The Courage to Heal with Ancient Amazonian Practices - episode 88

When the weight of past traumas looms heavy, finding solace can seem an insurmountable task. I discovered a lifeline in the ancient practice of Kambo therapy, and it's my honor to share this heart-aligning journey with you. On this episode, my guest Bharat Oza, a trauma-informed medicine man, shares his profound insights into this Amazonian frog secretion that's believed to detoxify the body and soothe the nervous system. Together, we recount the raw challenges and sensations of my personal narrative with this powerful medicine, offering a glimpse into the courage and vulnerability required to confront our deepest pains.

Embracing the transformative path of healing doesn't come without its trials. This episode is an intimate voyage into the demanding process of Kambo treatments, where we bare the soul and push beyond the physical and psychological boundaries. You'll hear firsthand accounts of the confronting nature of healing practices - from the immediate effects like rapid heart rates and nausea to the enduring mental fortitude gleaned from facing one's mortality. Bharat and I discuss the essential need for a supportive environment during these profound encounters and share how this journey has reshaped our understanding of pain tolerance and self-protection.

Lastly, we examine the synergy between presence and holistic medicines. I unravel my experiences contrasting Kambo's unique grounding effects with other psychedelics and delve into the vital role of setting and intention when engaging with transformative substances like ayahuasca. We highlight the growth that comes from holding space for oneself and others, connecting my past as a personal trainer and holistic health practitioner to the empowering process of self-healing. For those drawn to the path of self-discovery and wellness through alternative medicines, this episode offers a heart-centred exploration of what it means to heal in body, mind, and spirit.

Find out more about Bharat and his offerings at

https://www.bthymedicine.com

https://instagram.com/bthymedicine

Remember, the strongest thing you can do for yourself is to ask for help.
Please help us grow

Transcript

Trauma Healing Through Cambo Therapy

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello, Hi Brad.

Speaker 2 0:02

How are you?

Speaker 1 0:03

I'm well, how are you?

Speaker 2 0:05

I'm good, I'm good.

Speaker 1 0:06

Great Welcome to the lift oneself caught Podcast. For the day, I'm like, Okay, like all right, Come on man.

Speaker 3 0:19

Welcome to the lift oneself podcast, where we break mental health stigmas through conversations. I'm your host, nat Nat, and we dive into topics about trauma and how it impacts the nervous system. Yet we don't just leave you there. We share insights and tools of self-care, meditation and growth that help you be curious about your own biology. Your presence matters. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. Help our community grow. Let's get into this. Oh, and please remember to be kind to yourself.

Speaker 1 0:55

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast. Bharat, I'm so thankful you're here with me.

Speaker 2 1:01

I'm excited to be here. I really appreciate this opportunity.

Speaker 1 1:10

We're going to go deep and the listeners are going to be able to hear some of my own personal life story. So I'm really excited for this conversation. Will you join me in a meditation so that we can align our hearts and come drop into this moment? Absolutely, and for the listeners many of you guys listen to podcasts while driving or running or doing some errands. For the visual part, I will ask you to keep your eyes open, because we want you to be safe and everybody around you. Yet for the other prompts, you're able to follow with whatever you're doing, so I'll around you. Yet for the other prompts, you're able to follow with whatever you're doing. So I'll ask you, bharat, to close your eyes and begin breathing in and out through your nose and bring your awareness to watching your breath go in and out through your nose in and out through your nose.

Speaker 1 2:07

Whatever sensations or feelings that may be coming up in the body, allow them to surface, to feel and release, while staying with your breath. Surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be be with your breath and drop into your body keeping your awareness on your breath, keeping your awareness on your breath your body.

Speaker 1 3:13

While still staying with your breath, at your own time and at your own pace. I'm going to ask you to gently open your eyes while staying with your breath. To ask you to gently open your eyes while staying with your breath.

Speaker 2 3:31

How's your heart doing Great, Great Other than this cough? My heart feels good.

Speaker 1 3:39

Do you have water for yourself, for tea?

Speaker 2 3:41

I do yes.

Speaker 1 3:44

Okay, good. Can you let the listeners know who Bharat is?

Speaker 2 3:50

Right now, Bharat is this recovering man who's been sick for a week. But, I call myself a trauma-informed medicine man because most of my work involves serving medicine, but I also really my work is space holding and I've been space holding in different contexts for years now. So the medicine work is a way that people come to me, but most of it my work involves witnessing and holding and reflecting, supporting, reassuring, comforting sometimes. So I would say I'm a professional space holder.

Speaker 1 4:43

So I would say I'm a professional space holder and you are that For the listeners. I reached out to Barat, I was shown about Cambo and I was given you as a referral for that Cambo and so can you let the listeners know what Cambo is?

Speaker 2 5:10

Yeah, so Cambo is a secretion from a frog in the Amazon it's called a giant monkey tree frog and this secretion has a lot of beneficial peptides, which are really amino acids, right, and these amino acids are bioavailable for human beings, so, sorry, what that means is our bodies literally absorb these peptides, and there's about 13 to 14 researched and identified peptides or classes of peptides, so some of these peptides are amazing for detoxification. Some of these peptides are phenomenal for lowering chronic inflammation, which is probably the number one cause of health issues in North America. There's a class of peptides called dermoceptins, which are amazing for our anti-parasitic, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, you name it and so they're really good at clearing a lot of different pathogens while boosting your immune system. There is a peptide called dermorphin, which is 20 to 30 times stronger than morphine.

Speaker 2 6:24

So chronic pain is like one of the most common things that people come to me for, and a couple of treatments of Cambo usually clears it, so people go pain-free. Also, a lot of neuropeptides, so peptides that work on the nervous system. So, whether it's just simple things like well, not simple, but things like, let's say, migraines or brain fog or anxiety, depression, addictions all these different variety of things that are linked with the nervous system. Cambo is phenomenal for that, so it's such a beneficial medicine. Obviously, your intention how you come to meet it makes a big difference on what you receive from it.

Speaker 1 7:15

So, for the listeners, I did this. It was March, right At the beginning of March. Yeah, it was the beginning of March that I went. I knew what I was getting into and I am a lot of people call me radical and a warrior because I just face things, and especially what I went through 10 years ago with the lesions. So I face pain. The experience was very humbling for me, very humbling, and it allowed me to see I still really need to work on receiving help. Did you notice that in that session? Uh-huh, it was. I'm not, it's not painful, I didn't feel pain. The part that felt uncomfortable was that I guess I I went into really low blood pressure and when you go into low blood pressure, everything feels spinning. So how I could compare it to is, say, if you've gotten really inebriated and the room is spinning and you just want it to stop and it's not stopping, and then your body's gonna purge what.

Speaker 1 8:44

What I found really interesting when I was purging through my mouth. I knew I was going to purge both ways and I would like you to get into what those two purges, what you've seen with people. My first purge was through my mouth and, to be authentic, what really fascinated me is I was purging but there was no taste. There was nothing. But when I looked in the bucket it was yellow, as can be, and I was like what is that in there? You were like, well, it's bile. I'm like I don't think I told you that, but I was like I don't taste bile in my mouth and usually like what's coming out in me, you would taste that in your mouth. Is there a reason why I didn't taste it?

Speaker 2 9:29

no, not really. Uh, that's just your experience. That is, it is a combination of bile, stomach acid, uh, obviously all the water you drank, right? Um, but yeah, it's it's. There could be different reasons. I can only hypothesizeize, because one of the things that so, when you detoxify, when your cells are releasing toxins, a lot of our senses change. So a lot of people, post-combo especially, will say they certain things taste nasty. Moving forward, this sense of like, a lot of times people say their eyesight is clear, like hey, everything's like darker or brighter Sorry, not brighter. They'll say their sense of hearing has become like more alert. Is it part of that process for you? Maybe? I honestly don't know.

Speaker 1 10:21

But that's the experience, because what I saw in the bucket and usually like you would feel it, I like tasted and feel the difference in your teeth and the acidity of it I was like I don't feel that. So my experience, what I was really challenged with and, as I said, with the second session that we did and when you asked me, well, what do you feel? Like I was like I don't like this and you asked me, what are you feeling? And I was like helpless and that helplessness just got big. And then, with my second session, I had to purge, I had to have a bowel movement, yet I noticed afterwards I would not allow you to help me. I was like I crawled to the bathroom and then I remember telling you I was like I don't know where I'm getting the strength to crawl up onto this toilet, like I don't know.

Speaker 1 11:18

Yeah, what I found really fascinating was like, natalie, why didn't you allow him to help you? Yet it allowed me to go even deeper into the trauma that I've experienced as a young child and feeling that vulnerability and feeling that like, oh well, I don't want to be an inconvenience, but I also don't want to feel vulnerable putting myself in a space where I could be harmed. So all kinds of different things that opened up for me afterwards for the combo that I couldn't see in the moment. Yeah, because of the tools, the self-awareness that I do and engaging to you know, question and look at it more, and really allowing me to create safety in my nervous system, so these things can come up and show me. I'm interested to hear what your perspective and what you saw in the session.

Building a Relationship With Healing

Speaker 2 12:11

So it's interesting you bring this up because one of the things that combo is, in my perspective, known for it's called a revealer and it can reveal underlying, undiagnosed health issues through some of the reactions that could come up. But it could also reveal some of your deep subconscious, unconscious behavior patterns, belief patterns and even just patterns of being in daily life, how we are. So, like you said, for you it was realizing wow, okay, I still have trouble receiving. And that receiving is such a broad word because it's not just receiving help. It could mean receiving abundance, it could be receiving the masculine right or staying in your feminine so that you can receive from the masculine. There's so many layers to this right, so many layers to this right. And so for me, when I watch it, I could see the initial discomfort of like holy shit, this is more intense than I actually thought. Right, that was the most obvious thing that stood out for me, which is often it's pretty common.

Speaker 2 13:20

A lot of people, understandably, right, like you, can have ideas. You can have ideas of what purging will feel like or what you know uh, increased heart rate feels like, or nausea feels like. But when you sit with it and you're in that discomfort. It's a different ballgame. Your, your mind's going to start making noise, right, um. But what I also do find is, like yourself, at some point you realize that there is nothing else to do. There is no escaping this. Like, even if, let's say, I took the points off sooner, you still have a combo in your system, so you're going to have to sit with that a little longer, right? And that's one thing I observed is, at some point you were like all right, here we are, let's just sit with this, because there's no running away, there's nothing to do differently. So I did sense that surrender, especially in that second round where it's like all right, here we go. Um. But I also see courage in that because, uh, just to give the readers sorry, not readers, listeners some context, we did what's called a double treatment. So we did the first treatment, you had a 20-30 minute break and we did this whole process again with more points.

Speaker 2 14:30

Right now, this is where, after the first round, you could say and anyone has the freedom to do this, no one's obligated to do a second round, but you committed to that process and you said all right, here we go. I don't like this, but we're doing this because this is what we've committed to. So I also see courage, I also see commitment, and I think those two are very important things in the healing process. Right, because healing is scary, whether you do it with these medicines or not, and you have to know when to like back off, when to slow down. But you also have to know when you go see this through. You know, uh, and I think I thought I find a lack of follow-through with a lot of people.

Speaker 2 15:19

Um, again, not saying that if you feel, don't feel safe, you have to still move forward and push yourself, but sometimes, when you have the capacity and the will and the desire and you know you can go that little extra distance you want to, and so that's something I observed. And then, yes, and like you said, right, like the the part about well, why am I not allowing him to help me? Right, which I totally understand from what you said. Right, because there is the past, traumas of like, how much can I be vulnerable while still protecting myself? Right, and that's so valid. So for me it was just an observance of like, oh, interesting, interesting pattern here, and that's it. I do my best not to give it meaning. I rather you tell me what that was, which you shared, so thank you for that, but those are yeah, those are some things that I observed through that whole thing.

Speaker 1 16:14

Yeah, and to let the listeners know, I even passed out. So coming through to that, it was like wait, I, and that brought me in another dimension. And then to come out of that and be like wait, I passed out and I have a video of it. So I will give certain parts and show the listeners and whoever's on my social media to see what my experience was and what that looked like. I know I had put a little clip of it a little bit after our session, yet now I'll put more of the clips so that they have the audio and they can hear, because for me I would highly recommend it.

Speaker 1 16:56

Um, I understand. I understand that I have a different experience. I face death. Like you know, lesions in your brain stem is no joke. It's not like I was hospitalized for almost 40 days and they had to do all kinds of tests and everything else and still not know what was causing the lesions in the brainstem and cerebellum. So, and you know, I had like swelling in my menge. So the extreme pain that I was in 10 years ago, you know, stretch my pain tolerance.

Speaker 1 17:30

So when I engage with things, I'm like I've already experienced something. I know there's a version in my body that it's like we don't want to do this, no more, and it's like but we have the capacity to do this and we understand what the intention is. And there's always, you know, for myself, I could see a bit of the signal of am I going to die? Like? Is this because we never know? Like no matter what? I could see a bit of the signal of am I gonna die? Like is this because we never know? Like no matter what, I could walk outside and the bus or a tree can hit me. Um, so when you're putting these peptides in and all of a sudden, like my reaction was very low blood pressure and the passing out and just the? Um, I felt like very inebriated and not being able. I remember you talking, like when you took the combo out and I was coming back into my senses and me like, just like I can't even think, like I like don't talk to me, don't even have me try to make sense of anything or communicate, cause my neural energy was just so depleted. And then you know resting and everything. And then you come back like online, and then it's like I had to do this roller coaster again. Oh, yet the second time was much different than the first time because there's such a reaction with your physical, your biology too, of what this is and when it's going to go. What I found interesting is when you put it on my leg and when it came up. As soon as it crawled, I felt it crawling up in here. And when it go here, that's when I was like I just lost all my senses again in that low blood pressure um symptom.

Speaker 1 19:06

Yet I would highly recommend um the. I know it's intimidating because it's outside of the norm of the medical system. Yet if you have a trust in the universe, into nature, into medicine and I don't know why it's called alternative medicine, because it's been traditional medicine, it's been here for eons and really understand that you're a part of nature, I know as humans we've been kind of indoctrinated that we're above and we're this being that is governing everything else and everything is below us. Where it's like, no, you're a part of this and everything. Plant medicine is here to give you the information needed.

Speaker 1 19:56

I know for a few days afterwards I was very depleted and very tired, where I had to rest, and what I appreciated was the space of care and tenderness that you held. We, we were strangers. It was the first time that we got to interact, so I can understand where my biology was like no, you can't trust this man because it's a very vulnerable space. And I understand that there have been harm, like there have been stories where people have taken advantage of people, because whatever there is with the human interaction. So I understand where my biology kicked in.

Speaker 1 20:34

Yet the space and the tenderness and the care and the compassion that you held was very sacred. So I'm very thankful that you were honoring this gift to provide the space for people to find a different healing within themselves and to really engage with their nervous system, because that's what they're doing, which trauma informed means that you understand the four f's of the nervous system and how complex and intricate it is and people think, okay, well, it's just one part. It's like you have no idea how many layers of onion you got to unpeel with this thing and if you don't have a willingness to face the pain and, like you said, like the courage that I had and the commitment, you'll falter. Like even just meditation, when stillness starts to get to you and it starts to overwhelm the system, people jump out because it's like I don't. So it takes a willingness of being tethered to your curiosity, to go into this unknown, uncertain, and to let things reveal themselves about you, which I'm thankful for.

Speaker 1 21:37

That space, for you know the experience. Is it shitty? Yeah, it is. Yet I would do it again, though, like that's the thing. And then it's like, oh, am I addicted to pain? And it's like, no, it wasn't painful, like it was like it. That's where and I get that other people have different definitions of what pain is because feeling helpless and that low blood pressure could feel painful, because you know your biology is trying to control things and it feels like a threat, yet understanding and surrender.

Healing Through Plant Medicines and Presence

Speaker 2 22:13

Yeah, and also remembering that not your next experience may not be anything like this. It could be completely different. Maybe it has nothing to do with your blood pressure anymore, maybe something else comes up, right? So I think, and I think this is the important part about working with these medicines, these animal medicines, earth medicines, psychedelic or not, whatever it is but you have to build a relationship.

Speaker 2 22:35

You know, I think a lot of times people come to these medicines with, like I'll come in, I'll do it once and boom, okay, let's see what happens. And if something happens, great. If nothing positive happens and maybe it's not for me, um, or something negative happens, then it's not for me. Uh, I think what people? It's, it's that again western medicine, uh, programming of like, will this work? Oh, it didn't work. Okay, then maybe something else. You know, we just jump from one thing to the other, um, or it's even like. You know, I always say, it's like, do you? When you come and meet a medicine, it's like you went on a date, you know, and some things were interesting, some things were. I don't like it. But then you, you try to go like, hey, maybe let's explore a little more, let's get know each other, and that's what these beings are too. Right, these are sentient beings, uh, these medicines, and so you know, I think, one. It's really important to build a relationship, whatever that looks like. Second, really taking the time to see what shifts from this medicine or any medicine. But also, like, what are you doing after? Right, because you know, let's say, for example, I work with uh people who have alcohol addictions and there's a certain protocol we use uh for treating that. Now it's great to do that combo and purge and your cells are getting cleaner. You're not wanting the alcohol as much, perhaps, whatever. But now let's say you hang around people who keep drinking all the time. That's going to be a problem. You know, uh, if you're, if you don't clean up your nutrition after, or you're not sleeping well or you're not taking some basic nutrients. So also, it's not just what this medicine can do for me, it's what are you doing in conjunction with that process to help your system heal, whatever that is on a physical level, whether it's the mental, emotional, energetic level. So I think that's an important thing that I'd like listeners to know is that give it time and build relationship and take ownership of your own process. And then the other side of this.

Speaker 2 24:44

One thing I want to mention about Cambo specifically is the reason I love Cambo is because of its power to bring you in your body. You know, a lot of us are trying to analyze our problems, solve it through the mind. Some of us are out of our minds. What Cambo does is it pulls you into your body, there is no going away anywhere. And so for a lot of us, I think in this culture, being in the body and feeling all its sensations alone is very therapeutic. You know, whether you do a single treatment, you do a double treatment, whether you do a microdose, you're going to feel stuff, and I think for a lot of us that alone is like very, very, very therapeutic, you know. So I think that's another very powerful part about combo that I really like.

Speaker 2 25:36

Um, obviously, I serve psilocybin, I serve ayahuasca there, and they're psychedelics. Um, and yes, you have some experience of some sensation, bodily sensations, on those medicines as well, but nothing, nothing is like combo. It's not a psychedelic. You're not out there, you're not out in some other world, you're here, and that's one of the biggest feedback I get from people is like I've never been this present in my life, you know, and so I think that is one of the biggest gifts of combo.

Speaker 1 26:06

Yeah, it is. It really does bring in the body and I've been, you know, meditating and really engaging with my nervous system, so to be present in the body. I've done that work. So, when you know, when people are like, oh, I wasn't hearing anything go through those layers, in that it was. Yet I got to see even more where there's resistance in the nervous system and the things that need to be released in, you know, the shadows, that need to be brought into my light of awareness and have acceptance of it, so that those defense mechanisms no longer have to be on high alert, that it can come when it really needs it, not my psychological or whatever sensations I'm perceiving on the outside, if that makes sense. How did you? How did you get here? Like you said, you've been doing this for several years to hold space. How did you get to that part?

Speaker 2 27:10

oh geez, um. So I used to hold space eons ago as a, as a personal trainer, um, so part of my work was obviously helping someone get in shape. But a lot of that, when you spend, you know, two, three hours a week with a person for you know six months and sometimes a year, sometimes longer, you start getting to know the person. The person shares a lot, and so that was my, I guess, the beginning of space holding, even though I didn't realize it at the time. Um, from there I went into holistic, so I used to help people with their hormones, digestion, gut health, detoxification all these things, using nutrition, lifestyle protocols. And a lot of that would go even deeper than just when we were working out, because a lot of it was like, what's your sleep like? What are you doing 30 to 60 minutes before bed? What's stressing you out right now? Um, you know, if you have chronically elevated cortisol, what is actually causing that, besides some of the food and the sleep and your the, the, your body's inability to drain the system? Um, so a lot of that started there, and then I also started learning um energy work. So I was receiving energy work regularly, and my teacher was always someone that was all about empowering you. He never once thought or gave me the impression that he's healing me in any way. And so all the sessions and this is why even my energy work sessions are like this If we did a session, he'd give me homework. So great, I did my part, now you go do your part. Um, so even just I started learning energy work, energy healing, got in that world of, like, cultivating consciousness. Um, I spent a decade having, like some very foundational practices of cultivating consciousness, doing energy practices. Um, I started giving reiki to people. All of that led me to like, eventually, at some point, start.

Speaker 2 29:18

Uh, I went to peru to work with ayahuasca. Uh, because there was a significant event that had happened, where it was a, it was a breakup. And, um, I was, I was like, okay, you know, I'm doing pretty well. Uh, I've done the best I could, but there's this 20, 30% anger resentment that I'm not able to release and it was starting to affect my health and I was like you know what? I think I just need to change pace. So let me go to Peru. I've been wanting to go to Peru. Go to Machu Picchu, go see this new place. Go to Machu Picchu, go see this new place and then in that process, some voice in my consciousness is like you know, you're a spiritual guy, you go to Ayahuasca, you'll get visions, you'll purge and, yeah, you might heal. So let's go look into this.

Speaker 2 30:05

And just like that, I booked a retreat and thank God for taking care of me because, you know, sometimes things like this can go very badly. But I was blessed and I was protected and I was taken deep into the Amazon jungle and worked with the Shipibo tribe they probably have the oldest lineage with ayahuasca. So I was protected, I was taken care of and I worked with them and it was an incredible experience. But that's where I was also introduced to Cambo. They offered Cambo the next day and at the time I didn't have a strong enough reason to receive it, but I watched people receiving it and I was like holy shit, what is happening? People's faces were turned into like frogs and there was swelling and they were barfing, but they all were like I feel amazing. I've never felt this good in my life. I said okay, wow, this is interesting.

Speaker 2 31:03

So when I came back, I told a friend of mine because he had like really bad eczema. He found a practitioner, started working with that person and I think about a year later I realized I have a mold infection and, knowing how difficult it is to treat mold, I decided to just go the combo route. So I went to his practitioner and I did four sessions in, I think, a month and it cleared all my mold Fast forward. I had no intention of becoming a practitioner, but when the world shut down and everyone was trying to figure out what this thing is, that's when I had started serving psilocybin and I felt like my practitioner was stuck in Peru at the time. So I felt I just needed something in my belt to protect myself, my family and my close friends, if whatever, this thing is right. And so I decided to get certified and then I started serving and it's. It's been incredible since then. So I've been serving combo for I wasn't four years now, um, and it's. I've served over 300 people and it's been phenomenal.

Speaker 1 32:16

Yeah, as I said, I would highly recommend it. From my experience, even with um, the discomfort I went through, um, there's great benefits, like I already, like I felt the difference in my body already in the few days after and, like I said, it brought me into more depth of going into my nervous system and really connecting more deeper into the wholeness of me with a W, rather than these fragmented parts, so really bringing them in. What can you share about ayahuasca, because I know this is like a very hot topic for a lot of people right now and for people that are curious. What can you share? That would be an invitation for those people.

Speaker 2 33:05

I can tell you that one. It is a psychedelic. It's one of the most potent psychedelics. Basically, it contains DMT and it's usually a combination of the ayahuasca vine with chacruna leaves At least that's the ayah that I work with. The chacruna leaves contain the DMT. The ayahuasca vine contains the enzymes so that the DMT can stay in your system for longer, so that you have these visions and you have these explorations.

Speaker 2 33:41

There is purging involved with ayahuasca. It's part of the nature of working with it, or even just part of the nature of working with it is, uh, or even just part of the mechanism of working with it is you push. So, whether it's upward, you release, you know you vomit or you uh have bowel movements. That's a given, it's expected. Uh, it tends to be a longer journey generally than, let's say, a psilocybin journeybin journey. An ayahuasca journey could be anything from five to eight hours, maybe longer, depending on, again, the strength of the medicine and how much medicine you had and just how you respond to the medicine. Incredibly transformational, any of these medicines are right and of course there's lots of variables to it. There's the set you're setting uh, who's serving? Uh, what, how are they serving? There's a lot of different variables. So it's not just it's.

Speaker 2 34:39

It's easy for us to just summarize and say, yes, uh, ayahuasca, psilocybin or lsd or whatever is transformational. Yes, it is, um is. But also I always say this nothing from the Amazon, especially, is gentle, including combo, right. And so Aya can feel fierce, and that's because truth can be fierce, and that's what Aya does. It will put you in front of you. It will put aspects of you that you don't want to see in front of you, and I think that's where a lot of that powerful healing is. But it could be scary for some people and again, this is why you have to do it in the right environment, with the right person. It is not something you know, you grab and go. So those are the most, I would say, objective things I can say.

Speaker 2 35:42

Often, people ask me how is it like? What is it like? That's so hard to say, because that's like me trying to tell you, um, what guava tastes like. I don't know. I can tell you my experience and I can describe sweetness, but what is that right? Yeah, um. And so this is.

Speaker 2 36:00

This is where I think, like any other medicine, you, you have to feel that calling, you have to feel the pull, do your due diligence, do your research, but also just watch when your mind is just trying to gather more information, because there is a certain level of minimal required sense of safety that you need, but also it can go, you know, this opposite direction where you're doing way too much research and you're now stuck in your head instead of like let me go see what it's about. You know, curiosity is a good enough intention, you know, and so I would say yes, it's incredibly transformational, incredibly powerful, can be challenging, but I think the healing process generally is like that right yeah, and you know, for myself, I didn't go looking at cambo videos, I didn't go looking to see you know what, the side effects.

Speaker 1 37:01

The only thing that I looked at, okay, what are some side effects that are significant? And I spoke to you about the water, because too much consumption of water, um, can be in the cells. Yet what I I appreciate and love is that you, your intake, you ask very thorough questions to make sure that there's no risk, like if there's any kind of a sniff of it, it's like no, like I'm not, we're not, we're not here to try and push a push something. It's like it's all in the healing and safety, um, it's. And then when I saw certain questions and I could understand, oh, because, and now my own experience I'm like, oh, yeah, you wouldn't want to have those issues or symptoms happening while you're going through Campbell because it would really rupture the biology and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 37:53

So I appreciate the intake and you know the space that you're providing, because there's a lot of people that are going in the medical system and they're not getting any relief. It's just band-aids and not really getting to the root cause and really, you know, being able to interact with their nervous system, like our nervous system, is such a powerful biology that it's like they're using all these different little parts, but not in the holistic aspect which these medicines really bring you directly in there. Um to face and curiosity. If it's led with fear, you're going to find everything to talk yourself out of a situation.

Speaker 2 38:36

Curiosity has something that's important. Realize you're going to be nervous, like there is I. I've done so. You know I've received all these medicines many times. I still get very nervous. I think that's important for listeners to know is that you're not going to be in a state of, oh, I'm not nervous at all. I would be very surprised. I would assume that you're dissociated if you're not nervous. But you know, again, this is where that screening is important. My number one priority is your safety before your healing. In most cases, I don't really care about your healing. That's between you and the medicine. My job is to make sure that you are safe, you can receive the medicine safely, you're in a safe space, you're taken care of, and then you do your thing with the medicine, you know. Uh, so I I think that's one for people to also remember that you're you're never going to be like oh yeah, I'm not scared, I'm not nervous no, that's the thing it's.

Speaker 1 39:40

It's being able to engage with that nervousness and still keep making steps. Uh, because, yeah, it's like as much breathing and much things that I went through. It's like, oh, I still like, oh, this is I'm going somewhere where I and, as you said, there's things that I'm are not in my light of awareness, and am I prepared to see it? Am I prepared to do that work? Because once you see it, you can't unsee it. And then you recognize, oh, I can't unsee it. And then you recognize, oh, I can't go outside, it's all me that I have to do that work, and then that's its own tug of war internally. I want to bring you into a reflective question. I want to ask you to bring your awareness now and to go back to your 18 year old self. And you have three words to tell your 18 year old self to carry you to the journey of now. What would they be?

Speaker 2 40:33

three words for my 18 year old self trust um courage and compassion can you give the reason why?

Speaker 2 40:44

yeah, um, 18 year old me was terribly lost no clue what I'm doing, very, very afraid, very much. There was no sense of sovereignty. It was. You know, you do what you're told. Yeah, those would be the reasons for telling him to trust. You know the answers. You know the answers, you know the path. Have courage, take bold action, take aligned action and have compassion for yourself first, because all the people that you're going to help they need, they need to know that you know how it feels to be them. Um, yeah, Thank you.

Speaker 1 42:02

Are you willing to share what the intention was that in the meditation at the beginning?

Speaker 2 42:07

Yeah, my intention was that the listeners feel the truth of my heart, beyond all the technical information that I'm sharing. For them to hear and feel the truth of my heart.

Speaker 1 42:20

Yeah, and I felt it and I've been feeling it. So if the listeners open, then they will feel the vibration of it. Now I know there's many listeners that are hearing about all this. I'm located in Ottawa, canada, so where can the listeners find you?

Speaker 2 42:43

My social media would be the probably one of the best places it's at be thy medicine on Instagram. My social media would be the probably one of the best places it's at be thy medicine um on instagram, or my website is bethymedicinecom. Um. Those would be the best places to read about me, what I offer um, and I'm always happy to hop on a free call and just chat chat yeah, and I did that.

Speaker 1 43:07

I reached out and then I did the discovery call. We chatted and spoke about it and then I did the intake form and then you were doing an ayahuasca retreat, so that delayed some things and I was almost curious about that. Yet my body was like no, not yet. So I jumped into the cambo and thankfully you had um space. So and like I said, I highly recommend the experience. If your mind is saying like, oh, what is this? Listen to that a little bit more than the fear that might bring, the reservation of everything. Yet always inform yourself too, um, of what is right for you. Yet the intake form that you do with your clients allows any kind of things that would be a danger to be highlighted and you can have a conversation with them.

Speaker 2 43:58

Yeah, yeah and I've said no to people.

Speaker 2 44:01

So, oh have you? Oh yeah, I've had to. Just if there's a very clear contraindication, then I've said no. And then there have been very, I would say, two rare instances where the person very obviously, I would say, was not ready for it, where I've had to say, look, this doesn't seem to be the right time, Come back later, come back later. Just because when someone cannot find the time to chat with me for 15 minutes, for me that's a red flag. You know what I mean. Like, if you can't hop on a call, how are you coming to ceremony? You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 44:43

So things like that, or they were not ready to, they were trying to find ways to bypass certain things that I told them. So there was someone recently that it was a couple and the lady everything's clear, good, ready to go. The partner when he doesn't eat for long, he gets acid reflux and then he may, he sometimes throws up and there's blood in there. And so I said, look, that's a big red flag because I don't know what's going on inside. You Go to the doctor. And so they said they were going, they were going, they were going, Said they'd go on Monday Apparently they didn't.

Speaker 2 45:25

On Wednesday I get a text saying, okay, we're good to go. I'm like cool, what did the doctor say? Oh, we didn't go because it was a long lineup. I'm like so, okay, you understand that this is. You're taking a big risk with your life, correct? Like because I could put karma on you and if you have, let's say, an ulcer, or you have like a tear in your esophagus or something and it ruptures and I have to rush you to 9-1-1, you think this is worth it, and so I've had to say no in that situation.

Speaker 2 45:54

So, like I said, safety is number one. Uh, healing is after yeah and uh.

Speaker 1 46:01

That's where, like when I read about the stomach and stuff, and I'm like, and there's some people that don't even realize they have ulcers because they're just going and going and don't realize the stress overload that they're putting in the body. Yet, like I said, the compassion and the care and the safety that you provide it. Really I felt that, and just like our greeting of having a hug, and just the openness that you display, that you're allowing a person to be feel received and to allow that surrender, that like you're safe and you'll be taken care of. And, as I said, I still have my work of receiving the help, yet I do understand you know the situation of it and also the resilience of also just reminding myself like you have the ability to do this stuff.

Speaker 3 46:56

And.

Speaker 1 46:56

I'm telling my body, you know, because when you are sick there is a pattern in your nervous system that likes that attention, nervous system that likes that attention. So then that can get very seducing of always asking for help and relying on other people. That then stunts your growth of capacity and, you know, expanding. So I know I'm anchored into that, to trusting my body and being able to push it a little bit more, a little bit more, and I cause, I understand the benefits of that, um. So thank you again for being a guest, for holding space for me, um, for allowing the listeners to hear a sneak peek of your vulnerability, of how you got here and how you held space for me.

Speaker 2 47:43

I really appreciate it thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 47:50

So, listeners, I will have all of his information in the show notes, so don't worry that you have to press pause and find it and everything else. There will be hyperlinks so that you can get direct access to him. Please remember to be kind to yourself. I will. Hey, you made it all the way here. I appreciate you and your time. If you found value in this conversation, please share it out. If there was somebody that popped into your mind, take action and share it out with them.

Speaker 3 48:22

It possibly may not be them that will benefit. It's that they know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation, so please take action and share out the podcast. You can find us on social media on Facebook, instagram and TikTok under Lift One Self.

Speaker 1 48:42

And if you want to inquire about the work that I do and the services that I provide to people, come over on my website, come into a discovery call liftoneselfcom.

Speaker 3 48:55

Until next time, please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. You matter.