1. It’s not a magic cure:
   Ayahuasca is a great teacher/tool and it’s one that can cleanse:
   
   – Your mind
   – Your body
   – Your energies
   – Your emotions
   
   It can give you clarity into your suffering,
   Where it comes from, why you’re stuck in life, what you haven’t been able to let go to.
   
   And it can give you crystal clear clarity around where your pathologies, your disease, your tension, your conflict is coming from and give you explicit practical guidance on what to do about it, but it will not do it for you!
   
   At the end of the day it respects your free will and it gives you a map which shows you where you’re at, where you need to go – but at the end of the day you need to walk the path you seek, so the first thing you should know is that you need to be ready to do some serious work on yourself.
   
   Learning how to forgive, facing your fears, changing habits, change the way you see yourself, letting go of people, relationships, and toxic enviroments that don’t allow you to develop yourself.
   
   Be ready to understand that you’re at the root of everything that has happened, good and bad!
   
   
2. Not everyone’s experience is the same:
   Some people meet god, some people are going through heaven, ecstacy, bliss, some people are just vomiting violently…
   
   There’s no answer to how you’re gonna feel, however, the better you prepare, the deeper you’re gonna go!
   
   So if you only start your diet one or two weeks before your retreat, you’re probably gonna be the person that is vomiting violently and having a very physical reaction because the plant needs to clean you first before it can start acting within you.
   
   It’s like you’re moving to a new place before you can start painting the walls and redecorating, you gotta scrub everything clean; the floors, the walls, take out all the trash before you can put some nice plants and decoration. Maybe it looks very messy from your habits, your past experiences, maybe substance abuse, maybe unhealthy patterns of thinking, anxiety, depression – your system is so full of so much toxicity and so many toxic chemicals, these are the very things that it needs to get rid of!
   
   Maybe that’s what it looks like for you, vomiting and pooping a lot, however, if you prepare with enough anticipation, your experience can be very deep, very transcendental and mystic.
   
   Everybody’s experience is different, however, the better you prepare, the better you’re gonna go!
   
   
3. Where, whom, how:
   Where you do it, whom you do it with, how the medicine was prepared.
   Everything that goes into the creation of that experience from the Shaman’s side and from your own side has an impact.
   
   The way in which the tree was cut itself, some Colombians Shamans will not cut it without first doing an offering, without first praying to it, asking for permission, to cut it is a ritual.
   
   The way in which Ayahuasca is cooked in some places is similar to this, they just import it, ship it, from people who are preparing a hundred pots next to each other while they’re smoking a cigarette and talking nonsense in the jungle.
   
   Usually, it’s prepared in a virgin place of the jungle where nobody walks through to ensure that space is very pure, it’s also usually only prepared by the Shaman or by people very close to the Shaman that have undergone a process of preparation…
   
   Cooking it right from The Temple, the space where you do Ayahuasca, every pillar in a Malocca, every design of it’s architecture carries within it certain power!
   
   How you prepare your intention, are you really looking at this as your chance to break through where you are in your life, or are you just doing another psychedelic tourism, are you preparing with utmost dedication and discipline? or are you just taking it like it’s a joke? how much commitment are you putting into it before coming? how much of your heart are you putting into it?
   

How much commitment are you putting into it before coming? how much of your heart are you putting into it? Do you want transformation? – from the other side, how well prepared is the space, the temple, the medicine, the Shaman, the musicians, everything.

Everything matters and counts, so make sure that you do your research when it comes to the people that you’re going to sit in ceremony with and that when it comes to you, do your preparation as impeccably as you can, so that when you’re there there’s no part of you that is regretting not preparing better…

These are the three things that personally i wish i’d known before trying Ayahuasca, hopefully they were useful to you too!

And If you feel the calling to sit with Ayahuasca, in a container held by Colombian shamans at a sacred temple in the middle of the mountain forests, please check: www.ayahuascacolombia.com/retreats