Short answer is YES.

The research backs it up, it’s found that it’s a highly effective antidepressant, in one of the studies they saw 79% to 80% of improvement in their patients, and there was another one which was the first of its kind, it was a double bind, randomized, controlled placebo research.

This means that they are ruling out the bias, the statistically inference of different things that sometimes affect this kind of investigations and they found out that it really helps depression.

The answer is yes, now, how does it do it?

What is depression? A lot of people confuse depression with thinking that they’re too sad, they’re in a grieving state, what I found in some of my students and the people that we have worked with is that depression is not being too sad or too bad.

It’s often a feeling of numbness that starts to erode, a feeling of living in a kind of gray, mildly dark world where we question: “What’s the point of all of this?” “What’s the point of my life?” “What is this all for?“

Depression is often an unwillingness and an undesire (or a lack of desire) to do anything, a lack of motivation, a lack of excitement, amusement, love, appreciation, sometimes for life. We look at it as: “Maybe i got stuck with this” “Nobody asked me if i wanted to play this game and now i have this body.”

It’s quite correlated with suicidal ideation, but not always.

A lot of people just feel like: “Okay, this is it, life is cheating, what can you do?” The truth is that depression is mostly a lack of sensitivity, it’s not feeling too bad, it’s actually not feeling quite alive, not feeling quite stimulated, engaged and this happens not because there’s something wrong with you, but because there is something that you need to change or in the sense that there’s nothing broken with you.

Depression is often not a problem, but a solution that your body and your mind has found to shelter you from some intense pain, some intense sensation.

Depression is one of our mind’s last resorts at coping with a reality that can be overwhelming.

This can happen from the days that you are very young, it can happen as you’re aging, it can happen for many reasons but in essence, depression happens when the reality that we inhabit is one that is challenging to accept.

You can be depressed from a job that you really don’t like, to become depressed because of your work space means that there is something that you’re aching to do, something you would love to do, maybe work in a different place, maybe travel for a little bit, maybe give yourself a shot a chance at applying somewhere else, changing paces, changing places.

But you stay on the same thing over and over, if you became too sensitive you’d have a lot of anxiety, a lot of overwhelmness, maybe you’re very frustrated with yourself and your colleagues.

Depression becomes like the padding, the little carcass armor that we create around us so we don’t have to pay much attention, so we don’t have to be too present, when we’re at work and as we disconnect to cope with our reality we disconnect from all of reality, so we feel: “What’s the point of it all?”

We’re just going through the motions, that’s quite common when we’re in a depressed state, the same thing can happen being in toxic relationship, if you stick inside of it, if you don’t live when your partner treats you in a way that is not healthy, quite often depression is a very guaranteed side effect because you must be very numb to your situation or you must’ve trained yourself to numb out.

To stay in a situation that is not good for you, that is out of alignment because our system has immense intelligence and it will not allow us to stay for too long in a place that is not aligned with us, in a place that is not healthy for us.

Depression is a solution that our mind finds to cope with a reality that is painful, the problem is that it’s a solution that is not very pleasant and in the long term it can be quite devastating.

What Ayahuasca does (This is why some people may not be ready for this experience) is, it removes that carcass, it removes that shell, it removes the numbing part, it shows us how we’ve collected these layers of this connection and it allows us to face the truth of our heart, the truth of our emotions, the truth of our relationships, the truth for life.

This can be painful because it can mean that we have been for too long in a job that is not for us, a relationship that does not nourish us, it can mean that it’s time to move out of our families, it can be many things.

It’s time to stop doing a lot of things; drinking, partying, wasting our energy, time and resources on nonsense. It’s very different for each one of us but Ayahuasca can help you with your depression because it will remove the layer of numbness that you have unconsciously accumulated.

It will help you with your depression through pointing out the root of it, the place where you started to disconnect because you didn’t know any better and it will allow you to love those places, to integrate those places, to understand, it will teach you how to move forward.

Ayahuasca is a great teacher and as such he often leaves homework, which means: “Hey, you should stop doing this, you should change that.” Doesn’t say “should” but it shows you that it is of highest service to you and those around you to make different decisions.

In short, the research backs up that Ayahuasca is a very, very highly effective antidepressant, it seems that it may be far more than most current chemical antidepressants and pharmaceutical antidepressants, however, if you’re depressed and medication doesn’t work for you (which often it does, it often just numbs you, distracts you and it takes away the symptoms, but it doesn’t deal with the roots), you’re depressed and you’re considering Ayahuasca as a treatment method or any other plant medicine, then I highly encourage you to do it.

I’ve seen people that were about to kill themselves turn around way too many times to consider it, anecdotal evidence, now the research supports it, so you’re welcome to come sit with us in a ceremony or go somewhere else that is safe, however.

I extend to you the invitation, this is a safe experience that can change your life.

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