My Top Ayahuasca Insights after 14 ceremonies in 4 years

3 nights of plant medicine is something that I just got done doing. The first night was ayahuasca. The second night was ayahuasca. The third day was something called huachuma, which is, uh, San Pedro is also what it's commonly referred to, and it's a cactus. It's during the day that we do that, and it's so heart-opening. It's actually my favorite medicine, my favorite plant medicine. Um, but in this video, what I wanted to do is I wanted to share with you some of the top insights that I learned this year from doing ayahuasca. I normally, these last 3 or probably 3 years, every November I've done it. And this year what happened is, yeah, I went to Costa Rica, right when a lot of stuff was going on in the world. You know, there were certain states that were like shutting down and, you know, these rules that only so many people were allowed over and all this stuff. There's actually a hurricane that went through Costa Rica a week ago. And towards the end of that hurricane leaving was when we flew in. So there's all these variables that look like, oh, maybe this isn't going to happen, you know, but it, it did happen. It was amazing. It was so magical. I had so many life-transforming epiphanies. I've seen many people. There were 20-something other people here in Costa Rica as well that also had very powerful experiences. And the Wachuma day was literally the most transformative, magical, divine day of my entire life. And I want to share with you in this video some of those insights. And also maybe I'll share, yeah, some other people's insights as well, kind of, you know, just to show you what's possible with something like plant medicine. So with that being said, let's get into the video, right? All right. So welcome back to another video. My name is Aaron and I help people expand their consciousness. Now on this video, I want to share with you some of the top insights that I've had this year doing what is called ayahuasca or plant medicine. And I want to share with you, um, some of the themes that I've noticed in a lot of other people's lives that were there and just some of the things that you notice in general when you do something like ayahuasca. Now for me this year, first off, to even get to this location was a bit of a challenge and there was, there was quite a bit of trusting that came into consideration. Now what happened was, is we had this plant medicine retreat kind of planned and we have connections and knew some people that legally do it in Costa Rica that are just amazing shaman that have been doing it for 20, 30 years. And coming out here was such a journey and such a thing that got kind of got moved around. First off, we had some people that were going to be facilitating it. But there were some logistic things that fell through to where they couldn't leave the US to come to Costa Rica to do it due to passport, you know, something like, you know, the logistics like that. So originally we had all these people signed up 2 months ago and we thought we were gonna have to cancel it. And what happened was is we were kind of like, dang it, there's something about it that just felt so right. But, you know, I'm running that retreat with my buddy Victor Odo, who's also a YouTuber, and his wife Patty. And when we were planning this, you know, we were— what we're doing is we're inviting people that feel really called to do it. There's an application process. So people, you know, we had to really make sure that people are really doing it for the right reasons that wanted to do it. And what happened is, is we had everyone signed up, we had everything planned out, we had the, you know, the shaman, everything figured out for Costa Rica, but then things fell through. And last minute, Right before we sent out an email, I said, "Sorry, we have to cancel it." I had this idea because there's somebody that I know in Costa Rica that's one of the most amazing shamans that I've ever met from my years of going to a different place in Costa Rica where I met him. And basically, through just reaching out to this person, they have connected me to many, you know, many of the different of his family members in a way, and people that he's worked with before. And We had these amazing connections to where we were able to facilitate, oh, somebody else to do it and to facilitate it and to lead the ceremonies that have been doing it for 20, 30 years with different traditions. And it was just magical. Now what happened is even coming out to Costa Rica, first off, there was a hurricane that was here that just moved out a couple days ago. So as I'm checking the weather app a week before coming here, I'm like, oh, this isn't looking that great. But just once again, it was like, I just felt like this, you just gotta trust, I just gotta let go of control, let go trying to figure everything out in the future. And then another thing that happened is states were closing down. I was like, are we even gonna be allowed to travel? And we were like, let's just not check the news so that we don't get too, we're not butchering it up energetically by thinking about it a lot and stressing about it. But even coming out here, we flew into Liberia airport We got a rental car and we started driving. Now there's two ways to get to the part of Costa Rica we're in. There's like one way that's like, it was like 2 hours and 20 minutes on Maps. And there's another way that's like, that was like 2 hours on Maps or Waze or whatever. And, and it goes in differently into where we are. And the thing is, is we chose the quicker one, but we didn't know that we got literally 90% here. So we got that. And keep in mind, Victor and Patty, they traveled for 16 to 18 hours to get here. I went to Miami for a day so that then I only had a 3-hour flight here, but still it was like 2 days of travel for both of us in different ways. And when we got here, we got the rental car. Okay, only 2 hours. We'll go to the retreat center. We'll meet all the people that came. And, you know, because we're also leading it in a way, we have like talks that we're doing each day because there are people from our YouTube audience and stuff. And when we were getting on the plane, you know, we got here, we landed, we had the rental car. We then drove to that of where we are. However, 90% of the way we got here and then there was a river and that river was overflowed. And at this time of the year, we're not able to cross that river. So after 2 hours, 2.5 hours to get here, it took a little bit longer because there was a whole bunch of rain. We then did not know which way to, you know, we thought we were going to have to go all the way back around. So it's going to be like another 2 to 4 hour drive. And we're like, what? So then we found there was a way to go down under. So we start going down under on the maps, like there was another entrance into this, this place because it's kind of hard to get to. So we start going this other way. And once again, same thing, there was a river that came up and we were all feeling very impatient. This 2-hour drive turned into like a 5 or 6-hour drive. And we had 20-something people that we had come in, you know, subscribers and people that felt called to do the medicine that were kind of waiting for us at this retreat center and we weren't even there yet. And we were feeling resistance. We were on, some of these roads were kind of sketchy and bumpy and we had to have a four-wheel drive, all-wheel drive car just to get around. And what it really reminded us of though is when we were almost there, but then it didn't happen, what we realized is that a lot of times there's this expectation, there's impatience to get somewhere. And once we really let go of that impatience, and once we really accepted and kind of surrendered to the moment, there were some beautiful things that happened. The resistance began to leave. We then realized we were gonna have to go all the way back around, which would have been, we would have, it would have been instead of a 5-hour drive, like a fricking 8-hour drive. But what happened is we just kind of trusted. And when we were going down this one road, there was all these cattle and there was this guy that didn't speak much English, but I could kind of understand I kind of rolled down my window and he told us, he said, don't go that direction. If you go that direction, then the Rio, the river is too full. So we would have wasted another hour. And he told us this one unique road to go down that that wouldn't get us to where we needed to be. And it was just so divinely perfect. And what we really had to do was let go of control, let go of control and trust that we'll get where we need to be. And as we let go of that resistance, somebody told us the road to actually go on. And that reminded us so beautifully of plant medicine because plant medicine many times in the lessons that we get, a lot of times it's to let go of control. Anytime we try to control or expect something out of our lives, we create this resistance and this resistance is then projected out and other people pick up on it. And when people pick up on it, it sometimes will even resist them from giving you maybe what you want because you're feeling that resistance. And remember, the outer reality is always reflecting that back. And one of the biggest lessons I've ever learned from plant medicine is to let go of control, let go of trying to control things. The more I let go of control, the more divinity, the more the universe can actually bring to me. And that was one thing I shared on my talk that I gave when I was here one of the days. It was, it was about letting go, the letting go technique by Dr. David Hawkins, which is simply allowing the emotion to come up, feeling it, not trying to control it, and making the choice to let it go. And when you do that over and over and over again, it becomes, you start to become more free. You start to feel more free. And that's what has been a huge epiphany for me in 2020 has been letting go, letting go of the past, letting go of past relationships, letting go of past belief systems, letting go of the past childhood trauma. And that's been— that was such a huge epiphany for me. This year in general has been realizing that when I energetically am trying to control what other people, how people are like around me, when I'm trying to control the outcome of things, creating resistance that people can subconsciously pick up on that then has them feel that resistance and refrain from giving whatever that is. So the more free The more I've let go, the more I've realized that people come around, the more I've realized that the energy just changes as well. One of the other big huge insights I had was I had this realization that in many ways in my life, you know, right now I'm in a big transition. You know, I've been on YouTube for 3, 4 years making videos and as much as I love making videos, I realized that, you know, they can only make so many. I'm sure many of you listening to this, you know, I have 1,500 videos on the channel and sometimes the videos seem repetitive, you know, it seems like I'm talking about the same thing over and over again. And when you make 1,500 videos, it's kind of hard to always come up with new content. And it's almost kind of like I'm just realizing that the way, you know, I used to do daily videos on YouTube, now I do 3 a week. And first off, I felt a lot of almost guilt or shame, like I'm not good enough because I'm not able to continue to make daily videos in a passionate way. I could make daily videos, but they'd be even less, even more repetitive than how some of them already are. But what I realized is that because I'm in this transition of getting ready to start doing more live events, there's this community thing that I'm building, this new thing right now as well, which requires more of my attention and energy. So I can't put as much as I used to in YouTube, which I used to kind of feel guilty about. However, what I realized is that because I'm in that transition, I'm not completely leading and holding the frame in my life towards this vision, I've realized that I've been saying yes to a lot of things that may not actually be in alignment because it's almost like because I haven't developed my own frame of reality yet, I fall into other people's frame. And there's a couple of reflections I've had this in my life of the last like couple months, especially, you know, in Sedona, I moved in with one of my great friends. He's like a, you know, brother of mine. And that was something that, that was amazing. However, I realized that I have this tendency to kind of fall like, yes, we'll do this together. Then I'm realizing, wait, you know, I'm building like this next stage of my business. Like, I need my own space. I need my own spot so that I could do things like this and stay really focused. But I think that there's just like this pattern that I had to fall into these different things, you know. And even with this retreat, as powerful as this retreat was and as many people's lives that were changed from doing it, because I could tell like, oh man, there's like 22 people here and like every single one had powerful transformation. And it was so cool. But part of me realized that, you know, even deciding to do this retreat with my buddy Victor, Victor and Patty, you know, they have amazing retreats they do. And I kind of, you know, fell into it in a way. And I was excited too, because I love doing the plant medicine. However, I realized that my purpose isn't necessarily doing retreats. My purpose is doing events. 'Cause when I was doing the speaking parts of it, Victor and I each gave a talk each day during the day. I was so passionate, there's so much flow state. I do better when I'm one on many people and I can kind of like feel the energy of the room. And I kind of forgot that that's what my real passion is. And after doing these talks, like people would come up to me like, hey man, you're an amazing speaker. You should be speaking more, stuff like that. And I was originally kind of putting a lot of this to the side, the speaking, because I thought it was my ego that wanted to be like Tony Robbins. Like back in the day, I wanted to be like Tony Robbins. So I was like, oh, I'll make videos on YouTube and then eventually I will be a new version of Tony Robbins if I work my ass off for like 15 years, 20 years. That was the idea. And then I kind of like realized that that was an ego desire and I kind of let go of that desire. And was like, no, I'm gonna build this like company business thing and kind of be behind the scenes. But what I realized from this trip is that because of my lack of frame from my true authentic self, which is really making videos, if I can find different ways, you know, when everything happened at the beginning of the year, it kind of shut down the live events I was getting ready to move into. So I was like, oh, let me adapt. But I know now that what I'm really meant to be doing is speaking. And that now instead of my ego driving me to be like Tony, I'm like, I'm gonna be, and I wanna grow a movement or a mission. I don't want it to be just about me. I want it to be about a movement, about an idea. And that's something that I need to focus on and wanna focus on and hold the frame for. When I hold the frame for it, I think so many things are gonna gravitate in my life. And I won't say yes to things that don't necessarily resonate or I won't do things and fall into other people's frame. So the biggest epiphany that I had is like really get in alignment with what my heart is and just be aware of my own ego. And if that ego desire to be like Tony or whatever, I realized that I can let that go but still do what I wanted to do, which is speak. It's just that I'm going to speak and like share ideas and make it about an idea, you know, expanding consciousness, raising vibration, creating events where I'm not the only one speaking and connecting people all over the world. That like a high vibe tribe type thing, doing these things, but doing it in a live speaking type way is what I'm really passionate about. And I feel such a calling to do that now. But sometimes you have to go through these bumps where you don't understand the resistance you're feeling and things like that. But now I feel much more in alignment. So that was a huge epiphany that I had. And another huge epiphany was just the wachuma, which is a cactus. It's my favorite medicine ever. I feel such a deep connection to huachuma. I also feel connection to Peru, who the guy that was leading it was amazing. He studied in Peru for like 10, 15 years and connected to huachuma. He's like a living, walking cactus in a way, but I was just so inspired to be around his energy and to have it all day. It was literally from like 8 in the morning to like 2 in the morning the next day, we were on this beautiful medicine and it's just so heart-opening. And what happened is like you feel unconditional love when you're in it. When you have a belly of wachuma, it's very easy for you to love everybody. The problems in your life just kind of go away because you're in this unconditional loving state. And the thing that I was just learning is like there's walls that I had up. I've done some live events before And when I did these live events, what happened is I think there was some experiences where there were so many people that were like, you know, I know this sounds kind of egotistical, but there were like so many people that kind of wanted to talk to me and to share things with me. But I almost, in a way, it was kind of like I didn't have boundaries necessarily. So it was just constant people coming up and I was kind of like an experience where I kind of developed kind of a wall when I meet people. Subconsciously that, you know, know me for my videos and stuff like that. Just because sometimes, you know, to be honest, sometimes I'll be like at a grocery store or something and people may come up and say hi, and it's normally very cool and it's something I love, you know, talking, engaging with people. But sometimes I'll get someone that comes up that like wants me to, you know, like coach them in the middle of, you know, me buying my almond milk. Or I'll be at the gym and people will be asking me questions in between sets if I meet somebody. It doesn't happen all the time. I'm not like a I'm not like a, you know, some huge celebrity or anything, but I think I developed these walls where I've always kind of like when I'm around certain people that kind of know who I am, I kind of like had these walls up the first 2 days of these ceremonies when we're doing the ayahuasca. But the 3rd day for Wachuma, those walls broke down and I felt so connected to everybody there. And I realized that I imposed those walls without really knowing it because I've had some experiences where I felt like I was out of control or like people just, it was like my energy felt kind of depleted. So what I realized is that letting go of those walls and feeling connected to other people was something that I can just do by letting go of the walls, letting go and not believing I need protection from other people's energy and like having confidence in myself that I can navigate through the energy. So it was a very interesting thing, but as those walls went down, I felt so connected to everybody. It was just such a powerful, experience. It was so heart-opening, and it just, it was, you know, literally out of the 22 people, I'd say 21, almost every single person had like the most transformative experience of their life. And I think that plant medicine is very powerful. I think that not everyone is meant to do it. I'd say that as well. It should not be done by like your friend's friend that's done it 3 times. Like, we literally have been, we did it with shaman that have done it for 20-something years, and it's a very special sacred thing. And yeah, there's— it's just, it's so powerful. And, you know, my life definitely is transformed from doing ayahuasca. I've done it 4 years in a row now, and the first 3 years I did it 4 days in a row. This year I did 2 nights of ayahuasca, 1 day huachuma, and it never ceases to amaze me of how much transformation. It's really letting go of the old identity, letting go of control, and allowing things to happen in life. And it's really making and shining light on the shadow. When you shine light on the shadow, you become aware of these different aspects of you and you then become more free. And I feel more free than ever now that I've gone through it. This is literally one of the most powerful transformative experiences of my life, but I feel more clear on my vision than ever. I feel more motivated than ever to really, I have the confidence, the courage to let go of needing to always like create the most amazing YouTube videos ever because I want to create this other thing, this live speaking type thing. And it will require more of my energy. I'll still be making videos, but I'm not gonna put as much pressure on myself to like make videos that get views. And I think maybe people will feel that authenticity even though that, you know, even though it's not that same energy isn't there when I was just focused on YouTube, you know what I mean? So, Yeah, I just want you to know that I appreciate you and I appreciate you watching the videos and hearing me talk about this whole experience. And if you didn't know as well, I have something called, I know not everyone is gonna resonate with doing plant medicine 'cause it's something that's kind of scary to do, but I'm gonna make sure this video goes out for specifically like this next week, like Black Friday, you know, I feel kind of called to do this. I'm in Costa Rica right now. I'm getting ready to go back to the States tomorrow. However, there was something that I was inspired to make. It's called the SHIFT Experience. I made the SHIFT Experience about a year and a half, 2 years ago after I did plant medicine. And it brings, the intention is to bring you through your own plant medicine journey without needing plant medicine. So it's S-H-I-F-T, it's story, which are the beliefs about who we are. H is that of healing, healing the pain of the past, letting go of the energy. Of the past. I is intention, is the bridge to the new reality. Intention is really what shifts you to a new reality. F is frequency, the frequency of that alignment to that purpose of you being the most high vibrational you. And T is transformation. That's where you decide that's who you are now. There is no going back. And S.H.I.F.T., there are meditational exercises that are meant to mirror that using binaural beats, similar experiences in plant medicine ceremonies. That's what inspired me to make it. And right now what I wanted to do is if you're watching this video, if you watched it all the way to the end, then you can click the link below and you can get the Shift Experience at the cheapest price you will ever see it. I promise you that. And you can check it out and join it if it resonates with you. And if you want to have a similar type experience, you know, it doesn't, it's not the same, but it, you know, it is as close as you can get to letting go of becoming aware of your shadow, healing the pain of the past, and then wiring in a completely new identity. That's the goal of it, is a new high vibrational version of you. It was, yeah, something that I just kind of feel called to kind of link below. So if you wanna see it at the cheapest price you'll ever see it, click the link below. You can join right now. And it's something I feel kind of guided to do. But other than that, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Let me know if you wanna know more insights. I think I'll make a podcast episode with my buddy Victor. Aaron Doughty on this who will share his insights as well. If you'd like us to go ahead and click the link or go and let me know in the comments below. Other than that, I appreciate all of you being here and I'll talk to you later. Peace, much love, and namaste.