In this episode, Kyle invites a guest interviewer, Hallie Rose of the Thought Room Podcast, to interview him on his recent experience at Soltara. In the show, they talk about Soltara, Kyle’s experience with the plant medicine, and important topics like privilege. 

3 Key Points:

1. Integration is an important part of working with psychedelics and plant medicines. Indigenous cultures have different integration perspectives than Western attendees. In the West, attendees come back to more hustle and bustle, and may need more time for integration. Soltara does a really good job at providing integration resources and educating guests about the post-medicine experience. 
2. Ayahuasca is a relational medicine. An anology that one of the facilitators used was that with psilocybin and other psychedelics, there is this one big entry door into the space – you eat the mushrooms and open the door and get to experience it heavily. With Ayahuasca, there is a smaller doorway to penetrate throug and you have to create a relationship with the medicine first.

3. If the people that really need the help can’t even afford medicine experiences, then how do we have mass healing? Peer support movements may be a way forward with this issue. As the field continues to grow, we need to look at more affordable and accessible models. 

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Navigating Psychedelics

Show Notes

About Hallie

• Hallie interviewed Kyle after his first 4 experiences with Ayahuasca
• Kyle’s episode on The Thought Room Podcast about his Near Death Experience
• The Thought Room Podcast was inspired by Hallie’s first Ayahuasca experience
• She had typically pushed away anything psychedelic in nature, even alcohol before coming to Soltara as a guest
  • “A lot of the paradigms I had been working with were flipped upside down on their head” – Hallie
• The message that really spoke to her was to create a podcast
  • 2 ceremonies later she had some things come up about family and career, and again, the message ‘podcast’ came up again
  • When she went over her integration notes from her experience at Soltara, she kept coming back to the podcast thing
  • She describes her journal entry message as a black hole, a void
  • She felt like she was in rooms, some were bright and rainbow-y, and others were dark and lonely
  • The rooms were rooms for thoughts, thought rooms
• She owns the start up company Lunar Wild

Soltara

• Hallie mentions that she was blown away by the amount of effort that it takes to uphold a medicine center like Soltara
• Kyle says right from the start from arrival to the location, he was greeted with such warmth and it reminded him of his breathwork background
  • The ground rules that they laid down right at the start made him feel so safe
  • She said it’s amazing to see the amount of healing that happens in that space
  • “When it comes to your own medicine work, your own journey work, only you know what’s right for you” – Hallie
• Hallie is part of a mastermind group through Aubrey Marcus, the CEO of Onnit
  • She is connected to a bunch of people as a part of this group
  • She was introduced to Dan Cleland, a co-founder of Soltara, who invited her to come down
• Yes they had the traditional Shipibo aspects, but they also did a fantastic job of adding in the Western concepts to cater to the western needs
  • Hallie mentions that coming from the West, we have the need to integrate the experience in a different way than those coming from the East, and Soltara does a really good job with that kind of integration

The First Session

• Before the first ceremony, participants engaged in what is called “vomitivo.” This is a process of clearing the body through purging. Participants are asked to drink a tea made from lemongrass and other admixtures that contain purgative properties.
  • Kyle said the tea was actually tasty
  • You drink a lot of it where you override the system to where the body wants to purge
  • The purging is to clear the system out of toxins and clean it out energetically
• Soltara built in pre-ceremony sessions like yoga or meditation to help ease into the actual sessions
• Kyle said that the Ayahuasca experience was familiar
  • Everything felt very green behind his eyes
  • There was a serpent weaving in and out of his DNA
  • The experience felt so healing
  • Kyle didn’t purge (vomit) but did do a little crying
  • He said he did not experience much anxiety
  • The serpent was healing him and stitching parts of himself back together
  • “There is something intelligent here working on very subtle levels” – Kyle
• The next two ceremonies were very gentle, some crying, going through family dynamics, but always in the background, there was that same serpent
• Kyle said the first 3 sessions felt really easy, compared to previous experiences with psychedelics
  • The spirit said to him “oh you think this was going to be easy, that you would just drink this and that I would show you all this stuff. Well, we have to get to know each other first”
  • With psilocybin, there is this one big door, you eat the mushrooms and open the door and get to experience it heavily, with Ayahuasca, there is a smaller doorway to penetrate through, you have to create a relationship with the medicine first

Final Ceremony

• It was during the full moon in Cancer and lunar eclipse, the energy was already intense
• For the 4th ceremony, Kyle was already feeling high energy, and did not want to go too strong, so he started with ¾ of a cup
  • Kyle felt more subtle effects of the medicine during the first part of the ceremony and the medicine told him to ask for a second dose
  • The facilitator gave Kyle ¼ of a cup more
  • That ¼ of a cup really opened up a door for Kyle
• After the singing, he laid down and that’s when things took off
  • All of a sudden, he saw himself back in the CAT scan machine (referring back to his NDE as a teen)
  • He always tells the story as blissful and beautiful, but this time was so different
  • He saw himself back in the CAT scan machine as a child, and was terrified, and he began shaking
  • He felt this pain in his pelvic area as he felt during his NDE
  • He was shivering and so cold, it brought him right back into that state
  • He was re-experiencing the fear in a new way during the ceremony
  • He went into his body and felt the scar tissue and felt that shake and stretch and kind of brought in some healing there
  • After his actual surgery/NDE, as he was healing he was always really afraid to move in certain ways in the fear that movement would re-open some of the healing wounds
• He got a clear way of looking at how the body holds trauma, especially after surgery
  • That trauma is tied to the way we hold ourselves, the way we walk and talk and in so many ways
  • This ceremony helped Kyle view somatic body work in such a new light
• The ceremony was not scary, he allowed his body to process the fear, but not attach to the fear and become fearful
• Yoga can also bring that out, stillness and vulnerability can bring up some body trauma and put you into that fight or flight response
• Even when you think you’re done processing something, there are always more layers to dig into and see something differently to bring more clarity

Preparation

• Hallie said what she is learning with this medicine, is that she doesn’t need to make anything happen, she needs to just let it happen
  • That feeling of relaxing things is scary because it means giving up control
  • It’s a practice and its a lot easier said than done
• The most important part is the set (mindset), because the set is you
  • “Having your set figured out, when the going gets tough, you’re safe still” – Hallie
• Kyle said that Aya always told him to wait, he didn’t need to jump into trying it right away, he waited over 10 years to process his NDE trauma
  • Hallie says it’s just like marriage, you can get married easily, but it’s not always going to work out if you don’t have the tools and the skill sets to maintain it
  • Ayahuasca is similar in needing the right tools and time to do it right
• The dieta and the prep itself is so hard
• People are turned off by the idea of doing something disciplined
  • These experiences can be so much different when we go through the process of giving something up
  • It’s not to punish ourselves, it’s to heal ourselves
  • “There is a whole other side of us, that opens up when we cut out some of the things that numb us” – Hallie
  • The dieta strips away the illusions, the plant medicines help us remember who we are

Hopi Creation Story

• The great creator said “I have a gift for the human beings, but I need to hide it somewhere until they are ready to find it”
  • It is “the gift of the knowing that they can create anything, they can create their own reality”
• The creator asked the earth where he should hide it
  • The eagle said he will bring it to the moon
  • The fish said he will bring it to the bottom of the sea
  • The buffalo said he will bring it to the edge of the plains
  • The creator said no to all of them, they will find it there
• So the great grandmother who lives in the breast of the earth said, put it inside of them
  • And the creator said “it is done”
• It brought Kyle back to his fourth ceremony, the Ayahuasca was a reminder that everything he needed was already inside of him

Privilege

• It’s hard to tell people of their only legal options for healing, which most of them are leaving the country, which is not an option for some people
  • We are all worthy of finding relief of our suffering through psychedelics
• Is therapy only going to be for the rich and elite? There are so many people who really need it
• Yes, you can grow mushrooms, but then you’re at risk of the law
• The system is so complex and we need a more humane way of moving forward in this field and offer experiences like this to the people that need it
• Therapy is a privilege
  • Most people that need therapy are in survival mode that don’t have the privilege of access to therapy
• Peer support movements are a way forward in this issue
  • If the people that really need the help can’t even afford it, then how do we have mass healing?
  • There are great healers out there that never became healers because they didn’t have the privilege to
• Kyle says he escaped a lot of suicidal ideation after his near death experience, it took a lot of time to call earth his home
• “Just to wake up and be a part of this, even that is magical in itself” – Kyle
• “The stars come out every night, and we watch television” – Hallie

Authentic Self

• Hallie has recently had her 12th Ayahuasca experience
  • “I am no longer breathing, I am being breathed” – Hallie
• “Hatred does not exist, it is only a resistance to love” – Hallie
• Even being hard on ourselves is only a resistance to loving ourselves
  • Its love with nowhere to go
• People that have a lot of self hatred toward their bodies or themselves, the medicine always comes back to the self, it teaches people to love and take care of themselves
  • “You really can’t love anything outside of yourself until you love yourself” – Hallie
  • Kyle says that the people who he looks up to (ex, Stan Grof), what if they never showed up for themselfves? What if they never stood up for what they believe in?

Links

$200 off coupon code for Soltara: THOUGHTROOM

Soltara Healing Center

Hallie’s Instagram

Thought Room Podcast 

About Hallie