Jonathon de Potter - Plant Medicine Therapy

This is episode 198 of the Empowered Team Podcast.

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Welcome to the Empowered Team podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider.

Hello, Jonathan. Welcome to the Empowered Team podcast. We have here Jonathan Depotter and I am really excited for this interview, this conversation simply because I'm so curious about what we're about to dive into. So for our listeners, Jonathan is the founder and CEO of Behold Retreats. These are journeys of self discovery and transformation. And here's the key part. With the assistance of plant based medicines or therapies. So this is where we get to. I personally get really curious, but I want to allow you to expand on that a little more. Tell us a little more about you and how you became inspired to start the Behold Retreats.

Thank you, Kari. And yeah, absolutely, thank you so much for having me and looking forward to this conversation. You know, for me, I'm a bit of an unlikely candidate, I think in terms of the path that ultimately brought me to where I AM today. I grew up in Hawaii, which is a very substance rich environment. A lot of addiction problems, a lot of darkness around substance abuse. And so growing up in that environment and you know, with the American schooling system, I really felt like these were all, all substances were something to just stay away from. Psychedelics, alcohol, you know, there's so much weed use in Hawaii and it's all just got kind of this dark kind of. Ye. Yeah. Negative energy around it. Avoid. Exactly. My parents were actually more open minded. They were more kind of hippie ish in the way that they saw life. And so I went very much in the other direction. I was an atheist, so not spiritual at all. And I went straight into the corporate world when I finished university. And you know, so I had a very kind of Newtonian, rationalistic, quite a contracted, I would say now, worldview and kind of opinion of things and a strong opinion of things at that. And so, you know, for me, after about 15 years in the corporate world, you know, I found myself after five years in Hong Kong leading a large management consulting team. I just wasn't getting incremental joy for life from what I was doing. You know, chasing the next client, the next deal, the next thing, the next project, you know, climbing the ladder. There's so many, there's so many rungs on those ladders in those big corporations.

How did you know? Because it sounds like you're making progress in this corporate world and oftentimes that alone, this making progress feels amazing. How did you know in that moment that there was a missing? That the joy itself was a missing. What was the thing that kind of made you go or what were the things. Whatever it was.

Yeah. You know, I've never been asked that question before in that way. And it's really interesting because what immediately comes to mind is the absence of really high quality mentorship. I was super blessed through those first 15 years to have mentors that were operating at a stratospheric level above me and still believed in me and took the time and the energy to invest in me. So I was constantly on this massive upswing because of the learning curve was just so massive. And I was so grateful and so enamored by, you know, being able to lead a team of 10, lead a team of 50, lead a team of 100 is like, wow, what is happening here? And so, so there was that curve that was just being. Yeah, that, that I guess I was drafting on a number of different very high powered mentors and super grateful for all the experience that I was able to pick up from them. And so when they, as they kind of, I should say, dissipated around me there in Hong Kong, you know, they moved on to other opportunities. I just found there was a vacuum. Yeah, there was a vacuum there. I wasn't inspired by the people around me and above me anymore. And so I just, I just, at that point, yeah, there's, you know, there's a sort of collective energetic momentum that needs to be there with work. And so when that kind of dissipated to a large extent, the motivation to, you know, make a few more dollars for the company or myself just fundamentally.

Wasn'T there and didn't. And really didn't do it for you anymore as much as it may have before.

That's it. That's it. And it was, you know, I mean, the. Yeah, it was just the work became. It really became work as opposed to just fulfillment and enjoyment, which up until that point it really was like. I was a very hard worker at the time. You know, I don't work anywhere near as hard as that now, even though I've got my own company. But at the time I was up in the office by 7 and I wouldn't leave until 10pm most days. So it was pretty full on. But yeah, ultimately it was about the people and the inspiration that once that kind of came a little bit muddled then. Yeah, the inspiration just was gone.

So what was, I think in learning a little more about you, you took a sabbatical. Was this around the time you took a sabbatical and decided to venture off into South America and experience what some people may have heard of, some of our audience may not have heard of. But it's an ayahuasca retreat. And you did this in Peru. Is this around the time that that happened?

Yeah, exactly Right. So I remember one day, I think I went out drinking the night before. I remember one day.

Yes, drink a lot, then decide while you're drunk and then go and do the thing. Okay, got it.

Yeah. This is. This is not. Not advice. But I remember looking in the mirror and the first decision wasn't actually an ayahuasca retreat. The first decision was, I don't know what there is more to life, but there has to be something, and this isn't it. Like earning another dollar, another nice dinner, another night out. Like, that's just. This cannot be it. There's got to be something else. And I don't know what it is. I don't know where it was going to come from. So I just decided in that moment to take A year off. What would, what the universe would send me to fill that void?

Were you, now you can tell I'm curious here because were you in a relationship at this time? Was there any breakups around this time or anything like that? Because those are such huge. It's one of the main spheres of influence in our world. And you've spoken about the career sphere of influence, the work sphere, and how that's affecting your being and you know, alluding a little bit to the self sphere of influence. But there's this other one, the relationship. So was there anything there?

Yeah, I did have a girlfriend there for the majority of my time in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is very interesting in relation to relationships because it attracts a very certain type of person. And that type of person is super career oriented, generally from overseas, only there for a couple of years. And they're there, they're there for selfish reasons, fundamentally. And so the relationship dynamics in the city are, shall we say, not the healthiest. And so I think a lot of people find that and then ultimately most people don't last five years like I did. Most people 18 months, two years. And they're like, okay, this too fast paced, too high energy, not loving enough. It's cutthroat, you know, doing business, doing deals, got to travel every week for work. It's just exhausting. You know, some people say you age 10 years, years in two years when you're in Hong Kong.

Thanks. Okay, so back to the mirror. You're in the mirror.

Yeah, back to the, back to the mirror. So I decided in that moment I'm like, I'm going to take a year off. I don't know what's going to fill the void. Something is going to fill the void. And I decided to go spend a couple months first with my parents and then after that I decided to travel through South America. So I spent about six months traveling from Patagonia in the south of South America, hiking and you know, enjoying the beautiful locations throughout the, the countries there. And then, you know, while I was there, a friend said, hey, I'm going to come down and let's, why don't we spend some time together in Peru and we can, the three of us can, with another buddy and the three of us can go do an ayahuasca retreat. And I had actually heard of an ayahuasca retreat about 10 years prior. A friend of mine had gone and done it and had really changed her life. And it was at that time that that memory kind of came back and I was like, yeah, you know, I think. I think I'm open to this. And so I read a little bit online. There wasn't nearly as much information then as there is now.

And I was like, what year was this?

That would have been 2016, 2017.

And for people who are unfamiliar, so some people listening may not have a clue what an ayahuasca retreat is. So to just elucidate that a little bit. Explosion, expand on it. Because they might think retreat, they might think yoga, but an ayahuasca retreat is completely different. I have not experienced one. I have experienced some things, but not an ayahuasca specific retreat. So do you want to expand on it a little bit?

Yeah, sure. So ayahuasca is the combination of two plants, confusingly. One of the plants is ayahuasca, and then the other one is shukrona. And there's many different ways to actually make the psychedelic plant medicine brew. And so they're brewed together and then brought together in ceremonial context. It's an indigenous ancient wisdom medicine that is. That has traditions throughout Central and South America. So many, many different traditions work with the medicine in different ways. And, you know, it is typically treated as sacrament, right? As sacred medicine. The, you know, the tribe would come together, say, once or twice a year, and they would clear any of the negative energies in circle, in ceremony, together as a group. And so it's a very powerful kind of tribal experience in its origins. Now, for us, it's a little bit different because we're coming down, typically with generations of trauma that have been passed from one generation to the next. And we felt it and saw it in our parents, and sometimes we picked it up. And I think more and more of the world is waking up to the fact that this is the stuff we've got this chance to heal. This is the generation that's going to put the post in the sand and be like, right, I'm going to fix my stuff so I don't pass it on to my own kids to the greatest extent possible. And so when people from the west and from urban environments come down into these retreats, they have very powerful experiences. They have a lot of negativity to release, a lot of trauma to release. And so my first experience was no exception to that. I had a lot of stuff that needed to come out. And so it was a very challenging experience. You know, I had no. Frankly speaking, I had. I had the faintest idea how difficult the experience was going to be. I mean, I knew it was going to be difficult, but these Were, you know, two of the easily two or three of the most difficult nights of my life.

You're really encouraging people right now to do this because that's what they want for sure. The most difficult nights of their life.

And then to give the contrast, right, it opened the door to spirituality for me and showed me things about myself that were so humbling and so empowering at the same time. Things that I will never forget until the day that I leave this earth. Because we all have mental and emotional blind spots. We all have trauma, we all want to improve. It's so inherent to the human condition is to want to improve the self. And these medicines are vibratory in nature. They begin to harmonize our mind, body, heart and spirit to a single vibration. And they will bring to the surface any of the dissonance that exists within, within our being for that to be recognized, for that to be processed, and for that to be ultimately released. And so, you know, people who go through these experiences, they have healing on all levels, right? On the physical, the mental, the emotional and the spiritual. And, you know, you'll hear these experiences often described as ineffable. They are not reducible to natural language. And so while I maintain that it was one of the most difficult experiences of my life, it was easily one of the most beneficial in that it opened the door to spirituality for me.

Okay, so this is where I think, this point right here, I think of myself. I think of a version of myself a few years back, even 10 years ago. I think of the version of myself now. And I feel like this is the point right here where some people are going to lean in, to want to understand a little bit more because they have this kind of like. Like what. What could be there for me? And some people would quite literally back away because they're the. Speaking of bringing a vibrational frequency between your. Your mind or your emotional center or your physical center all into one might just sound like, yeah, that's. Nope, sorry, I don't get that and don't want to. Thank you. I really love to tie some things together. I have a bit of a science background in biomechanics and physiology and did some research in heart rate variability. So understanding a little more about sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system. So I love the sciencey side of things. Can you, for those who are critical and uncertain and feel like, you know, have the version of you that you were where, you know, if it's drugs, I'm going to avoid it, or if it's Drugs, I'm going to use it and use it as a coping mechanism. So I know I'm verbalize a fair bit here. However, take us here in a moment to what's been uncovered now. So this, I don't know how to say this. I guess what I'm saying is that plant based medicine has been used so far beyond even our real understanding of it, and now there's so much more of a useful understanding of it from a therapeutic basis in science. We're at a point, if I'm sure you're aware of this, but we're at a point where psilocybin and MDMA are about to be legal in the U.S. that's where we are. If people don't know that, that's what's happening right now. And on a therapeutic basis, this is micro amounts for people to utilize for therapeutic purposes and that's going to be legal. But it's so far from the narrative that so many generations have had in terms of, you know, you're using shrooms or acid or you're tripping or you're crazy or whatever, whatever. So can you, can you just educate us all a little bit?

Yeah, yeah, happy to. And those are all great questions. So I'll try and cover as many dimensions of that as I can. You know, I think as I shared just before we started recording, we were looking at some statistics that show 67% of clients who apply to come to our retreats have been looking at retreats for two or more years. I think it was almost 10% have been looking for more than 10 years. So people intuitively and instinctively understand that this is a massive decision. Right. You wouldn't think about marriage, kids, a house, you know, you wouldn't think about that for more than two years. Like, it's just a felt. It's a felt yes. And you, you, you go, right. And so this is a massive decision. And so I think that degree of skepticism, that degree of concern is super healthy because these are powerful experiences. And so we are putting ourselves into a very vulnerable state when we decide to work with these medicines. And so people understand that and they're looking for something that they feel really resonates with the core of their being. You know, the yes is not a rational yes. It's coming from a very different place. It's coming from a deeply spiritual place. Whether or not that person is spiritual in nature, it's coming from that place. And so I really, you know, I think it's vital that people spend the time and the Energy to educate themselves, to be able to feel like they're making a fully informed decision in relation to what is such a massive, massive decision. So the way that I thought about perhaps answering this would be kind of. Let me start with first what I would describe as more of the rational, the scientific, the therapeutic aspects and what's more understood in relation to this work. Then I'm going to introduce some things that are a bit more outlandish and a little bit less well understood in relation to this and then I'll let you guide us from there if that sounds good.

Awesome.

Cool. So I'm going to start with the mind, the body and the spirit. Right. So I think we recognize now we've got a mental health epidemic, right? We're anxious, we're depressed, we're lonely, we're disconnected, we've got all sorts of normalized addictive behaviors and patterns. You know, the phone is certainly a terrible blight on many of us. The National Science foundation recently did science some work that showed that your typical person has between 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Typical.

I use this in my coaching actually. I try to educate people to go, it's ok now we are going to just look at it. That is all.

That's a lot, right? I mean that's so many thoughts. And then you probably know the other ones which is that almost 100% of those thoughts are egoic thoughts. I me, my 95% of those thoughts are repetitive and 85% of them are negative. So we think a lot only about ourselves, the same things and bad things and it's like oh no. Do you know the follow up study? Because this is equally as mind blowing.

Well, my husband thinks mine are 80,000 a day for sure. So I don't know about other people, but yeah. Okay, go on.

Yeah. The follow up study they did was to show that of the things that people worry about, 85% never eventuate and only 15% do. Of the 15% that do eventuate, people find that they are actually more prepared to deal with the situation than they previously believed they were. So in aggregate 97% of worry is unfounded.

Yes.

And so you think about like what's on your typical media or news cycle and it's just all stuff that is completely out of your control and is it going to affect you directly and is building so much fear into the collective consciousness. Right.

This type of. So I love this. 97% of worry is unfounded. That's what I call. It's a misuse of our Imagination.

Yeah.

So this whole, it's a misuse of our imagination. And yet to your point, with what you just said about the news grabbing our attention and fear based on we're in a situation where it's not even our imagination, it's being told to us that to focus on the worry, to focus on the things that are awful. And.

Thoughts are attractor patterns. Right. I'm getting slightly into the more woo woo stuff, but thoughts are fundamentally their attractor patterns. So whatever you're thinking about is what you're attracting. So if it's 85% negative, that's what you're attracting. And so there's a network of the brain called the default mode network, which is what robs us of this present moment. Now, most of us have almost never had the experience of our default mode network being deactivated, but when we do, it's like that moment three or four hours after you step off a plane and your ear is still blocked, but then finally it becomes undone. You're like, oh, thank God. The first time that someone has their default mode network deactivated, it's that sort of a feeling. It's like, oh my God, I didn't know how much, how much strife my brain has been in. And so we live in this, in this hyperactive mode where our brain constantly wants to escape to the past, which is in essence a form of depression or anxiety. Right. And so if I can take my own example, you know, I was working as a strategy consultant. I always say that strategy consultants are highly rewarded for anticipating potential future negative outcomes. So the whole job is anxiety based. Right. It's just you're constantly living in the future, worried about what's going to go wrong on your portfolio of projects across your different clients and your different teams. It's like it's absolute disaster for brain function. It really is. And so what tends to happen is through that process of management and managing up and clients and down and all of that, we become super patterned in the way that we think. So we begin to do damage to the very software of our brain. And we all know people like this, or perhaps we even identified in ourselves where, you know, if you were to bring, say to someone, say let's just say an older gentleman within your family, if you were to bring to him some new piece of information, you already know how he's going to respond. That's the, that's evidence of basically loss of brain function. It's become a deterministic, it's become a deterministic, deterministic machine as opposed to this incredible machine, this incredible system that we have with infinite wisdom and infinite access to all that is if it's calibrated correctly.

Well, that's the. I love that you've described it that way because it's this scenario where we get to this false belief that this is the way it is. And it doesn't. No, it's really not. It's whatever we create or whatever we can be present to. And you know the example about the older gentleman father. I don't know. It starts typically so early in scenarios like that. If it is a family member, like a father, or even if it's someone who's not that long term of a scenario, we just keep going into the pattern of assuming that that's what's going to happen again because we might have had one experience or two or five or 10. And then even if there's been 25, 50, 100 experiences that are similar, the next one doesn't have to be the same. It doesn't have to be. But we stop believing that that's possible. We automatically go to. And we're designed for that. Our brains are designed for that in order to keep us safe. Like it's the limbic primal way of survival. And yet it's the very thing that is. It's both sides of the hand. The very thing that keeps us alive, keeps us breathing, keeps us heart beating and safe and all those things is the very thing that holds us back from our true potential to. To expand in consciousness, in awareness and in joy, in connectedness. So many other potential either ways of being or possibilities that our brain is. Brains are capable of. Spirits are capable. Capable of too.

So beautifully said. I love that. And you know, I just wanted to build on one of the things that you said there which is, you know, it kind of comes back to that. That perception being reality. Right. And, and I think that anyone, as I did before, anyone who thinks they have the slightest grasp on what reality is, they're entirely lost. Like you don't have even the slightest because every glimpse is. Just opens up infinitely more questions than the question than the answer that you might have received from what is. It's just infinite and complex and beautiful and unbelievable, you know.

Okay, so I'm going to full disclosure here. My listeners are going to be like what? So full disclosure here. I'll tell a couple things. So very much a nature lover as a child. But that would be one example of a sense of just being and being in existence with a connection to everything. Okay. So just. That's the only way I can. It's very challenging to articulate with words or with language. So that would be one way of describing a sense or a feeling or a connection. The second that I personally have. That comes, I think, to the realm of what you're describing is I've had one experience of microdosing with psilocybin and it was in a very small, intimate retreat and I had done and have continued to do a lot of work on my own past traumas or negativity or patterned thinking. So I've done a lot of work. And it just so happened that in going into this particular small retreat, I had already done a lot of work and I was pretty open at the time. So the other people I was with in this therapeutic experience were going through some traumatic experiences. Some really. And I was like happy. And I wasn't. I cannot. Even if someone thought I was high or something like that. Not even close. Not. No, no. I would get more of a buzz from a glass of wine than. Than from the amount of plant based medicine I had in that experience. But what I did experience, and again to your point, really challenging to articulate with words. What I did experience was the profound sense of my true original wholeness in relation. Not even in relation. There is no relation. And the complete oneness and connection to everything. So that's the closest I can come. And I feel like I'm not even doing an ounce of justice to my tiny, tiny experience of that. And that was a one, one time experience. And I would say that was. That was at the beginning of 2020. So that was a few years ago.

Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. The other language that that mystical experience is often described is the interconnectivity of all things.

That's exactly. It felt exactly that. Like it was. It was a level of certainty that I was just like, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. This changes everything. It has nothing to do with me. It has nothing to do with you. It has nothing to do with that or this or them. Is everything to do with this wholeness of everything? Not all of us. Everything. And so it. And it's not that that was a thought. It wasn't a thought. It was just. It was just a knowing.

Knowing. Yeah, it's vertical. It's. I like to say it's vertical knowledge. Right? It comes. It's a cellular understanding. It's fully embodied. It's not a thought that. That kind of fleets through the mind as. As is commonly the case, I' that you Shared that. Thank you so much, Kari. The.

The first time I have on a public forum, by the way, so when this record maybe.

I love it. I love it. The other reason that that's so important is that, you know, it sounds like you've obviously are someone who's done a lot of work on themselves. And so, you know, put yourself in a really great position to be able to help others through their, you know, through their journeys and through their healing and through their elevation in consciousness. And so one of the distinctions that I think is important is treatment orientation versus consciousness and spiritual orientation. Right? So a lot of what we see in the media and in the press, unfortunately, from my perspective, not that people don't deserve to heal, but it's really focused around what I would describe as the lower levels of consciousness. It's people who are stuck in victim mentality, depression, anxiety. You know, it's the low stuff. And don't get me wrong, like, yes, we want to lift people out of those lower states of consciousness and into the more active states of consciousness, right? Which is like, sadly, those are like envy, anger, pride, neutrality, all of those sorts of kind of lower but middle sort of states of consciousness. What you just described is much higher. It's a mystical state of consciousness. That's an understanding of the universe where your heart is already open, right. And so that's, that's a different level of wisdom that is able to move into your being because of that. The work that you've already done on yourself, you've cleared a lot of that lower level stuff. And so that singular life force, that singular energy is able to vibrate its way through you at a higher frequency, which is ultimately what. What these, these levels of understanding are. It's just. It's just a frequency that's being vibrated through our being.

And to that point, I feel like, since that time, I feel like. I'll let you describe your first experience that ayahuasca before I share too much. But since that time, I felt like my vibrational frequency has certainly dropped. I've gone back into patterns, however, it's like you can't unsee something and you can't unknow something, so then it's more likely to recognize it as a pattern or recognize it as a lower vibration of frequency and be less comfortable with it because so many patterns have been there for so long that we stay in them because being in a higher frequency or being in a more healed place is more uncomfortable because we're not as familiar with it. And so part of that experience, as long as I choose to recall and choose to. Keep seeing and keep being aware, then it's just less and less likely to drop. And even though the drops do happen or something happens, that's challenging to deal with. Those are the circumstances, but it's just a, it's a different experience of life.

100%. Yeah, I had that same experience, you know, that my first heart opening experience. I dropped back down afterwards and quite massively. So, you know, actually the healers, the private healers that I do most of my work with, they can measure people's vibrational field. So it's an aggregate of the vibrational field. And I went from over 500 back to under 400. And it's just for the reason that you said, and that's a huge draw. And it's just because of patterns and behavior. And then like you said, there comes to a point where you see, I'm forgetting the thing that I already know. And so then just rededicate yourself.

How do they measure that?

Now we're getting woo woo. So it's the way that, that most people do it is kinesiological, which is at its core, you know, that's been thrown out is pseudoscience. And you can understand the reasons behind it. But I think that will be reversed. I mean, look at psychedelic science, right? Ten years ago, that was, that was some nonsense for people who were lost at music festivals and never going to find themselves. Now there's every doctor and every man and his dog is pursuing it with absolute, absolute zest. So I think this will also, in the space of time to become understood as science. And the fundamental basis of it is that life has a truth. Sorry, truth has a life affirming principle. So the way that I sometimes describe this is like, you know, a sunflower turns towards the sun. There's inherent knowledge within life. And so what, what different practitioners tend to be doing in relation to testing the vibrations is they're actually asking a series of questions. So they're asking, is this person vibrating above 200, yes or no? And they will get a energetic response either in the body or sometimes with a pendulum. And the first time, you know, I grew up with hippie parents, so I am such a skeptic when it comes to this stuff, right? And like, I'm really skeptical. And so the first time you see it, I'm going like, I grew up around this stuff. Like you. This is, this is not happening. This is my worst nightmare. And then, okay, so, you know, suspend disbelief as we do, and as we do when we walk into the movie theater. And then, you know, the information starts to, you know, you go, well, how about this person? Where are they calibrating? And you think in your mind, okay, based upon what I know of consciousness and where I think they're operating. And you can begin to see patterns there, and you can begin to really suspend disbelief. So there's. There's definitely a lot there. The people who do this work at a high level. They're really energetically sensitive, right? And so they're able to tap into the energetic field and draw back a lot of information.

You know, I listened to a podcast recently that was interviewing a brain surgeon who'd done well over a thousand surgeries, brain surgeries, often cancers, things like that. And he really wanted to dispel the notion that we're hardwired and that it's wires and then it's this and that, because it's a whole. In his words, it's like a jellyfish of electricity. And. And that's part of what helps my scientific side of understanding. Because just because we can't see something mechanically move, we can still. There are all kinds of ways that. Frequency, vibration. One of the things I studied in my biomechanics research, which had to do with lumbar spine, it was all frequency. It was accelerometer work. It was low frequency, medium frequency, high frequency, which could. All of that frequency, all that electric frequency showed movement, stability, all sorts of things on a mechanical basis, never mind on a brain firing basis. It's all just simply a bunch of frequency, electrical signals, stimuli, all of that. Now, I feel that I'm ignorant to think just one way, that it can only. Be. So that's an ignorant way of thinking. Instead of. Do you know what I mean? Instead of being open to. Okay, that's simply something that I don't understand and may never understand, and that's okay. But I do know, because the more you know, the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know. Because the more I've learned, especially about things like frequency or. Or just energy that we know is there, we can feel. Is there. Any of us can feel a room when you walk in, especially if it's a familial room and you can feel immediately if something's wrong, even before anything is said, you can feel the energy. Many people can, maybe a lot of people can't. And that's okay. But that's something that. Okay, how do you measure that overall? So those are things that I've Become more and more open to the more I've learned and the more I've experienced overall.

You know, you saying that story reminded me of another one that's factual but hard to believe, which is that the planes that crash have a lower passengers on them than your typical plane. And it's because people didn't get on the plane at the last minute.

It. And you hear the documentaries, you hear the stories, and you're just like, so what stopped you from getting on? I want to know so I can tap into that and not get on. So I don't want to. I don't want to. If you have a thought to finish, please do. But I also want to ask some of the just practical logistic questions that people are going to be really curious about.

Yeah, well, I think the thing that came to mind just in relation to what we were just talking about is, is this work fundamentally is about recognizing divine order, right? It already exists within us. Where we are right now at any point in time is perfect and it can be better. That's part of the paradox of life. It's perfect as it is and it can be better. And that, you know, we've, we've been. All of our senses are pointed outwards as this cosmic joke to dare us to look the other way and try to find the beginning of the self and recognize the inverted universe that exists all in there, which is entirely accessible without leaving anywhere, jumping on any plane.

Go and discover it.

Exactly. It's free. It's free. It's there, like, and it's just, it's all there. And it's like, wow, we can, we could do anything. It's all here. The whole universe exists within our being and for every single one of us. And so, you know, I think now is a time, you know, and I think Covid has spiritual significance in that sense. It's that it's trying to slow us down and say, like, hey, now is the time to look inside and find out what and who you truly are. And maybe, maybe the work that is needed to be done is in here so that we can all thrive out there rather than trying to do things faster and faster and faster out there.

Well, and I certainly have that tendency. I move very quickly, I like to do a lot. I'm a doer. And then I have to step back into being versus doing. And that's where my center is. And when I resist that center, that's when I'm the least fulfilled, the least connected as well. And so on that point, if our listeners for instance, are, let's say they're aligned with the 67% of your participants, your retreat participants, who took two years to really do due diligence and their research to discover and find what would work for them for a retreat. And part of it I think is as a human, I'm speculating here, but as a human, I think that part of it is wanting to feel a level of certainty or safety to take action. And I'm not going to tell anybody, hey, go on a psychedelic retreat, go for some plant based therapy. I'm not going to tell someone to do that. However, I would love for people to have an understanding of what's available to them, where the science is now, because this isn't, unless you're looking for this information, it's not just readily out there. People don't know right now that, that psilocybin and other psychedelics are becoming legal now in the US So for treatment purposes, that's how efficacious it is when it comes to the research and improving symptoms of PTSD and depression. And to your point, the lower levels of consciousness from trauma, from generational patterning, generational trauma, all of the things, and ultimately the healing of that is going to really shift the vibration of the world because of how people affect other people. So in if our audience is the 67% as well, just kind of trying to figure out, well, what does this look like for me? If I'm curious, if I want to try something out in an experience, if someone has never experienced anything, how would you describe it to someone who's just like, I have no clue what you're talking about. With this retreat, do we go there and hold hands? Like what, what are you proposing?

Yeah. So let me start by framing this in relation to where I see gaps in the work that I was previously doing and ultimately the motivation for starting Behold retreats. When I started this, my primary motivation was to guide my friends towards experiences that helped them skip some of the potholes that I discovered and got stuck with. So the way that I'd like to start by what?

Pothole?

Yeah. So what I see is that in the west we have a certain medical framework and paradigm and sort of deterministic lens through which we look at this. Right, so clinical trials, right, where they try to define a very specific protocol, synthetic medicines, you know, it's going to be three therapy sessions before two rounds with psilocybin, 2 milligrams and then three more therapy sessions. We're going to do 20 people for a phase One trial. And then what we're going to, we're going to select importantly, we're going to select the minimum definition of the problem. Right. Whether it's anxiety or depression or addictive disorders, they always are looking for the very narrow band that fits the description of the problem, but isn't severe because that's, you know, becomes a little bit more difficult to manage. And then they're obviously measuring that and publishing papers that say that this has benefited, let's say 70% of that population. Okay, let's move to phase two. Now. The primary issue that I see in relation to the way that that work is being performed is again, it's taking a rational view to what is deeply subjective in spiritual work. So the bases are covered in terms of the mental, the emotional and the physical. But you know, people are going through Johns Hopkins CIS all of the other psychedelic therapy, TR programs. They have not developed their energetic capacities. They have not developed their skills on the spiritual planes to be able to protect people on these multidimensional experiences. So inherently people know that and understand that. And so especially if there's like a big group setting where people are, you know, accessing their trauma, people are on, on an energetic level, still closed off because they know there's things that are in movement that are perhaps not in their highest. And again, I know that sounds a bit woo woo, but this stuff is real.

But I mean, I use a lot of analogies and with what you just described, I see it as this, the way the process of research, in order to get validity, it's necessary for, you know, a John Johns Hopkins or an entity in order to. So it is a necessary beast in order to put it into the world of the game we play in Western society called acceptance and validation and all of those things. But what you're describing, the way I see it, is kind of like, okay, what they've introduced is almost like having a house plant being in your room versus immersing yourself in nature.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good analogy.

It has a benefit. It's there. It's like been controlled in a very, very clean, controlled environment. But putting yourself in nature has a completely different beneficial element than just the house plant in the room. Going into nature is a different thing. And that's, to me, my perception of what you just described in the other elements that have been removed or not utilized in say, clinical trials or really fine tuning everything. And I get where the usefulness of a houseplant in a room is and being really controlled. So, you know, like, yeah, that's how. That's how I'm hearing it.

Yeah, I like. I like that. And I think that. Yeah, so. So, because the people who are facilitating this work often haven't tapped into their energetic skills. They're just not able to protect you on the energetic realm. So you're kind of on your own in terms of the journey itself, right? Like, it's your consciousness, like, good luck. So whatever directions you go in, good, bad, ugly, they're not going to be able to affect that to any degree. Now, the reason people go down to the Amazon or to other places, you know, Costa rica, Peru, Mexico, etc. To work with shamans is because these are people who are energetically trained or. And now there's more Western people who have trained under shamans and have developed their energetic skills. Right now, a shaman, in contrast, they're used to doing this work, as we spoke about before, from the context of community. And so they're not bringing the 10 generations of trauma. They don't necessarily have a. I mean, they're developing an understanding because more and more of us are traveling for these experiences. But they don't necessarily have the therapeutic skill set to really help people tap into their own mental and emotional state. Spot their blind spots, you know, begin to unravel some of those and go down to the deeper layers, Teach them the tools for mental work. Teach them the tools for emotional releasing and emotional processing so that when they step into the work with the medicine and all of these emotions and feelings and past memories become amplified and surfaced, that we know what to do with them. Right? And so what we're trying to do, and I share all of that, to then say, this is what we're trying to do with Behold retreats, is we're trying to bring together the best of the mental and the emotional therapeutic aspects of this work, whether it's a coach or with a therapist to really help people prepare themselves mentally, physically, emotionally, and even energetically prior to the retreat, so that when they step into work with the medicine work and with a healer who is going to be able to protect them on the energetic realms that they're able to navigate and they're able to release a lot. What's fascinating to me is that the relationship between consciousness in medicine is not nearly as strong as we might imagine. So it is very common for people to have, like, peak experiences and then come straight back down to where they were. And the reason for that is because they haven't done the mental and emotional work. There is actually some Great science that was done from, I think it was 2700 people that were surveyed. And basically what it showed was that these medicines are great for, number one, helping us connect to our sense of joy, number two, they are great for helping us deepen our sense of spirituality. And number three, and most importantly, they do not remove feelings of negativity and toxicity. That's our work to be done. And so we have to, you know, it's entirely possible to bypass our own mental and emotional stuff, right, and go straight up into these transcendent realms and travel around the universe and wow, isn't that consciousness great? And then come back and you know, the next day you're flipping off the guy in traffic and you're going, well, what happened there? You had this transcendent experience, like what's going on here? So the relationship there, there's so much more that needs to go in on the preparation and the integration around these experiences for people to really sustain and improve quality of life. Because I always say to our clients like, you don't want an ayahuasca retreat, you don't want a 5 Meo DMT retreat. What you want is an improvement to the quality of the felt human experience. That's what you're looking for, right? You want clarity of purpose, you want abundance, you want joy, love, peace, all of these great things. That's what you want. Of course. And you see this as a potential tool to help you get there. I get that. That's beautiful. I believe in obviously, but there's a lot more around this in relation to consciousness that needs to be understood. Otherwise it's actually easy to get more lost. Not, not to actually, you know, to, to have these sorts of experiences and get more lost in spirituality and consciousness. Because you got to do the work in the 3D if you want some benefits in the 3D.

Yeah, it's, it's almost, it's akin to a quick fix mentality that, you know, we, a society that we live in and that okay, okay, if this is going to be so amazing, give it to me and then like make it happen for me. Versus being truly responsible for one's own experience, one's own life, one's own being, one's own world.

Which is, that's so important because again, they're giving the power to the thing on the outside, right? It's so important. It's like, no, no. And my mom moved in a year ago and she's, she's working on healing her cancer and it's what she's Healing is that. Is that mentality of, like, the things out there, everything in here is fine. It's. The problem is out here somewhere and it's like. It's not. It's really not. Every problem that we perceive is a reflection of what we're attracting because of something that we haven't yet seen in ourselves or been able to heal it ourselves.

Yeah. Yes. And quite one of the ways that we cope in our coaching groups and our individuals and businesses as well is that the problem is the thought that we have about it. Every problem is the thought that we have about whatever the thing that happened is. And here's the thing, it doesn't matter what it is. This is where people get hung up. If it's something like. Like that we've collectively decided is awful as a society, whether it's something like an action, like rape, for instance, we've collectively decided, that is, we all choose. Well, not all, but most people choose to think about that problem in a way that says that we don't want to accept that. But most people don't understand that that's where the choice comes in. They don't have to think that about that. Rate an action, a circumstance is the weather. And the weather being cloudy or rainy or awful isn't a problem unless someone thinks it's a problem. So it's that kind of skipping those steps or skipping that work and that level of finding clarity around the world is a recipe for bringing us right back into whatever frequency that we habitually stay in, no matter what incredible experience we've had from any retreat or any experience, whether it's, you know, having a great day and then wondering why we don't feel great the next day. And that's. It's an ebb and flow. But making it wrong doesn't mean anything other than we've made it wrong wherever we've come through one day to the next. So it's really. It's really profound. It's really interesting just to be aware here of our. Of our time frame. What would you like? Who's the ideal candidate? Because you've pointed to doing the work before, doing the work after, gaining the skill set, gaining greater understanding. Who's the ideal candidate for either a retreat that involves something like. And I don't know what exactly you use. I'm guessing something like psilocybin. But you, you tell us, who's the ideal candidate? What do you use? What would you recommend? You know, what do you think?

Yeah, so I think, you know, it's one of those things, as we spoke about before, it's very intuitively felt right there. The soul is calling, the soul is ready. And so it's, it's, you know, sometimes people come back from retreat, they're like, oh my God, that was so amazing. I'm going to bring 10 people, you know, I'm going to bring my people, 10 of them next month. Can you do these dates? And you're going, I'm sorry, like your tribe is, I love you. And I'm sure you have really great people who you know and love and they trust you. They're not coming. And so, you know, I think what I, what I'll, what I come back to is to say that kind of there's three overarching motivations that people have, right? So one is healing, right? Where there's, there's. And everyone should have healing as a motivation because there's so many layers to it that it's just unbelievable. Like you have to keep going lower and lower to keep going higher and higher, right? Consciousness exists in polarity. And for most of us there is some low energy stuck in our field from intergenerational stuff, even if we haven't invited that, perhaps even past lives, you know, depending on your belief system. Like these are things that exist in our field and we got to get down there and clean it out. So, so healing is one, right? And it could be mind, body, could be spiritual in nature. The second is really growth, creativity and expansion, right? Those people who really want to, you know, better themselves, maybe they're feeling a bit stuck. They need some clarity of purpose in career, what's next for them. And so those are kind of the second kind of group. And then the third are people who are seekers, right? They want to understand, they want, you know, they're pursuing enlightenment or they're pursuing some deeper understanding of, of the universe and of the self. And so those are really fundamentally the three, the three overarching primary motivations. You know, I think the, in terms of other aspects of an ideal candidate, you know, I think it's people who feel ready, right? And if you don't feel ready, spend more time and more energy if you're interested in it, but don't feel ready, spend more time and energy, research it. Also decide how you would like to make this decision. This is something that people never often think about. They're trying to make a decision, but they don't actually abstract up a level and like look down at the decision itself and like, how would I feel really good about making this decision, it's like, well, maybe I'd like to speak to five different retreat centers and maybe I'd like to actually go down to Costa Rica and just meet with two of the retreat center owners in the first instance and see if I gel with them and maybe just have dinner. And that's a completely normal request to ask. I think this is again one of the most important decisions you can make. So really think deeply about if you feel the calling, how you're going to find the person that resonates. Right. And the person that resonates should reflect an energy that you aspire to. And I think this is so important that just because people are serving plant medicine does not mean that they are operating from a high level of consciousness. It really, the relationship there is not nearly as strong as I would have hoped for. And that was, you know, fundamentally my years of early, early mistakes were just like I was heading to expensive five star retreats because that was what I thought was the best on offer. But the vibrations of the people practicing there were not in attunement. So, you know, the way I describe it is if we have two frequencies and there's a higher frequency and a lower frequency, in physics, the lower frequency is harmonizing up to the higher frequency. Right. So if I was to go sit next to one of our healers for three weeks in dead silent, my frequency would go up because he's operating at a higher frequency and I would just naturally begin to, you know, elevate in frequency, you know, next to him. Even without any plant medicine. There is something here that's, you know, and that's what's happening on a collective level. When we feel that we are collectively harmonizing up and the world is going to be turned upside down and we're going to have to learn unlearn a lot as we relearn a different form of being. But I say all of that to come back to the, to the central point, which is like, be very clear that this is the person that you're going to trust completely and absolutely and entirely. And what's been super disappointing is like just in the last couple of months, Kakari, I don't know if you've been following this, but there's been like a series of very high profile people and organizations that have been respected in this ecosystem for decades and have just gone down one after another after another for very low level behaviors. Even though these are people that are like figureheads and like, you know, icons within psychedelic healing and psychedelic medicine. And you're Going really like that. Like these stories, they come out in such volume that you can't deny it. And it's just like, that's so disappointing to see that sort of thing come to the fore given where, you know, this work is at the moment.

What is that? Is that ego taking over, is that they just stopped doing the work because they were in it for so long. Like, what do you think that is?

It's a very good question. I think it relates to, you know, everything is imagination, right? It's that thought, you know, original sin is the first thought that was for my benefit at someone else's expense. And so, you know, the universe is just constantly expanding itself in all directions, all permutations, all thought based forms experiencing and bouncing off one another for the sheer joy of it. And so the extent to which that order and chaos continues to dance is up to us, at least on this plane of existence. And so, you know, the reality is that there's a fascinating relationship between people in power, right? And especially when it comes to men, unfortunately, where, you know what men, what it feels like men tend to do. And from what I've seen in my meanderings in the corporate world is they, they try to understand to what extent they can use their power and then they push that limit. And the moment that that gets boring, then they try to find a new way or a new, a new avenue for them to continue to push their power. Power. And there's something there that's just so deeply inherent, it seems that's just not very pretty. So the relationship between, shall we say, even an understanding of consciousness and goodness isn't necessarily one to one, which is again, it's, it's, it's fascinating.

And that's the thing. It's. This is where it. Just asking the questions, just seeking to understand, just acknowledging not understanding is part of the growth, part of the expansion, part of the alignment. So really, really powerful.

So, so I had one final thought that I, that I, that I find that could be valuable for those people. You know, friends are often very eager to say, like, oh, I know a guy, I've got the best shaman. Da da da da. If you've seen a major change in your friend in terms of lifestyle, the way he or she spends their time, massive, massive shifts in how they see themselves, how they are. If they're still joining you on Friday for drinks down the road, maybe that's not what you're looking for. And so I would always say look past whatever people are telling you and look at the actual Transformation, the actual net result, rather than whatever profound experience that people had on retreat. Because honestly, like, that's noise. What you're looking for is an improvement to the quality of life.

I have a saying that isn't very popular. If I've used it at the wrong time, and it's. It's that I'll watch your feet, not your mouth. I learned a long time ago not to say that, but ultimately, because, you know, I think it's a hurtful statement, if that. So I learned a long time ago, but ultimately that's what it is. If it's that I love receiving what someone says, I love understanding what their idea is into the world. And if that aligns with their behavior and if that aligns with their subsequent actions, then it's the whole piece to the puzzle. The puzzle's been put together, then it makes sense, and it puts me in a space of understanding where they truly are versus just one piece of the puzzle. So it's. Yeah, the action has to align with what they perceive or what they're saying.

Yeah, yeah. And it's. You know, when clients have big shifts in consciousness, it's. It's hard to go back. Right. And that's another question and concern that people have is like, is this going to change me too much? And it's, you know, the answer is, you're still. You. You may have a wildly different perspective. Perspective on what's important and. But very few people think that that is a negative thing, you know, because there's positive shifts in consciousness, typically speaking.

Yeah. Yeah. I love this. This is incredible. I love just how discerning you are between, you know, every retreat is not right for everyone. Everyone doesn't necessarily. They're not necessarily ready for it at any given time. It's. It's going to be a very individual experience, so really, really powerful. Anything else you want to add about people's concerns on using a substance that they've always perceived as being maybe dangerous or bad for you? For those who are very health conscious. Any last words on that particular realm?

Yeah, we didn't go too deep into the benefits, but there's so many. I mean, the list is. Is. The list goes on and on to the point where psychedelics begin to sound like a silver bullet. Right. And it's. And it's because everything is consciousness that everything can be treated with psychedelics because it's medicine for consciousness. So the body is just a figment of the mind. And so everything, whether it's autoimmune disorders, whether they're now doing DMT and acute stroke victims as they're being loaded into the ambulance, which is pretty intense. You know, there's eating disorders are being treated, addictive disorders. You know, it's shown that people who have done plant medicine have epigenetic benefits. Right. So there's DNA activation and epigenetic benefits. You can activate new strands of DNA, definitely. We've got, we've got people on our team who can actually go into their own DNA and mess it around very purposefully, which is pretty cool. I haven't got anywhere near there yet. But so, so the, the list just goes on and on. And again it begins to sound a bit abst. Abstract and woo woo. But again, it comes back to this fundamental understanding of what is. And it's just, it's all consciousness. And so this is something that gives us access to our own consciousness and can begin to unify the parts of our being. You know, if there is to be. One primary issue with the current approach to modern western medicine is that it's, it's very fragmented. It's trying to treat the symptoms symptom as opposed to treating the whole. Right. I mean, my mom goes in and has a scan of her kidney and it's like, oh yeah, we need to take your kidney out or we need to take the tumor out. And it's like, no, the cancer is the symptom of a much of a different problem. And it's. And it's being represented as cancer in the kidney. And so, you know, we've been working on mental and emotional and spiritual work. And so, you know, knock on wood, that, that's working very well. We're introducing some more dietary restrictions and stuff as well. But like, it can all be healed through consciousness. And I actually think Joe Dispenza does an incredible job at articulating what he's done for himself, but also helped achieve in many of his clients. And that's with meditation, which is also a very powerful medium. But clearly plant medicine speeds things up a little bit. And so I would just kind of finish by saying that whatever it is that people are, are working on, that they spend the time and the energy to hear other people's stories. Right. More and more people are sharing their own stories, whether it's, you know, lupus or autoimmune. You know, there's so many different things that people are trying to cure in themselves these days. And just to go out there and read the stories, you know. Also the other aspect is the microbiome, right. Ayahuasca in particular, resets the microbiome. You're going to be purging, probably. And, you know, a lot of us have been putting stuff from 711 in our bodies for years on end. We have absolutely nailed our microbiome. And it's now, you know, there's much more evidence out there now that it's actually the gut that controls the brain rather than the other way around. And so we're being controlled by something that's not doing so good. And so fasting is another super powerful medium. If people just take 10 days and don't eat food for 10 days. I know that sounds insane. One of the best things I've ever done. And like, you just your, your metabolism restarts, your skin is just becomes translucent and like plastic. You're just like, wow. And you just feel so light. You begin to feel the parasites that are connected from your micro, from down in your gut up to your brain disconnect and die and exit your body. It's this unbelievable process. You're like, I can't believe those things were inside of me. And only were they inside of me. They were connected to my brain. And I know that, again, that sounds crazy, but like, the benefits of this stuff just keep on going.

I think this is a, this is a podcast in and of itself. I mean, I do a quarterly, just a short fast, usually just 24 hours, but we could do a podcast just on, just on your experience of 10 days of fasting. Like, I want to just peel that back because as you can tell, I'm pretty curious. So I think that's. I think that's a great. Another episode of this journey. So I want to, I want to allow people to be able to connect with you. You are on Instagram, LinkedIn. How do they find you if people want to look for you or look for your retreats? Behold Retreats.

Yeah, we're on Instagram and LinkedIn. On Instagram beholdretreats and our website is Behold Retreats. We're a little bit different than most organizations. For us, you have to speak to a real human. You can't just click around and book. Now we like to make sure that we are a fit for each and every one of our clients and vice versa. You know, we do much smaller groups than is typically the norm and that's a much more intimate and selective and exclusive container.

Like how big with small we.

We tend to do six to eight within our groups.

Where usually most of our retreats are.

In Mexico and Costa Rica. We do some work in Portugal and the Netherlands as well.

And do you have a next one planned?

Oh, yeah, we have at least three.

Or four every month and so. Three or four every month?

Yeah. Okay.

I just want people to know as they go forward and you, you have a charity that you're associated with or that you like to draw attention to.

Yeah, there's an incredible project, you know, as psychedelics are just like in the zeitgeist at the moment. Right. We're set for this period of exponential use and with that will, I believe, come exponential good, but unfortunately also exponential harm. And so Fireside Project is, I think they're doing an incredible job. They've set up like what I would describe as a 911 hotline for people who are going through challenging experiences or still struggling to integrate a challenging experience. And it's all volunteer based, very heartfelt organization. I know their CEO well, and yeah, they're at the front line of trying to help people, you know, people who are not in a position to go spend thousands of dollars flying to Costa Rica for a really exceptional experience. They're just, you know, finding something locally and doing the best they can by themselves. So, you know, again, everyone deserves to heal. Everyone wants to heal and I really believe in what they do. So for anyone who's listening and feeling, yeah, feeling like they want to share the love, check out the Fireside Project and donate a few dollars.

Amazing. Ok. Amazing. Ok, so I really think that there's going to be a future conversation because we barely scratched the surface and at the same time, I am so grateful for what we've been able to converse on, connect on, expand on in this short frame of time. So, Jonathan, thank you so much for being with us and sharing and it's just been, it's been so interesting and I love it. I absolutely love it. So thank you.

Thank you, Kari. Really appreciate you having me.

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