Remember: it's not an Ayahuasca retreat you're looking for

It’s not really an Ayahuasca retreat you’re looking for.

What you’re probably looking for is improvements to your:

- consciousness, thinking patterns, and vibration

- clarity of purpose and quality of life 

- emotional and spiritual wholeness

… and you probably believe an Ayahuasca retreat can help you get there. And it can!

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But like most things that sound “too good to be true”, there’s a lot more going on than initially meets the eye, and more nuance to consider in preparing for and selecting an experience of such potency.

Attending an Ayahuasca retreat and lasting improvements to the human experience are two quite different outcomes.

If it’s lasting improvements to the human experience that you’re looking for, I’m going to bring your attention to two things:

1)  The requirement to do mental and emotional work

2)  The vibration of the portal

If I had known just these two things, I suspect it would’ve helped me make a lot more progress with fewer retreats, saved me a bunch of money, and less time hugging the Bucket of Humility.

Mental & Emotional Work

If psychedelics were a silver bullet, people who took them would all be enlightened, and Earth would probably be just one big 24/7 party. Clearly, we’re not quite there yet.

Here’s what the science says. Psychedelics:

- Help us connect with our joy for life

- Deepen our spirituality

- Do not remove feelings of negativity / toxicity

Without a doubt, psychedelic plant medicine is the most powerful transformational tool we have, but for lasting benefits, we have to do the mental and emotional work pre- and post-retreat.

A lot of people are under the belief they can navigate this themselves (hello ego!), and while that’s true on an absolute level (we all have everything inside of us), working with a coach or therapist that can light the path can dramatically speed up the process.

There's a relevant quote by the one and only Rumi: “Whoever travels without a guide, needs two hundred years for a two-day journey.”

Work with a guide, your future self will thank you later.

A quality coach or therapist will help you mirror, navigate, and excavate your own mind to help you get to the root of your frustration, anger, victim mindset, etc. – whatever it is you’re working on, and reach the higher dimensions that exist within you.

Each of us are our own complex puzzle, and some guidance for the journey allows one to set meaningful intention for retreat, learn tools for daily work, and to hold oneself accountable to implementing the changes post-retreat.

In the end, what we do differently is the only thing that really matters.

Those who skip “the work” often find themselves healing surface-level stuff and struggling to access the root of their problems.

There’s no shortage of people in this world who have been working with psychedelics for years and are still judgmental, negative, have a messy house, dramatic relationships, and haven’t found the work they love to do.

Probably not what you’re looking for!

There are also many more people who are stuck on the retreat cycle. They go on retreat, they have some profound experiences, and then 3 weeks later, everything is normal back at home. It’s common to fall into the trap of believing that the answer is to go on another retreat… because during the retreat, everything was so clear!

Sometimes the answer is to go for another retreat, but more often than not, these people are skipping the real work to be done.

When healing work is done well, you will be at your most vulnerable, and your entire understanding of yourself, of reality, and the relationship between the two will shift.

If you want to set yourself up for success: take a holistic approach to this deep work and accept the guidance of a coach or a therapist.

One caveat here: if your guide doesn't help you identify meaningful shifts in your first session together, keep searching.

Vibration of the Portal

An Ayahuasca retreat (or any other psychedelic retreat) isn’t just a group of people taking medicine together in a room, it’s a portal to a higher dimension.

The vibration of the portal, which determines what dimensions you could theoretically have access to within the ceremony, depends upon the capabilities of the healer / shaman.

If you have a low vibration or less experienced healer (of which there are many, and more and more each day!), you can still have profound and healing experiences, but it’s unlikely you are going to have encounters with celestial beings or enlightening mystical experiences.

If you have a high vibration, experienced healer, then not only are you able to access high places, but you’re able to get down to those low places that exist within each of us to clean out the spiritual basement from the stuff we’re carrying from our ancestors and our own traumas.

You’re going to be able to peel away more layers of what’s “not you” in a given retreat, and give you a better chance at seeing the Light and staying aligned to the new you.

It's not about the number of retreats you go on, it's about the progress you make within a retreat.

The dynamics here can be described in terms of physics: when you have a higher frequency and a lower frequency, the lower frequency (those of us on retreat) are harmonizing up to the higher frequency (the healer / shaman).

Please know I don’t mean to be disparaging in any way with this description, but this is the best way I’ve been able to simplify the complex energetic dynamics of ceremony.

The services rendered by a healer / shaman are vibrational in nature.

Another way I’ve described this is by saying that I could go and spend a week with one of our healers without doing any medicine, and without exchanging a word, and it’s very likely that I would have profound energetic shifts as a result, simply by being in his or her physical presence.

This is because at a fundamental, quantum level, we’re all just energy in vibration. It’s physics.

If that makes some sense, then you might be asking, ok, so how do I pick a retreat that is going to have a high-vibrating portal?

Being able to spot good healers / shamans that can hold a high-vibration portal isn’t straightforward, but here’s a few pointers for you to consider:

- It probably doesn’t look like 20+ people in a room. That is way too much energy flying around, and in such a chaotic environment, it’s possible to return home with low level energies from someone else (yes, really)

- Indigenous tribes do large group ceremonies with their communities to clear the past six months of village drama, but for those of us who are carrying intergenerational and childhood traumas, we might want a setting that provides us a bit more attention, especially if it’s our first time.

- Do you feel energetically aligned with the retreat provider? Who do they serve, and who don’t they serve? Who is next to you on retreat will have a significant effect upon your experience.

- Look for healers / shamans who have a lightness of being in their eyes and character. If their energy doesn't feel quite right, they're not what you're looking for.

- Consider whether you’re being treated as a number on a retreat, "book now", take it or leave it, or being met as an individual. Do you feel the love, or is the retreat operator just cranking the handle?

- Speak to the provider before you make a decision. It’s a huge decision, don’t short-change yourself.

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Hope that’s helpful!

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I'll close by saying: one can wander the infinitude of consciousness for many years, but what we really want is to reach the highest vibration possible, and to do so, the portal needs to provide the access.

So again, remember that it’s not an ayahuasca retreat you’re looking for, it’s improvements to your quality of life! Ayahuasca is just a tool, which, in the right context, is unbelievably transformational.

Do the work with a coach or therapist and find a high-vibration retreat that feels energetically aligned, and you’ll be rewarded for the rest of your life.

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To help you assess your level of mental and spiritual readiness for a retreat, take this short quiz.

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If you’re ready for a big shift, and are looking for a retreat with a curated group, high-vibe healers and shamans, and comfortable food and accommodation, we are here to serve.

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