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93: Find Your True Self w/ Sam Believ · Harder Than Life

• 0:00
  I'm Kelly Siegel and this is Harder Than Life, a podcast about self-love, self-awareness, business and health. We tell outrageous stories and boil everything down to simple, practical advice you can start using today. Let's get living.
• 0:15
  Today's guest is a visionary leader in the world of spiritual transformation. Sam Believe is the CEO and founder of the Lawira Ayahuasca Retreat in Colombia and the host of the AyahuascaPodcast.com. A former engineer from Europe, Sam has spent the last six years dedicated to guiding people on profound healing journeys through traditional Amazonian plant medicine and is here to educate us on it today. Please welcome to the show, Sam Believe.
• 0:43
  Kelly, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to share with the audience. I feel like everybody says that they're excited, but I, you know, what, what we don't understand, we criticize. And this ayahuasca is extremely important.
• 1:01
  intriguing to me. Like I have felt called to do it until because it scares the bejesus out of me. So today, Sam, I want to educate the harder than life listeners as well as myself. I get to do this.
• 1:16
  about why this shouldn't scare me. So we're gonna start right in and ask you the obvious question, like what inspired you to transition from engineering to finding this ayahuasca retreat, the La Waira ayahuasca retreat? What, that's a good story.
• 1:36
  Good question, Kelly. So first of all, I think if I can convince you, I can convince anyone. And as you described this calling, a lot of times ayahuasca comes to you in the form of calling, which is like your friend did it, and then your friend's friend did it, and everyone just keeps telling you, and all of a sudden you find yourself in a world where...
• 1:54
  Everyone around you talks about ayahuasca. And I felt this kind of calling myself. And now, funnily enough, I find myself to be the messenger a lot of time for ayahuasca. So what brought me to it, as I like to say, was a mix of curiosity and quiet desperation.
• 2:14
  So I knew about ayahuasca. Many friends of mine told me about how it's amazing and how it fixed their life and showed them the way, etc. But I found myself asking, you know, what is wrong with me? You know, why am I not as happy as others? Why?
• 2:32
  Why do I have this and that, but I still don't really feel fully alive. So when I first went and did it, I also was extremely afraid. Just like you described, I was 50% sure I'm probably going to die and never come back. Back then, I still considered it as a drug, and I've never done any drugs before. So I was like, I don't know what was happening to me, but the calling was very strong.
• 2:53
  And I did it. And after you do it and you kind of get this big breakthrough and this revelation, sometimes you just want others to experience that because it's an amazing feeling of being connected is the best way to describe it. So I tried it once and then for about a year, a year and a half, I would just do it occasionally once every six months or so to...
• 3:18
  to kind of learn more. And eventually I got really depressed, due to life circumstances and I was kind of directionless in life. So then I went back to ayahuasca, but now less of a curiosity and more of a, um, you know, help me heal, help me get out of that rut. So I took it very seriously and it did exactly that. So it took away my depression. And then eventually in one of the journeys, uh, it answered the main reason for my depression, which was the,
• 3:47
  lack of direction in life and put me on this path on which I'm still at the moment. And that led me to starting Lawira and then the Ayahuasca podcast and hopefully more things down the line in the same path. So I've done a lot of research on Ayahuasca and frankly,
• 4:06
  We talk a lot about on the Heart and Life podcast about healing modalities. And I strongly, and I have not talked a lot about this. You're the first one I really am going to deep dive into plant medicines and its benefits. So I guess I just jumped the gun and I didn't ask what the common question is. There's many people that might not know what ayahuasca is. So why don't you explain to the neophyte, and somebody's never heard of it,
• 4:31
  What is ayahuasca? What is it used for? And what should be the person that should try it? So I personally believe ayahuasca is for everyone or almost everyone, unless you're very sick or you have like schizophrenia or health issues. It's not just for spiritual people or it's not just for people that are focused on self-growth. It's truly a multi-tool both for people
• 4:59
  healing and spiritual exploration and you name it. Whatever you need, almost always it can kind of deliver in a very indirect way. So it's not like, you know, here I want to be rich and then you become rich. No, it will show you what you can fix about yourself to then later on improve your life. But what ayahuasca is in a nutshell, it's an ancestral plant medicine. It's a brew made of two plants, Bani stereopsis capi, ayahuasca vine, and
• 5:27
  And a DMT shrub, either chakruna or chagro, it's a viscous, thick, brownish liquid that you consume in a ceremonial setting with a shaman, with a crew of people in a special medicine house that's called meloka. So there's a ceremony to it. And as you consume it, you either get visions or messages or feelings in your body where you either release something or...
• 5:54
  you gain knowledge and what it does, it basically, it's like a hard reset for your brain. I'm not the kind of person that would say, you know, ayahuasca is the only way, just drink ayahuasca and everything is going to be okay. I believe ayahuasca is that
• 6:10
  A big door that you open then to your further personal growth or spiritual expression is just this amazing jumpstart for a healing process for a lot of people. But it's been used for thousands of years for healing purposes by the indigenous people. And it's a magical medicine. What else can I say? No, you nailed it. That's what comes to mind right now.
• 6:36
  You nailed it. I just wanted to make sure that people... So I've done talk therapy, hypnotherapy, EMDR therapy, plant medicine therapy. The only thing I have not done is ayahuasca. So if I do do it, when I do do it, I will come to you. So talk to me through what makes Lawira unique. Because the ones that you see out there is the places that are in Costa Rica. Why should I come to your place, Sam, instead of the Costa Rica...
• 7:05
  Well, obviously, I'm biased. I'll recommend myself because myself I can truly trust. Well, first of all, ayahuasca doesn't come from Costa Rica. It doesn't grow there. I mean, you can plant it there, but traditionally, ayahuasca comes from Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil. This sort of circle in northwestern Amazon.
• 7:26
  So why Colombia is great, first of all, Colombia was overlooked for psychedelic tourism because of safety issues, you know, 80s and Narcos and Pablo Escobar and all that stuff, while Peru was growing in popularity. So what happened in Peru, somehow they, I guess, kind of lost control a little bit of ayahuasca and they lost respect to it. And it's a little bit not as traditional anymore and also traditional.
• 7:50
  the plants are not as ancient and not as wise as they are in Colombia, at least for now, because it's growing now.
• 7:57
  So, Wailawira, first of all, I believe, especially for you, like a first-timer, we just take an extra good care for first-timers. I think about 70-30% of people that come here are first-timers just because how many people now are getting interested in the topic. So, we just spend so much time educating you, like, what's going to happen, how to navigate your experience, how to connect, what to do if you connect too much. Just get you comfortable. We get you comfortable with the group.
• 8:26
  We do group talks therapy. So basically, by the time you drink ayahuasca, you can relax your ego. You can relax yourself. So you can actually let go and actually have the healing experience. Because it is a part. Ayahuasca does the work, but you also have to meet it the halfway. Then we also have a shaman that's just awesome. He's an indigenous guy. He comes from the jungle. He himself...
• 8:47
  grows and cooks his own ayahuasca together with his family. His dad is also a shaman. His dad's dad was a shaman. We've been working with this lineage for the last two years now. I worked with his uncle. I worked with his dad. The medicine music we provide is very great. And also the price. I think we are...
• 9:06
  three times cheaper than anyone that offers anything even similar to what we offer. And that's on purpose because my mission is to try to get as many people to experience that healing in their life and have that opening in their life. So I understand that in order to do that, if I bump the price to the industry average, then basically it would just be.
• 9:29
  only for rich people, which also need ayahuasca, but I also think that it has to be accessible. What else? I mean, our team is great, and it's also a family-owned, family-run ayahuasca retreat, so you'll see my kids running around. My pregnant wife, she's always pregnant, as I like to joke.
• 9:45
  And it feels homely. You know, it doesn't feel like this big commercial center. At the same time, for the last two years, we've been building a lot. And we have nice, you know, sort of luxurious looking cabins and creek and wood.
• 10:01
  you know, all the commodities you want to. Gym, you know, for a guy like you, have a gym as well, so you can go and hit the weights. And yeah, if you ever want to come, I extend to you my invitation. Actually, totally free of charge because I like you and I think that
• 10:18
  And if you like it, then maybe your listeners will also understand that it's not scary. It doesn't have to be scary. It's not dangerous. It doesn't have to be dangerous. So if ayahuasca, if it's done correctly, if it's done traditionally, if you follow the rules, it's extremely safe. It's like people, there's a bit of a bad rap. And I think it's because people honestly just don't know what they're doing. And I guess thanks to my engineering background and very sort of,
• 10:45
  meticulous approach. We managed to combine this very traditional method together with, you know, comfort and just do things in a way that just works. And thanks to that, we have, I think right now, 420 or so five-star Google reviews. So the reputation doesn't lie. I don't think that ayahuasca gets a bad rep. I don't know a single person that took it. They said it was
• 11:11
  It was challenging. It wasn't easy. It brought up some demons. You know, whatever you think that you're going to hold on. I want to just deviate for a second because I want to really deep dive into the healing because that's what this is about. And we all need healing. But I want you brought up your kids. And I see here in the notes that you're a father of three. How old are the kids?
• 11:34
  So I have two sons, three and a half and two, and my wife is now pregnant with a daughter. So I say three because obviously I'm anticipating. So finally, we're going to get a daughter.
• 11:48
  They obviously live here with us and they get to meet a lot of people that come to our retreat, which is awesome. They're very social. People get surprised because they grew up in this environment where you're in nature and you're...
• 12:06
  surrounded by all these friendly people. So they're a bit different from an average city kit, but yeah, love them. Let me make sure I understood that, right? You said three times cheaper, but you meant one third the price, correct? Yeah, so for example...
• 12:22
  The industry sort of average for an ayahuasca retreat is $2,500, $3,500. There are retreats that are $7,000 to $10,000, and we at the moment, our price is $795 for a week for ceremonies, transport included, food included, lodging included in a shared room. So that's very cheap when it comes to, especially like our- Yep. That's cheap. What city do you fly into to get to you?
• 12:52
  We are one hour south of Medellin, Colombia. So you fly to Medellin International Airport. We provide transport from Medellin. So it is affordable, but not because we couldn't charge more. Like people, sometimes they judge us. They think like, oh, you're cheap or like you're affordable. It means you're bad. But we have people that come. There's this retreat called Rhythmia, and they charge like $10,000 for a week. And we have people come and they say everything here is better. And I have video testimonials where they say it. So it's...
• 13:21
  I have it where you had more than five people come from there. So it's just that I really I really believe in trying to make it affordable. We try and make some profit here and there, especially on like nicer stuff. Like if somebody wants to rent a cabin, they're very pretty, but
• 13:38
  I just, I don't know, it's really hard for me because I want everyone to have it, but I also kind of want the retreat to grow. So it's a balance that I'm trying to find because running an ayahuasca retreat is a business. And a lot of times people think that spiritual things and business, they kind of like don't go together. And that's my balancing act. You know, I go spiritual and I go, okay, business. And I try to navigate that.
• 14:02
  No, that's, you know, that's what people always complain about. Pastors or the prominent pastors, like Joel Osteen has a private plane. And, you know,
• 14:11
  I'd rather him have a private plane and be able to create while he's flying than be in coach and not have to recharge. So it's a common myth. And really, truthfully, we want you to make money. So at 800 bucks, 800 bucks a week, that's it's going to be a tough one. But I got to tell you, I promise I will come. I will try it.
• 14:34
  four freaking ceremony sounds tremendous but uh i'm sure by the time i leave here i'll be able to leave there i'll be able to walk on water so my last plant medicine the last two plant medicine journeys i was on basically i was fed by god or source or whatever that i'm on the right path so i've done a lot of work it's well documented
• 14:58
  I had a very traumatic childhood. But let's deep dive into this. So what type of healing and transformation can participants expect from an ayahuasca retreat at the Loira Institute?
• 15:13
  So people come with very different intentions. The most common one is depression. People just come and say, yeah, I did my life. I achieve stuff. I work, but I don't see any meaning in it. You know, the grass is no longer green and, um,
• 15:29
  you know, there is no taste in life. So ayahuasca is amazing for that. They go through an experience. Every experience is different. I've had more than probably 100 ceremonies by now. Not a single one was the same. Funny enough, my last one, last before last one, was actually the same message as you received that I'm on the right path, but I'm distracting myself. So people go through a process which is always unique. Sometimes it might include, you know,
• 15:57
  Going back to past and realizing there's some kind of trauma, processing it a little bit, purging it, releasing something from your body, energies. Sometimes it comes in the form of purging. We can talk about that as well. People are worried about that part of work with ayahuasca. Sometimes it can come in the form of realizations, some information coming from somewhere else, God, the plant, spirit, your subconscious, whatever is your belief system. But the information comes and it's always good information.
• 16:27
  then the important part is integration. When you will get...
• 16:32
  After the retreat, everyone is, as you say, floating on water. But in reality, it feels everyone is so enlightened, so inspired. They are connected. And then when you go back to your everyday life, the challenges will start happening. So this is where integration takes place. And we guide people on how to maintain that mental state. And actually, ayahuasca will give you homework that you need to do. So it might tell you, like, you know, this person is not right for me. Or maybe I should have more of this in my life and less of that.
• 17:01
  And if you do the homework and if you actually change yourself together with this flexibility that it gives you, that's been proven scientifically, you know, increasing the BDNF makes your brain more flexible. It allows you to get rid of bad habits and get good habits. That brings me to other topic. A lot of people come here with addiction problems. Ayahuasca is really helpful with that because it's a great tool for also detoxing, letting go.
• 17:28
  of all the stuff. And most importantly, most addictions are based on some kind of trauma and like a pain that you're running away from. And if you address that pain, sometimes addiction kind of goes away magically. We have people that come here for something else and then when they go back home, they realize they stopped drinking without even wanting.
• 17:45
  That's another common one. Sleep issues, anxiety. And so that's on like a healing side. A lot of time people just come, they want more clarity in life. They want to grow. Some people come for spiritual exploration. So our motto at Lawire actually is connect, heal, grow. And it kind of sums up.
• 18:04
  everything you can get with ayahuasca. First you come, you connect to the plant, you connect to yourself, connect to the group, connect to the place. Then you heal physically, mentally, and then inevitably you grow. Because sometimes people ask, you know, you've done ayahuasca so many times, why do you keep drinking it? First you drink to heal yourself and sort of fix issues, and then you drink it to grow and also help others. So...
• 18:31
  Yeah, I think I feel like I'm all over the place with my answers. It's all good. So Connect, Heal, Grow. The plant medicine journey that I went on, it wasn't ayahuasca, it was cacao, much less. So we started off with intention. So you set out an intention of what you want to try to accomplish. And then, which sounds like it's connect.
• 18:55
  And then you take the medicine and you start the healing. And what I would say is you pull down your ego and things just come up. You basically, you pick down your walls and things just start coming up. And they answer themselves, which is then you do the integration. You say what came up and what you're going to do next, which is the grow. That's what my experience was. And this was at a private residence. Is that the same thing that somebody would expect?
• 19:24
  in an ayahuasca ceremony, except that it's outside under a covered roof? Walk me through your typical ayahuasca experience at your place. So cacao is something very different. It's a beautiful ancestral medicine as well. But it's kind of like
• 19:44
  comparing a slingshot with the machine gun. Kakao is really nice. I would say I would do ayahuasca and then work with kakao to integrate because it's very mild but very beautiful. I'm a big fan of this medicine and other medicines that luckily the indigenous people
• 20:02
  created and preserved for us. What happens generally, let's say, you come to a maloca. So maloca is like a palm roof, very beautiful wooden structure. It has a lot of fresh air, but it's also kind of enclosed. So it's comfortable.
• 20:21
  You come there and we start with the meditation. So that's after all the preparation we did for the first 24 hours, all the talking, all the instructions. You come there, we start with meditation and the breathing exercise, so kind of to relax even more, help you focus on your intention. Then the Taita comes. Taita is a Colombian name for the shaman. He comes, he brings the medicine, he goes to this ritual where he sings the Icaros. He uses la Vaira, that's this shamanic tool,
• 20:49
  to kind of enchant the medicine, put good healing energies into it. He uses tobacco as well. Then we use Saumaria. It's an incense to cleanse the space. And then he starts calling everyone one by one and giving you the medicine. He will look at you and then he will pour the cup accordingly to whatever he sees because shamans, they're magicians. They see stuff we don't see.
• 21:15
  And then you take the cup, you drink it, and you go lie in your mattress or sit by the fire, and you start the introspection process. So you might feel something in your body as you start to connect some heaviness. And then whatever your process is, as I'm saying, it's like hundreds of different ways. But let me describe one of my last experiences, right? I took my cup. I lay down.
• 21:39
  I started feeling heaviness in my body, a bit of a different slight psychedelic vision started to come up very softly. Music started playing. We play special medicine music. Our Tite is also a magician with musical instruments. It's very beautiful.
• 21:56
  And then I started feeling, just seeing stronger visions. And my intention was, am I on the right path? What should I do? And it was basically a very religious, very angelic experience where I could see some kind of like, how do you call it?
• 22:14
  entities and they were like talking to me and they're saying I'm on the right path basically my understanding from that was like I'm doing a good job but that's not enough I need to reach more people this is why I'm here that's one of the reasons
• 22:27
  Uh, because, uh, we, we host on average, um, seven hundred people a year, which is great. And we change a lot of people's lives, but it, it feels like our society and our world is sort of moving in the wrong direction. One of the, it needs a strong intervention. Ayahuasca is one of them. I don't want to sound like a, like a fanatic or something like that, but it's just this tool that seems to wake people up. And then further on, you can take whatever path you want, be it meditation, yoga. But, um, yeah, I think, um.
• 22:57
  Yeah, I'm going out of your answer. So basically then sometimes during the ceremony, you might purge as well.
• 23:06
  which means that you might vomit or you might feel the desire to have diarrhea, which seems like something that you wouldn't want to do. But in reality, when you go through this experience through ayahuasca, you realize it's not just vomiting. It's actually, it takes something, you know, like stuck energies, whatever from your body somehow moves them to your stomach. And when you release, you feel so much lighter. People say like,
• 23:29
  10 kilos lighter. And then the ceremony winds down and you see your visions, then you might journal and store some of it. Then a tithe performs a spiritual cleanse on everyone and you go to bed. That's a very quick summary. It lasts about six, seven hours. Whoa, that was my next question. How long does it take? Six, seven hours. And they only drink the medicine once, right?
• 23:52
  No, you can drink up to three cups, but mostly we serve one or two cups. It depends on what Taita says. And it also doesn't mean that you will be deeply psychedelic for six hours. It might be like one hour sort of slow come up and then two hours of deep intense realizations and inner work.
• 24:11
  Then it might be slow release and then a bit more, you know, catching another wave. So I would say like really, really deep, maybe two or three hours. The rest will be come on, come down and everything else in between. So you mentioned a little bit of the preparation before. What should someone, how should someone prepare for a retreat? And then the second half would be talk to me about integration because to me that's the most important part. So two-part question. What should they do before? And then...
• 24:41
  What do they do it after? We can make an entirely separate podcast episode just on the integration, which I actually did on my podcast. So when people get to prepare, first of all, you need to follow a certain diet.
• 24:57
  for about a week, two weeks if you can. No red meat, try to eat a bit less salt. Don't consume milk products, nothing spicy, onion, garlic, no fermented foods, no citrus fruits and stuff like that. We want people booked, we send them the full breakdown. Most importantly,
• 25:17
  For about four weeks before, you got to stop antidepressants. That's the most dangerous part. So when you hear the bad stories about ayahuasca, it mostly involves people consuming ayahuasca together while they're on antidepressants. That's very dangerous.
• 25:30
  Uh, so, and then about two weeks before stop drinking, uh, stop consuming weed, uh, just basically you prepare and cleanse your body, start setting intention, realizing what it is you want to work on. Um, and then when you, uh, so that would be the preparation, obviously there's much more detail to it and integration. What integration is, uh, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um,
• 25:53
  You're going to have this beautiful ayahuasca experience full of information, full of knowledge, full of realizations. How do you bring it back to your life? So to integrate means to make whole. So you have this experience and you have your life experience. One is here, the other is here. So you got to kind of like bring them together.
• 26:10
  We provide people with integration journals. So it's a special journal designed to save as much as you can on paper. So you write, you introspect, and you save as much experience as possible because it's so much information you can't forget.
• 26:25
  And then when you go back home, you start, for example, you realize that you want to change this. You start doing the work. You start changing things. And also, most importantly, focusing and then maintaining that mental state you have achieved because
• 26:41
  It's easy to be spiritual where you're surrounded by beautiful, lush, green countryside and everyone is drinking ayahuasca. So people are loving and supportive. But what about you going back home and somebody cuts you into traffic and starts screaming at you? This is the moment where you need to remember everything you learned. For example, like we're all connected and this human being, the only reason he's angry is because somebody else made him angry. And he's angry.
• 27:06
  realize that deep down he's as good as you are and kind of like letting things slide and just allow a lot of good good things to come in and not not the bad things but that's like a very very simplified explanation that is you're doing a beautiful thing and i can't express enough how the things that he's skirting around everything i've read i've done a lot of research on this is very true like you're gonna go there with issues and you're gonna walk
• 27:36
  away with answers. And it can be as broad as why do I feel unlovable? Why do I feel not whole? Why do I drink so much? Why do I not engage? These are all answers that could be answered one to dollar. So for 800 bucks, man, what do you charge for down there? Is there anything else that they would have to pay for their...
• 27:59
  massages or is there what's what else is chargeable down there? Cause I want to think of an offer that we can blast out to the listeners right now. Little, you know, too, Sam, we're, we're in the twenties for self-improvement right now in the Apple self-improvement podcast charts. And we are in the forties for education. So we are blowing up. This is going to get a lot. I want to throw an offer to the listeners, but I want to understand, you know, what it is at $800. It's, it's so affordable.
• 28:29
  therapy, the, the, let's call it healing. This is the cheapest healing you'll ever freaking buy. But is there like, is there something else that we can, if they, if they message you and they say harder than life, what can we give them special?
• 28:45
  Before I get into that, I want to sort of prepare the listeners if they do want to come. And that's what you just said, you know, everything you research. The mindset that you need to have when you're going into this work is...
• 29:02
  ayahuasca is going to help me it's a great tool but it is a tool you need to do the work so when you're coming into this work realize it's not a magic pill so it will show you what to do it will absolutely make you feel better but if you come if you show up here uh saying you know ayahuasca is just going to do all the work for me
• 29:24
  better not come. You have to be serious. You have to have set your intention. You have to have understanding. And this is, you know, what we're trying to achieve here with this podcast.
• 29:35
  And then you come and you are ready to meet the ayahuasca halfway. If you do that, the change it can provide you in your life is just enormous. My own example included in like thousands of people that have come through our doors. Regarding an offer, you mean like a bigger, like a discount or something like that? Yeah, I don't want to discount the main price because it's so affordable and it's the best money to be spent. I was thinking maybe there's a...
• 30:04
  Is there a dinner or something that we can sponsor or something or just something that if they, I'm going to drop your social handles next and I'm going to tell people to reach out to you, follow you, which is at Lawyra. It's at Lawyra underscore ayahuasca. So it's L-A-W-A-Y-R-A underscore A-Y-A-H-U-A-S-C-A. That's his Instagram. Okay.
• 30:29
  And then I bet you can find a lot of stuff. I haven't looked at the YouTube, but I'll bet you there's a lot of good stuff at Alawira, L-A-W-A-Y-R-A. I bet you get some great stuff there. So if you message Sam on Instagram, he'll think of something that just message him that you heard this on Harder Than Life. And we'll think we'll put something together. But I'm telling you what I let me put what he just said in English.
• 30:54
  Just come with an open mind. This is not OZEPIC. You're not going to be able to take this and get skinny. But if you just go there with an open mind and just a desire to want to heal, to find something. Now, guys, this is the hardest part about healing. It's when it comes up is you just got to let it go. Whatever that...
• 31:21
  trauma is, whatever the medicine brings up, you got to say, hi, oh, there, hi, trauma, and let it go. Don't try to bury it. Don't try to fight it. Don't try to resist it. Because what you resist will persist. Just allow it to go. And this will be the best experience of your life. And I promise I will do it. I will document the entire thing. And we'll have you back on. So I'm sorry, I interrupted you.
• 31:49
  Here's my offer for your audience. Even though we're very affordable, and most is included, meaning we're gonna pick you up in Medellin, take you here on a bus, that's included. Your bed in the shared room is included. Food is included. The only thing that's not included as of now is a massage. So there is a possibility for people to get a massage.
• 32:12
  So yeah, if you come from Cali, send me a message. Let me know you come from Harder Than Life podcast, and we will give you a free massage. Not myself, but we have a professional masseuse. So how about that? I appreciate it very much. And I tell you what, that is a...
• 32:29
  you just made it like i can't say no and you know the only reason why i didn't go to the competition costa rica was because of the cost it's like am i really going to spend that kind of money to go and dig into the depths or worse yet i've done so much work that there's a very good chance it's probably not going to bring anything up so you just took down that barrier to entry so i i really love it and i i've been to colombia it's such a beautiful country i i
• 32:59
  is a great reason to come back. So let's dig into the tough thing. What are some common misconceptions about ayahuasca that you'd like to address that you haven't already?
• 33:10
  Yeah, I talked a little bit about the one that says ayahuasca. People think ayahuasca is dangerous. So talk about that a little bit. If you follow the instructions, if your shaman is a real shaman, if your medicine is a real ayahuasca, it's not dangerous at all. So if and if you're relatively healthy, which means that I'm going to take care of the shaman and the ayahuasca because I drink it myself. I wouldn't risk my own life. So I wouldn't risk yours. And if you do all the instruction and if you're relatively healthy, it's safe.
• 33:38
  Another one, you know, the common fears is like, I'm going to go crazy. Once again, we host 700 people a year. Not a single crazy person as of yet, except myself, but I was already crazy. I'm just kidding.
• 33:53
  Um, what else? Uh, ayahuasca is only for spiritual people. Uh, people think like, oh, it's only for the hippies and stuff like that. No, like, uh, I have amazing results with the 45 year old plumber from Canada and they, uh,
• 34:09
  you know, a butcher, whatever you are, veteran people come from all walks of life as young as 18 and as old as 76. And everyone gets gets their result. Everyone's process is unique, but the
• 34:24
  the result is the same. So it's not, you don't have to wear certain kinds of clothing or have crystals. That's not what it's all about. My mission is to make people understand this is just a great tool that will open and start your healing journey. And you don't need to be anything before that. After that, you can explore many different things and many different tools, but you can come into it whenever, if you feel the calling and you don't need to be any special kind of person. So...
• 34:53
  What else? You know, let me just jump in there because at the end of the day, I think being from the outside looking in, the only thing that I see people being afraid of is what it's going to uncover. Because that's the number. People love their familiar misery. Not many people like change. So it's almost impossible to.
• 35:19
  to come to this and not leave enhanced. Yeah, that's an amazing topic, Kelly. Sorry. So basically, people are afraid to uncover something, whether it's childhood trauma or some sexual abuse or something like that. But the analogy I like to use is, let's say, you have like a big, pass-filled blister on your hand.
• 35:45
  And it doesn't really hurt much unless you're touching it, right? And it's like you're afraid to go do a surgery, open up and heal it. But meanwhile, it's been sitting there for years and it's leaking all these toxins into your body and just making your body miserable. When you have trauma,
• 36:02
  There's a part of your brain, there's like percentage of your brain capacity that's just dedicated to cover it up in layers and layers and like hide it from yourself. And it costs a lot of energy and it costs your happiness and many other things. So don't be afraid to come and uncover it. And yeah, it will be a little painful for a while. But then you can actually clean it up and work on it where you no longer have to waste all this resources to work.
• 36:27
  to just keep it there. So we had some people that uncovered stuff. And we also had some people that successfully worked through it. We also have a an integration coach, a therapist that you can work with after the retreat is over. That's for extra cost, but it's also affordable. It's like $50 per session that can help you to integrate better and to work through the trauma, like be sexual trauma or whatever comes up. Don't be afraid to confront your healing. It's kind of like
• 36:55
  I don't know what other analogy I can do. It's like you have a fire in that. I'll give you a better analogy. It's like working out. You know, I'm a big guy. So it's like working out. When you go into the gym, nobody wants to go to the gym. When you go into the gym and you work out, you strain your muscles and you tear your muscles down and they get bigger.
• 37:12
  So it's hard, but you get the results. Everything we've done in life that has been rewarding has been hard to start. Every single one of them. So I get it scary, but you're not going to be alone. You will be with a bunch of group of people that are all there with you going through the same thing. The shaman is there with you. There is a support system like you've never seen. So it is the best thing.
• 37:40
  money you will ever spend. I assure you, I have read all about it. And when I'm going to go, I'm going to do it. But let's in case you are a little bit nervous. Again, he's got this podcast. So go listen to the podcast. You said that you have a whole episode on integration. So what could the listeners expect from your ayahuasca podcast? And how does it specifically help educate people about the plant medicine?
• 38:09
  Okay, so I'll just address one thing you said that you're not going to be alone. Number one, there will be a team of facilitators. We have one facilitator per every two or three visitors. You have a shaman, and most importantly, the group will also be with you. Everyone is there to support everyone. The culture of mutual support and sharing is just amazing. I like to say the best way to make friends as an adult is to come to an ayahuasca retreat.
• 38:35
  But most importantly, ayahuasca will be with you. For example, when you uncover trauma, it's not going to just like scare you and like, here you go and you go figure out. It will start leaking small pieces here and there and allow you to process it. This medicine is magical. It's like somehow it has an intelligence. I don't know where it's coming from. We don't really know how it works, but it works.
• 38:55
  And regarding the podcast, what I do is I take success stories from the visitors. So for example, somebody came here and they quit drinking. And they messaged me six months later, you know, I'm not drinking. I'm like, let's get on the podcast. Let's talk about it. Or somebody quit marijuana or somebody, their depression went away. And I interview them. So you can hear their stories. You can hear their healing journeys. I also interview experts, PhDs.
• 39:22
  doctors and people that are experts in the field. And writers, I think if you look at top 10 books on Amazon on topic of ayahuasca, I already interviewed half of the writers that wrote those books and probably going to get more. So if you're ready, if you feel the calling, just book the retreat, come over and you'll learn yourself. And if you're not ready, just listen to the podcast. You can get...
• 39:48
  good insights and you'll start to form that worldview is just, it's important to understand, you know, because then you, by the time you come, you're, you're ready and you know what, what to do. So education is what, what we're trying to do here. And I'm sure Kelly as well. So what's next for your Lawira Ayahuasca retreat and your mission in the world of plant medicine?
• 40:10
  Oh, number one, I love this country of Colombia. As you mentioned, it's so beautiful. Colombia is a beautiful, beat-up country with all this traumatic past. What I would like to do is to keep growing the topic of ayahuasca
• 40:27
  help other people get into it and rebrand Colombia from cocaine to ayahuasca. So those are two. Let me talk about coca for a moment. Coca is a plant of power, same as ayahuasca. It's an amazing medicine. It's a plant that indigenous people use to build monuments because it gives you energy, takes away your hunger. It's a superfood. But coca is a plant of power.
• 40:48
  We as Westerners came over, ruined it, made cocaine, and here we are. Same thing happened to cacao. You know, like you did this cacao ceremony, beautiful, amazing. But you can also mix it with milk and lots of sugar and give yourself a diabetes. So it's important that we sort of ground ourselves in that tradition. But what I'm saying is that those two plants, they grow in the same part of the world. They grow in the same jungle. And what's happening now, because ayahuasca is growing in popularity,
• 41:15
  I think five years ago or so, I sat on this goal. And now, not that I'm achieving it myself, but it just slowly starts to happen. My titer recently told me that it's now more profitable to grow ayahuasca in the jungle than to grow coca. So it's slowly changing. And hopefully one day people will come to Colombia not to, you know, hurt themselves, but actually come here to heal themselves. And it's paradoxical. Like a lot of veterans come to Colombia regularly.
• 41:42
  for the wrong reasons, you know, women and the drugs. But what they really need, if they would come to Ayahuasca, they can heal that pain and then go back to their normal life. So that's my main mission. And as to Lawira, what we're trying to do is not have it as just an Ayahuasca retreat. I want to build a community. Our second motto for our community,
• 42:04
  other project, which is the community, is you come for ayahuasca and you stay for the community. The idea is people, when they drink ayahuasca, they let go of all this stuff they care. They just become so lovely and so nice to be around. And you just don't want to leave. Sometimes the bus comes and it keeps beeping for like half an hour. Nobody wants to leave. And so I want people to start...
• 42:25
  Staying here and just living here, working here, forming a community just for people that want to come and spend a few months here, do some ayahuasca, meditation, yoga, heal themselves and then go back to their day to day life better and healthier and hopefully just spread that because it is infectious. When you are in a good mental state, you want others to be there as well.
• 42:49
  This is beautiful. So when I was in Colombia last, I was there for what you called all the wrong reasons. I was there for a wedding, but I had a blast. I was still in my partying days. It was prior to the launch of the Heart of the Life at Brand, and I ripped that country up. I did some cool recreation drug called Tusi. What the heck is that?
• 43:13
  Uh, I don't know much about recreational drugs. I, my approach to what you call drugs is I only take stuff that's like at least thousand years old. So I tried mushrooms as a medicine weed, but it's also pretty ancient, but, uh, I can ask around for you when you come next time. I'll, uh.
• 43:33
  I'll get some information. I'm only into the, I'm all into the healing now. I've put all that past being, you know, I was, it's, it's a beautiful country, some beautiful things to see, but I had a blast there and I want to come back now and experience it being present of sound mind and sound body. So let's, let's dig into that. What personal experience with ayahuasca has had the most profound, profound impact on you personally?
• 43:57
  So it's a good question because I don't know the answer. I've had many deep experiences with ayahuasca where trauma has been addressed and I purged some stuff out of me. But in reality, what it did to me outside of the ceremony, it just kind of like, let's say I was going this way and it shifted my path just by like one degree.
• 44:19
  But in years that have passed, it completely changed my life. Basically, what it did to me, somehow it made myself believe in myself. And I just start to, if I want to do something, I just like, instead of me saying like, when...
• 44:35
  I say, sorry, instead of me saying like if or maybe I say like when. So it's like not if I'm going to build this, but when am I going to build this? And this assurance just stuck with me. And I don't know where it came from. I don't even remember the exact moment. But I think that's what changed my life.
• 44:56
  And, but I can tell you many funny or interesting journeys and trips and visions. But in the end of the day, we focus a lot on the ayahuasca experience. But it's kind of like if you come to a surgical room and you focus on your surgery, like it's almost irrelevant. The importance is what's going to happen.
• 45:14
  After, how do you feel when you healed? How do you feel when you release that stuff? You know, people say it's like 10 years of therapy. It's like 20 years of therapy. I've never done therapy, so I don't know, but I feel pretty good. So you mentioned on your podcast that you share memorable stories or breakthrough moments that your retreat participants have. What's the most memorable one that you can share with us quickly?
• 45:38
  The breakthrough, so what breakthrough means is like discovery and like understanding something and boom, big connection. What comes to mind is like negative stuff, but there was a girl that came from Germany and she realized that her grandma sexually abused her.
• 45:59
  It's not a nice thing to realize, but she was always, all her life, she was like, why am I so negative towards men? Why am I reacting to this? And it all kind of just made sense. And Ayahuasca slowly fed her this information and allowed her to uncover it. And then she got much better. She came back home, did some therapy, got over it, realized that her brother was also abused. And she took all her family and brought her here.
• 46:26
  to the retreat and they all went through this family trauma together. They healed it, overcame it. It was a beautiful process. And I interviewed them for the podcast as well. So that's, that's just one that comes to mind. Prior to coming to your resort, sorry. I get so excited. I, my freaking brain works faster than my mouth. Prior to her coming, this was all repressed.
• 46:56
  She had no idea. She only had symptoms, but she didn't know what was causing it. So it just kind of showed it. Okay, here's what happened. And I know people are afraid to discover something like that, and it's not that common. Let's say it's like 5% of the cases, but it's just a great example. A lot of times it's smaller stuff you don't remember. There can be like this little thing that happened where somebody told you something, and it just sits there in your subconscious. You're like...
• 47:22
  you know, I'm not good at math. And it's like, I'm not good at math. This is your belief system. It's like, then it goes back and it's like, oh, there's,
• 47:30
  A little kid when you're like six years old told you that and you just carry it with your life. It's hard to go back there to your subconscious so deep and rework those things. And it's a lot of, it's like hundreds of them. So that's the ayahuasca work. You go there, you release it. That's like a, let's say, emotional and mental side of it. But there's also a spiritual side of it. That's the work shaman does. Sometimes, you know, there's, whether you believe it or not, I didn't believe it at first. I'm an engineer, a huge skeptic. Everything.
• 47:58
  I always approach it with lots of questions. So, but now I believe there is a spiritual side to healing. There is an energy body that we all have. And a shaman can also remove some stuff from that. Some, you know, bad, bad stuff that you've been accumulating through your life. Yeah. I got to tell you, I have a harder than life coaching program. So I coach a lot of people and I talk to a lot of people, interview a lot of people.
• 48:25
  Call me naive, but I run into a lot of people that I think have repressed traumas. They're repressing something. And I believe them. They cannot, at least they can't express what's going on in their body. So I think that's a bigger market than what you think. And I would implore, and I'm not a doctor, but this is just through my five years of this journey, so to speak, or this crusade, this hard life crusade is what
• 48:53
  If you're not sure that you're a prime candidate, you're not sure what's going on in your body or why you're a prime candidate for this. And this sounds and this is going to be a funny question to you. My question is this. How has your multicultural background influenced your approach to plant medicine and healing? But before you answer it, let me tell you what I see. There is absolutely no salesman in you.
• 49:18
  You are, you can tell you're from Europe and you just, everything is complete honesty. And what you see is what you get. You're completely monotone. The entire time I'm thinking, boy, the ministers probably aren't going to identify with this. But if you listen to this, he told you bombs. This is crazy.
• 49:40
  influential heavy stuff and he just gave it to you completely even and monotone and honest and didn't lie to you for one minute didn't try to make it sound good and in fact I would argue you bring up the negatives which I don't see those negatives I'm not hearing those negatives in the circles that I'm running in so what is your let's call it limiting beliefs yeah
• 50:06
  from having come from Europe and over and now in the jungle, so to speak? I mean, yeah, my story is pretty interesting because English is actually my third language and Spanish is my fourth language. So when I came here in Colombia eight years ago, so I started the business in two languages that are relatively new and my background. I'm an ethnical mix. I was born in Latvia, but I'm...
• 50:33
  I consist of five different nationalities from ex-Soviet Union. So I'm equal part Russian, Latvian, Dagestani, Moldavian, Ukrainian. So, and in the end, I turn up looking more Colombian than I am Latvian. People notice that a lot. But...
• 50:53
  About my monotone presentation, I think people that understand, and if they look at the video, maybe they'll see it in my eyes. My inspiration is real. I'm not a good salesman. But think about it as the best tasting, amazing candy, and affordable candy that's in a plain paper wrapper. It's a bad marketing. Maybe I need to improve it. Maybe you can teach me when you come here. No.
• 51:17
  You missed the message. The message was this. You're as honest as the day is long. I read people really well. And you've sold me. This is going to be very, very good show. People are going to download it like crazy. People are going to share it. I'm telling you, if you have anybody that is looking to heal, please share this episode. Sam, and I can just tell by who you are and how you are and your cultural, your ethical background.
• 51:45
  Latvia doesn't even exist anymore, does it? It's integrated fully with Russia now, right? No, the other way around. It used to be part of Russia. Now it's independent. Oh, good. Good, good. Are your parents still there? No. No.
• 52:00
  My mom lives in Ireland. My dad lives in... It's still there. Most of my family is all over the place. We're kind of like nomadic. You know, we all just spread out to... And everyone's on the mission. Like, my sister also has a cool project. And, like, I don't know where we all get this from. But, yeah. So, I am who I am. I'm in... Definitely...
• 52:25
  What can I say? My life and my story have allowed me to meet a lot of people, understand a lot of stories, and just what I do best is simplify things. I just take a complicated thing of ayahuasca, and I'm just like, here it is. Here's one hour. You can understand it now, and that's it. It does no longer seem something unattainable. And also – What engineer makes something simple?
• 52:56
  A good engineer will do that. Basically, if you can explain it to a five-year-old, then you're a good engineer or scientist or whatever. If you don't, then it means you're just hiding something between the big words.
• 53:11
  So the word that you're searching for and that I just came to mean, it's a big word, it's overused, but this is 100% you. Authenticity. You're authentic as they come. I can see it in your eyes. Guys, I love this man. I love what he's doing. Let's take a little switch. We got a few minutes left. What do you do outside of running Lawyra to maintain your own mental health and spiritual well-being? Like, what do you do personally?
• 53:39
  So personally, what I do, number one, I drink one ceremony every month just to kind of be on this path of growth and improvement. So like not like a retreat every month, just one ceremony. And then...
• 53:53
  I created this healing container of Lawira for the people that come here, but also created for myself. So if it's a gym here, that's also gym for me. If I made this beautiful natural water pool, I go and I swim there. If I created this walking path, I go and I walk it. So I don't really leave much from here. I spend a lot of time with my family, with people.
• 54:16
  So I do from the practices that we preach here at Lawira, we do yoga. I participate sometimes. We do meditation. I work with meditation as well. So I guess you can say I practice what I preach. Not always, unfortunately, because life happens and business is busy. But the beauty of it is that it's a container I created that I cannot escape myself. So I keep coming back to it, and then I go to them.
• 54:44
  you know, maybe I feel a bit down. I go to the word circle, everyone's sharing, and I'm like, you know, my problems are not that big, actually, and it helps me as well. And I learn, you learn from others more than you learn from yourself. Sometimes it's easy to say, like, yeah, I'm perfect, and then like, he's imperfect, he's imperfect, he's imperfect. And then when you share in a group, you're like,
• 55:02
  okay, it actually applies to me. And then through other people as mirrors, you kind of form the worldview. I think it's, there's just so much wisdom in, uh, many people having their own experience and then sharing it that like, uh, it's like, uh, five years of college in like one month. It's, it's a very, very intense, uh, learning curve when it comes to emotions and personalities and many more things. Someone added another word, compassionate, uh,
• 55:31
  you're you it's that's what's coming across to me you said healing containers that's this is a passion project for you you drink your own kool-aid as i wrote down you practice what you preach you just said it so uh i'm picking it up i'm picking up what you're putting down and i'm loving it sam uh if you could describe your life purpose in one sentence what would it be i just said this is your purpose but what is it in your own words um
• 56:00
  I would like to make the world a better place through this work that I'm doing. I don't know how, but that's what medicine keeps telling me. Hopefully, I'll find a way. You know what? I have a friend that has an acronym of hope. Help one person every day. How about heal one person every retreat?
• 56:22
  I mean, we're doing that already and much more. I would say we heal 70% every month, but I, medicine keeps telling me that's not enough. So what I'd like to figure out is some kind of way how to, I don't know, get, get to more people and like, make them understand it. I'm not going to do it myself. Hopefully people that come to our retreat gets, get inspired and start their own little projects around the world and, you know,
• 56:49
  You know, my dream would be to wake up in a world where yesterday everyone had ayahuasca because...
• 56:56
  If you're here at the retreat, when you will be here, Kelly, not if, but when, you'll see how awesome everyone is. You get a group of people and everyone's kind of like, you know, they're kind of angry and a little bit sad that whatever they're carrying. By the end of it, everyone's like floating around this love. And I would just want to see that not just here, like in this little microcosm, but like you go outside and everyone's friendly and loving. And I don't know.
• 57:22
  I don't know other ways to achieve it so quickly. And so this is why my dream would be that. But, and also to maybe come to the place where instead of us being like, what the hell is ayahuasca to when's the last time you did ayahuasca? So for example, let's say you have a, it happened to meditation. We went from like, what the hell is meditation to like, do you meditate? Do you meditate?
• 57:48
  So that could be a good change. But once again, everything together, we as a society are being trained. All those tools that come to us now, meditation, yoga, plant medicines, you mentioned EMDR, different tools.
• 58:04
  practices, it's coming to us now because there's also a time of crisis and we just got to use them to overcome it and then hopefully become a better society. So that's, I don't really have it all nicely packaged in one maybe good slogan, but this is hopefully you get across, I get across my message, what I'd like to happen.
• 58:26
  I hope everybody's picking up what I'm feeling. You know what? I'm looking here and I don't see any website to book. Is it ayahuasca podcast.com or is there, is there something for Loira?
• 58:38
  It's lawira.com, or if you Google Ayahuasca in Colombia, you will find us as well, because our main website still is Ayahuasca in Colombia, but Lawira links to it. So the name of the retreat is Lawira, but the website is Ayahuasca in Colombia. That's the original name.
• 58:56
  I kept it because it's good for the searches. But if you Google Ayahuasca in Colombia, you'll come up with us, and the site will have a bunch of Lawyra logos. And the Ayahuasca podcast is if you want to learn. And our handle everywhere is Lawyra. So YouTube, Lawyra. Facebook, Lawyra. Instagram, Lawyra underscore Ayahuasca. So L-A-W-A-Y-R-A.
• 59:22
  So is there anything I haven't asked you that you feel compelled to share? I think you did a good job on unraveling this pretty complicated topic. Yeah, I'd like to say thank you. I think you're a very cool guy, very loving, and made me feel good about myself.
• 59:41
  Uh, that's, that's all I can say. And, uh, regarding the message, I just, I just, I would like people to, to keep an open mind and, um, try and let go of this, um, mistake that 50 years ago put ayahuasca in the category of the drugs and not the medicine because it's been medicine for 5,000 years and it's only been called the drug for the last 50. Let's kind of get it, leave it in the past and actually start using this medicine because yeah. Yeah.
• 1:00:09
  And then if you don't want to do it, wait for Kelly to do it, and then he'll tell you his own experience. Is there a time where it's less busy or more busy? So, you know, is there a peak season, an off season or anything like that?
• 1:00:24
  It's unpredictable. It's generally one month in the spring and one month in the autumn, sometimes one month in the summer, but they keep going all over the place. I'm trying to figure that one out myself, but actually June is shaping up to be pretty quiet. So it could be a good time for you to come, guys. Awesome. Sam, appreciate your time. Guys, rate, share, listen to this again. Head over to ayahuascapodcast.com and...
• 1:00:49
  try it out, man. Healing is cool. Thank you guys for listening. Love you all till next week.
• 1:01:00
  Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.