Is Ayahuasca safe? Am i gonna die? Is my friend or family member that is thinking of drinking Ayahuasca gonna die?

This is a question that runs through our minds if we’re considering to attend a ceremony or if someone loved/close to us is considering it, because we want to make sure that they’ll be fine, that they come back, that they don’t go “crazy“, that nobody takes advantage of them in South America.

Is life safe?

It may sound silly, but I invite you to really pay attention to this question because when i ask myself if something is safe, my stance is one of fear, one of “I may get hurt, one of these may be bad for me.”

Life itself has a lot of risks, a lot of dangers – and for sure there are things that are a lot less safe than others, motorcycle racing is a lot less safe than walking, however, when we are asking ourselves about Ayahuasca being safe we need to ask ourselves: “Safe for who?“

The answer personally, is that Ayahuasca is not safe, but not in the way that you may lose your mind, your body or you have a horrible experience and it’s gonna damage your system, no.

I believe that Ayahuasca is not safe in the sense that it removes the “layers” of protection.

Those layers that you may have placed around your body, especially around your heart when it feels very vulnerable, most of us are used to living life with a shell, a little carcass, a little armor around us, where life doesn’t touch us, doesn’t hurt us but very often we don’t feel it either, we become numb because we have to distance ourselves from life often.

Through trauma, painful experiences (from the past or currently). We fall in love and we’re betrayed then we think: “Okay, i gotta be careful, i cannot trust women/men.“

We are being taken advantage of at work or by a friend, then I close down a little bit more, I become more cautious, I withdraw. It’s normal, it’s a reaction, just not a conscious one.

But one that is aiming to keep us safe, most of what we do in today’s world is for comfort, safety and a little bit of excitement, we want a safe work place where it’s going to be good enough, peaceful enough and pay me in a stable way.

We want a safe house, we want to save the government, we want a safe relationship, perhaps with someone who’s not too wild, is nice and loving, more domesticated. But what we do when we try to reach for safety in all of the areas of our life is that we rob ourselves from the full depth of it.

Like in a relationship, you may have dated in the past or you may have been yourself a person that is extremely safe, whether there is a lot of intimacy, beautiful friendships, opening of the hearts, it happens effortlessly but you miss the passion, there’s not that excitement, there’s not that aliveness.

Because life and aliveness requires a little bit of of risk, playing life on the edge.

When we drink plant medicine, it’s not safe for those walls we have built, why? Because the medicine will usually destroy them, it will burst through them, it will make us face that which we’re afraid of, it will make us feel vulnerable (in a good way).

It may rip your heart open and show you that there was nothing to be afraid of – but the fact that we’re afraid to open our heart makes the experience challenging, it’s not safe because a lot of people end up changing their partners, their habits, their friends, their jobs, the place where they live.

It’s a very destructive process in the sense of the destruction that comes before creation.

The “Big Bang” was this massive explosion of chaos but also the creative point for all of life, Ayahuasca could be understood in a similar context, there’s a lot that is destroyed.

But it’s a constructive destruction, it’s a destruction that happens only to everything that is untrue and that is not you, confronted and destroyed.

Which means that all your nonsense, all your insecurities, all your fears, all your stories, all your traumas, all your attachments may be released. Depending on how deep you go and many other factors like how open you are to the process.

However, everything that is not the true essence of who you are, the true essence of your purpose, that true aliveness and vibration with which you came to walk on this earth. If it’s not this, then it’s gonna be gone.

It’s not very safe for the part of us that wants to play “faith“, that wants to stay in our comfort zone, that wants things to be gradually better, no.

Ayahuasca is not for people who want “better”, it is for people who want transformation.

And transformation means that it’s different, it’s not a little bit better, it will be radically new and better in contrast, but most often massively different.

Ayahuasca is for those willing to embrace risk, willing to play life full out and willing to let go and die to the person that are no longer serving them.

Is this safe? No, but like anything worthy in life, it isn’t.

It demands a degree of risk, a degree of trust and a lot of faith.

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