This blog will be a little bit more personal – a personal story of the way my life used to be, the reason i’m doing these blogs/videos.

It’s not just because i don’t have anything else to do, it’s also not because i make money of this, not off YouTube for sure and very little from Ayahuasca retreats, most of the money that comes here stays in the community.

The retreats are run by the Shaman, a group of facilitators from which i am sometimes part of, giving i live half of my year in Toronto and the other half here in Colombia.

My main work is something a little bit different.

So, why am i doing this? Why do i share so much about plant medicine? Why seek to educate people? Why promote it so fervently?

Well, some years ago, my life used to be very, very different, not to say it was a bad life, i actually really enjoyed the life i had created.

I was a tattoo artist in Toronto and i was making very good money, i had a very consistent basis, 2-3k dollars a day. i was dating a woman that i thought i was in love with and working out with a gym trainer.

I was in very good shape and health, so i thought i made it, i thought that life couldn’t get better.

However, even though life was good, it was riddled with a lot of unhealthy things, i was partying way too much, i felt like i had a sex addiction and i was addicted to women.

I also realized that i was very numb, so i couldn’t enjoy myself if i wasn’t drinking, doing drugs or having some very intense experience.

A few times i got to a point where (not by intention, of course) i couldn’t control how many substances i ingested, i ended up overdosed and waking up in a park in a few hours or the next day.

I was very close, on a couple of occasions, to go to the hospital because i was playing around with alcohol and drugs.

And i had a very bad breakup around that time of my life, this breakup was very, very painful because i felt that i deserved it, i felt that it had been my fault to destroy or damage the heart of a woman that i really loved and really loved me.

This breakup brough me back to my home country, Colombia, to spend time with my family, just to have a space that would be free from bad influences.

When i was here, i remember that when i was younger i heard of this thing called plant medicine Ayahuasca.

I was in such a low point that i felt like no amount of coaching, therapy, positive thinking or spirituality could get me through.

I realized, “Hey, something radical needs to change, because this is not sustainable, i cannot keep living life this way, something has got to happen.“

So, i had heard from a lot of people that Ayahuasca has helped them in their journey, so i gave it a shot, i gave it a chance and my life changed.

I came into ceremony, feeling heartbroken, mostly a little bit confused like “Hey, why do i keep chasing these experiences, what else is there to life? what else is there to experience?“

“Is this all there is? just work, make money, have sex, take substances, disconnect for a little bit and do it all over again? maybe have children, i don’t know.“

Ayahuasca showed me that everything i have brought onto myself, every pain that i had suffered and every pain that i had dealt, was self-inflicted.

It showed me that it all came from one point and one point only, that was the point of connection from oneself.

I believe it is Dr. Gabor Maté that says “Trauma is when we disconnect from ourselves, it is not what happens to us but the disconnection that ensues.” and i concur.

If trauma is disconnecting from the self, Ayahuasca is a reconnection to oneself, to the heart of what’s important in life.

For a lot of people, this is the spiritual journey, Ayahuasca showed me that i am a lot more beyond just this mind, this body.

It showed me that i am also part of this beautiful nature, it showed me that i am so complete and so whole that there’s nothing i’m lacking and there’s nothing i’m missing.

Ayahuasca helped me cleanse my body and recognize that the traumas i was running away from were mostly carried in my imagination.

There was a memory of it that i had been repeating over and over again, they were present in my body because i had allowed myself to be enslaved by them.

It showed me that, in essence, there’s nothing to heal, because nothing is broken.

That every single one of those experiences that i considered horrible; the breakup, the overdoses, the pain, the anxiety, the mental challenges.

Every single one of those things brought me to a point where i was now ready to be done with that life, suffering taught me that there was something more, a lot more precious and valuable.

After that, my life just changed drastically, i reconnected with my family (whom i didn’t have a good relationship with) with my mom, my dad, my sisters and grandma.

I’ll come to Colombia, greet my parents, take the car, go to a party and meet up with some woman on dating apps, followed by just partying.

He allowed me to forgive things that had happened.

My childhood allowed me to have compassion for the people that were a part of my life, and at the same time, it allowed me to find deeper lover for the work that i do.

It allowed me to have clarity around my dreams and what’s important for me, way beyond money, it allowed me to end relationships that were not healthy for me.

Cut ties with women that were not specifically bad women, but they were a match to the trauma that was no longer a part of me.

Letting them go felt right for both of us, so…

In essence, Ayahuasca brought me back to my family, it brough a deeper sense of meaning and joy around what i do, clarity around the work that i’m here to do.

A relationship with a woman that i adore and that adores me, whom i feel fully aligned with, respected by and that i respect fully.

It allowed me to reconnect to the essence of nature, and something i never thought i would say, being a hardcore rebel and atheist, really disliking religion:

It brought me back to God, but not God as he was sold to me as a child, but to something greater, bigger, not as a belief but as a lived experience.

As something that i could touch, grasp, embrace in some moments, God as the source of creation and creation itself, the creator.

Behind all of this beautiful mystery, being in connection with that, i wake up every day with nothing but gratitude and a lot of energy to do what is needed.

What is important, what my heart calls for, with little to no fears around, moving in that direction.

Most of the compulsions that i used to live with are now gone.

And from a place of consciousness, life looks very, very different – it looks magical, it looks almost like a fairy tale.

If somebody had told me years ago that this would be my life i would laugh, because i thought life was about something else, i thought:

“I’m a party guy, i’m a ladies man, i’m never gonna settle” yet here i am, living in nature, making videos for people that i may never know, selling an invitation to drink a plant that comes from the jungles.

A medicine that has been used for thousands of years and that today, we have the privilege of drinking, experiencing and receiving, honoring the traditions.

This is why i share these blogs/videos, because in the same way that it changed my life, it changed my family’s life, as they saw what happend with me and became curious, eventually they joined too.

Mother, whom was suicidal, ended up turning her whole life around, depressed, anxious with fibromyalgia – today she’s one of the happiest, most grateful and healthiest women that i know.

She looks way younger than she did 5-10 years ago because she released a lot of the weight she was carrying.

It allowed for one of my sisters to let go of the anger she carried towards my dad, around a difficult divorce with my mother.

It allowed her to start opening up to her femininity, to her kindness, compassion, and her really big heart, not being afraid of opening up.

We have allowed a lot of our clients quit addictions; alcohol, drugs, cocaine, crack and heroin in some cases.

I could continue with this, but i realized that i could have saved a lot of years of my life if i had somebody share with me, guide me, invite me, in a way that was good, solid.

Because several years of my own pain and of causing some of the people that i knew a lot of pain.

This is why i record these videos, because i want to extend this opportunity to anyone who feels they need it, whether it is for healing, there’s something heavier going through.

Whether you just feel an unexplainable deep longing within, which is a spiritual path, something else is calling you, you don’t know what it is, even though your life is okay.

In essence, both healing and spiritual growth have the same thing in common, which is a deeper connection with ourselves, consciousness and coming back to love.

This is my story, i hope you’re enjoying these blogs/videos and i hope you understand a little bit more about my life.

Hope It wasn’t too boring – and if you’ve drunk medicine already and it has changed your life i would love to know what he has done for you.

I invite you, whether to work with us in Colombia or find a safe place that honors this tradition, that is trustworthy, the medicine is clean and they have your best interest in mind.

I encourage you to do it, then come back to this blog/video and share how it went!

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 go to: https://ayahuascacolombia.com/retreats