Traveling & Ayahuasca – The Complete Guide
This is a guest post written by my dear friend Oliver.
Oliver is the founder of Ayahuasca Retreat Guacamayo, an integration coach, and co-facilitates Ayahuasca ceremonies / retreats close to Medellin, Colombia.
As digital nomads we like to push the status quo. We like to explore, adventure and see the world.
Apart from this adventurous spirit we also share the desire for personal growth. We have figured out a way to create our dream life. To live at the most beautiful places and to discover untold secrets of the world.
We understand that for us to create this dream life, we have to continually grow and push the end of our comfort zone. That’s one of the reasons you see so many digital nomads doing Ice baths, listening to the 4-hour work week, drinking bullet proof coffee etc.
Whatever we can do to improve our life, we are open to give it a try. The classic self-optimizer.
Exploring Our Inner World
There is this vast world for us to explore, but also there is another world equally important, possibly even more significant. And this is our inner world.
How do we feel on a day-to-day basis?
How can we improve our mood, let go of anxiety & stress and be in harmony with ourselves?
Maybe even underneath the whole traveling there is a level of restlessness.
A level of not belonging, when we are brutally honest, there is a part of us that is running away from our problems, not wanting to face them. The new impulses of our next travel adventure are only able to mask the feeling of loneliness so much.
So for the select few, we are ready to also tackle this aspect of our life. We want to understand ourselves better, so we end up making better decisions and therefore not be controlled by our past any longer. And there is this mystical brew from the Amazon called Ayahuasca that can supposedly help us with that.
This is one of the reasons why there is a growing popularity for Ayahuasca amongst digital nomads. We want to explore and understand ourselves on a deeper level.
What is Ayahuasca
Ayahuasca is a brew from the Amazon which indigenous people have been sharing in a traditional ceremonial context for more than 3,000 years. People partake for the purpose of spiritual healing and deeper understanding of themselves in this ritual.
The Ayahuasca brew contains DMT which the body also naturally produces in the highest quantity when you are born and when you die. There is a fascinating documentory called “the spirit molecule” about DMT that I can highly recommend you take a deeper look at if this is a topic of interest to you.
The Ayahuasca induces what shamans refer to as an “extraordinary state of consciousness” where you start to connect with your subconscious. The major part of our psyche is influenced by our subconscious, however in most cases we do not know what is happening in our subconscious so we end up repeating patterns without being aware that we are controlled by them.
By going within we start to understand the root cause of our actions & results and in a way our suffering.
Why is it hard for us to form stable relationships?
Why is there this restlessness within us?
Why is there a level of dissatisfaction that can’t be filled by more experiences?
And maybe Ayahuasca can show you answers for these questions…
What Are Peoples Experiences Like Drinking Ayahuasca?
You will hear the wildest story about Ayahuasca on viral YouTube videos or on Netflix. One of the reasons for that is because unique, over the top stories are the one’s that usually go viral. So listen to them with a grain of salt.
Generally, people say that Ayahuasca is something difficult but also beautiful. Difficult because there are challenges for the body, the diet, nausea, vomiting, staying up all night but also the difficulty of encountering parts of ourselves that we have been suppressing for a long time. Feeling emotions that we do not want to feel…
But on the other side of that is something extremely liberating and a big lesson is waiting for us if we are ready to look within and take responsibility.
Finding The Right Place to Drink Ayahuasca
The most authentic way to drink Ayahuasca is in the Amazon rainforest with an indigenous elder.
It can be a magical experience, however you also need to prepare yourself for a lot of bugs, subpar accommodation, a ceremony place with many times outdated sanitary equipment etc. In the end, you are in the Amazon in a traditional setting and this is a part of it as well.
Then, there are also retreat centers that have created places closer to the cities, but still in nature where people with modern standards can go and experience a level of comfortability, western facilitators who understand your backround but also bring in indigenous shamans to share the ceremony.
There are retreats centers which are highly commercialized who charge multiple thousands of dollars but there are also ones with a good balance like Ayahuasca Retreat Guacamayo which I started two years ago, an hour from Medellin Colombia. Feel free to check it out.
Is Ayahuasca Right For You?
In the end, only you will be able to tell.
Shamans talk about the calling for Ayahuasca, where some people feel an internal impulse to drink Ayahuasca. For those people the stories of Ayahuasca has a certain compelling aspect and they want to explore that deeper.
However, you should not be drinking Ayahuasca only because it is the hot thing to do right now, because you do not want to miss out on a trend, because you want to have a cool story to tell.
Feel into it, with your heart and not with your head, is this an experience you feel would be beneficial for your journey? It’s also important to find an intention, a reason why you want to drink Ayahuasca. Is it because you want to let go of an event that is still emotionally affecting you, because you want to break through a limiting belief, because you want to heal your relationship with the masculine / feminine…?
What is it you want to let go of, or dive deeper into…?