Building a Plant Medicine Recovery Program: PTSD, Addiction & Personal Sovereignty

Artwork for podcast Spirit Sherpa ~ Spiritual Growth for Spiritual Entrepreneurs

Episode 465 • 22nd June 2026 • Spirit Sherpa ~ Spiritual Growth for Spiritual Entrepreneurs • Kelle Sparta | Spiritual Coach and Business Coach

Welcome back to Spirit Sherpa, where we bring spiritual practitioners into success, sovereignty, and spiritual expansion. My name's Kelle Sparta. I'm a transformational shaman and a spiritual business coach, and I am here to do a sacred business calibration with Carlos Tanner.

Carlos, welcome to the show. Thanks. That's so great to be here. Kelle, great to meet you. Um, it's great to meet you too. I'm super excited to talk about the, the stuff that's going on with your business. Give us a quick two minute synopsis of what's going on in your business, who you serve and, and what we're looking at.

I'm the director of the Ayahuasca Foundation, which is an ayahuasca retreat center. Also involved deeply in researching plant medicine, and we've been offering educational courses, healing retreats, and hosting important research for the last 17 years. Um, right now we're in a real state of transition as we're expanding on the research and moving into a new, uh, area of treatment.

I guess That's exciting. Okay. So, uh, so when we talked before the call, uh, you said that you were doing a lot of work with, uh, PTSD and brain injury and things like that, and that's the research side of your business and that you also have codified the four years that you spent in the jungle with your, uh, mentor who taught you ayahuasca and have turned that into a course.

And so you just said that you are doing, um. More, uh, an expansion of the research as well. We did not talk about that beforehand, so can you tell me a little bit about that? Right. Well, for the last three and a half years we've worked with the Royal Court Project to offer healing retreats to veterans that suffer from treatment resistant PTSD.

And that's been part of an ongoing research project that will most likely publish its results in the next few months, showing that there was a tremendous benefit, uh, to those veterans. But now we're looking at, and this is really why I wanted to speak to you about the possibility of kind of transforming our business in a partnership with a substance use disorder rehabilitation center to create a 12 week program for veterans that aren't just suffering from PTSD, but also struggle with substance use disorder.

And I created my vision for this 12 week program that would be in partnership with this recovery center and, and I guess it's looking like. If things go a particular direction, we may focus the majority of our attention on these programs. And I guess that's what I'm hoping to find a little bit more clarity about, because it would be a really big switch for us to go from mostly public facing to now, mostly private facing.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a big difference. Um, have you worked with people with substance abuse disorder before? Uh, that is my personal story. So this is really like a full circle moment I feel. Um, I wrote a book this year and that tells the story of how I went from. Waking up in my car underwater because I blacked out behind the wheel because I had spiraled so deeply into my own drug addiction to making it to the Amazon and realizing the root causes of that addiction, which were my own childhood dramas, resolving them, and then having the experience to be invited to be the apprentice to that ero, which then radically transformed my life actually and led to the foundation of the Ayahuasca Foundation.

So I have my own personal story. And then along the way, of course, we've had a number of people with various stages in that spectrum of substance use disorders. So I do have quite a bit of experience over the past couple decades, but we've never done a program that is like specifically focused on that.

We've never had a collection of everyone with the same struggle essentially. Yeah. Okay. Well, you're, you're in a unique experience here because my husband's deep in the recovery community. He's been in recovery for 17, 18 years now. And so I'm, I'm very well familiar with the community. Um, and so yeah, there were, there were just a couple of things that I, I had as sort of a mm, when you said you were gonna be doing the work.

So these are some things that I, um, that would be something to think about as to, as you put the program together. Okay. So, um, I'm sure you've got all of the Ayahuasca side of it down. Uh, the, the piece that came up for me was the, uh, when you go through 12 step, the first thing is, you know, you have to admit that there's a power greater than you, right?

That's the first step, um, which often. Is it can become problematic on the other side because you're like giving away your power to that. And they never have a place where you take your power back in the 12 step process. And so, um, you know, the, the, the personal power aspect is the thing that I would say that that just pinged for me.

The moment you said you were gonna do this, I was like, you know, yes, I can see the value of doing the work with them. And I think you're gonna have to address the personal power issue. You're gonna have to balance the, you know, uh, the admitting that you don't have control over everything with the, you do have to make a choice about what you want for your life, sort of balance, right?

So that, that sort of piece, that's what showed up as you were talking about it. So that's just a food for thought. Um, but in terms of retooling your business in this direction, the first thing I'm gonna say is from a business owner's perspective. Anytime you have a single client that represents your entire marketing, your, your entire business, you are subject to that business.

So, uh, I would really highly recommend that if you're gonna retool in this direction, that you seek multiple partners so that you're getting business from multiple places so that you are never held over a barrel by this business saying, oh, well, you know, we don't wanna pay that much. Or, you know, well, we're just gonna yank all our business.

Or, you know, God forbid the business that's working with you goes out of business for some reason, or they sell to somebody who doesn't believe in the treatment plan anymore or whatever. Never put all your eggs in one basket, 'cause then your business just disappears overnight one day. Uh, and this is something that happens a lot in business.

So just be very careful with that. So if you're gonna retool in this direction, find multiple partners to work with. Okay. Um, and then the, the other piece of it is. You know, then, then your marketing becomes about how do you bring on additional programs rather than how do you bring on additional people.

Right. And so when you're looking at this, you, what exactly are you looking for information on in, in regards to this transition? So I have a, an idea of how to focus this. Well, it's, I, uh, you know, speaking to the 12 step, for example, um, the, the CEO of the rehabilitation center that we'd be partnering with asked if, if I could like, consider creating or envisioning, uh, a new plan because this obviously by involving plant medicine, would make it unique to a traditional 12 step program.

So I, I did a lot of development in that. And I noticed exactly what you were saying. In fact, the four week portion of the participants staying in our center, which would be the middle of the treatment portion as opposed to the preparation, four weeks of preparation with the rehab center, four weeks with us for treatment and four weeks of integration back at the rehab center.

I called it the empowerment course. And, and so I, I recognize like what you're describing there, and also I've kind of changed some of the language. So I call the first step declaration as opposed to using the word admitting. Mm-hmm. And you know, so I do, I have noticed some of the things that I feel could be updated or improved, especially taking into consideration all of the advances that we've.

Learned over the past a hundred years since that program was created. Uh, especially with regard to emotional trauma, which really wasn't even a term back then. Yeah. And then neuroplasticity, you know, there's a lot of science that has happened since then as well, so I'm definitely in line with that. I guess that because it's never been done before, at least to my knowledge, I am, you know, in unchartered territory.

Yeah. And so I am, you know, doing the best that I can to try to navigate that territory. And so if I can receive more guidance or help, you know, to find that, that star to navigate by, then I'm gonna seek it out. Yeah. Okay. So I have, I have a lot of thoughts for you. So, um, and so the, the thing that I, I think is the greatest risk because I've seen this happen in, in my friend group, um, where I have, uh, there's a group of people I know who, uh, go to Ayahuasca ceremony with, uh, a particular set of practitioners and they do it, uh, regularly, right?

It's, it's not, it's not a special travel to it and go do it and then come back a year later sort of thing. They're doing it regularly and, uh, I know one person from that group who did 95 Ayahuasca ceremonies in a year, he never integrated anything. He was being eaten alive by a dark goddess when I met him.

Uh, when I saw him after that, I was like, this is insane. Okay. But that is an addict's response to ayahuasca that that can be an addict's response to ayahuasca, where, where if it's not properly monitored, right? Um, and so, you know, that that's a concern is that somebody's going to, and this is something that I was seeing happening within the community there, is that it was being treated like a drug instead of being treated with the respect it was due, and therefore it was acting like a drug and being problematic for people.

And if they were not respecting the medicine, right, if you don't respect the medicine, the medicine will come and get you. Right? That's, that's just sort of the nature of the beast, right? So, um, correct me if you think I'm wrong, feel free to, but, but that's been my experience with medicine, so, um, well, I, I would certainly say, you know, I think that.

One of the biggest challenges that I've seen and and had in my own life and what I feel like is maybe my special gift or role in this life, is that we come as westerners from a paradigm that is a collection of a particular set of beliefs. And the way that we look at medicine and what the word medicine means to us is very substance focused.

Yes, it's very chemical focused. You know, it's material based. But once you compare that to what I call the ancestral paradigm. Which was the paradigm of our own ancestors, but to this day would be in the realm of the indigenous. Then you see that it's a very process focused. Yeah. So medicine is a process rather than a substance, and that's a very non-material focus.

That's not the chemistry, that's the consciousness and the spirit and, and so if you are coming from a modern paradigm into a tradition that was created and exists primarily in an ancestral paradigm, more than likely there will be challenges of understanding that could unfortunately lend itself to treating your experiences from the context of the modern paradigm and missing the meaning or truth of the experience because.

You lack the understanding of the ancestral paradigm. Does that make sense? It does. And I would add to that just the idea that, um, the medicine itself is conscious, right? And, and to interact with it from a consciousness perspective. It's not anthrop, morphs, anthropomorphism, blah, blah. Right? Mouth isn't working.

It's not that it actually has consciousness and it is interacting with you as a, a facilitator, as a guide through your process. And so to, to be, to be able to wrap your head around that is another piece of the puzzle, right? And so, right. Well, when someone serves medicine in an indigenous ceremony, typically that person has spent a lot of time training and has also built a lot of relationships, not only with the consciousness or spirit of the medicine, ayahuasca, but they're also calling in spirits that they've built relationships with.

As part of their training and the maintenance of their practice. Right? And it's that work of collaboration with conscious beings that are spirits that brings about the healing effect, at least when understood in that process focused non-material based paradigm. And that part is a real challenge to understand, right?

Because from our system, we really just don't have that as an example in our own healing. And so if you think that it's just set and setting and then the experience you have when you take the substance, then you run the risk of falling into what sounds like the situation that you described. Yeah. Well, and um, the other piece that I'm thinking is also there's protections put up.

Presumably to, to keep entities that you don't want in the, in the ceremony out. Right. So that's another piece of the puzzle. And so, you know, the thing I'm looking at as I'm feeling into the community that you're gonna be serving is you're gonna need a way to orient them. Right? And so that's gotta be step one is orientation, and they've gotta buy in.

'cause if they're not gonna buy in, they're not gonna make it because they're not gonna have, they're gonna have a substance experience, not a process experience. Right. Are you also doing DTAs? Yes. Okay. And that's a part of this new program will be that the participants, which would be six weeks in, like the halfway point, they would then enter into a planta.

Okay, good. So, um. That it will also be helpful. Um, there is, uh, I had, I had a vision, uh, this is probably for you, um, years ago when somebody asked me to design a program, uh, you know, I I, I had designed this four month long process where people would come down and live in the jungle and go through, uh, you know, they have an individual hut and they would be, you know, isolated for periods of time with nothing to do.

Right. And then they have to be alone with themselves. They have a journal and that's it. Right? And, um, and they, you know, the person brings them food and, you know, may have a moment or two of small talk, but that's it. Right? Um, and just so they're not. Freaking out entirely. You know, it's just a check in on them, right?

And, uh, and, and to bring them through the process because they have to get in touch with themselves. That's really, they, they're using substances to get away from themselves, right? There's, there are pieces in themselves that they just do not wanna pay attention to, do not wanna acknowledge, do not, it's too painful.

It's too much. And so they're running from it. And they're in, in the way that I look at this, they're taking a third chakra issue, which is, you know, self-esteem, trauma. You know, not good enough, not welcome, not wanted, not important, too big, too much. All of the stories that they tell themselves about how they're not, not okay.

Um, and then they're shoving it into their second chakra and trying to fill it with pleasure seeking activities. And it's black hole in the second chakra, because it's not actually in the second chakra. It's in the third chakra. And so until you come back up into this place where the problem started, and the heart chakra, you know, those, that combination, those two pieces are typically where the vast majority of the issues stand.

Right? There are, they're in other places too, but they's where the vast majority of them are. Right. And so, you know, they pull it up out of there and they need to come back into relationship with those experiences so that they can clear them. Right. And there's, there's soul retrieval work to be done in there from a shamanic perspective.

So are you, are you addressing that. That's great that you just used that term. Um, yeah, I mean, I developed a program and like I said, that is sim uh, loosely based or, or maybe not so loosely based on the 12 step, but updated at least to my, um, perspective. And one of the steps is now soul retrieval. That's a step that I felt like needed to be in that, in that process.

So, yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Because parts of themselves are left in different places. Right. Um, and then, you know, there's also gotta be an inner forgiveness process, right? That's the step right before soul retrieval. Okay. We're talking the same language. We're on a page here. So yeah. So there's gotta be an inner forgiveness process, which also relates to an outer forgiveness, which is the making amends piece.

Right. Um, and so, you know, the, the piece that I find is missing in the 12 step process is the. They, they go through a process of, you know, finding all your faults right. And making that, that moral inventory. Right. And that's all, that's great. You have to do it, but you also have to come back to a place of, of building foundation of self-support and love, right.

And self-love. And they don't do that in the 12 step process. That's a, a crucial part that I feel like they miss. And so, you know, that is near the end of the process, right? That's, that's like after usually what I found, um, you know, what my husband found and told me about is that it about five years in the community is where people start to seek out other things that give them that.

And so, okay. What Ayahuasca can do, and what you can do if you focus on that in the process itself, is to accelerate that five year process and, and start that before they finish the end of the program. Right. Because you need to get them to that point, because that's how they stay sober in, in the first five years.

It's, it's a choice every day, but after five years, and if they start building that foundation of self-support and that foundation of self-love, now it becomes easier. Right? It becomes, it's like, oh, I'm, I love myself. I don't need to find a substance to run away from myself. Right? And so it becomes different.

It becomes a different experience. And so if you can transition them to that faster, uh, you will, you will have better success rates, right? That's my sense of it. I would agree a hundred percent. I actually reframed the moral inventory and I call it reflection. And it's really, I, I, I view it more as like a tracing root causes process.

And, and that seemed to be more productive and that, that's obviously preparing in the preparation, um, phase before you would actually start working with ayahuasca. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I hear exactly what you're saying. Um, for me, the planta is this really important component, if not the core, the linchpin of the whole program.

Because what I thought is that it's one thing to want faith, for example, but. How do you get there? Right? And, and in these ancestral traditions, at least from my perspective, it really feels like they, they do know how to get there. There is like an actual path to get there that has been developed over these countless generations.

And the plant deta to me is this beautiful example of this sacred ritual that literally gets you to faith and, and obviously the opportunity to have like a quite literally face-to-face conversation with that higher being makes a massive leap in that effort to gain faith so that when you do end the program and maybe struggle with a craving, you have this real go-to that it has embodied practices right at your disposal that you learned that you can quite quickly, or at least that's the hope.

Gain that connection again to that higher being that, you know, is there to Yeah. To support you. Absolutely. And that part I think from what I looked at was probably the, the greatest struggle is when you, you, you can like, want faith for a very long time and even maybe say that you have it, but then kind of when the shit hits the fan, now you really know if you have it.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, um, I'm gonna give you something from one of my programs, um, because I think it would be super helpful in yours because it's, it is the single most resisted exercise I do in my programs and it's the one that when people finally do it say it's the biggest impact for them. Um, and so I call it a go me box.

Because one of the things that happens as you, you get into this is that, you know, many of your people will have hit rock bottom. And so once they've hit rock bottom, it's like, I'm shit. I suck, I'm awful. You know, it's all these things, right? And so the go me box is a list and it's one piece of paper per good thing.

So, you know, little squares of paper, big strips, you know, lots of different types of paper, whatever. Um, I have them decorate it in a pretty fashion and, you know, make it look nice and, and it's a box and every nice thing that's ever been said to them. It goes on one piece of paper per thing. Okay? And then any great work review they ever got goes in there.

I don't care how old it is, any love letter they've ever received, any, uh, card of thanks from anyone, anything that they are proud of that they've done, uh, you know, I don't care how long ago it was, it doesn't matter. It all goes in there, right? And then, and then it's a living box. So every time something new comes up that you are like, go me, you add it to the box, right?

It, it is not a one and done. It is an ongoing process. And the deal is you make the box and you read it every day, all the way through, three times a day for two weeks, and then you read it through every day, two times a day for two weeks, and then you read it through every day, once a day for two weeks, and then you read it when you need it.

Right, but you're always adding to it. And the the thing is, is that the average American child receives 432 negative messages for every one positive message. And the goal is to balance the scales, right? Because that only gets worse as we're adults. And to also begin a practice of appreciation for those around you, because those two pieces, when combined create an environment of support.

And when you appreciate others, they tend to turn around and appreciate you. And if you do it within the confines of the program with the understanding that, you know, you're not to give instructions to each other, you're to give appreciations to each other, right? And then you don't point out flaws, you point out good things.

And this is the way that everybody learns to be in a supportive environment. Because generally these people have never been in a supportive environment in their life. There is a a re-parenting process that has to happen, um, because they just, they don't know how to not be kids. They're all, they're all stuck at whatever age they started their, their addiction, right?

And so they have to be parented through that process. And so part of it's self parenting, but part of it is having that group environment for additional, uh, support and to, to create an experience of what it's like to not be abused on a regular basis. Or neglected on a regular basis where you count and you are important and you are cared for.

Right. And so creating that environment, it, it can be challenging with the group of people that are in this early stage because they don't know how not to be that way. And so a lot of it's gonna be, Nope, we're not doing that, we're doing this. Right. But I've done this with middle school students and you know, they'll, you say, if I asked you to, you know, I always tell them that they have to start with three good things about themselves.

Right. Every single time. And I write 'em down so you can't repeat. So, right. I would do a six week program with them and every single day that we did it, they'd have to gimme three new things and I'm, and they would run out of things and then the other kids in the class would be like, oh, but you're this and, oh, but you're that.

And they would help. Right. But then I, I would say, well, if I told you to give me three bad things, you know, would you know what you would say? And they start telling me the bad things. I was like, no, no, no. I didn't ask you to give me the bad things. I asked you if you would know what to say. And because they're used to that, right?

So, you know, these are very beginning phases of the process of understanding that what you've been fed is garbage and garbage in, garbage out, right? And so, you know, to understand the brain as a, like a computer program, it's like what you feed into it is what comes out of it. So be careful what you put into it.

You know, look at your social media profiles. Are you, are you consuming victim content? Right? Are you consuming angry content? Because that's only gonna make it worse. You know, you need to consume gratitude. You need to consume positivity. You need to consume love, because that's what you're gonna wanna put out, right?

When you put these things out, that's what you create in the world around you. To create that experience for them and to understand that that's how they're programming themselves. These are worn neuronal pathways, and they need to cut off the well-worn pathways that are not serving them and start developing new pathways that do serve them.

You know that it's not their fault, but it is their responsibility to fix it, right? And so you did the best you could with what you had. You now know better. So now it's your responsibility to do better, right? It's that balance. So it's, it's always in a place of non-judgment and forgiveness, which I can feel in you is very present.

So I have no concerns about that. Um, it, it's, it's just a matter of really getting them to understand the, the understand underpinning process, because they're very much in their heads, because they're trying to be out of their feelings. They're all managing their emotions with their minds, their thinking through their feelings instead of feeling their feelings.

And that's a problem because that doesn't process anything. And they're terrified of their feelings because they've got this huge backlog of all these feelings and they've got 'em all locked down, and then they come out sideways as anger, as response. It's a secondary motion. We know that. And so it all comes out sideways, right?

And so, you know, you've gotta get them outta their heads and into their hearts. And that's another piece of the process. So I, I'm looking at this and I'm going, how long is this program you're planning? 12 weeks? I don't think that's enough. Well, 12 weeks is the in-person portion of it. Okay. Um, and, and then there would be ongoing support and Okay.

Do they start with the in-person or do they have a preview before that? There is coaching before that. Okay. Um, but while they're home Yeah. And then they arrive and have that four weeks of preparation, um, you know, those are still details that we're ironing out right now. I think this very first cohort will have to have stopped all of their substance use prior to arrival.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. But the actual goal of the CEO is to eventually get to a point where if you can't stop before, just get here. Um, and so, you know, we'll see how that develops. Close your eyes and feel into that.

Yeah, I mean, my point, I hear you like, because the commitment is so important and if you can't make the commitment even to get you there, then how committed are you? In which case, you know, have you are, are you like already dooming yourself to failure by trying to do something that you haven't committed to?

Yeah, I mean, yes, commitment is crucial and I'm actually looking at the energetics of it. Every substance has its own consciousness, and when I take the consciousness of any of the problematic substances, anything from alcohol to heroin, everything in between, and I look at the energy of those, they will literally be doing battle with the ayahuasca.

Consciousness. Oh, I should say when you show up for that four weeks, you're not drinking ayahuasca the first four weeks. Yeah. So that would've, that, that will still be a medically supervised detox process. Okay. And then in addition to that, we will be essentially preparing the consciousness, preparing the, the trust element to get you to the next phase of the four weeks that are in Peru at the Ayahuasca Retreat Center.

The first four weeks are actually in Costa Rica at the rehab center. Okay. And then you go back to the rehab center after to do your integration for four weeks. Okay. So it's 12 weeks of in-person. Yeah. And, and then, I mean, honestly, maybe we'll see that it needs to be longer, but um, but that's how it's designed at the moment.

Yeah. If they're already clean. I think you can do that and, and do the pre-work. If they're not clean before they start, I think you're gonna have to do the pre-work in the rehab center. Right. So because they're not gonna be conscious to do it. Right. They're not gonna Right. Well, I think for me, that consciousness part is huge.

Where, I mean, I'm a very consciousness focused person and, um, if you can't stop prior to going there, then I don't know if you're ready to do this program. Well, it's like a measurement. It's like an evaluation built in. Let's play a, let's play a game here. Let's just sort of try something out. Um, because I'm thinking about could you, I I would, and I don't know how this would work and I think it would work differently for different people.

So, but, um. Uh, there are many different reasons for addiction, and some of those reasons are people who are not able to shut down their psychic abilities. And so they're under attack and they're trying to shut them down with, with substances. And so I think, and that would be one that would be very difficult to, to stop, right?

Because you'd be experiencing attack. I think if you had people who were putting protections around them, um, that I think you would find that that would, if you did that in advance, you know, they, they opt in and they need protections around them that, that may be sufficient to help people to quit, um, before they get to you.

So, building in an energetic protection process, uh, would be, I think, super helpful for the people who are having a hard time. You know, getting clean enough to get into the program. Right? I mean, right now we have veterans programs mm-hmm. But they're not for people with substance use disorder. In fact, it's a questionnaire that's part of the health evaluation in the Heroic Heart project eval, uh, screening process.

Uh, which allows us kind of, that's what gives us the opportunity to now easily, uh, extract that piece of data to find this cohort. But normally if you can't stop taking, uh, a substance, then you're disqualified. You can't do the IO retreat. But that's because their preparation is at home. Right. And so they don't have, uh, that in-person opportunity.

They have to show up. Uh, to the Ayahuasca retreat having already stopped, not just those substances, pharmaceutical medications. There's, there's a pretty important list of restrictions that must be followed in order to attend the Ayahuasca retreat. So having that four weeks of in-person, um, preparation definitely gives us a much better opportunity to actually prepare their bodies and their souls for the experience once they start the ayahuasca treatment.

Yeah. But, but still you have to get to Right. The rehab center. Right? And, and so that. Kind of puts it in a sim it's not the same because you're not dealing with this, uh, you know, medical risk by, by being at the rehab center. Right. But you still need to get to the rehab center. Yeah. And that's, that's not just down the street.

It, it does require like, some putting your life together. And so for that reason, I do feel like it almost necessitates that there be a, a very strong attempt to stop the substance use in order to get yourself together enough to, to make it down there. But also to me, to like demonstrate your commitment.

That really is like your demonstration of your determination. If you can't demonstrate that part, then this might not be, you haven't made a choice a good time. Yeah. Yeah. You haven't made the choice. You're, you're still. Gliding along, you're not actually choosing. Yeah. And they do have to make a choice.

I'm with you on that. I just am thinking about how you can facilitate supporting the choice making. Right. And that, that putting up a protection. No, I like what you, I like what you said about the protection and like Yeah. Having those names and, and then having our team like have greater access to that.

So these people aren't just showing up. We've, we've been communicating and working with them in both planes. Yeah. Before they even start the 12 weeks. Yeah. Well you can even set it up as an automated process energetically. You could say the moment somebody registers. They get included in the protections.

And then, then you don't even have to have a lot of people involved. You can set up an energetic structure that gets triggered when they register. Like I do that with all the people who come into my, uh, high ticket programs, into my, my deeper work. Um, and they automatically are the moment they're, they're in, they get protections until they can put their own protections up and protect themselves.

And then that, that revokes automatically so that I don't extend myself too far. Right. And so that's a process that you can automate. And then if you are checking in with people and you're finding that they're having more problems, then you can get individuals involved with helping to facilitate that on an energetic level.

Right. And then it's, it's more like, you know, pulling the craving out of their body, right? You can do that process of just have them bring that craving up to their awareness and make it as sharp as possible, and you just go in energetically and just pull it out of them. Right. Um, and, you know, that sort of thing and be able to help them along that way, right?

Um, but then if it's an automated process energetically for the protection, at least that takes some of the effort out of the process for you guys, right? You don't wanna be overextending yourself if you don't have to. And so you should set up a, a energetic that fuels that. Um, so that it's not coming from any one or two people.

It should be, you know, connected into a universal source energy so that it's being fueled without having to draw from you guys personally. Um. And, uh, but it also means you have to have something like a, a, a sign that says, this person's under our protection. Look us up. If you don't like it, you know, before you come at it, you may wanna choose wisely.

You know, you may wanna take a look and see if you really wanna mess with us because we have a reputation and you may not wanna mess with it. Right. And, uh, so that's, that's often a helpful sign to just put as a signpost next to them, um, because then, then you don't get attacks coming in as often. Right?

Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. So you could tell I've done this for a while, like, here, how do I optimize this process? Yeah. So, um, yeah. So I think that would be helpful. But again, I, I'm agreeing with you that they absolutely do have to make the, the commitment they have to make the decision, and you need to test that.

Have you ever tried testing decisions energetically? Uh, yeah. Often my own. Okay. Yeah. Okay. But for others, have you, have you set that up yet? Hmm. Not so much. Okay. I think that's gonna be important for this group. You're gonna have to test the decision. You're gonna have to be able to, you like, okay, so you're in, how in are you?

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, it's like, well, you know, I'll, I'll see what it is. That's not a strong decision. It's like mm-hmm. You know, okay. How in are you, well, if I don't do something, I'm gonna die. That's a decision, right? Mm-hmm. That's a, you know, I don't know if it's this, but I'm gonna try anything 'cause I know I'm gonna die.

That's somebody who's committed, right. Um, whatever it takes somewhere in between. That was the phrase Yes. That I would recognize. Yeah. And someone was saying, well, I've tried a lot of things and they didn't work, so I'm gonna try this. Yeah. That's not the same thing. As opposed to Yeah, yeah. As opposed to when someone says whatever it takes.

Yeah. And, and that you need to call them on the, you know, I'm gonna try this because it's like, do or do not. There is no try. Yoda is my man. Right. It's uh, just, you gotta be like, well, if you're only trying then that's why you're not making anything work. You gotta whack 'em in the face with it, that you gotta call 'em to that choice point.

So that's part of being an initiator, which is what you're doing here. Yeah. I mean, I will say that my strategy is usually saying, well, you know, I talked to a lot of people, I've talked to thousands of people that have come to do our program, and one thing I've noticed is that people have a lot more challenging, challenging experiences trying to get to their goal when they think that they're just trying it.

And when people are ready to do whatever it takes, they almost guarantee that they achieve success. So I give them like, here's my observations, Sam, do with it what you want. It's less confrontational than I would be. I really, you know, my, my gut on this and I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, I come from a warrior background.

There's a reason Sparta is my last name, but, you know Right. But I also feel like you can soft pedal some things, but this is not one of them. Right. I feel like you're, you're better suited to just whack 'em in the face with it and be like, you're in or you're out. You need to make a choice. And you know, whatever choice you make, I'm here to hold space for.

I have no judgment. But you need to make a choice. Of course, there there is no, there's no sort of twiddling your way through it. Um, the way things are set up now, thankfully, and of course I recognize there's gonna be some, a real sharp learning curve over these first few programs that we run. But, but because Heroic Heart Project is this really vast network of veterans that already are signing up for plant medicine programs, so these aren't just addicts or people suffering with a substance use disorder, they are specifically joining Heroic Heart Project because they have an interest to, to work with plant medicines.

Yeah. That's what Heroic Arts Project does. Okay. And, and then they have access to all of those medical records and, and so our screening process. C can be very elaborate. We're not just taking someone that signs up. Good. We're, we're, we're sifting through a, a really large collection of people that have that interest.

Yeah. To find who we think would find achieve the best levels of success. Yeah. Well, and for military, I would absolutely take the more in your face approach, because that's what they're used to. I grew up on military basis too, so I've got that background too. Um, but, uh, you know, I would absolutely take the more con, confrontational approach for military veterans just because they're, they're used to having somebody up in their face and being like, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Um, that's, that's the, the culture. Right. Um, but the, there's a way to be confrontational without being. Mean, and I think you can walk that, that line without a problem. Um, uh, and I'm saying that more for the listeners than for you. Uh, so the

but the people coming in from the other program are not gonna be veterans. Right? That's, that's a different market. Our more public facing programs. You mean that's just the addiction program? No, the addiction program is veterans. Oh, it is veterans. Okay. Yes. All right. All right. I, I misunderstood that. And so Connect, we, that's the one with the Costa R.

We do, we, for the last three years, we've run retreats for veterans that have severe PTSD or treatment resistant PTSD. So that was like what we were looking for. Okay. To, to create those cohorts. And they would be screened also, right. For all of those factors. But normally, but this is an expansion if, yeah.

Normally if a veteran had substance use disorder. That would disqualify them from this retreat. But now because of those four weeks on either end, we, we want to be able to offer this. So we're actually targeting like that market, like, okay, all those people that we normally had disqualified, now let's find a path for them.

But obviously it's not a a, a short retreat where you just fly to Peru. It's this much longer program. Right. And the other thing I'm gonna say is that because. You're dealing with veterans, um, you're gonna need to have a highly structured process because they're used to having a lot of structure to hold them.

That's one of the benefits of the military is that it has structure that provides guardrails for people, right? They, they can often come out of very traumatic environments as children, or that were totally chaotic and had no structure, right? And so to have a structure is gonna be important. Um, both because you're re-parenting and re-parenting requires structure, but also because you're dealing with people who are used to the military.

And so therefore that is gonna be, uh, something that's a comfort zone for them, and they need to have some comfort zone because they're gonna be yanked outta their comfort zone on everything else, right? So they need to have something that gives them a sense of, of, uh, solidity when everything else is falling apart, right?

And so the container and the format and the structure are gonna be super important for that group. Well, I, I hear you. I mean, uh, we're, we're just kind of magically positioned right now, and I feel like we've worked with Royal Courts for three years and we've had a hundred veterans in 10 programs come through already.

So we really have gained a lot of experience and, and we really understand and, and really enjoy working with them for many reasons, especially because of the discipline that they all seem to have Yes. Compared to like a, a regular group of people. Yeah. Totally different. They can, they handle uncomfortable situations very, very well.

Yes. Which are kind of a guarantee on an Ayahuasca retreat. And then because we've worked with that research group as well for so many years, the ability to investigate and do those studies, it's already set up. It's not like. It would be some slight adjustments, essentially, to their research protocols, which would be fantastic.

Now this new component is the partnership with the rehabilitation centers, and that's a new piece for me. So, yeah. But you know, we're gonna hopefully get to know each other and, and build certain relationships the same way that we have with these other organizations. And it really feels like we're just in this very, very special position to be able to put all of these pieces together to offer a program that I think would, is just very, very complex.

Rehabilitation has a very low success rate right now. And, and so it's our goal, obviously, let's increase the success rate and find a path forward that benefits those people that struggle. Yeah. Um, the other thing I'm thinking that you may wanna take a look at is have you met with the people from the, uh, the rehab?

Not in person. Okay. You're gonna need to do that because their biases are going to impact your clients. And so, well, I mean, I've had numerous Zoom calls with them. Yeah. That's how we've communicated. 'cause they're located in Costa Rica. Yeah. Um, I would very close to you. I would, yeah, I would, I would still go there in person because you wanna get a feel for the environment there, because if the environment has energetic issues, you're gonna have issues with your clients coming out of it.

treats at the center and then: 2020

And then she went off the land. And then this thing was just sitting there starving. And so it started feeding on the people who were running the events. And so when I opened to the land to to touch in it tried to eat me. And I'm like, oh, no. Like, no, no, no, no, no. And I was like, oh, poor thing. You're starving here.

Let me connect you into some alternative sources of pain for your, your benefit. You know, I'll hook you into the hospitals. You can eat some of the pain from there, because they could use some of the pain to be gone. Right. But, but you know, you don't know what was on the land before they got there, and you don't know what's been put on the land by accident or in purpose and been ignored or whatever.

So, you know, if it's gonna be part of your process, you should be there in person and be able to, to touch in and figure out what's going on with it. Because, you know, you never know what's happening. Not very, very good advice. Yeah. Um, I will say that we, I've kind of like been the person who has envisioned this program.

Mm-hmm. Um, it is a collaboration, but ultimately I would say that it's. Predominated by my own vision. And, and so in that vision, one of our staff will go to the Costa Rica Center, um, the second half of that four week program there, and then act as this real smooth transition. Transition as a liaison. Um, we'll travel with them to Peru and be with them for the entire four weeks, and then we'll travel back with them to Costa Rica for the first half.

So they'll really like carry that. And, and in terms of like preparing, obviously someone from our staff would be the best to prepare them to come to our center. Yeah. And I think that's also to like guide them into the, the preliminary steps of that life alignment at the integration stage as well. Yeah, I think that's wise that, that's a really good idea because their staff is not gonna be able to manage it.

So you know, it needs to be somebody from your staff. Right. Well, they haven't come to our center either, so you know, we're still in this like early phase. They do intend to come to our center and I do intend to go there as well, so, okay. We'll, yeah, before, before our first cohort. Yeah, you absolutely should be doing that because then everybody feels comfortable and confident in the fact that they're, they can share their clients with the other person.

Right. You know, because if you don't know how it's happening, where it is, then Hmm. Yeah. Right. There's, yeah. Yeah. So, but they're not gonna stay for the four week program? No. They'll do a much shorter stay, so they won't really know exactly all of the components. They won't do a plant yeta, but yes, it's really more about the energy.

Yeah. It's, it's more about them seeing that you've got a reasonable space and that you're not just winging it. Right. So, you know, yeah, it makes sense. I, I think it's more important for you to go there than for them to come to you, but from your perspective, um, but I'm sure from their perspective, them coming to you is a safety measure, so that makes sense.

Um, and, um. I'm assuming that you have a safety person on staff who's there, who's not doing the medicine at the time of the journeys, so that if there's an allergy or something, you know, medical emergency or something, you have somebody who's, yeah, see, this is my, if you listen to my podcast, you're gonna see that I, I like generally tell people to avoid plant medicine just because it's so often poorly done.

Um, and, but you know, somebody who's doing it ethically and responsibly like you're doing, I'm like, it, it's, it can be hugely helpful. It's just, you gotta make sure you got somebody who's doing it ethically and responsibly. So I love that, that you're doing that, um, because that is ethical and responsible.

So, um. You know, this is another piece of the puzzle with the, the market that's out there right now. Because everybody, it's exploded and everybody's going, I'm an A facilitator and I'm like, Hmm, what are you, you know? Or are you just somebody who's done it once or twice and decided you wanted to do it?

Now you know, you don't have any background. And in the shamanic practices that are, are respon necessary to do the work well, and then the ethics and the the responsibility piece that goes along with it and things like that. So, um, yeah. That's a very complex conversation right there. For sure. It is. It is.

Um, I love the people who go to a weekend workshop and call themselves a shaman. I'm like, mm mm No, it's not this. Or not even go to the weekend. Yeah. Or not even go to the Exactly. So, um, so there's a whole thing there, but, uh, we're not gonna go down that path. We're gonna keep going here. Uh, so. Anything else you wanted to cover in terms of sort of envisioning and designing process?

Uh, no. I mean, really I, like I mentioned, this is like a, it's almost like it will redefine our business. Yeah. And, and I, I, you know, listening to myself say that I sense like my own trepidation, but it's really incredibly exciting. Yeah. As a person that was able to resolve my own substance use disorder through this practice and to now all these years later kind of come full circle to be able to offer that as a, a really beautifully designed and integrity filled program.

I just couldn't imagine like a better future. Yeah. Um, but of course I still, I am not like. 100%, uh, sure that everything will go smoothly. So that's the place that I'm at navigating all of that at the moment. So, yeah, I have two things for that. One is that I am, there's so many people who are, you know, 15, 20 years into their practices who are pivoting right now.

Just a massive number of people. It's like this, this year the fire horse has just brought in all this new energy and everybody's like, okay, this is where I am now. And there's huge pivots happening in a lot of their businesses. And so, uh, you are right on time for that. And second is, uh, what I'm gonna suggest to you is that you do a meditation and you connect into the energy of your business five years from now.

And you, you ask it to tell you what it needs in order to get to that point of success and, and connect into the part of your business that's wildly successful, right? And pick the timeline in which you were wildly successful. And then ask it what it needs right now. It's not gonna tell you the whole journey because that's not appropriate, but it will give you the piece that you need to do now in order to build the foundation properly.

Love it. Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. Because you know it, it will tell you, it'll talk to you. So you know, might as well start with the end, right? Always good. Right? So, and you might try five years out, 10 years out, 20 years out, you know, and see, see whether you get different answers because, you know, wildly successful five years from now versus wildly successful 20 years from now may be very different visions because the world is changing so quickly.

Right. And so, you know, those are all, and then you just ask for help in blending those together to find the thing that's the right thing for now. Okay, I like it. Yeah. Stay out of control. The control pattern's gonna shut it down because that's a fear pattern and it's a, a safety mechanism. Go, go into your safety, your trust in the universe, and, and connect into those energies and, and stay in the flow and, uh, you know, ask it to bring you what you need rather than having a defined answer in the moment.

It may not give you a defined answer in the moment, but it will bring you the things you need to know in order to get to the next step, right? The things you need to experience in order to get to the people you need to meet, the, you know, places you need to go, blah, blah, blah. So just be aware that, you know, you ask it to work upon your life now and then follow the synchronicities, right?

Follow the bright and shiny that shows up and says, woo, I'm important. Right? Um, you know, back to, have you ever read, uh, the, uh, Celestine prophecy. Yeah, that sort of thing. Yeah. I had it on my desk just a couple days ago. Yeah. So it's, it, it works. It works like that. So, um, it's a great place, honestly. That's, that's so great that you bring that up.

ing a VW bus cross country in: 1997

And I kept this journal that at the time I thought was a magic journal because when I would write things in it, then they seemed to come true. And I wrote on the end of that journal, I think I want to go to Peru because that book takes place in Peru. Right. And, and then of course, then I would find myself in Peru and end up living there for.

For a long time. That's fascinating because, um, I, almost all the people I know who are at our stage is, are people who had an awakening in 97, 98, and they all just went, you know, it was like that, that couple of years in there were like the years that everybody went pop. Right. And, um, and I too had a calling to Peru at that time and did not go.

And so I've always wondered what would've happened if I had gone, but yeah. 'cause I had the same thing. I had been studying my reiki training with people who were trained by in, and people in, uh. Ink in shamans in Peru. And uh, so I had gotten my reiki training from them in a, in a shamanic context. So it was, it was calling to me too.

So I'm, I'm wondering if we would've run into each other back then, that would've been interesting. Right. You know, you never know. I should have followed, but they, they kept sending Peruvians to me everywhere. I mean, I, I was a real estate agent back then, and I was Peru, the Peruvians kept coming. One of them came to me and then suddenly everybody, everywhere was Peruvian coming to me to work with me.

And I was just like, okay, I need to go. I know I need to go, but I was in the middle of trying to get divorced and, you know, I was running a non-profit and there was like all this other stuff and I was like, I'm so busy and I just can't. And I was, I should have gone. But you know, clearly I got where I am anyway, so it's fine.

But the what if is always there in the back of my head. So I can't wait for my life review to, to tell me what would've happened in that scenario. So, yeah. Yeah. But yeah. Okay. Well this has been a really interesting conversation. Is there anything else you feel like we need to talk about that we haven't covered?

I don't think so. You have been very helpful. I really like the ideas that you've provided. Thank you. Okay, great. So, uh, if somebody wants to find you, if they can, are you gonna be doing public facing journeys? This year for sure. And we will continue to have some of some 10 day retreats. I think that will be like a mainstay that we continue to have.

Um, and you can find [email protected] and we'll always continue our eight week courses. They're at a separate location at our plant medicine school. Okay. And so those are for people obviously, that feel a calling to study the tradition and go a lot deeper into their understanding of it as opposed to someone seeking healing, it's someone seeking knowledge or wisdom, and we'll continue to have those programs.

Yeah. So ayahuasca foundation.org is the easiest way to find out all about our programs and you can use that Contact us form to contact me directly. Awesome. And we'll put that link in the show notes so that you guys can find it easily. And thank you so much for coming on the call. If, if you guys are looking to reimagine your business and you are, uh, if there's somebody you know who is doing a plant medicine business or if they're looking to reimagine their business in general, please send them my way.

Um, and you know, by all means, uh, share this, this podcast with them so that they can learn some more about how to market their business, how to think about things and things of that nature. And, uh, if you enjoyed this podcast, please like, subscribe, share, and rate. That's a way to balance your karma so that if you got something, you give something back.

And, uh, we really appreciate it and that helps us get out to more people. And so that makes life easier all around and makes life better. So, uh, and with that, I'm gonna remind you that what you focus on expands What you intend is what you create. So choose wisely.

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