So… you might be wondering,

WHY HAVE I NEVER HEARD OF IT BEFORE?

Most people DON’T talk about it or know much about it for a number of reasons.

For one, this was a tradition of South American cultures and because it was so sacred, it was kept there. What I have gathered from my research and my own download with Aya, she knows our planet is dying and so is providing the guidance to share this wisdom so that we can wake the F up and stop killing our home.

Secondly, In the US. after 1986, when Reagan kicked off the “war on drugs,” and categorized these healing plant medicines as Schedule 1 drugs, which by categorization states: Those that have no accepted medical use in treatment in the US.

This is just untrue, but a blatant lie. Not because I said so, but because the evidence through the history of plant medicine use, dating back 30-40,000 years, and the more recent studies that have been done, conclude wildly different evidence that these plants can heal chronic illness, addition, cancer, trauma, among other things. I consider myself someone who approaches these things as a scientist and scholar, so I will link up all of the published studies and documentaries in the show notes for you to explore this on a deeper level if you’re interested!

The US National Library of Medicine National Institute of Health: When I typed in Ayahuasca that first article:

Ayahuasca: Psychological and Physiologic Effects, Pharmacology and
Potential Uses in Addiction and Mental Illness

Their conclusion? “Many years of shamanic wisdom have indicated potential therapeutic uses for ayahuasca, and several present-day studies suggest that it may be useful for treating various psychiatric disorders and addictions. The side effect profile appears to be relatively mild, but more detailed studies need to be done. Several prominent researchers believe that government regulations with regard to ayahuasca should be relaxed so that it could be provided more readily to recognized, credible researchers to conduct comprehensive clinical trials.”

Now a common question I got was… “Wait, but do you throw up the whole time?”

No. In fact, the whole purging experience was way different than even I expected. I had this idea, that we would all drink the medicine, and immediately start vomiting.

That couldn’t be further from accurate and we had 86 people participating as well as Shamans and support staff, so no, that’s not how it happens. I’ll explain more in depth of the steps of the ceremony in a bit, but to understand purging a bit…

Whereas most US medicines or drugs seek to dull emotions, dull the sense, and repress you from feeling unwanted feeings, Aya identifies where that pain + unhealed emotion is being held – in your neurology or body – and brings it all UP in layers for you to acknowledge, process,  understand, release. When you drink plant medicine like Aya, you are taking in a drop of higher consciousness, a higher vibration, so anything at a lower level vibration in your body can no longer stay. This is for many, varying degrees of trauma or stuck energy.

Psychedlica  on gaia.com “Trauma is an experience that is too intense or complex to process all at once. So the memory is storied in the neurology and tissues of the body, awaiting a moment to resurface and continue being processed so that it can finally be surrendered and let go of.“

You will purge this stuck energy in a number of different ways, puking, going to the bathroom, sweating, movement, releasing sound or sighs, burps, feeling + releasing emotions – so crying, yelling, etc.

Now you might hear that and think NO WAY –  sounds awful. Maybe. But what is truly awful is carrying around decades of stuck trauma that manifests in dis-ease and getting in your own way. So there’s THAT.

And what’s interesting is, in the English language when we feel nauseous, we sometimes say, “I feel sick.” You will not find this translation in any other language because nausea or fever is not a sign of you being sick, it’s a sign of your body HEALING. Your body is helping you heal. That was really profound for me to shift my thinking, language, and understanding of this. As you guys know, I’m a language nerd, so this just blew my mind.

Speaking of purging, I was very open and available to purge in whatever way necessary and purge I did – and I’ll share more in a bit, but on the other side of letting go, is a bliss and euphoria unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

One big question I’ve been getting is “Do you hallucinate?!”

I think there is a lot of confusion about what each individual as in their mind when they think of hallucinate. The dictionary definition of hallucinate states, “experience a seemingly real perception of something not actually present, typically as a result of a mental disorder or of taking drugs.” Aya is a medicine, not a “drug” in negative western context. And I even hesitate calling Aya hallucinogenics BECAUSE these medicines showed me more of what WAS really there that I could not see or hear with my human senses.

There are 4 types of journeys:

• BODY – shakes, sweat, vomit
• NADA – sleep – still works on you.
• CONSULT – speaking to mother aya, the moon, trees – clairaudience
• PINTA – sacred geometry, seeing unified fields of source
  Psychedelia from gaia.com states, “the visual cortex is stimulated so the science of HOW it works is clear, but the understanding of what is seen is an entirely different conversation.”

Another question is, “Is it like mushrooms?”

To answer the question, Mushrooms and Aya ARE DIFF MOLECULARLY SIMILAR, but different—

Yes, in that, I felt fully trusting of Aya bc of Mushrooms.

No. As one Shaman said, “Every experience with plants is your first time because it is never the same.”

I love this because it’s so true.

When I did mushrooms, I felt a certain connectedness with the plant, that was definitely different from mother aya, which felt similar during the first 3 ceremonies.

The different plants were very different for me in how they guided me, but each medicine, brew, or experience was different too.

On one occasion when I did psilocybin mushrooms, with my eyes open, I could see energy. Things were vibrant. Honeycomb like sacred geometry. Anywhere there was an electric plug it was purple and pink auras around it and I could see the aura of the people I was with. With mushrooms, things were more silly, fun, connected, easy, flowing, at least for me personally.

OR MAYBE YOU HAVE HEARD OF IT, BUT YOU’VE HEARD HORROR STORIES!

I know some people who had weird experiences, doing it in college by putting mushrooms on sandwiches instead of fasting, and using it recreationally, whereas whenever I’ve done plants it’s been about truly honoring the medicine and practice, creating an energetically cleansed and sacred space, blessing the medicine, setting intentions, etc.

Can someone have a bad experience? I’m sure you could. Now there are many variables that I don’t have time or knowledge to get into, but the most obvious would be 1. If you are not willing to surrender to the work and you resist the entire time. For example, the place that I went to have this experience had us do 4 consecutive ceremonies over 4 days. Had we stopped after either the first or second night, I would have felt like the experience wasn’t complete for me because I had more to release. 2. At least from the experience that I had and the Shamans, I had the privilege of working with, the only way they would not have allowed you to stay stuck if you were struggling. The guidance they provided me and others was truly profound.

So, a bad experience could happen is if you were NOT under the supervision of a shaman, who provided great medicine, in the right environment, with the right tools. SOOO don’t try to buy some Aya on amazon and do it in someone’s basement. That is NOT how it works.

“”, 

WHY DID I DO IT?

I have always approach growth from a scientific standpoint. I wanted to experience things first hand, as well as see data and measurable evidence in order to be ALL IN. It’s one of the reasons I’ve loved and used NLP neurolinguistic programming so much in my work. It’s systematic in the foundation.

I love all of that work AND in the last few years I’ve wanted to bring more spirituality, higher-consciousness, back into my healing work.

Especially after experiencing mushrooms, I was knew I had to be part of an Aya ceremony.

I KNEW there was another layer to healing that I hadn’t yet figured out how to access. I was seeing the physical manifestations of my blocks and resistance in various areas of my life, and yet I could figure out what or why.

I later learned though mother Aya, that my biggest trauma was fully processed in my subconscious, but that energy was still stuck in my body, creating a massive block.

 I’d also been doing a lot of studying around stress. The fight or flight response in the body which I had struggled to control or understand for most of my early adult life. It’s connection back to Aya and healing is quite fascinating…. 

Harvard Health Publishing – Harvard Medical School “Understanding the stress response explains it as such…

 

“The stress response begins in the brain (see illustration). When someone confronts an oncoming car or other danger, the eyes or ears (or both) send the information to the amygdala, an area of the brain that contributes to emotional processing. The amygdala interprets the images and sounds. When it perceives danger, it instantly sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus.This area of the brain functions like a command center, communicating with the rest of the body through the nervous system so that the person has the energy to fight or flee.

 

The hypothalamus is a bit like a command center. This area of the brain communicates with the rest of the body through the autonomic nervous system, which controls such involuntary body functions as breathing, blood pressure, heartbeat, and the dilation or constriction of key blood vessels and small airways in the lungs. The autonomic nervous system has two components, the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system functions like a gas pedal in a car. It triggers the fight-or-flight response, providing the body with a burst of energy so that it can respond to perceived dangers. The parasympathetic nervous system acts like a brake. It promotes the “rest and digest” response that calms the body down after the danger has passed.

 

After the amygdala sends a distress signal, the hypothalamus activates the sympathetic nervous system by sending signals through the autonomic nerves to the adrenal glands. These glands respond by pumping the hormone epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) into the bloodstream. As epinephrine circulates through the body, it brings on a number of physiological changes. The heart beats faster than normal, pushing blood to the muscles, heart, and other vital organs. Pulse rate and blood pressure go up. The person undergoing these changes also starts to breathe more rapidly. Small airways in the lungs open wide. This way, the lungs can take in as much oxygen as possible with each breath.

Extra oxygen is sent to the brain, increasing alertness. Sight, hearing, and other senses become sharper. Meanwhile, epinephrine triggers the release of blood sugar (glucose) and fats from temporary storage sites in the body. These nutrients flood into the bloodstream, supplying energy to all parts of the body.

 

All of these changes happen so quickly that people aren’t aware of them. In fact, the wiring is so efficient that the amygdala and hypothalamus start this cascade even before the brain’s visual centers have had a chance to fully process what is happening. That’s why people are able to jump out of the path of an oncoming car even before they think about what they are doing.”

That’s what is happening in our bodies with fight or flight… What does this have to do with Aya? Stuck trauma triggers our fight or flight response in our mind and body, and for some, keeps it stuck ON. 

As I learned from the research of Dr. Don Wood, trauma also causes DIS-EASE in the body and inflammation. What is a trauma? Anything can be a trauma. It’s relative. By my understanding, that trauma experience created a low vibration energy that is stuck in the body and/or memory stuck in the subconscious unprocessed.

How does this all connect?? When there is inflammation in the body, it cannot effectively heal.

Okay so really unpack this, we have to understand how chronic inflammation effects the body, research published in the US National Library of Medicine National Health Institute of Health – Immunosuppression associated with chronic inflammation in the tumor microenvironment 

“Inflammation is typically referred to as either acute or chronic. Acute inflammation caused by physical or chemical injury or by an infectious agent is meant to provide an early beneficial response that helps eliminate pathogens and necrotic cells as well as initiates the healing process at the site of tissue injury. This inflammatory process is self-limiting and resolves after tissue repair or elimination of pathogens.

By contrast, chronic inflammation caused by infectious or autoimmune diseases is a prolonged abnormal immune response that is not terminated by the normal feedback mechanisms. Evidence indicates that chronic inflammation is a risk factor for several gastrointestinal malignancies.”

“Chronic inflammation initiates tumor formation through induction of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species… Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species produced by inflammatory cells are associated with mutation of key genes such as tumor suppressor and DNA repair genes.”

Another great study that I will link up for you is called, “Chronic diseases, inflammation, and spices: how are they linked?”

“Inflammation, which means, “to set on fire” is a body’s natural response against harmful pathogen and stimuli that occurs in two stages namely, acute and chronic inflammation [4]. Acute inflammation is a part of innate immunity initiated by the immune cells that persists only for a short time. However, if the inflammation continues, the second stage of inflammation called chronic inflammation commences which instigates various kinds of chronic diseases, including arthritis, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and neurological diseases via dysregulation of various signaling pathways”

SOOOO…

Trauma is relative. 

A traumatic experience can leave behind low-vibration energy in the body and/or in your neurology, as vignettes of memories, that when triggered by another thought or by an experience in your present reality, it sends the body into survival, fight or flight. 

It is signaling your body to take action based on the thought, even though in many circumstances when triggered, there’s no reason to run or fight, you are completely safe.

In F or F the body thinks that event is happening NOW.

The brain does not know the difference between real v imagined. That’s why intentional visualization is so powerful.

As they say in the field of neuroscience, what fires together, wires together.

When unprocessed, and compounded over time, through repetition, that neural pathways become stronger and the body malfunctions BECAUSE when the body is in this state it cannot do maintenance. So when it is being triggered into F – F multiple times a day or all day long, the body cannot heal – which creates inflammation.

When chronic inflammation is present, the body cannot properly heal itself and chemically becomes an optimal environment for cancer among other things. This was detailed in the immunosuppression study.

In summary, if we want to live happier, healthier lives, we need to deal with our shit.

When we deal with our shit, we let go of old programming that caused our brains to malfunction and trigger chemicals that lead to chronic inflammation.

And when we deal with our shit we heal not only ourselves, but the people around us, and our lineage or ancestral trauma or if you believe past lives, your past life trauma — to me it’s less a debate of what is reality or not and more of a convo around – how is this negative energy stored in your body + programmed in your subconscious.

And there are many ways to deal with your shit. So many different modalities. I love NLP and something called Breath Work – that is likely not what you think it is. I say breath work and people are like, “Oh what I do in Yoga!” – no. It’s a different technique that is vaguely named.

I am a huge advocate for plant medicine for those who feel called to it — because doing Aya is a rip the bandaid, cannonball into the cold water, approach of unearthing your shit so that you can deal with it and let it go now.

The studies that have been done on plant medicine and the brain will just absolutely blow your mind. A bunch of great documentaries on gaia.com too. It’s like the Netflix of spiritual awakening content.