Healing

Healing

Ayahuasca and other sacred medicines offer a level of knowledge and power that should only be available in the right environment and with the right preparation beforehand and support during and after the experience. These sacred plants are far from recreational and must be treated with the utmost respect and care. We make sure our guests feel prepared and cared for from the moment they register for a retreat with us, through their entire experience and for months afterward. Explore each section below to understand the medication process and how we can help you have the most fulfilling and transformational experience possible on your journey to recovery.

Facing you  shadow

Ayahuasca is best described as a very large, very shiny mirror. Its power and knowledge comes from its ability to remove the sediments of avoidance, reluctance, and lies that have covered the darkness in us – our traumas, deep-seated fears, and negative thought patterns. This process brings us face to face with our “shadow selves” – those parts of us buried deep in our subconscious, the emotional and energy obstacles that we may have cloaked with alcohol, drugs, junk food, prescription drugs, external validation or materialism, etc. Western medicine attempts to solve this problem by treating the symptoms, which only further separates us from the root cause and prevents us from treating the real problem. The only way to get over it is to go through it. Ayahuasca shows us that the true path to healing is to face our shadow, resolve inner conflicts and the confusion that caused us to bury and repress our pain (often dating back to our childhood), and release the energy that was trapped there for so long. It frees us to feel the full experience of love.

Diet

It is important to follow the ayahuasca diet as long as you can before the ayahuasca ceremony. The medicine will first try to clean your body before you can embrace some of the deeper and more powerful healing teachings. Thus, if you eat a lot of junk food, you’re going to do a lot of extra cleansing – and who wants that? By following the diet you also make a sacrifice to demonstrate your commitment and dedication to healing using ayahuasca and other master plants and show them the respect and devotion you wish to have during your healing process, which is essential to this work.

Four weeks before the ceremony, avoid the following:

• Psychoactive drugs (Nerol, Xanax, Alprazolam, Zolpidem, Stilnox)

Three weeks before the ceremony, avoid the following:

• Any type of antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication SSRIs, SNRIs, DRIs, etc.

Two weeks before the ceremony, avoid the following:

• Pork
• Alcohol
• Marijuana
• Sexual activity of any kind, including masturbation
• ALL illicit drugs (cocaine, MDMA, amphetamines, etc.) – mandatory for your safety and possible energetic impact on other guests
• Spicy foods
• Ice cream or ice cold drinks

A week before the ceremony, avoid the following:

• Sugar
• Any foods that contain tyramine
• All ripening and matured cheese
• Improperly stored meat, including fish
• Air-dried sausages such as mortadella and various types of salami
• All alcoholic beverages, including beer
• Red meat
• Animal fat (such as lard)
• Carbonated drinks (including diet sodas, energy drinks, non-alcoholic beer)
• Dairy products
• Fermented foods
• Caffeine and other stimulants (withdraw slowly to avoid headaches)
• Junk food
• Salt or spices
• Sweets or chocolate
• Oil (use olive or coconut oil sparingly if necessary)

* If you are taking any medications or vitamin supplements, please advise us on the registration form.

Try to continue the diet for 1-2 weeks afterwards if you can. It will greatly help your integration with the healing drug.

Other restrictions:

Try to enjoy the process and be mindful of what awaits you: which foods you may gravitate towards in times of stress or when you need comfort. And be kind to yourself. If you have a week moment and eat something you said you wouldn’t, forgive yourself – but go on to do your best to achieve your goal.

Rather than what you eat or don’t eat, it’s often about your intention and the sacrifice you make to Mother Ayahuasca and your healing process by keeping your body as clean as you can. A clean body invites a clean spirit and sets the stage for deeply healing work.

The basic instructions here are to eliminate harmful and unhealthy things from your diet. Start eating a lot of raw fruits and vegetables, drinking a lot of water. Avoid highly processed foods.

Self-knowledge

Ayahuasca sets up a mirror for us and projects our inner landscape.

Our journey back home – to our true selves – can be an uncomfortable and challenging process, both inside and outside of the ceremony. It may seem that our experience is getting worse or more and more unpleasant. But it is an important part of the healing process and is actually indicative of progress and evolution. It is in these moments that we must trust the process.

Ayahuasca brings emotions, fears, and discomforts to the surface, so that you can face them and understand that you have a choice in how you want to deal with them in the moment and throughout your life. We come to a place of knowledge and wisdom by directly experiencing the emotions and traumas we have been avoiding. Facing them, we can see and understand the cause of our imbalance, acknowledge and address it. And by doing so, transform what has been causing us pain and find the key to our liberation.

The root cause of our problems often comes from childhood and the emotions and traumas we dealt with back then. Ayahuasca can bring us back to that time and revisit what shaped the way we perceive life, formed our values, and molded our beliefs. Reacting to negative events or emotions while we were children, we tended to run away and avoid the pain. That left behind energy imprints we have carried over to of our adult lives. These manifest themselves in many ways and behaviors, including how we manage stress, whether we are predisposed to depression and anxiety, or how we relate to ourselves and others.

Ayahuasca invites us to engage with our inner child and unburden the layers that still carry pain. By healing the inner child, we heal all that has followed, which enables us to return to a place of authenticity, presence, and peace. The direct engagement with our shadow self, our emotional pain and discomfort, catalyzes the transformational alchemy. The process cannot simply be “thought out” – it’s a process of the heart. Engagement and experience are the only way to truly get through to it.

The lessons and wisdom of ayahuasca often involve uncovering simple truths that in many cases people already “knew” but simply never “felt”. Often, those who do not feel the positive emotions this work can bring, have never actually let themselves feel the negative emotions that precede them. Ayahuasca and other herbal remedies can lead us to the gate but it is ultimately up to us to walk through it, and, to be able to do so, we must first overcome our own inner demons that stand guard.