Amber Lee Sky The Darkside of Ayahuasca

[Speaker 2] (0:00 - 0:02) Coming up in this episode. [Speaker 1] (0:02 - 0:26) Ayahuasca pushes you, it shatters your ego often. That's what it does, right? This is not to be fucked with because you don't know how to protect yourself energetically. And part of a shaman's role is to protect the group energetically from dark entities. And so if you're not working with people who know how to do that or have been trained, then you're leaving yourself wide open. And so I learned the hard way by going too hard, too fast, you know, that you can really blow out your nervous system. You can really overdo it. And I did. [Speaker 4] (0:27 - 0:33) You are now listening to the Here for the Truth podcast, hosted by Joel Rafiti and Yerasimos. [Speaker 3] (0:36 - 2:19) Everybody, welcome back to the Here for the Truth podcast. So glad that you're here with us. We have Amberlee Sky joining us today. And this is an incredible conversation, diving deep into her personal journey, which definitely entails a long process with Ayahuasca, with sitting in multiple ceremonies. And she witnessed a lot in her time with that particular plant medicine. And we dive deep into some of the pitfalls, some of the cultish aspects around it, some of the abuse and the dark side that can arise. We get into a lot more as well. But I think that is the key thing that really is at the crux of this and is going to provide so much value and so much discernment for people considering engaging with this medicine, going into it. I'm just going to give you a lot more of a balanced understanding for yourself. Definitely. All that being said, if you can, wherever you're listening, like, subscribe, follow, comment. We love hearing from you guys. We love engaging and we just appreciate so much that we get to do this week in, week out and have you guys listen to it. So please enjoy this episode. Sky is a mother, coach and teacher devoted to helping women reclaim their from old conditioning and embody their highest, most unapologetic selves in life and business. For 19 years, she's led transformational retreats and teacher training programs across seven countries. She specializes in creating deeply healing, empowering experiences and supports wellness professionals in building location, independent businesses and lives doing what they love. Amber, thank you so much for being here for The Truth. [Speaker 1] (2:19 - 2:22) Thank you. Thank you guys for having me. I'm super grateful to be here. [Speaker 3] (2:22 - 2:46) Yeah, likewise. Looking forward to this. As you know, to begin these conversations, we always like to dive deep into your personal hero's journey. And this is, I guess, kind of something we're happy to spend as much time on as possible, going back as early as you'd like to go. But kind of like, what are the major rites of passage and real catalyzing moments that led you down to this path and led you into being the woman that you are today? [Speaker 1] (2:47 - 5:33) Yeah. Wow. I always love to start my story with dance because dance was my starting point. My parents put me in ballet when I was three and dance really sculpted me throughout my life. I was a competitive dancer from, I think I got into competitions around like age seven or something, all the way to age 18. And then I went to school for dance and performance and choreography and then dance professionally for eight years after that in San Francisco. And so dance was always a huge part of my life, but it also led to some challenges. So in my mid-twenties, I battled with bulimia for five years, which was a big milestone initiation shift for me in my healing. That's when I really started my healing journey. That's when things really kicked off for me. And there were other things, of course, before that, but I'd say my battle with an eating disorder was like really profound. And the healing that happened after that was so necessary. And it's been a huge part of my work since then, right? How do I help women basically reclaim their power and overcome these self-destructive habits and patterns? So a lot of my initiations and challenges in my life have led to my greatest work, right? And even I can think before that, before my eating disorder, I was dealing with a lot of chronic and acute injuries in my dance career. And that's why I fell in love with Pilates and yoga. And I was teaching Pilates and yoga full-time. And I was helping people with all of their injuries. And so that felt like a way of me giving back and serving from a pain point that I went through, right? Something that I went through and transformed through. So along the journey, it's been like, I'm picking up all these little tools and the challenges I faced, and then I'm giving it back and serving it in a way that's helping others. So I'd say like all of my dance injuries and stuff was a big catalyst. And then my eating disorder was a big one. And then after that, it was really, I'd say my shift into working with ayahuasca was a huge spiritual awakening and transformation for me. And then I was leading retreats for many years, working with medicine, helping other people transform and awaken with that work. And then I moved to Austin, Texas, married my ex-husband and started a family. And then things just really kicked off. Motherhood was such a huge rite of passage and initiation for me out of being that boss babe, six-figure earner, digital nomad traveling the world to being a basically a stay-at-home mom with an infant was a really radical shift for me. And then after that, I started going through breast implant illness, which was something that was honestly long overdue. I had my implants for 18 years, and they just started to basically take me down, take me down after going through postpartum. I got really, really sick and went through explant and had about a year and a half or two of deep healing after that to detox and get my strength back. And now I'm at the tail end of a divorce. So there's just been like one thing after another. So like the last four years have been really intense in terms of initiations and transformation. [Speaker 3] (5:34 - 5:52) Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing. Yeah. Let's zoom in on a couple of those things. If you don't mind, I guess kicking off with the bulimic aspect, is there a correlation that you find in like dance communities and also these kind of, I guess, quote unquote, disorders coming to the surface? And what kind of is that if there is? [Speaker 1] (5:53 - 9:18) Yeah, definitely. I mean, eating disorders are rampant in the dance community. And unfortunately, at a young age, you're in front of a mirror constantly. You are asked to really be perfect in terms of your technique. So the discipline aspect, you're required to show up and be very professional and very disciplined at a very young age, just like any other athlete, right? But with dance, I think what's more debilitating for women is that there's such a focus on their physicality, on how they look and how they perform in their physical body. So it's like, oh, her toe isn't in alignment. Like, oh, her knee, like, it's just a little. So I was very much a perfectionist and a type A workaholic from a very young age. And ballet is like a perfect example of that. How more perfect and how more ethereal can you be? That's really the focus. And I didn't even have choreographers or teachers that were weighing us or checking our weight in that way. But I saw it at a young age. Like the ballet academy next door to my dance studio, they were weighing the girls at very young ages to make sure that they stayed in a proper weight range. So that leads to all sorts of disordered eating, right? Just kind of similar in modeling, I assume, right? Where women are trying to look a certain way. And ballet in particular, because the women are, the aesthetic is very thin and lean and etheric looking. The lighter you are, the better, unfortunately. And so a lot of women battle, you know, they're smoking cigarettes and eating potato chips and drinking Diet Coke to like have the energy to, which of course is horrible for your body. But when you're young and stupid, you know, you're just like whatever it takes to stay thin and have the energy to actually be a dancer. Because it's horrible. You know, you're the pressure to perform at that level, at a professional athlete level and basically running on no fuel. It's just, it's crazy for your body. It's horrible. And so, yeah, I mean, for me, I always growing up was, oh, you know, I'm never gonna let the pressure get to me. And I'm never gonna let these choreographers. And, you know, we were taught at a very young age to have a very thick skin because you are rejected quite a bit. You go to auditions constantly. You're constantly, you know, you're in a cattle call audition with hundreds of dancers. And they're picking two dancers out of like hundreds of women, right? So you are constantly in competition with other women. You are constantly trying to be better, stronger, more perfect, right? It's just the industry. And so in my mid twenties was when things really kicked off where it was like, oh, wow, the pressure that I thought I was just like letting go and letting roll off my back. No, no, no, no. It was actually like really, really getting to me. And I was just pretending it wasn't. And so in my mid twenties is when I really started to struggle with, okay, I'm afraid to gain weight. I'm afraid to lose weight. And now I'm going to hyper control everything I eat. So I was, you know, really obsessed with eating super clean. But so I'd eat three meals a day, but I'd purge two of them because I don't want to like harm my body with shitty food. Like that was, you know, something I was very adamant about as like a holistic health focused person. But, and I was also teaching nutrition at the time. So there was such a, it was such a hard time for me because there was such an incongruence between how I was showing up professionally in terms of like coaching and teaching and performing. And everything's perfect, everything's fine. And I'm this nutritionist and I'm teaching Pilates and yoga. And yet at home, I'm purging my meals, right? And so it's this deep shame and these guilt shame cycles you get into. And so I struggled with that for about five years. [Speaker 2] (9:19 - 9:23) Was this something that you kept it all to yourself or were there people in your life that knew that you were doing this? [Speaker 1] (9:24 - 10:02) No, I kept this to myself because again, I had this facade that I was upholding, right? This perfectionistic, everything's fine. I got this, I'm gonna let this roll off my back. Everything, you know, and you put this, you put this facade on because that's what you're taught to do. Especially in the dance world. It's like the show must go on regardless of how you're feeling. Like there were so many times where I had to get on stage and I had the flu or I was like really injured and it didn't matter because you're replaceable. If you, if you should, you know, rupture your Achilles tendon, you're replaced immediately. And it's like next, you know, the younger, younger, more beautiful dancer gets put in your spot, right? And so it's really a cutthroat world where you are, and that's why I had to get out of it. [Speaker 2] (10:02 - 10:06) You know, where were you during this time? Were you like in one of the major cities, like New York or somewhere? [Speaker 1] (10:06 - 10:07) I was in San Francisco. [Speaker 2] (10:07 - 10:08) San Francisco, gotcha. [Speaker 1] (10:08 - 10:58) So much less brutal than LA, for example, or New York, for sure. And that's why I stayed there. And I had a lot of friends that went to LA and were very much always in those cattle call auditions, just trying to get, you know, a backup dancer gig or a commercial gig, you know, where they're just raw, rawing in the background of like a pharmaceutical commercial or something, right? Like they're just trying to, but there's hundreds of women vying for these spots. And so LA was really vicious. And so was New York in terms of the Broadway scene. Like New York is very Broadway stage focused, whereas LA is very commercial. And so San Francisco was very much a smaller market and very, very much about the companies I worked for, the modern dance companies and contemporary dance companies I worked for were just basically stage performance, right? So they put on shows at different theaters around the city, but it wasn't like commercial work. [Speaker 2] (10:58 - 11:15) I mean, New York and LA have been my home for the last 22 years, I think. So yeah, I definitely know how that is, you know, having friends that were dancers and being in the acting world myself for years. And just, it's unfortunate, but it's kind of part of it to some degree. [Speaker 1] (11:15 - 11:37) It is. And I think you, you know, you learn to have a thick skin, you learn to be super professional, to show up at your best. And I think what's not talked about enough is the shadow side and like how that is actually eroding you inside. Because you're not, we're all human, like that stuff is going to penetrate at some point. You can't just pretend like that, those rejections and those, you know, insults and the criticism that you might get doesn't impact you because I think it does. [Speaker 2] (11:38 - 11:43) Yeah. So what was the moment where you were like, this is an issue and I need to tell someone? [Speaker 1] (11:45 - 13:22) Yeah, for me, I was so sick of my own shit. I was so sick of suffering. I'll never forget it. Like I went to the bathroom that night, I purged my dinner and I walked out and I was like, I just sat in front of my boyfriend and I was like, I have to tell somebody. This is the only, because I had done everything I could up to that point, trying to work on it myself. Okay, I'm going to be a more devoted meditator. I'm going to do more yoga. I'm going to journal more. I'm going to, you know, because I had all this, you know, information and wisdom around how I can do it on my own. And I really felt like I need to do it on my own. And I don't need to involve anybody because that's just like too shameful to involve other people. And so I tried for a long time to do something on my own. How come I'm still battling with this? I'm a meditator. I'm a yogi. Like, why is it so hard for me? And so when I finally released the shame by talking about it is when my healing really started. And my boyfriend was like, wow, like I had no idea and I'm so sorry. And like, you don't need to worry about your weight with me. Like, you know, he just was like trying to support me, but he also, you know, and I never worked with anybody professionally in terms of like a professional therapist around eating disorders. But I did do a ton of my own other healing modalities and work with ayahuasca, which was a huge catalyst in my healing. But yeah, it was the first step was me really being radically honest with myself and saying, I no longer want to suffer like this because I'm so self-destructive right now. I'm just like, you know, an addict is or anyone else struggling with other things. It's like, you just hit rock bottom. You're like, I can no longer do this to myself. And I have to reach out to someone because I'm just self-destructing and suffering so much. [Speaker 3] (13:22 - 13:31) Can you speak a bit more into what it was like, confronting those parts of yourself and kind of what came up in the healing through that process for you? [Speaker 1] (13:32 - 14:28) For me, what I learned through my healing was that I was really good at suppressing all of my emotion, which was leading, which is what I think really led to my disorder eating was that I felt I needed hyper control over my emotional state, my physical body. And so I was feeling so anxious and so out of control in so many ways in my life. And my eating disorder was a way for me to have some control over something. And it was my way of coping with all this emotion I had suppressed. And so what really beyond speaking my truth and sharing what was going on inside of me and talking to people about it, what really started my healing was sitting in ceremony and clearing all this emotional baggage. I had like a decade plus of emotional baggage that I just pretended I didn't have, you know, like all of those things, I just let roll off my back and pretend like they didn't affect me. Like, no, I know now I'm a super empathic person, and I feel things in a huge way. I'm Cancer's son, Leo Moon. Like I feel things in a huge way, if you guys know astrology. [Speaker 3] (14:30 - 14:35) I'm a Leo Moon here. My wife's a Cancer's son and also was a full-time dancer for like 30 years. [Speaker 1] (14:36 - 15:16) Yeah, right. So yeah, you guys get this, right? So I forget where I was going with that, but just that, yeah, the emotional part was such a huge piece for me that I was forced to process all of this pain, all of the shame, all this guilt, all this perfectionist, all this self-hatred, right, came up to be felt and cleared. And so it was a lot of crying, a lot of grieving. And I just learned within my first couple of ceremonies, like, wow, I really hate myself. I hate my body. I hate myself. I'm super hard on myself. I'm a crazy perfectionist, controlling everything. This is not serving me. It is not serving me. I'm just creating this crazy internal world for myself. So that was the shift, yeah. [Speaker 3] (15:16 - 15:31) So can you speak more into like what it was like in that first ceremony, Mashooni? I've never done ayahuasca personally, but I'm assuming like your first time, I guess, engaging with the medicine and all of a sudden realizing there's all this emotional baggage that was there. What was that experience like? [Speaker 1] (15:32 - 16:07) Yeah, for me, it was hours of crying, hours of feeling overwhelmed, hours of just feeling like this has to end. I mean, it was just a massive ego death, right? A shattering of all of my preconceived notions of myself. And that's what the medicine does. It forces you to see your patterns. It forces you to see what you're unwilling to face, all your shadows. And that's why it's a big ego shattering for so many people. So yeah, that first ceremony was probably the most brutal I've had, honestly, because it really shook me awake. It was like, these are all the ways you are hurting yourself and hating yourself. Yeah. [Speaker 2] (16:07 - 16:23) What was the post process of that? Because I know we'll get into this later, just the experience of ayahuasca and whether or not people can integrate it. Was it overwhelming for you for all this stuff to come up? Did you feel like you had the capacity to navigate it? Or did you need support? How did that look? [Speaker 1] (16:24 - 16:56) Yeah, I definitely should have integrated more. I definitely didn't know any better at the time, right? So I was like, wow, this is a crazy big experience. I'm very overwhelmed by it. And I never felt more clear and more grounded and more at peace afterward, even though it was the most chaotic thing I'd ever been through. I was like, something, there's some magic here that I need to keep in my life to some degree, right? So then I went back and sat the next month, the Shamanics Healing Center that I work with, they served medicine once a month. And so it was kind of like this community circle. [Speaker 2] (16:56 - 16:57) This was in Costa Rica? [Speaker 1] (16:58 - 19:02) Yeah, Costa Rica, where I lived for about seven years. And so I went and sat and really just for my own healing, I was like, there's something to this. I mean, obviously it forced me to feel a lot, face a lot. And I went, okay, that was so intense for me and so wild. And so, and I've never felt more clear. Like literally for the first time in years, my mind was really clear of all of that looping. Because when you're in active eating disorders, the looping in your brain is incessant. Constantly thinking about food. Oh, I need to eat this. Oh, I need to, you're just, and then, oh, I need to hide it. Like you're just constantly on edge, thinking about what you need to do to either hide what you're doing or control what you're doing, right? And so to have that piece in my mind for the first time, and that's really what happened over the years, is that my nonchalance around food became laughable. Like from where I was in the midst of my eating disorder, being so crazy controlling and anxious and overwhelmed about it to just being like, like I still eat super clean, of course, but it's like the worry and the fear and anxiety and the looping and any concern about food is just gone from my headspace. And to me, that's magic. I was like, okay, I don't know what this is, but I need to experience more of it, right? So that's why I went and continued to sit. But I really think that over time, obviously, I learned like integration is so freaking important. And I didn't have guidance at the time. I didn't have experts at the time to be like, Amber, this is what you should be doing in terms of like your integration and you need to take time off and you don't need to sit so often. Because I was working with a shamanic healing center where they're very much working in traditional ways, which is that they could sit often. And there really wasn't much of an integration program besides just talking about the ceremony afterward in a circle. And that is not enough. And I learned that pretty early on, like that's not enough. And you need a lot more time between ceremonies. And so I learned the hard way by going too hard, too fast, that you can really blow out your nervous system. You can really overdo it. And I did, I did. And that's why I can speak about it now and say like, this is what you don't want to do, y'all. [Speaker 3] (19:02 - 19:13) So I guess continuing chronologically, how did your relationship with Ayahuasca and the shamanic healing center and ceremony, how did that develop from this point on from that first ceremony for you? [Speaker 1] (19:14 - 22:56) Yeah. So for me, I sat the first like 13 ceremonies, I'd say, where I sat for myself. It was just about deep healing work and really focusing on, again, the things I need to work on. And then I was at the time already producing retreats. I was producing health and wellness retreats, yoga retreats, Pilates retreats, detox certification programs, stand up paddleboard, yoga retreats, all sorts of stuff. And I was like, you know what? This has been such a life-changing experience for me. Why don't I find a way to work with the shamanic healing center and bring groups to them? And so that's what we did. We teamed up and they were amazing at what they did. And so I prepared and, you know, they gave me all the preparatory guidelines and all the things I need to do to prepare everybody. But I already had so many groups coming down every month to Costa Rica that it was just a perfect partnership. And so I was able to then, you know, create an awesome retreat called the Epic Awakening. That was a set program, set protocol. You know, they had to do certain diet prior to coming. Very strict protocol. I had really intense screening processes. Everybody had to be in a certain level and degree of health to be able to sit. But basically I did that once a month for six years. And I had group after group after group after group. So I saw a lot. I saw a lot of profound healing, huge transformations. I mean, magical things. People who walked in unable to walk well and they walk out walking and like healed and tumors gone. And I mean, just all sorts of magic, right? Went down in these ceremonies. And so for me, it was really the most fulfilling and deeply rewarding work I'd ever done. And I got to a point where after consistently, because I would sit with all my groups, which I would never ever recommend now. But I did because I really felt obligated. I felt like they're trusting me to come and they're trusting me to hold space in this way. And they're coming to my retreat. I need to sit with them. But sitting twice a night, two times a month is... Sitting twice in a retreat once a month is a lot. And I was doing that more so out of obligation than out of my own personal interest or need, right? And so I learned, again, the hard way, sitting too often, sitting out of obligation when my body really didn't need that or want it. And so after about six years of that, my body started saying no in a really big way. And it was like... And I kept thinking, maybe this is my ego and this is what happens in this community. Because ayahuasca pushes you. It shatters your ego often. That's what it does, right? And so what happened inside of me is I was going, is this really like my body? Is this my intuition? Or is this just my ego and fear saying that I shouldn't be sitting in ceremony? And so I had this inner battle going on around like, is this really my body and my intuition? Or is this just fear and ego? And maybe I should just sit anyway. And that's a really not a good place to be. Because really your body is saying, hey, hey, hey, hey. And I learned obviously the hard way, my body was screaming at me, stop doing this. This is too much for you. Your nervous system is not happy. And so my last retreat was February, 2020 before the pandemic hit and everything shut down. And then I couldn't run any retreats anyway, which was honestly a blessing because I was pregnant at that. Became pregnant in March and then had my son. So everything really just shifted after that. But yeah, that was my last retreat. And I don't think I'll ever go back to producing medicine retreats. And I don't think I'll ever open that chapter again. Maybe I will, who knows? But for me, that chapter really closed. And so now I really speak a lot about like the shadow and the light sides of that industry and that whole world because I'm really passionate about it. And I wanna make sure that people are having healing experiences and not traumatic experiences. And unfortunately, there's a lot of really weird stuff happening in that world right now. [Speaker 2] (22:56 - 23:21) Yeah, I wanna, it seems like as a dancer, you're taught to override your body. And then in your next stage of evolution, you're expanded in certain ways, but then still overriding the wisdom of your body. So when was it that you took this next step of like really tuning into like what your body wanted and that shifted how you kind of moved forward in the decisions that you made? [Speaker 1] (23:22 - 23:32) Yeah, I mean, that was a really pivotal shift was going, okay, this has got to end. Like this medicine work has to end. The, and also at the time I was working with Hapé quite a bit. I don't know if you guys know Hapé? [Speaker 3] (23:32 - 23:32) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (23:33 - 25:20) So Hapé is really common in the Shamanic community, but I had gotten to a point where I was using it at least four or five times a day to just like get grounded. Again, too much medicine work makes you ungrounded. And I needed the Hapé to ground me and like really get me centered. At least I thought I did, right? So when I got pregnant is when all of that had to go because I couldn't be working with Hapé and be pregnant. So when I got pregnant, that's when things got really real and my body was like, ooh, time to process. A lot of this stuff you've not let yourself process. So I think my, you know, my nine months of pregnancy was really intense emotionally for me because I had, I basically was cutting out all these things from my life that I had been really consistent with in terms of use. And then also I had all of this integration work that I hadn't done that had to get done, right? And then you're also growing a baby and there's all the emotions and the stuff related to that. So that was a really intensive transition. And that was when I was really forced to listen to my body. Motherhood forces you because you're like dealing with, you know, morning sickness. I know you guys get this, like you're just forced to be like, okay, I can't do anything for the day. I just have to sit here. And that's really frustrating when you are, you know, a former dancer who's like used to, you know, you're used to being active and mobile. And so motherhood really forced me to pay attention to my body and really honor it and really double down on self-care and really ask for the help I needed in terms of taking a break, like asking my husband, please take care of our infant for X amount of hours so I can just go take a nap and take a break, you know, things like that. But then breast implant illness really forced me. That was when the universe was like, we're stripping you of all of your strength and all of your, you know, health in order to show you how much you continue to push, you know, push yourself too hard. And in order to show you like how important it is to slow down and really listen. So yeah, those two. [Speaker 2] (25:21 - 25:23) Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. [Speaker 3] (25:23 - 25:45) I want to just rewind a little bit if I can. So in regards to the ayahuasca ceremonies, maybe to speak into something, to give examples, what would you say is like perhaps the weirdest, most quote unquote traumatic experience that you witnessed in ceremony? And maybe the polar opposite, what's the most miraculous kind of thing that you saw coming out of that? [Speaker 1] (25:46 - 26:49) Yeah. So to speak to like the harder side, you know, I've been through, I've had my own very traumatic ceremonies. One where I was working with a 13th generation Taita from Columbia. And I had brought two clients of mine to this ceremony. And we were all very excited to work with him because he was so revered and he was coming to Costa Rica, doing a tour. And we were so just excited for this experience. And it turned out to be an absolute nightmare. Imagine a hundred people in an open field with like a ravine on one side that like fell, it like went down like a hundred feet into a ravine. No, no fencing. Right. So, and the medicine they served was really, really intense. And the most traumatic thing I've seen is a woman be possessed by a very dark entity. And she was literally screaming bloody murder for hours. And there was nothing that shot them. This is a very experienced traditional campaign shaman. [Speaker 2] (26:49 - 26:54) Yeah, but a hundred people, how do you, how do you, how can you even manage a hundred people in a process like this? [Speaker 1] (26:54 - 27:03) That's what's, that's what's insane about it. Like never, ever, ever sit in a ceremony that large ever. And then also never in a container like that where there is really no boundaries. [Speaker 2] (27:04 - 27:04) No containment. [Speaker 1] (27:05 - 27:05) No containment. [Speaker 2] (27:05 - 27:08) Literally and figuratively, like you can jump off a ravine. [Speaker 1] (27:08 - 28:03) Correct. Yeah. And this girl was screaming, bloody murder for hours. And everyone was looking at, at her and looking at the shaman, like, what are you going to do? And they literally came over, sang a little song and walked away. And so my partner at the time, he literally sat next to her and held her down because she was not safe with herself. Like she would have walked off this ravine. She would have, she was trying to grab other people. She's trying to grab him. You know, she was having a really hard time. We had no idea how to handle it. No idea how to take care of her. And all you do in those moments is because you're on the medicine as well. And all you do is just say, like, whatever we can do to, like, hold this together right now. And when she came out the other side of that, she had no recollection of it. Wow. And so we sat at breakfast that morning and I looked at her and I said, Sarah, how are you? Are you okay? Like, that was a really intense night. And she looked at me and she's like, what? What was intense about it? [Speaker 2] (28:03 - 28:05) Sounds like a dissociative break or something. [Speaker 1] (28:06 - 28:36) I mean, it's like she, I mean, she wasn't in her body. Very, very sensitive person, very empathic. And she was really just too sensitive to be working with this medicine. And she literally left her body and she was fully taken over by a demonic force without a doubt. Because she was saying and doing things. She was speaking in tongues. She was saying and doing things that she would, you know, she was like fingering herself. She was all sorts of stuff. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Like sexual energy, really sexual and dark energy. [Speaker 3] (28:36 - 28:47) Yeah. And I mean, it must be so rattling for everyone else there as well, especially someone who maybe it was their first ceremony and then all of a sudden they're, you know, And this was her first ceremony. They're witnessing this. [Speaker 1] (28:47 - 28:47) Correct. [Speaker 2] (28:48 - 29:48) Yeah. I mean, when I did, I lived in a tree house in the jungle in Peru for nine days in 2009. And I did six ceremonies over nine days. And wow, it's a lot. Yeah, it was a lot. My third one was the most intense. And I remember just, I knew that I just was going to go to a dark place. But there was a few people that joined because the first one I did solo with the shaman and the other shaman that was singing the songs. The second one, there were two people that came from another place. And I think another person came for the third one. Anyways, the point of my story is when I was in this dark place, the people next to me were purging hard while I was there. And so like, I felt like I was just surrounded by demons. Right. In like hell because of all the vomiting. Because for some reason I purged after, I never did during. And so hearing the sounds while I was in that state was like crazy. So I can only imagine 100 people there, all the stuff that's going on. This woman having this experience while everyone else is in this kind of trance like state. [Speaker 1] (29:48 - 31:21) Oh, it was, it was beyond. And I learned so much from that. I mean, people were dancing. People were, I mean, it was, it was just so beyond out of control. And from that experience, I went never again. I mean, never again will I ever put myself in a situation like that where I just trust that these people know what they're doing, just because they have this title or this, like they're well-known or whatever. Because honestly, in these traditions, some of that never, I mean, some of it matters. Sometimes it does, like their lineages really matter. And sometimes their training and their lineages, like for whatever reason, they just, you know, it's always the individual, like how they take their lineage work and how they, how they serve and how they lead. But like that, that shaman, I was like, this, this is not how you, I mean, and what's crazy is after that, it was like this, this patriarchal edge to this, which is that in the Colombian tradition, they, they never, it's very rare that women are allowed to serve medicine. And only men do, because only men have the power or whatever, right? So it was like this whole ego thing. So what was crazy is that, that morning after everyone woke up, everyone's like, you know, functioning again, he blamed her screaming and all of that on, on whoever was in the circle that was a woman that was on her cycle. Because he claimed that, which is something that the Colombian tradition does. If you're, if you're on your cycle, your menstrual cycle, you're not allowed to sit with medicine because things get too erratic and too crazy. And so he blamed her episode on whoever, you know, in the circle was on their cycle. And I was like, whoa, bro, like, this is so out of integrity. That's some next level gaslighting. [Speaker 2] (31:21 - 32:03) Yeah, but this is the thing. It's like, you can come from a 15th generation of having this lineage, but it's like within your understanding, within your culture, you may not have even the psychological understanding of like, what is a psyche? You know, what is the framework of the psyche? And so, you know, even young, young used to warn against like Westerners kind of dabbling into a lot of the Eastern stuff that a lot of them, he felt were cut off from their body or didn't understand the cultural practices, you know? And so, you know, it's like, I can see how maybe some of these people from these cultures, they don't even understand the differences. And they're just like, I do this thing. It helps us. Let's just help everyone. And we can make money doing it. I'm not saying it's all a racket, but like, yeah, I can see how it could play into that. [Speaker 1] (32:04 - 34:05) Absolutely. Absolutely. And each lineage is very different, right? How they serve medicine. You know, you look at Santo Daime versus like the Shipibo tradition. They're completely different, but they're working with the same medicine. So it's just, it's about how it's served. And, and I, I think it's most important to work in lineage work. Like, do not work with an American shaman who just picked it up five years ago and decides they want to play, you know, knock on medicine to the people and poor medicine. Literally that's happening everywhere. And it's terrifying. Like you really need to work in a lineage. And some traditions are, are really, you know, like the Colombian tradition, in my opinion is, is really out of whack, I think with like Western culture. And I think it's, at least in my experience with those shamans, it was way out of control. So I wouldn't recommend, you know, that, that specific job. But with that being said, so that was like a very traumatic, that, that woman, unfortunately, like months later, it took her months to feel back in her body and to feel safe in her body again. And she, you know, never, I remember her calling us and she had had, she had taken some THC or some, she'd smoked weed or something. And she was going right back in, right back in. Cause that's unfortunately what happens is, you know, you're so empathic and sensitive after these ceremonies. And then if you dabble in other recreational drugs too closely to those ceremonies, man, it can take you right back to those places. And she had opened, it was like she opened a portal in herself. And all of a sudden she was back there and she was calling us like, help me. And we're like, you are in another state. We can't help you right now physically, but we can be here on the phone with you. You know, but it was just, that's why, you know, women who, or anyone who goes to these sorts of really traumatic experiences, you have to work with people who are very educated in integration work with psychedelics, ideally with ayahuasca, very specific. And people who know how to work with PTSD and trauma and how to, you know, basically bring your aura back into a solid place. I mean, the, the soul fracturing that can happen in these experiences is something that is not talked about enough. Like people have psychosis, people have soul, soul issues that happen, right. Where they don't feel like they can fully come back in their body all the way. [Speaker 3] (34:05 - 34:10) Yeah. Yeah. I want to get into that more as well, but I guess just for the flip side, because I asked the question already. [Speaker 1] (34:10 - 34:10) Yeah. [Speaker 3] (34:10 - 34:13) I'll give you the- Some of those miraculous things, I guess you experienced. [Speaker 1] (34:13 - 34:53) Yeah. So I work with, at the tail end of my work with medicine, I was working with my good friend, Lydia, and she is a Shipibo trained, and she is an energy surgeon. And so what she does is she will literally pull cancer tumors out of people's bodies on an energetic level, which is again, wild to think about, but she's so high level that she, in her ceremonies, that is her specialty. And they, they literally call themselves energy surgeons. And they actually do this thing, which is very old and part of their lineage is to, they actually suck energy out of people. And so they will like put their mouths on you and suck energy out and then spit it into a bucket. [Speaker 4] (34:53 - 34:54) Mm-hmm. [Speaker 1] (34:54 - 36:43) And so, for example, I mean, her story is around being able to pull out cancerous tumors and then they go back and get their scans done and the cancer tumors are gone. So that sort of deep work in terms of the physical healing, right? And then in my own ceremonies, I remember there was one man who came and he could barely walk. He had this, like, I forget exactly what he, it was almost like, it almost looked like elephantitis on one of his legs where it was super swollen and he could hardly walk. He was really losing weight. He didn't know what was going on with him. Like he had been to all these specialists and he was like, this is really my last hope. This medicine work is like my last hope to figure out potentially what's going on. Like, is there a mental, emotional and sexual route to what's happening? Because I've done all this physical, you know, Western medicine approach stuff and nothing is getting to the root of what's going on. But he was super thin, super frail, could hardly walk and had this, you know, really swollen leg. And I remember I'm like, okay, bro, like I was really hesitant to have him come because I'm like, I'm, I can't promise you miracles, but I want to try to see if this will help. And so he came and I remember, I'll never forget. He reached out to me, like a couple of weeks later and he's like, I'm gaining weight again. I can digest food again. I'm walking. And I'm like, what? I mean, he just was like, he's like, my life has completely transformed. I feel so happy. He was able to process like a lot of deep, I think ancestral trauma in his ceremony, but also his own personal trauma that was related to the physical issues. Because again, that's so much of what you're working on in those ceremonies is that mental, emotional, ancestral stuff, energetic stuff that is really getting in the way of your body being in a healthy, vibrant state. So yeah, it was really, really cool to just say. And he would reach out again, you know, over time, say, oh, these are, he'd show me pictures of him and his kids. And he's like, you've given me my life back. And I'm like, like, I did not do that. The medicine did that, but I'm so glad that I was a part of it. [Speaker 2] (36:43 - 37:00) Yeah. Do you find that this happens a lot that someone has like a peak experience, like some big thing changes and then it's like, this is the panacea for all. This saved my life. It can save your life. And then, you know, that cycle continues and they keep doing it. Or like, how does that play out or that you've seen? [Speaker 1] (37:01 - 38:26) I think, I mean, that played out in my own story. That was me going, this has changed me on so many levels and continues. I have to share this work. I just became like a speaker box for the medicine. I was like, this work has to get out to the world because of how transformative and healing it is. And there's a shadow side to it that, you know, we can talk about, the healing and transformation is very, very real, but it has to be done in a super safe and high integrity container. It has to be done with the proper integration and support. And that's the stuff that people are just not aware of when they step into it, right? And so, yes, people have miraculous experiences. And then they will, what I do see, there's some who, you know, they'll have one big experience. They're like, okay, I need like a year or two to integrate before I even consider another ceremony. And then there are people who are like me, who are like, I want more. I want to keep digging. I want to keep figuring out, right? And so you go back and you go back and you go back, but that can also lead to what I saw in the medicine community, which was sitting too much. And it becomes an escape mechanism. It becomes, not that you're becoming addicted to medicine. I don't think you can become addicted to ayahuasca. Honestly, it's such an ego shattering experience. But what I do know is that you can become attached to feeling so connected to yourself, to the universe, the earth, that connection point, right? You start to lean on that as like, this is the truth. This is the way, this is how I stay connected to spirit. And so it can become a crutch and an escape mechanism from 3D reality. [Speaker 2] (38:27 - 38:34) Yeah, from like the mundane of like, I'm a human being and have to like pay my bills and just like wash the dishes and do whatever, you know? [Speaker 1] (38:34 - 39:15) Deal with my, you know, the challenges in my marriage, right? It's like we, I can think just a very simple example is like in my relationship at the time, my partner and I were producing retreats together and him and I had a very on and off again, I would say quite toxic dynamic. And the medicine served as a band-aid for us. It was a really powerful band-aid for us to like go into ceremonial, we feel so connected and so grateful and so in love. Yeah, okay. And then you come back to 3D world and you're still the same animal. You're still the same 3D version that maybe you're a little bit more aware. Maybe you're a little bit more awake. Maybe you have a more, you know, compassion in your heart and gratitude, but you still have to do the work. You still have to do all the hard work to make 3D life happen. [Speaker 3] (39:15 - 39:34) Yeah. If you can think back, I guess, to your iOS speaker box days where you were like the number one fangirl. And say someone brought to you the dark side of iOS, got potential pitfalls. How do you, do you think you would have entertained it at that point in time? Would you have like shut it off? Like, how do you think you would have received it? [Speaker 1] (39:35 - 40:38) I definitely received it because I saw it. You know, after I had been in those first couple of ceremonies where I saw demonic possession, I saw, I had my own really intense experiences where I passed out and I felt like I had gone to a very dark place and I didn't know what I didn't remember. Like I had my own experiences like that enough to know this is not to be fucked with. Like you really, really have to know you have to be working with people who can protect you energetically because you don't know how to protect yourself energetically. And part of a shaman's role is to protect the group energetically from dark entities, from dark energies. And so if you're not working with people who know how to do that or haven't been trained, then you're leaving yourself wide open. I learned that very early on. And so I definitely was aware of it. And I learned the hard way, like how to best, you know, prepare people, integrate people. Like I learned over time working with different, you know, the shamans I was working with, like there is a correct way and a harmful way to do all of that. And so I learned through trial and error, which again, isn't like ideal, but that's what it was. [Speaker 3] (40:38 - 40:58) Yeah. Okay. If we can get into like, what are the ways in which you think, I guess, Westerners are abusing this kind of medicine or other medicines, even like outside of like a ceremonial setting? I know you live in Austin now. It seems to be a whole scene over there. So if you can speak into that. Yeah, I live in Topanga. [Speaker 2] (40:58 - 41:01) So, you know, it has its own version. [Speaker 1] (41:01 - 43:02) Yeah. When I moved here, it was a rude awakening for me because I'd come from this very small, traditional shamanic community. Coming to Austin and seeing how Westerners were bastardizing this work. And, you know, literally just playing like a playlist in some basement somewhere with a homemade brew. And they're mixing, you know, I mean, it was so much mixing of like mushrooms and ayahuasca. And I'm like, well, y'all are just, one of these is so powerful. One of these is, you don't need to be combining these things. You don't need to be like topping it off with ketamine. I got like, what? Like I was just, I was floored. I was floored. And it was so, it's so rampant here in Austin. Like the last seven years I've been here, I've seen waves of substances go through the community. And at the beginning, I heard and saw a lot more of like ayahuasca use, but then it became, ketamine became huge in this community. Huge. Like everyone in the biohacking entrepreneur world, influencer world is just like snorting it throughout the day to like biohack their way through life. And I'm like, y'all, this is- And ketamine, like what? Ketamine, like people using it for creative. And you know, you hear this, right? People microdosing LSD, okay. Okay. There's like value in microdosing certain things, right? But if you're bumping ketamine throughout the day to feel more creative, to, you know, get work done. I don't know. I've never tried ketamine, so I don't know how it feels personally. But what I saw was just rampant abuse and normalization of ketamine in this community, where people are just stacking ketamine with multiple drugs at parties. You know, it's MDMA, then ketamine, then, you know, weed on top of that and then drinks on top. Whoa, y'all. This is just so much. And again, like I'm no angel. Like I have definitely been the girl rolling on Molly at a festival, right? And I have sat in a lot of ceremonies. But there is a fine line between, and this is what I'm like really speaking to a lot now, is the addiction and abuse of these substances is just being so normalized now. It's normalized. Instead of saying, no, no, no, this is addiction, y'all. If you're using ketamine every day, that's addiction. Sorry. [Speaker 2] (43:02 - 43:10) It's beyond normalized. It's like, no, this is the path to more enlightenment as well. And like, we're more spiritual because we do these things. [Speaker 3] (43:10 - 43:22) It's like most of these people, the ones presenting as role models and as the ones that kind of know the way and that you should follow me and I have something for you, a path that will lead you to the promised land. And yet, you know, there's this underbelly. [Speaker 1] (43:22 - 44:34) That's right. And that's, you know, I think that's what's being revealed right now is the underbelly of the spiritual conscious community of like, okay, y'all are speaking love and light. And this is the conscious way. And this is how, you know, the new relationship evolution way. And this is, you know, we're sitting with MDMA every week in our relationship. And we're, you know, taking mushrooms on the weekend and we're bumping ketamine all day. And it's like, y'all, have you been sober? Have you been sober for like a week? You know, and you talk to people and they haven't, they haven't. And I'm like, y'all, this is, this is wild. This is wild. So addiction is really rampant here. And unfortunately, like, I just went to a gathering last weekend and people are very ungrounded, very ungrounded. Like people who are using a lot of psychedelics and a lot of these drugs, like you walk into a party and I instantly am on edge. I'm like, cause I'm super empathic and I pick up on all this and I can tell when people are on substances. And so I'm sitting in the room going, wow, like I, I'm starting to feel so ungrounded and so floaty in this environment because everyone is just not really all the way in 3D land. Like they're not, cause they're just, they're floating. They're out here disconnected, you know, and, and out of their bodies. And I can feel that. So yeah, it's, it's a thing. [Speaker 3] (44:35 - 44:51) Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate you sharing that. Okay. So I guess the question begs, how would you kind of advise someone to engage with ayahuasca if they want to see, like what would be the right way for someone to kind of engage? [Speaker 1] (44:52 - 45:08) I think the best way is to work with a retreat center. For example, Sultara Healing Center in Costa Rica. They're the only people I recommend at this point because they have a phenomenal integration program with really incredible therapists and somatic experts. I mean, you really need people who understand somatics because that's the- What's the name? [Speaker 2] (45:08 - 45:08) What's the name? [Speaker 1] (45:08 - 46:23) It's called Sultara Healing Center in Costa Rica. And they just opened a second location in Peru in the Sacred Valley. They work with the most experienced Shipibo healers, which is really the lineage I worked in that I loved. So, and I know some other healers that work at Sultara. They worked on some of my retreats. And so I know the quality of the, of the leadership and the shamans. And I know the quality of integration. And I know the quality of the experience. And so for me, I'm like, that's where I'd send people is it's a very safe container. No more than 20 people in a ceremony. And then I compare that to, for example, Rhythmia, which is down in Costa Rica. Very well known. Ayahuasca Healing Center would not recommend going to Rhythmia. There are 100 person ceremonies. You're sitting in four ceremonies in a week with 100 people. And the horror stories out of that place are just wild. When I lived down there, there were so many horror stories of the people that worked there that saw so much. And then the people who went there and had traumatic experiences. And it's just, so you really, the smaller the container, the better, you know, the more experienced a shaman, the better. And the better integration program, the better. And so that's really what you're looking for. But it's, it's, it's few and far between now. I have friends, you know, reach out to me and they're like, I'm feeling cold. And where do you think I should go? And I'm like, nowhere in the U.S. Nowhere. [Speaker 2] (46:23 - 46:24) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (46:24 - 46:38) You're not working with anyone in the U.S. Go work with the lineages, go work with the indigenous, go work with people. There's like two places. I recommend, you know, and same with my other, same with Ruby, my other friend, you know, who's in the industry, who has been in that world for a while. You know, she, her and I feel the same way about it. [Speaker 2] (46:39 - 47:02) Yeah. Yeah. It's so wild, like, because when I think back, you know, 16 years ago, doing my ceremonies, they were just such small groups. So then as the years passed, it just got more trendy and popular. And people were talking about like 20, 40, 50, whatever, 100 people. I'm like, what? Like, I couldn't even imagine the experiences that I had with such a large group of people. Again, that was just my own personal experience. [Speaker 4] (47:03 - 47:03) Yeah. [Speaker 3] (47:06 - 47:23) Can you speak into like the potential, like ego inflation and guru worship that can potentially happen with some of these like practitioners that all of a sudden perceive themselves to be, you know, much further ahead than they probably really are? Yeah. One ceremony and they come back and go, I'm a shaman. [Speaker 1] (47:24 - 50:02) Oh my gosh. And how rampant is that, right? And that's the challenge with these plants is that they are so powerful. They give you so much confidence and they really do show you your purpose and they really connect you to your soul in such a powerful way. And unfortunately, in the wrong hands, these plants can be used in a really dark way. And so, again, there's a lot of dark, black magic in the shamanic community. There's a lot of harm that's caused by working with these plants as well. Intentionally by, you know, shamans working in black magic, but that's a totally different thing. But like in, for example, a Westerner white guy or white woman, for example, going to Peru, drinks one or two cups of ayahuasca and is like, I want to be a shaman. This is super common. They feel like all of a sudden they got the skills, which to me is absolutely insane. I don't even know how you go about that, but I can understand because I became a speaker box for this medicine. I can understand how empowered you feel to speak about it because it transformed your life. But yeah, a lot of people will do this and then they bring groups around and they're charismatic enough and they find a way to lure people into ceremonies. And for me, I mean, the dark side that I've seen is that predators, male predators really can easily use this medicine and other medicines, of course, as well to prey on vulnerable women who are coming for healing, who are open and accepting and wanting to learn. And they're wanting guidance and they're spiritual seekers. And unfortunately, those women are the easiest prey for these sorts of men. And so, for example, I sat down in Peru for a retreat with my friend who was actually leading this retreat. I worked with this incredible shaman who was very well known, very renowned. And he literally came up to me after the ceremony and tried to make out with me. And I was like, bro, I have a husband. You have a wife with a baby on the way. What are you doing? So that's just a one little example. He came up because he was all lovey and hugging on everybody, but he tried to make out with me. This was right after the ceremony. And I went this. And so then later, months later, he was serving in Bali and he was kicked, basically kicked out of Bali because he was trying to sleep with a woman after ceremony in her bungalow after her ceremony when she's super loving and super open and super vulnerable. And he literally had a wife with a pregnant. Yeah, his wife was pregnant at the time. And I'm like, this is wild. Luckily, he got really banned from that community. And then, of course, he got kind of banned in our circle of people who knew about him and were working with him. But that's not uncommon, unfortunately. [Speaker 2] (50:03 - 50:34) It also gets twisted with this whole, well, you're not evolved enough. A lot of the manipulation can go, especially as we see how there are different relationship paradigms and everyone can do what they choose to do for consensual. I have my own opinions. But that plays into it, too. So there's like you're in a vulnerable place, but then you're going somewhere to seek knowledge or seek wisdom. And then you put someone on a pedestal and they're living by a certain paradigm. And then they use certain spiritual languaging or paradigms to like, you know, manipulate you. [Speaker 1] (50:35 - 50:35) That's it. [Speaker 2] (50:35 - 50:46) Because I've heard stories from friends of mine of like, you know, how men can speak to you and like, well, you just you're just not open yet. You're just not ready for this. And then, yeah, I want to be open. I want to be ready. It just becomes this thing. [Speaker 1] (50:47 - 52:12) Yeah, it's very much this spiritual narcissism that I think is becoming so clear and so obvious to so many people nowadays. For whatever reason, the veil is lifting on this and the spiritual community, which I'm so grateful for, is how men, unfortunately, I know women do this as well, but men are using this spiritual lingo and this facade of love and light spiritual man to manipulate women into really crazy situations, whether it's manipulating them to use drugs that lower their boundaries and barriers, and then they end up being, you know, intimate or sexual with them. Like that's also very rampant here in Austin. My good friend Jules is actually, her and I had just did a podcast a couple of weeks ago about this, where she actually has people coming to her, men and women who are being sexually assaulted all the time here in Austin. They're coming to her like, how do I deal with this? Because I was like drugged by XYZ and then this happened. And, you know, people are just struggling and unable to cope with the drug use, the spiritual lingo manipulation stuff. And then sexual assault is happening and rape is happening. It's happening a lot, unfortunately. And I didn't know much. I was, Jules came to me. I was like, whoa. She's like, oh, I have like, I'm sitting with people consistently that are saying like, I don't know, should I go to the police? I don't know if I have enough evidence to even get the police involved. But it's just these scenarios where you end up at these parties and everyone's doing MDMA and everyone's in lingerie. And then all of a sudden, these boundaries are being crossed. And, you know. [Speaker 2] (52:13 - 52:31) Yeah. And then there's the shame, like you don't want to talk about it because, wait, I'm an evolved, conscious person. How do I get myself in this thing? I can't talk about it. Or this person, you know, is someone in the community. And again, things just stay under wraps. They stay unconscious. But I'm happy that the veil is lifting. I'm happy that more of this is coming out. It has to. [Speaker 1] (52:31 - 52:32) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (52:32 - 52:47) And it's inevitable. Like things can't be buried forever, in my opinion. Like things need, they'll bubble up. We'll get to a breaking point where things come. We're seeing that in the so-called, and I put huge quotes around, spiritual communities around the world. [Speaker 1] (52:48 - 53:23) Yeah. And it's everywhere. Like I wrote a post about this, about the drug abuse. And man, I mean, that post took off. And so many people were like, this isn't just Austin. This is everywhere, Amber. And I know it's everywhere, but I just know, I just see Austin if I live here. But yeah, it's, I know it's everywhere. And it's, I think it's reaching this critical threshold where people are starting to go, whoa, we've swung so far. We have to come back to center and really get clear, get sober, stop with all this, like this drug and medicine use. And then also just, you know, have better boundaries and more integration and all the things we're talking about. [Speaker 3] (53:24 - 53:45) Yeah. I guess it really just like highlights the importance of at least the baseline level of psychological self-work before you go in and kind of seek out these things to kind of bring you whatever wholeness you think is going to, you know, if you don't know yourself, understand the mechanism of your own psyche, have firm boundaries. It's like this is just going to, you know, cause a disaster, it seems. [Speaker 2] (53:46 - 54:49) I always say that I'm so grateful that in my early, mid 20s before I did ayahuasca, whenever that was, you know, I had gotten into psychological work and parts work even a while ago. So when I went into my ceremony, having a foundation of parts where it wasn't IFS, it was another form called voice dialogue. Um, that helped kind of frame the experience that I was having. Like I had a little bit more of an understanding of like, oh, interesting. This part's coming through, whatever. And so again, I think the problem we've seen for years, like Jolie was saying, is that like people bypass understanding the architecture of what it means to be a human being or even, and we haven't gotten into this, but like understanding their physiology and like the nervous system lingo, which is becoming more popular, but it's getting bastardized in its own way before having these like crazy intense experiences. Because how do you even like frame it? How do you have that understanding of what's going on? That's why I think it's so easy to become inflated or so easy to have more of a break because you don't have this foundational understanding of self or groundedness. [Speaker 1] (54:50 - 55:51) Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. And you're also, you know, learning your, for me, I was so immersed in the lineages and like the ways that they did this. And so you just, it's almost like it's not a cult, but you join, you join the ways that they do these things. And so for me, it was like, well, this is just what we do. We sit every month. We all work with Hoppe. We all wear white. We all like, you know, speak this lingo to some degree. We all strongly believe in this work. We're all walking the medicine path. Some of my friends, you know, went on to, you know, learn how to assist and facilitate. And they were deep in the jungle for months on end. You know, their hair is falling out. They're super malnourished. And they're just like, but this is my mission. This is my work. And I'm like, y'all, we got to like take a reality check at some point, come out of the jungle and see what the world, see from a different perspective. Because we're very insulated and isolated in this little shamanic world right now. And it's actually not super good for us. Like we're starting to fall apart and deteriorate. Our nervous systems are falling apart. And we just are so devoted and so like committed to this path. You know, so that's one thing I saw quite a bit. [Speaker 2] (55:51 - 56:15) My wife does nervous system work. I mean, I've been trained in it over the years. And like, she has lots of people who come to her that were like fully into like so-called spiritual plant medicine communities that just like are completely, their nervous systems are, quote unquote, blown out. They're not connected in the ways that they probably want to or why they even sought out this stuff in the first place. So, you know, this is serious stuff. [Speaker 1] (56:15 - 56:17) This isn't just like, you know, fuck with it. [Speaker 2] (56:17 - 56:27) Like as someone who's experienced it, like, dude, what? And you're just going to be like, oh, it's a Saturday. Let me just do some ayahuasca, throw some ketamine on top and then maybe take some MDMA and then just have an orgy. You know what I mean? [Speaker 1] (56:28 - 57:54) Like, that's it. It's mind blowing to me. It's mind blowing to me. And then there's no preparation, no integration, no nothing around that. And that's happening all the time. And so we wonder why people are walking around like zombies just so disconnected from themselves and so unable to just see 3D reality for what it is or so unable to like exist in normal reality because there's all these things that they've been through and they continue to put their bodies through these things. So I'm so grateful that your wife is doing that work. It's so important. And so much of my healing journey the last couple of years, because once I went through breast implant illness, that was when my nervous system really went haywire. And one of the intuitives I was working with, she's like, that was like the final straw for your nervous system because you've been through so much with ayahuasca. Then you went through motherhood. Then you went through explant. And that's when my body just went like, fuck you. And it was just like, I'll never forget how dysregulated I was. It was so challenging to even leave the house to function. I was afraid to close my eyes at night. I had such severe anxiety, such intense dysregulation. I was having panic attacks, anxiety attacks. Like I didn't feel safe in my body at all. I didn't feel like I was fully back in my body from my surgery. I mean, it just, yeah, it took me years to recover. And so I did IFS, right? I did somatic experiencing. I did, I'm now doing cognitive behavioral therapy. I did EMDR as well. I was like, whatever is going to help me get to a place where I feel safe in my body and calm and grounded and regulated like I used to, right? That was just my whole goal. [Speaker 3] (57:54 - 58:16) It's interesting how like you come out the other side and you just end up craving reality more than anything else. Like you go into it wanting to escape all this mundane 3D being having to deal with daily challenges of life. Then like you become so disassociated. It's like, I just want reality. I just want to be myself again. I just want to feel relatively normal to some extent more than anything else, you know? [Speaker 1] (58:17 - 58:44) That's it. For the last five years, I've been completely sober off all mind altering substances, including coffee. And that has been so powerful for me to in terms of integration. All this stuff came up to be processed and integrated, but to really learn to be safe in my body and to not escape with any substance, because of course, I was using coffee as well to like get through my day. And right. So to not have any substance that I could lean on as a crutch was a really powerful thing for me to do for myself. [Speaker 2] (58:44 - 1:00:03) That's the I mean, that's the real work. You know, people ask me in my years of the things that I've done, like I go, the thing that changed me the most was making the decision I think 11 years ago now to be completely sober. And then I got really deep into body work. So like going deep into my body and all the other stuff like that changed me more than the other stuff. Now, granted, everything led up to that. So it's hard to say, but to be with yourself, to sit with yourself. And again, like bringing it back to the nervous system and these intense practices, like going on plant medicine, like do you even have the capacity to sit with the physiological experience that you're happening without escaping, without going off? Like, can you be present in your body and feel the emotion, feel the pain and feel the fear? Or are you completely getting checking out? And so, again, I think we all agree. We're not sitting here saying, don't ever do ayahuasca. Don't ever do any of these things because you've had benefit from it. I've had benefit from it. But but like, how are you going about doing it? And is self-knowledge and really understanding your vessel at the foundation before you just go into this thing that's being plastered all over the interwebs as being like the lifesaving thing and it's going to change everything. And in some cases it does for a certain person at a certain point in their time. But there needs to be some more awareness and discernment around it. [Speaker 1] (1:00:04 - 1:01:05) Absolutely. And I think the real work is the integration. It's how you embody the lessons that you learn. And that's what people don't really do is they don't. Not only do they not do the nervous system work, nervous system work and somatic work to like really integrate everything, but they're they're really not even changing their. I mean, there are many people I can think of, you know, who've been through my retreats, you know, where they have these profound experiences and they go home and they end up in the same environment, same relationships, the same patterns and toxic ways of, you know, that they were doing things before. It's so easy to fall back and go back into those ways, even though you've had a really profound experience, even though you did feel some big shifts, because you're in the same environment. You're with the same people. You're eating the same foods. You know, you're not working out. You're not taking care of yourself. You're not connected to the planet. You're not doing all the things that we were doing on retreat. And so you just go back. And so you really have to maintain the lifestyle after ceremony. You really have to, OK, what am I learning? How am I going to change my life by taking action to make sure that I embody these lessons moving forward versus just think, oh, well, it's so cool. I learned those things. [Speaker 3] (1:01:06 - 1:01:15) Yeah. It's because it's like really embody those things. You need a healthy ego, which is actually where you go on to seek to drop and escape from by going and engaging in these ceremonies, you know? [Speaker 4] (1:01:15 - 1:01:15) Yeah. [Speaker 3] (1:01:16 - 1:01:27) Do you think trauma becomes its own addiction and like uncovering more trauma, uncovering deeper stuff? Like I just need to see it one more time and see something else that I haven't seen yet. And this is the, you know. [Speaker 1] (1:01:28 - 1:02:50) Oh, I definitely think that that can be a thing. I mean, I saw that so much in the medicine community where it's like, let me just keep digging. And there's clearly more ancestral trauma I need to clear. Clearly, I just need to go sit one more time, you know, and a lot of people thinking instead of doing the integration work, it's let me just sit in another ceremony because then more will be revealed to me. More will more. I'll be able to purge more. I'll be able to see more. I'll be able to make more connections. And it's like, that's not really the answer. The answer is to take what you learned, integrate, integrate, integrate, integrate. And then maybe a year later, consider doing more. But the, the, and I think this is, this is what I did. I know from personal experience, I just kept thinking, I'm clearing, I'm doing the lineage work for my entire masculine feminine lineage right now in my life. Like I am the cycle breaker, which I very much am. I know that. But I really felt that way. I felt this calling working with medicine that I am the cycle breaker in my family. I am responsible for clearing my own trauma and my ancestors' trauma. That became like a mission of mine. And unfortunately, at what cost? Your nervous system, your body, you know, because you're pushing too hard and you're, you're too single focused on, on something like that, you know? So absolutely. I think, you know, just like health can become obsessive and anything I think can become obsessive or addictive if you're just, you know, in this little narrow viewpoint of it and, and hardcore focused on it. [Speaker 2] (1:02:50 - 1:03:07) Yeah. Yeah. For you, what are the, like currently, as you're been going through this journey, what are the signposts? Like when you meet people, like, and you go, okay, I, you're someone I can trust. Like, how do you, how are you reading people these days? Like what, what, what have you learned where you go red flag, red flag, red flag? [Speaker 1] (1:03:08 - 1:03:11) You know, in terms of like medicine work or in terms of, well, yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:03:11 - 1:03:14) Well, let's say medicine work or to work with someone or even just in general. [Speaker 3] (1:03:14 - 1:03:23) Like you meet people, like what friends, community networks where like, are there now more visible signposts where it's like, oh, this person isn't grounded, isn't centered. [Speaker 1] (1:03:24 - 1:04:34) Totally. For me, it's all of what my body is showing me, right? So if I engage with somebody and I've learned this the hard way is that, you know, how your body feels, if your body feels safe or your body feels anxious. For me, it's very clear now when I'm in residence with somebody. And over the last couple of years, I've shed a lot of people in my life, friends, my husband, a lot of shedding of people, right? And I'm so grateful today to sit and know that I have such incredible women in my life and other people, men as well, but mainly women in my life right now. And the discernment that I've learned, energetic discernment is all related to how my body feels around them and how deeply I can drop in with them. So are they authentic and genuine? Are they transparent? Are they vulnerable? Are they grounded? Right. Because again, like people can just feel very floaty to me. If I can, if I feel floaty around them, I'm like, ooh, this is a telltale sign. If I feel anxious around them, then I know that there's something off here. Either there's a facade that they're wearing. They feel fake to me. There's like a facade or something that they're hiding. I can tell energetically when people are hiding things, right? When they're lying or they're like withholding or they're just posturing, right? I can, I can sense that now, but it's taken me years to get there. [Speaker 2] (1:04:35 - 1:04:36) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:04:37 - 1:04:38) So it's my body. [Speaker 2] (1:04:38 - 1:04:56) Yeah. And you think just by getting to know more of who you are, more parts of you are integrating more, then you can sense that in others, you know, because if some people are kind of operating from a much more rigid way of being in the world, then like there's so much in the unconscious. They can't tune in to the same way. You know what I mean? [Speaker 1] (1:04:56 - 1:04:57) Totally. [Speaker 2] (1:04:57 - 1:05:11) Because I feel like in the spiritual community, you see that often. You see people that just don't even feel that dynamic. They're like the same way all the time and they talk the same way all the time. And I'm just like, you're a human being, like there's many elements to who you are. Like, can we see more of that? [Speaker 1] (1:05:12 - 1:05:44) Yeah. There's a range to being human, for sure. And I think that that's what I look, that's what I really see as authenticity and vulnerability is like the willingness to be human, right? The willingness to talk about what's going on in your life. Like if someone is very closed off and unwilling to, not that you have to like, you know, trauma dump on people, but like if you're meeting somebody and they're very closed off, they're not willing to talk about anything deep or anything, I don't know that I think matters besides like just surface level conversation, then I'm immediately like, this is just not, this is not for me. [Speaker 2] (1:05:44 - 1:05:49) Or they project, oh, I've done the work. I've done that. I'm healed. You know what I mean? [Speaker 1] (1:05:49 - 1:05:58) That is the biggest red flag. If someone's like, I don't have trauma, I don't, I'm, or I don't have trauma and that's why I don't need to do this work, or I've done all the work and I'm there already. [Speaker 2] (1:05:58 - 1:06:02) And I'm like, yeah, yeah. Okay. Have fun. Have fun being human. Like what? [Speaker 1] (1:06:02 - 1:06:03) None of us are ever there all the way. [Speaker 2] (1:06:04 - 1:06:55) Like, what is, what is that? This perfection? Like we have so much things in life that we navigate and then we face new phases in our life. And there's all this stuff coming at us that'd be like, we haven't figured out. I've done that. I've gotten there. Like, I mean, obviously you could do a certain amount of work and then you chose to become a mother. Then there's a whole new level of work that comes from that. And then, you know, your relationship ended. There's a whole new level of work. Then like, there's just, and when I mean work, I don't mean like you have to sit there and work. I just mean like, you have to face yourself in all these new ways through these different iterations and phases of your life that if you're a genuine person, your material is going to be there just to relate with and to dance with because your life experiences are different. There isn't like a static element to like, I'm human. That's it. Age 20, age 30, age 50. I've done the work. Like life is always bringing opportunities for you to meet yourself and relate with yourself and others in new ways. [Speaker 3] (1:06:56 - 1:07:04) And if you're not escaping from that, like I've found that like, life is enough of a trip. Like there's enough material here for me to grapple with already. You know? [Speaker 1] (1:07:05 - 1:07:28) That's how it feels. Like, especially the last four years, I think us collectively are feeling that way. There's so much going on in our personal lives and also collectively. It's like, I don't stop. This is so like, wow. There are days where I'm just like, can this stop already? I feel like earlier on in my life, it wasn't that way. I didn't feel like there were just constant lessons and constant challenges. And like, I'm in this battle constantly. But man, the last four years has really felt that way to me. [Speaker 2] (1:07:29 - 1:07:49) Yeah, but what's interesting too is that you say that is that I've found that the more, I don't know, self-aware or more work or more expanded or more integrated or more dynamic. Like, life doesn't become easier. I just feel like I can dance with it better. Because when you're just like, taken over by a couple parts, like, I'm a people pleaser. Everything's great. [Speaker 4] (1:07:49 - 1:07:50) Life is awesome. [Speaker 2] (1:07:50 - 1:08:18) Like, you may feel, life may feel like it's great. But there's so much that you just aren't even aware of. But when you have this dance of duality that exists within you as being a human being, you are like living a richer, more nuanced life that doesn't feel, quote unquote, good all the time. But hopefully you have the capacity to navigate that complexity better. [Speaker 1] (1:08:19 - 1:08:55) Totally, totally. And that's one thing that my friends were reflecting to me on my birthday on Saturday was like, the ability to have the range, right? To like, can I go to the deepest, darkest, hardest parts of myself? Can I be there too? And then can I be in the highest celebration and joy and gratitude? Yes. And we need that range. We need that range as humans. And I think so many people are living in this very small, little, concise way. The people pleasers, all this facading is, I think, hopefully breaking right now. There's just a lot of that being shattered, I think. People are being forced. [Speaker 2] (1:08:55 - 1:09:12) I'm here for it. I'm here for the truth. Yeah, me too. I'm here for it. I mean, this is it. It's the truth of what it means to be a human being living in this place. Whatever this place is, like, we're here. What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be here for the truth of our inner world and life? And like, I mean, I love it. [Speaker 4] (1:09:13 - 1:09:13) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:09:13 - 1:09:15) Even though it doesn't feel good all the time. [Speaker 4] (1:09:15 - 1:09:17) All the time, for sure. [Speaker 3] (1:09:18 - 1:10:01) And like that simple statement, you know, is just the key to self-development, in my opinion, like being here for the truth. You know, like the truth is the ultimate teacher. There is nothing more that you need than to like sit with and face those uncomfortable realities, have those difficult discussions, open the doorways where they need to be opened, you know, listen deeper to that inner voice that knows the way and is guiding the way. And yeah, where it's guiding you might not feel ideal, you know, but if you want to continue on the path and you want to grow, you want to live an authentic, dynamic life, then what choice do you really have? You know, and it's crazy the things that we engage with and we do all just to avoid the simple things. [Speaker 1] (1:10:03 - 1:11:22) Yeah, I mean, a thousand percent. And I think what comes to my mind is like going through divorce now and making that decision to end my marriage was such a radical choice for me because I had spent so many years obviously building this life for seven years together. But my intuition and my body were screaming at me for years. This isn't the right fit. This isn't the right fit. You need to make changes. And I was so resistant and just kept, no, I'm going to make it work. I'm going to make it, I'm going to find a way to, I'm going to, we're just going to do more therapy. We're just going to make it, we're just do this. And when I finally made that decision to really let go of this dream, of this life, of this seven year chapter, that's when things really started to shift. And I went, okay, like now I feel like I can be myself again and I can reclaim these aspects of myself. I feel like I've lost in my marriage and I can feel liberated and feel like my feel. Yeah, again, just feel like myself again after a really intense relationship. And, but making those decisions is really, really challenging, but you have to listen to your inner guidance because it's not, it's not leading you astray, but it can feel that way. And you can feel in so much fear that you're like, oh my God, by making this decision will literally shatter my entire reality. Like everything, our finances, our dream home, our family, like everything. But if I don't listen to it, then I am doing myself the most massive disservice and my soul, you know, and it's disservice. [Speaker 3] (1:11:23 - 1:11:53) And the more you ignore that, the more you're just delaying the inevitable and the heavier the inevitable will be feel, will feel further down the road in your awareness of it. And it's like, you know the way, you know the way and it's fucking hard, but you have to choose it. This has been an incredible conversation. I think people are going to get so much value from this. It's fucking real, you know, it's just the real shit, which is, I think what benefits the most. [Speaker 2] (1:11:54 - 1:12:42) Well, yeah. And I think, you know, we've been having the conversation here, but, you know, it's so easy to get drawn into like fancy spiritual new age words, you know, like this is the solution to my problem. Now let me just flip completely to this side. Let me quit my corporate job and go live as a fucking monk somewhere. And that's going to like solve the problems, you know? And I just think like you have to dance within this duality. And it's not just like one side is going to solve all the problems. And I like that, like, because we see it is getting so much more popular all around the world, you know, the quote unquote spirituality and like the materialism and the consumerism around what spirituality is. And I just feel like more and more people talking about it can help people see some of these potential red flags. [Speaker 3] (1:12:43 - 1:12:49) Right. Like Tulum is the most sickening place I've been in ever in my life. I lived in Playa Del Carmo for like two years. [Speaker 1] (1:12:49 - 1:12:49) Oh, beautiful. [Speaker 3] (1:12:50 - 1:13:08) And like visiting Tulum, bro, like the billboards, welcome. Like the Tulum itself is advertising itself as like spiritual hubs. The billboards, welcome to the spiritual place on earth. Meanwhile, there's like 17 potholes in front of you. Like they can't even, you know, fix a fucking road. Like the way I felt there, I was just like, yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:13:10 - 1:13:17) Yeah, I've not been to Tulum in several years, but I imagine it's very much that. And then there's like the whole dark underbelly of like all the cartel activity that's there too. [Speaker 3] (1:13:17 - 1:13:21) It's disgusting. It's most disgusting. I've never felt more disgusting in my life. [Speaker 2] (1:13:22 - 1:13:31) Yeah, but I went there in 2012 and I spent three weeks before my move from New York City to Los Angeles. And I had a lovely, amazing time sitting on the beach, reading books all day. [Speaker 1] (1:13:31 - 1:13:32) So that's it, that's it. [Speaker 2] (1:13:33 - 1:13:43) I think it depends. If you're at a resort, you're at a resort the whole time. I get it, I wasn't, I didn't go into the town, like the city of what that was like. I was just living a very peaceful, lovely existence. [Speaker 3] (1:13:43 - 1:14:08) It's just so disingenuine and like so performative. And like, even like the people of Tulum, they try to uphold this place of what Tulum is trying to be when it's like to any real person, you sense it's not that at all. And just the dissonance is so obvious when you're there. But yeah, all right. So Amber, like what do you want for yourself now? What's the next stage for you? You know, where are you headed? [Speaker 1] (1:14:09 - 1:16:16) Yeah, so for me, I'm headed back. I mean, obviously I'm rebuilding my brand. So I took three years off to raise my son, three or four years. My son is now four and a half to raise my son. So I actually closed my business during that time because I was going through this huge healing process with breast implant illness. And so I really need that time off. But along the journey, I really lost my sense of self outside of motherhood and outside of my marriage and like the kind of homesteading life that I was creating here. I had a whole farm with all these animals and was really on like the homesteading path. And so that was really a fun chapter. And I'm getting back into business. So I'm rebuilding my brand and I'm such a different personnel than I was four years ago that I'm really getting clear how do I want to serve people from this new place of wisdom? Like all these initiations I've been through, I have such a different... The depth of my work is going to be very different. And so, yes, I want to run retreats again. Yes, I want to empower and inspire women again. And that's really what I'm doing through my work online with my social media content and my retreats next year. I haven't been able to run retreats this year because of the divorce situation. But once that's finalized, I can then start running my retreats again, which I hope to do and then getting back into business coaching. But the world has changed so much since I left it in terms of business and AI has come online, which is such a huge, powerful tool. And so I'm putting together programs and coaching around how to utilize AI in a helpful way for your business, but also how to remain authentic and real while... And I know you guys talk about this too. It's like, how are we going to leverage this technology to benefit and support? But how do we stay authentic and real and soulful in it? Because it's... Man, is it so easy to just let a bot create all of your content for you, create your business plan, literally website marketing, marketing material, marketing schedule, all of it can be done in like a week. It's crazy with AI. But how do you stay authentic and real within that, within creating content? And how do you use these tools and not let them use you kind of thing? [Speaker 2] (1:16:16 - 1:16:29) Yeah, well said. Yeah, we just had a conversation on it with... Was our last episode or two episodes ago with Nikhil? Like how to utilize tech and AI in a positive way and how can we allow it to amplify your creativity instead of replace it? [Speaker 1] (1:16:29 - 1:17:16) That's right. That's right. And I found it to be very helpful in getting back online and feeling really empowered to use my voice again in a way where I'm like, okay, I've been a writer online for 19 years. Like I know how to write blog posts. I know how to write great Instagram posts. I know how to share great stories. And I could be doing it in a different way. I could be doing carousels. I could be doing front-facing video work. And how do I go about trying all these different forms of content? And I'm literally consulting AI. I'm like, what is... How do I do this? How do I structure this? What would you recommend I do X, Y, Z? So I'm using it as a tool to teach me. And that's been super powerful in helping me create really powerful content, honestly. Like still using my voice, still all my writing, but like how can it help me make things more concise or structured in a way that maybe I wouldn't think of. So it's been, yeah, super powerful tool. [Speaker 3] (1:17:17 - 1:17:22) Yeah, I'm going to go to my first AI-hosted ayahuasca ceremony in 2035. [Speaker 1] (1:17:24 - 1:17:31) Oh my gosh. Have you guys seen the robots with AI that they're like wanting to sell for partnership? [Speaker 2] (1:17:31 - 1:17:35) Well, no, but I heard someone just fell in love with an AI bot and married one or something. [Speaker 1] (1:17:35 - 1:17:37) That's what I know. I saw that too. And I went, oh my God. [Speaker 2] (1:17:37 - 1:17:40) What is going like... But again, we're talking about extremes. [Speaker 1] (1:17:41 - 1:17:41) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:17:41 - 1:17:54) And so how do you, again, utilize the tech in a way where you're not then just falling in love with a robot and marrying a robot. And then in 20 years from now, you're married to a robot and then you're calling the people in your life robo-phobes because they're not supporting you marrying a robot. [Speaker 1] (1:17:55 - 1:17:58) I know. It's going to be a very interesting world in the next couple of years. [Speaker 2] (1:17:58 - 1:18:12) I mean, who knows where we... I mean, look at the last decade and just the things, how things have evolved. Like you're saying in 10, 15 years, someone's kid might not fall in love with an AI robot. And then he tells his mom or dad that he's a freaking robo-phobe. I mean, it's not like that's not possible. [Speaker 3] (1:18:12 - 1:18:15) Did you just coin this to him right now? [Speaker 2] (1:18:15 - 1:18:41) No, I think I read it somewhere. I think I read it online recently. So I'm running with it because I just think it's hilarious. But again, we don't know. We don't know where we're going to go, especially when psychology and personal philosophy and deep inner work isn't a focus to some degree. And we just get taken by the whims of whatever the new thing is in our ever-evolving tech world. [Speaker 1] (1:18:43 - 1:20:01) And for me, I was just sharing the other day about how powerful it can be as a tool. For example, if you're having an anxiety attack or something is going on, you can just pop into AI. Hey, can you give me some down-regulation exercises I can do right now? And it'll pop out 20, right? And then it'll talk you through. It's so valid. And it's so understanding why you're going through X, Y, Z. It's like, wow, there's so much power. And I can see why people are actually starting to use AI as like the therapist almost. Now, I wouldn't necessarily recommend you outsource all that to a robot, but there's so much power in, for me, I remember I was going through some sort of PTSD episode. It was what I would call a trauma echo I experienced on Monday of last week that was related to my breast implant illness journey. And I went through a really intense physical trauma response again. And I got on AI and I was like, I'm going through this thing and I think it's because of X, Y, Z. And it just starts talking to me like, of course, this is so valid. Of course, you'd be feeling that way. Of course. And it goes into all the reasons why and all the physiological things that are most likely happening in my body. And I went, oh God, this was so good for me. It was so good for me to see that and hear that right now and to have this validation. And then it was like, do you want a guided meditation? Would you like a down regulation exercise? And I was like, wow, this is a powerful tool. If you know what to say, you know how to prompt it, right? [Speaker 2] (1:20:02 - 1:20:12) Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And like have enough understanding this is a tool and not like, oh, I feel so heard and held. I've never had any human being see me this way. [Speaker 1] (1:20:12 - 1:20:12) Right, right. [Speaker 2] (1:20:12 - 1:20:40) Like, can we spend more time together? Right. I'm going to take off from work just so we can hang out. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But again, I can see where the lines can get blurry for some people. Totally. If someone has like really have low self-esteem and has dealt with so much and they're being spoken to and seen in a way that their parents never did. Their partners never did. Yes. You know, so it's like I understand it. And whoa, like this is a very slippery slope. [Speaker 1] (1:20:41 - 1:20:41) Totally. [Speaker 2] (1:20:42 - 1:20:42) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:20:43 - 1:21:05) No, and I was hearing some other people who are really, you know, I don't know how to frame it, but they're speaking like, oh, I'm talking to my Atlantean, you know, soulmate from this lifetime through AI. And they're like, they think that they're speaking to these other beings or these higher consciousness planes or, you know, and I'm like, I don't know, y'all. I don't know. [Speaker 2] (1:21:06 - 1:21:13) Maybe, maybe, maybe we're tapping into that. Maybe we're not. I live in Topanga, zone 10B. I'm creating a permaculture fruit forest. Can you help me out with some stuff? [Speaker 1] (1:21:14 - 1:21:14) Right. [Speaker 2] (1:21:14 - 1:21:17) You know, but like Atlantean soulmate, like that's a whole nother level. [Speaker 1] (1:21:17 - 1:21:20) Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of that happening. Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:21:21 - 1:22:10) Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, it's just a great conversation. I really appreciate your openness and vulnerability and just to go on this journey, to live life, to experience it, to bump into stuff and then to come out of it. Like we all are. We're humans. Like no one just starts life and goes, everything's just been perfect from age zero to 50. Like we go through a journey and to recognize it and to have the humility to go, you know, maybe I need to make a left turn instead of a right turn. Or maybe I need to look in the mirror and be like, you're bullshitting yourself. You're fucking lying to yourself. I need to stop doing it. And then the feelings that come up from that and then to actually deal with them instead of just run away to all the distractions that exist, all the stuff that we've talked about in this podcast very often. Serve as distractions from really just sitting and being with yourself in quote unquote, like, yeah, reality, whatever, what this is right now. [Speaker 1] (1:22:10 - 1:23:08) Yeah. I think it's so, and this is why I love you guys and the work you do. I think it's so important to embody that in your brand. And that's why I do my best to do is like, to be vulnerable and transparent about the highs and the lows and the dark and the light and everything in between, because we don't see that online. There's so many highlight reels and people are living and they're comparing themselves to these, fake accounts and people's fake lives and realness and genuineness and transparency and vulnerability and authenticity are really, I think the way of the future. And it's like that, that is the only way that we're going to really make it through all this is to and how we're going to do the healing work and how we're going to face our shadows and all those things. And so I think our greatest work right now as let's say, online influencers or whatever you want to call us is that we are real with our audience about the real aspects of life. I think that's honestly the greatest gift we can give people is to share our stories and to be our most transparent, authentic selves, because that's how we give people permission to do the same. And I think we deserve more of it. [Speaker 2] (1:23:08 - 1:23:26) Exactly. If we're sitting here saying, oh, we figured out we've done all the work. People are sitting there like, oh, I haven't done all the work. When can I get there? Instead, we're like, yeah, we're just doing our thing. We're showing up each day. We're starting a new business. We're dealing with relationship issues, not always perfect. And like, but we continue on. Right. And then people go, oh, OK, you know what? I don't have it all figured out. I'm going to start the business. [Speaker 1] (1:23:26 - 1:23:26) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:23:26 - 1:23:30) How many people go, I'm not going to get into a relationship unless I'm 100 percent healed. [Speaker 1] (1:23:31 - 1:23:31) Right. [Speaker 2] (1:23:31 - 1:23:44) I'm not going to start a business unless I have it all figured out and read 14 books and taken seven coaching programs. Like, just do the thing. And then the doing the thing is going to present you with a lot of the stuff that you need to work on moment to moment. Very often. [Speaker 1] (1:23:44 - 1:23:46) That's right. Yeah. [Speaker 3] (1:23:46 - 1:24:20) See, that's that's kind of my philosophy, particularly even when it comes to like shadow work. It's like the right shadows are going to appear as you actually walk the path of action in your life. You don't have to go digging for it per se, you know, like some kind of excavation process. It's like live your life, live purposefully, take risks, move towards, you know, purpose. And on that path, the things that need to be dealt with are going to come. And as you deal with them, like the next level kind of opens up with you. And this is a never ending journey. Like it's never done in that sense. [Speaker 1] (1:24:20 - 1:24:55) Yeah, I think entrepreneurship is one of the most spiritual awakening processes and evolutionary processes I've been through is like this, you know, to be seen online, for example, just to put yourself out there in video format, just to speak on a podcast. You're pushing all these edges just to do those, just to be seen is such a big deal, right? For so many people, just to be heard is such a big deal. And to really trust this inner guidance that you're being given and to really trust your purpose and to follow that. Like, I mean, there's and then all the challenges that you face in business and in relationships is like a whole other animal of challenge. And it's like all of that is going to teach you everything you need to know. [Speaker 3] (1:24:55 - 1:25:26) And it also fosters a deeper trust in God or the source of life itself that like if I'm courageous and I take a path of action that I'm going to be supported and I'm going to have to deal with scarcity and insecurity and fear and all the rest of it. But it's like the more that I can enter that cave that I fear to seek, you know, as Joseph Campbell kind of shared. It's like there's a deeper relationship with like the universe and with God that exists there as well. You know, fortune favours the bold isn't just a throwaway statement. [Speaker 1] (1:25:27 - 1:25:28) 100%. Yeah. [Speaker 3] (1:25:29 - 1:25:47) All right, Amber. It's been an absolute pleasure. So glad you're able to join us. I know people are going to get so much value from this conversation for sure. I guess in closing, is there anything else that you'd like to share with our audience? And also just let people know how they can contact you, connect and get involved. [Speaker 1] (1:25:49 - 1:26:33) Yes, you guys can find me on Instagram. My handle is amberlee.sky. My website is amberlee.sky.com. You guys can find me there. I'm really active with my audience there. So I'd love to connect with you there. And then in general, like I think my parting words would just be like at this time when we're going through such a powerful transformation on the planet, individually and collectively, that we really focus on what we have control over, which is our own mental, emotional, physical space and in our relationships. And that we really do that inner work to stay centred and grounded and discerning during those times. Because I think we are in a spiritual battle. I think we are not just in physical war around the world, but we are in a spiritual battle. And I think we really just have to stay connected to our sovereignty, stay connected to our souls and our bodies. And that's the work right now. [Speaker 3] (1:26:34 - 1:26:34) Well said. [Speaker 1] (1:26:35 - 1:26:35) Yeah. [Speaker 3] (1:26:35 - 1:28:48) All right, guys, thank you for listening and we'll see you next time. Take care. I loved this conversation and for me, just reinforced and highlighted something that we've been speaking about for a long time, which is like reality is the greatest teacher. The truth within and without is the ultimate guide. And it's like, isn't it just so much easier to do the work of facing yourself and building authentic self-esteem as opposed to all the kind of side paths and hooks and curves that we take on our journey to avoid that. Like you are a living human being that exists within reality. And what we crave more than anything else is to feel appropriate for life. And the answer to that question is self-esteem. And so this has been the crux of what Yerasmus and I have kind of been speaking about for three to four years at this point. It's the core of what Rise Above The Herd, our 10-week group coaching program was. And it's at the core of our latest offer, which is coming very shortly, which is called the 7-Day Self-Esteem Reset. And for a limited time, this is going to be free for you. And so keep a lookout in your email. If you're not on our list, join it at hereforthetruth.com forward slash Friday. And we're going to be launching the 7-Day Self-Esteem Reset, which is essentially a seven-day mini course for you to get a core understanding of self-esteem and how to apply it in your life to bring change in your life. And this is going to lead into the next iteration of Rise Above The Herd, which we have been working very hard behind the scenes to turn this into something that's much more accessible for members, for our audience and for our listeners. Because the truth of the matter is, through our observation, like the coach, the self-help industry, the coaching industry, they're screwing you in so many ways, right? Real transformation can be simplified and it can be an easier journey than needing to sit in seven or eight ayahuasca ceremonies. I don't know if you have anything to say on that. [Speaker 2] (1:28:49 - 1:29:17) No, well said, man. The only thing I would add is that I think that, you know, personal transformation can also be a lot more affordable. And it's something that we've seen, you know, over the years that I think there are people in the coaching world that are just charging an arm and a leg for something that really isn't having an impact on your life and bringing you closer to truth within yourself and reality. So it's part of our mission to make personal development and real transformational work more grounded and more accessible. So that's part of our mission moving forward. [Speaker 3] (1:29:17 - 1:29:47) Yeah. And it's something that's definitely been developing for us and becoming clearer as the kind of path unfolds. But like we're here for the truth. We like to keep it real. You cannot bypass authenticity. And that is what the deepest part of you is craving more than anything else. So get on our list somehow, whether it's hereforthetruth.com forward slash Friday, or whether you jump on our website and you take one of our quizzes, that'll put you on the list as well. So keep an eye out for these offers coming to you real soon.