love is not always easy.
You might know how to give or to serve or to support.
You might know how to hold space, offer advice, solve problems, make dinner, organize retreats, care for children, guide A-Team, and carry the emotional weight of a room.
14:13
But receiving asks something different of you.
It asks you to stop performing, to stop proving, to stop controlling, to stop making yourself useful, and to allow someone else's words to reach the place in you that has spent a lifetime believing you must create value.
14:32
That is where the circle becomes confronting.
Someone tells you that you changed your life and a part of you wants to argue, or it wants to try to give it back immediately.
No, you are amazing.
You were the one who saved my life.
You inspired me, maybe, to tell you that you're courageous and you remember every moment you were afraid.
14:53
Or they tell you that you're so loving and you remember every relationship in which you fail.
Or they tell you that you're powerful and you feel all the places where you still collapse.
Celebration touches the part of you that is still closed off to love.
It touches the walls around our heart, and it reveals the distance between the goodness other experiencing you and the identity you have continued to carry.
15:19
And that distance is where our work lives.
Not enforcing yourself to believe every word.
Not in replacing one false identity with another, but simply in becoming willing to remain present when love arrives.
To let it enter without immediately returning it.
15:38
Without minimizing it, without saying you are actually the amazing one of me.
Without turning it into a joke.
That's my issue.
Without explaining why they are wrong, simply allowing the words and the world you're actually a part of right now to exist, to receive it, to hold it.
15:59
And when I do these rituals with clients at retreats or programs, I ask them to ask themselves, after the circle, who am I if all of the things that people just shared is true?
What does this mean, if it's true?
And what part of me has been waiting for permission to receive this?
16:19
This practice has become one of the foundations of everything that I do because I spent years in therapy, years in coaching, years chasing goals, years talking about problems, and years trying to understand what had happened to me and how I could become better.
16:36
And there was so much value in all of that.
But at some point, I realized that I had become exceptionally skilled.
I had a PhD level in finding what was wrong inside of me and in the world, and I was deeply in my mental pain.
16:52
Every inside revealed another layer.
Every layer revealed another pattern.
Every pattern created more work.
My life shifted when I began cultivating what was already here to celebrate, not pretending that the pain was gone and not using positivity to escape reality, but refusing to let the wound remain the only doorway to my truth and to my heart and to my attention.
17:17
The celebration circle began as a very strange experience in New York.
I was working with Coting clients seven years ago, and I asked them to record some testimonial videos for me.
And nobody, if you're in my industry, likes to ask for testimonials.
17:33
It feels awkward and transactional.
You are asking another human being to explain why your work had value.
Though when my clients began speaking, some of them cried.
They spoke about what had changed.
They spoke about how they saw themselves differently.
17:52
They spoke about choices they had made, relationships they had transformed, and parts of themselves that they had reclaimed.
And I said, listen, I felt as though I was standing inside a gift box, a big, big gift box for Christmas that had been prepared for me, but that I never opened.
18:11
I had value.
The thought was almost impossible for me to receive, because for most of my life I had tried to prove that I had value.
I had tried to create value, trying to earn it through work and achievement and service and transmission and usefulness.
18:27
Yet these wonderful humans were speaking about something much deeper, and the value had already been received.
It existed in their lives.
I just simply hadn't allowed it to reach me.
Later for a birthday for one of my best friends, Satya, who is an amazing Ayahuasca shaman with over 30 years experience.
18:48
I created a ritual for her and it was the 1st celebration circle.
We invited people from different parts of her life not just to offer gratitude, not a gratitude circle, but to name the impact, the light, the love and the power they had experienced through her.
19:05
And one by one, they spoke.
They did not all know the same version of her.
Each person held up a different piece.
And as those pieces came together, something happened in the room.
It was not only Satya who was changed and transformed.
19:21
Everyone felt the impact.
Because when one person is reflected clearly from the heart, you begin to feel all the love that you have not expressed to the people you love.
You start recognizing the qualities, the same qualities that are being celebrated within yourself and suddenly everyone is being love bombed.
19:42
The room of strangers that felt awkward entering the room online suddenly feel they found a place they don't want to leave, and one by one, they witnessed the same person being seen, appreciated and reflected through so many different eyes.
And something begins to shift.
19:59
The fear dissolves, the distance between people disappear, and after gathering around gratitude, giving and receiving, everyone feels deeply connected.
Not only the person at the center, but the entire room.
And at the end, no one wants to leave the room, they want to stay a little bit longer because it feels so good to be together without judgement or performance.
20:24
Simply witnessing the beauty in another human being and allowing that same love to move through everyone.
And today, this celebration circle has become the final ritual for any client completing journeys with me or those that are arriving at the retreat that feel ready after our integration period.
20:46
Because with something like this, you need to feel prepared and to be open to the experience since it moves a lot of energy.
And I remember when I did this ritual for myself at the hardest moment of my life in my dark Night of the Soul chapter that I share about on this podcast.
21:05
I invited previous clients, family, and friends to shower me with love.
And my light was so dimmed at that moment that I didn't even know how to utilize or to cultivate the energy to take the next step on my journey.
21:22
It was like all the air was out of me.
And at the end of my circle, all that light that I felt was missing was mirrored back to me.
I could feel like myself again.
And I initiated this next chapter in my life, this podcast, this journey, and all of the beautiful abundance and flow that now just comes every single day.
21:47
Because when you create the ability to truly receive yourself, it's like you create a reset in your energetic system and you expand your ability to receive yourself so that you can also hold more abundance and more goodness.
I have experienced in my childhood so many years of abuse that was sadistic and evil.
22:07
But these circles, they did something to me that I never thought any circle could do.
Any form of healing modality.
They regain my faith in humanity not by celebrating myself, but by celebrating others to seeing how much love that actually exists in this world that just didn't have a place to land, that was kept in the almost spoken words and hugs.
22:35
It was in these rooms celebrating other people that I fell in love with humanity again after hating humanity, feeling ashamed of being a part of humanity.
And I have witnessed things that I will never forget.
22:51
A straight macho man crying as they speak to their mom or their wife or their kids father speaking directly to their gay son with a love that I think I've never felt or touched before.
That truly healed the part of my own heart as I now know this love can exist for someone else.
23:10
Friends remembering small moments that the person being celebrated had forgotten completely.
Sisters and brothers and wives and friends truly opening up their heart and sharing how much one person means to them in their life.
23:28
And again and again, participant would say the same thing.
Thank you for creating this space so that I could share my gratitude, my celebration.
Thank you for letting me be able to share these words with my son while they are still alive.
And what I realised was that I was witnessing something that was like a funeral, but while the person was alive.
23:51
But unlike the funeral, we have time to receive, to respond, to repair, to celebrate.
Time to let all of these relationships become deeper and more honest and more connected.
And what is so beautiful about this is that so many of us, we enter the ayahuasca journey in a very deep inner process.
24:12
We descend into the underworld and we meet ourselves there.
But very few people prepare us for the return.
Very few helps us bring back the gifts and the light and the love we discovered back into our ordinary lives.
Many of us begin to believe that awakening requires escape, but a profound part of the journey is actually returning with gifts we have received and allowing them to transform the life that we already have.
24:42
The most powerful ways that I have found to inspire and transform the lives around me is to fully receive my own potential, my own love, and my own healing, and to create deeper, fuller bonds, to let my roots grow further into the earth, and to build real community, real connection, and real support.
25:00
And when these circles end, people are reminded of how many people who love them, from clients to colleagues to friends and family, Their network becomes filled with light and gratitude, and that love nourishes every life that they're connected to, like the roots of the trees meeting beneath the earth, holding on another with love and respect while supporting each other's growth and expansion.
25:27
And also, too often I see people trying to walk this path entirely alone, as though we were ever meant to sit and drink ayahuasca alone in an ayahuasca ceremony.
We have guides shamans, we have ceremonial space holders, we have integration experts.
25:46
We have an entire group of people helping us hold and ground the energy.
A ritual like this, it returns us to the relational part of the journey.
It brings us back into connection with the people and the relationships that help shape who we are.
26:04
And it allows us to honor what has held us and to receive the love that is already present and return to our lives more deeply rooted in one another.
When I facilitated an ayahuasca retreat, I create a mini version of this ritual at the last day of the retreat.
26:22
So after the medicine, after the release, after the insights.
And I ask a bit of different questions.
For example, what have you seen in this person?
What quality did they bring into this retreat, into the room?
How did their presence affect you but might have not yet understand about themselves and their life?
26:42
And that is when integration becomes relational.
The medicine might reveal something inside of you, but relationships can give it shape.
It gives it a practical form through a hug and words and connection.
It's no longer just abstract visions and ideas that we haven't fully comprehended.
27:03
It's real.
We can touch it, we can look into the eyes, we can feel the energy that's being sent our way, and we can choose to receive it.
And remember one of the most powerful reflections that I heard from a circle, It came from a sister who was doing this ritual online with me at the end of a journey.
27:21
And she had watched her sister doing years of transmission work, therapy, coaching programs, healing, and she thought it was so ridiculous.
Why spend so much time and money on yourself when life is good enough?
And then she attended her sister's celebration circle.
27:39
And she listened to all the 20 people in the room from different parts of her sister's life speak about what had changed within them in the presence of her sister.
She witnessed the depth of connection in the room.
She saw what her sister had become capable of receiving, something she had never been before.
27:59
And by the end of this circle, she said, sister, I now finally understand why you would do this work.
And I want to start my own healing journey.
That is why a celebration circle and these rituals that truly are transformational technology, it's never medicine only for one person at the center.
28:18
It moves through all of us.
When one person is witnessed, you remember your own longing to be seen.
When one person receives love, you encounter the places where you still refuse it.
When one person is celebrated, you remember that life is happening right now, not later, and not after you finally became enough, or not after the next ceremony or job promotion or paycheck right now.
28:43
And when you allow that light to be reflected to one person, it doesn't stop there because it chimes back to you.
And for us to understand why celebration can be such a powerful medicine and also so confronting, we have to also understand the characters that you have learned to play and that I have learned to play.
29:02
Because you might not necessarily enter the circle as an open receiver.
You enter as the role that kept you safe.
The achiever believes value must be earned.
The helper who feels comfortable giving to everyone else but can't tolerate being held by others.
The strong one who does not want anyone to see how much love they actually need, Or the humble one who refuses to receive recognition.
29:25
Or my favorite, the spiritual one who can speak about universal love but struggles to let personal love land within them.
Or the invisible child who learned not to take up too much space.
Or the performer who can receive applause but not intimacy.
29:43
The medicine of celebration doesn't attack these characters, but it just allows them to rest for a moment because there's nothing to prove, nothing to fix, nothing to teach, nothing to say.
The only thing they need to do is to receive.
And there is only a room now filled with people reflecting what they have genuinely seen in you.
30:04
And then there is you learning to remain present long enough to hold it and receive it.
The beauty of these circles is seeing how much people expand afterwards.
Because when you expand your capacity to receive love and light and praise and goodness in all shapes and forms, and also every facet of who you have been until now that was all woven with love, you also expand your ability to receive the people who are already present in your life.
30:33
Including all of those who never had a cup of ayahuasca.
They have so much medicine in them if you just createspace for them to share their magic.
You also created a bigger inner container in which all of these gifts can be held and witnessed and cultivated.
You literally expand your capacity to hold and enjoy the beauty of being alive.
30:55
This is why I hope everyone who has attended an ayahuasca retreat will eventually join me for a celebration circle where they can be witnessed and celebrated in a safe space.
And if you feel something stirring as you hear this, perhaps a tingling or strong resistance or a sense of fearful excitement, you can explore our next sacred Integration journey beginning in September.
31:19
And you can also join our upcoming Ayahuasca Integration Retreat in September, where preparation, integration and the Celebration circle are woven into the journey.
The retreat brings together 10 modalities of healing and integration including family system therapy, deep integration, circles, breath work, sound healing, and so much more.
31:43
And you will find links to both of these journeys in the episode description but also in your workbook.
I hope you dive into the Seven Day Celebration experience and let me know in the comments how you expanded your ability to receive and to celebrate your life.
31:59
Thank you so much for joining me today, my friend.
I hope this episode has inspired you to celebrate the people around you and to allow yourself to be celebrated too, and to receive more of the goodness that is already in your life.
Because when you celebrate yourself in your life, you create a life that celebrates you back.
32:18
Ah, all my friends and see you next week.
