Austin (0s):
We're in a brave new world in health and wellness, and particularly mental and physical and spiritual health. Two states, Oregon and Colorado legalized psilocybin mushrooms, and in the case of Colorado, DMT and Ibogaine, which are the active molecules for ayahuasca, bufo tendon, which is another psychedelic and, and another one called Iboga. All of this comes from tremendous amounts of research in the fifties and sixties when people have heard of Timothy Leary, you know, tune in, drop out, so on and so forth. These were Harvard professors that studied psychedelics in conjunction with therapy, found it to be absolutely transformative for the field, and then it was scheduled and made illegal by Nixon. But a lot of people aren't aware of is that when Nixon made that legal in, I think it was 1960, it was because his goal was to disenfranchise minority voters.
Austin (44s):
Because
Brian (45s):
This week I interviewed Austin Mao Austin's the founder of one of the leading plant medicine retreats, Ceremonia, Located halfway between Denver and Boulder, Colorado. Ceremonia is rooted in creating a space for deep healing and transformation. We discussed Austin's personal healing with plant medicines, along with What psychedelic therapy is and who it's for. Ceremonial process of Ayahuasca getting unstuck with mushrooms and much, much more. So I really enjoyed my interview with Austin. I know you will too. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy the show. Alright. Welcome to the Get Lean, Eat Clean podcast. My name is Brian Gryn and I have Austin Mao on Welcome to the show. Hey,
Austin (1m 24s):
Brian. Good to be here.
Brian (1m 26s):
Yeah. We have some guest visitors here. Watch, watching in on YouTube coming from Denver. Is that right? And excited to have Yan the co-founder of Ceremonia. And that's, is that, would you consider that just like a spirituality retreat? Maybe explain the, the audience a little bit about how you started Ceremonia And what sort of led you down that path. Sure.
Austin (1m 45s):
We are a nonprofit and legal psychedelic church, which means that we, we serve psilocybin in ayahuasca sacraments in retreat contexts. And we're right now the leading, its one of the leading institutions in the United States that is legally working with, with entheogens at both the state and federal level, federal through religious exemption and state through Colorado's Natural Medicine Health Act. Excellent.
Brian (2m 9s):
Yeah. And what made you, what year did you start And what made you sort of decide to go down this route?
Austin (2m 15s):
Started Ceremonia in 2020, and it comes off the heels of my own personal journey with, with plant medicine, sorry. In 2022 is when we started, and in 2020 is when I started my journey with plant medicine. In that case it was with ayahuasca through retreats that I first attended and that supported in Mexico and Costa Rica. I mean, before we started this call, I was telling you, I, I lived in Costa Rica, which was during the pandemic. And so while, yeah, I kind of, I, I like to think I hit the pandemic lotto because while the world was locked down, I was running around the forest and rivers, you know, totally naked eating mushrooms in ayahuasca, so
Brian (2m 55s):
That sounds fun. Yeah.
Austin (2m 57s):
Yeah. There's a whole story there.
Brian (2m 58s):
Well share it with us. How, how, so you were in Costa Rica in 2020, and how many years did you spend there? I
Austin (3m 4s):
Spent six, seven months there, and it was really like the peak of, of the, the quarantine era. What had happened was I was in China when covid hit in December, 2019. Oh, wow. And I'll never forget, like being in a restaurant and everyone is talking about this new sars like sars like flu. Right, right. And of course, Asia had SARS before, and So they were, it was big news there. Right. And I remember my friend gave me a call who had government contacts and he said, get outta Shanghai immediately, they're gonna quarantine the airport. So they took a same day flight out. When I landed in LA two days later, the airport was quarantined, so just got outta China.
Austin (3m 46s):
And then I was in my first Ayahuasca retreat in February, 2020 when the stock market crashed. And I was like, oh, no, it's, it's happening here. And so in March, I believe March 18th was when the quarantine started, or like just starting to happen. I got the last flight into Costa Rica, so landed at 10:30 PM they closed the borders, 11:59 PM I thought I was just gonna be there for a month learning, you know, getting my scuba dive master license. Yeah. Then somehow Costa Rica shut down the beaches, which
Brian (4m 19s):
Interesting in
Austin (4m 19s):
Retrospect, like, why stupid? Why would you shut down the beaches? Yeah.
Brian (4m 22s):
You know? Right. Yeah.
Austin (4m 23s):
And everyone, all the tourists left, and it was just my partner and I at the time and, and the tecos And you know, the expats that still had their retreat centers there, and we just kind of followed the path of ayahuasca for, for a few months, you know? Yeah.
Brian (4m 40s):
What maybe for people who don't know, like you're starting to hear more about ayahuasca and plant medicine. I actually recently watched Aaron Rogers special on Netflix and where they go into that quite a bit and he's, he's been become big in that maybe explain to individuals what the ayahuasca ceremony is or, and, and plant medicine in general, So they get an understanding of it.
Austin (5m 1s):
Yeah, absolutely. And happy to share, you know, I, I recently gave a TED talk on this as well that people can find online. We're in a brave new world in, in health and wellness, and particularly mental and physical and spiritual health. Psychedelic therapy, which is the combination of using entheogens or, you know, altered states of consciousness, combined with a therapeutic or supportive approach, demonstrates orders of magnitude more effectiveness in, in treating mental illnesses like PTSD, depression, treatment resistant depression, end of life anxiety, chronic anxiety, so on and so forth, orders of magnitude, more effectiveness than, than the next best treatment, which is some form of a psychiatric medication end and therapy.
Austin (5m 45s):
Right. Secondly, in 2019, the first psychedelic was legalized federally called ketamine. It's accessible in every major city. Now, there are multiple ketamine clinics that you could just walk into and get a, a psychedelic experience, hopefully paired with some form of therapy in two states have now legalized Oregon and Colorado legalized psilocybin mushrooms. And in the case of Colorado, DMT and Ibogaine, which are the active molecules for ayahuasca bufo tendon, which is another psychedelic and, and another one called Iboga. Right. And it's under something called the Natural Medicine Health Act in Colorado, which is what we operate under. And all of this comes from tremendous amounts of research.
Austin (6m 28s):
So in the fifties and sixties, when psychedelics came to the forefront, maybe people have heard of Timothy e Leary, you know, tune in, drop out, so on and so forth. These were Harvard professors that really, that studied psychedelics in conjunction with therapy, found it to be absolutely transformative for, for the field. And then it was, it was scheduled and made illegal by Nixon. What a lot of people aren't aware of is that when Nixon made that illegal in, I think it was 1960, it was because his goal was to disenfranchise minority voters because, so he would lump in cannabis with heroin, right. Because the minor, his idea was the minority voters were the ones using this, and let's put them all in prison, and therefore they can't vote for the opposition party.
Austin (7m 11s):
Right? So then we entered the dark ages of psychedelics. Prior to that, it was the most studied medicine in the history of psychiatry, over a hundred thousand participants in over a thousand clinical trial studies. I mean, that is huge, right? As of 2013, John Hopkins University, and then a slew of other universities including the Imperial College of London, Harvard, Oxford, so on and so forth, started studying psychedelics again. And now it's, once again, one of the most researched psychiatric medicines. Right. And the research very clearly delineates tremendous effectiveness, not only in helping the, the mentally ill, but also bettering the well.
Austin (7m 52s):
So, for example, I facilitated over 500 individuals so far, and Ceremonia has more than 250 alumni that have come through our program. Of that three to 400 of them are what I would classify as high performing individuals, CEOs, unicorn, you know, company founders, fortune 500 executives, so on and so forth. Some of whom are coming in with, you know, what might be classified as a mental illness, aka like depression or anxiety or so on and so forth. But by and large, for everyone, for 96% of those that come here, they say it's the most transformative experience of their lives.
Austin (8m 32s):
And checking back on people after a year or two years, it's really incredible because people have gotten married, some people have gotten divorced, people have sold their companies, people have started new ones, like people who found their purpose in life. The one consultant who had suicidality and depression became an artist And now sells NFTs, you know, wow. Crypto NFTs online successfully, you know, like the, the kind of life changing applications are, are commonplace with, with this practice. Hope that answers your question.
Brian (9m 5s):
Yeah, no, and I noticed there's like three day there, a three day, there's a, in a six day, no, there's a four day too, and ayahuasca, and then the other one is
Austin (9m 18s):
Mushrooms.
Brian (9m 18s):
Yeah. Mushrooms. What if someone's looking at this being like, where do I start? Like, what, what would you say to them and how would you guide them? Yeah.
Austin (9m 26s):
You know, ayahuasca is very trendy now. For example, you just referenced Aaron Rogers, you know, talking about ayahuasca. And part of the reason is not only is it a very powerful medicine, you know, a psychedelic medicine, it's also held in a traditional ceremonial container. Now, what a ceremony is, is it began in the Amazon rainforest, right? So imagine 20 years ago, the only way that you were gonna do ayahuasca is you would have to fly to Peru or Columbia or Brazil, take a boat down the Amazon, find a tribe, And you know, have a translator, and they would serve you this, this brew, and then sing to you, right? And seeing what's called ETOs, which are, are sacred chants that they channel from divine spirits that they believe in.
Austin (10m 12s):
Okay? And you would undergo your own process. Now, that same ceremonial process, which can be held individually or in a group container we've brought to America, and in a sense, like kept the traditions from the Amazon, but also modernized applications for, you know, our lives here, right? In the Amazon, if you're in a tribe sitting with ayahuasca, well, after you're done with your ceremony, you go home to your hut and to your tribe, right? Here we go home to zoom calls and podcasts where, you know, the podcaster's kid is coming through the door in the back, you know?
Austin (10m 53s):
So
Brian (10m 54s):
Actually it's not my kid, it's my, my nephew. But anyways, okay. Just so people know I don't have kids. Okay. But yeah, either way, yeah. Okay. So
Austin (11m 2s):
The point is like, yeah, okay. It's, it's now, you know, the ceremony component is shared between mushrooms and with ayahuasca, right? So what is left is the, the actual medicine, the psilocybin or the ayahuasca and DMT, and those are two different compounds that create two different experiences. Something that's very shared is they're both psychedelics And what a psychedelic experience is like, is, the way I liken in, the way I share it on stage is I imagine your deepest dream, right? When you're in a dream, you don't know you're in dream. Yes.
Brian (11m 36s):
Right?
Austin (11m 37s):
Right. It feels like reality to you. And that reality could be all sorts of weird, right? Sure. You could be flying, you could become, you could become a stuffed animal, like so, so on and so forth, right? The hallucinogenic component of a psychedelic is similar to that. We have visions, we have an embodied experience of something. And the way the science works is there's two areas of the brain called the default mode network. Okay? DMN, this was studied by the Imperial College of London in 2013. The default mode network is your patterning section of the brain. So a pattern might be like, as a kid, I touched this hot pan and I burn myself. Okay, I'm not gonna do it again.
Austin (12m 17s):
Because now a neuro pathway has formed between two neurons that says, touch hot pan equals pain, so then avoid that pain. Yes. Yeah. A more complex pattern might be, you know, my parents divorced when I was around one years old, and it was, you know, I was getting passed around as a kid, right? From, from parent to parent. And so a pattern formed in me like, don't commit to a relationship too much, because that can break apart, right? And the way that got ingrained is as I entered into relationships in my adolescent and in my adult life, in the background, in my subconscious, there was always this whisper of like, be careful of commitment, be careful of divorce, so on and so forth.
Austin (12m 58s):
Does that make sense? Yeah. And
Brian (12m 59s):
That's probably fairly common with a lot of people, I'd imagine.
Austin (13m 3s):
Well, our, our default mode network governs so much more than we're even aware of. You know what the lead researcher Robin Cart Harris shares, and he was just on our podcast, is that what this section of the brain does is it tries to make order out of chaos. If we really like sit here and wherever you're sitting and just take a breath, it's complete chaos around us, right? There's no algorithm that can explain how the birds are flying, how the leaves fall, how the, how the wind currents flow, you know? And there's so much information and you can't even predict what the next person's gonna say and how you're gonna react to it. There's so much chaos that's happening. We can't live in chaos, right?
Austin (13m 43s):
And so our mind tries to create order by, by prediction. What that does though, is when we try to predict things that we're afraid of to try to safeguard us from pain or, or safeguard us from detachment, we can safeguard ourselves too much. Just like an allergic reaction. What happens in allergic reaction is you get a bite from a mosquito, let's say, and your skin swells up because that's your body's natural reaction to fighting off the virus, right? But it overcompensates and can get worse and worse and worse to the point where it could even be life threatening for some people, right? Same thing happens internally in our brains. We try to safeguard ourselves from pain, but then we do so much of it that we're actually keeping ourselves locked into a loop of pain by pushing people away, by disconnecting, by dissociating, by drinking by, so on and so forth, right?
Austin (14m 32s):
So what the psychedelic does is it temporarily quiets the default mode network. AKA temporarily pauses our patterns. Yeah. The Imperial College of London put advanced meditators clocking over 30,000 hours, and those on psychedelics through F MRIs, and found that default mode network to be quieted just like a child's mind. And what's interesting is if you read accounts of children taking psychedelics, which they do in the Amazon, the effect for them is almost nothing. They experience their normal conscious life, which I think is so fascinating. Yeah. Because what's actually happening, Brian, is our brains are just reverting to malleable childlike brains in an adult body.
Austin (15m 15s):
And so now imagine you're a child and your, your parents said, stop crying, put a smile on your face. Right? Or you can't say that to Uncle Todd or whatever, right? And then the child's brain starts creating a pattern like, oh, no, crying is bad. I need to, I need anytime I feel like crying, I need to instead smile. Right? What happens there is then all the, all the hurts that we've, we've learned to shut that down and instead fake a smile and not be authentic with it. What psychedelics does is it allows you to look at that and re-parent yourself to give yourself the compassion in that moment that maybe your parents didn't. Right? So instead of your parents saying, don't cry, put a smile on your face.
Austin (15m 58s):
Maybe your own voice is saying back to you, it's okay to cry. It's okay to feel whatever you're feeling now. Right? And in that way, we're re-patterning our brains and redefining our neural pathways, and those are, those can last a lifetime.
Brian (16m 13s):
And so from that standpoint, let's say someone's like, I'd love to look, learn it, you know, look into this. Is there one pathway you would recommend for them to start if they've never had any experience doing this?
Austin (16m 25s):
A hundred percent. And you know, if people want to message us on, on Ceremonia, on Instagram or on a website, they can do that Ceremonia circle, and we'll send this to them. It's the pathway that we, we hand them. The first is to read books, right? And there are three books that we have people read and love to share this with your listeners, because no matter what they choose, even if they choose not to do psychedelics, like these books are amazing. The first is on meditation. It's called The Mind Illuminated. It was recommended to me by a dear friend who has been learning meditation in the Zen and Buddhist tradition for more than 20 years. And he said that once he got this book, it completely accelerated his path.
Austin (17m 6s):
And he was, he learned that he was just a novice.
Brian (17m 8s):
And it's called the Mind,
Austin (17m 10s):
The Mind Illuminated. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Highly recommended this book. And we just have people read the first three chapters. That's it. Okay. The second book is called Letting Go by David Hawkins. And this book is, have you heard of a book called Power Versus Force? So, translated over 35 languages, sold millions of copies. It's, it's a psychospiritual book written by Hawkins, who has taught at Harvard Naropa University at number of different institutions. And at one point he had the largest psychiatry practice in the us. Then he went to Sedona, Arizona, became a hermit for six years, came out with this book called Power Versus Force, and the Map of Consciousness.
Austin (17m 51s):
And this is one of the follow-up books that I think is easier to read, phenomenal book around how to meet our emotions, how to meet ourselves and, and not let them stick, right? So often if we have grief or shame or guilt, we like seek to suppress that or project it out or avoid it, But it gets stuck in us. There's a book called The Body Keeps the Score, which scientifically prove that those emotions can actually create physical ailments, you know, including heart attacks in the future, or cancer, because they, the energy gets stuck in our bodies. So this book is about letting those go. And the third book is called No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz. It's the Consumer book for a psychotherapeutic framework called Internal Family Systems, AK Parts Work.
Austin (18m 37s):
So if you ever said like, a part of me feels this, a part of me feels that a part of me is really upset at the situation, right? Schwartz took that kind of language and said that we are actually made up of many parts, and these parts are often competing. And when they're like so many parts that, that we can often feel like we're going crazy, it's 'cause they're blended together. Like, have you ever loved somebody at the same time as being really angry at them? Like for those that have kids, that's a very common thing. It's like, I fucking love you, but I really wanna strangle you right now, like Homer to Bart, right? Like, those are two parts, right? That are actually, they're masking are protecting us from deeper, more tender wounds, which are called exiles, exiled parts.
Austin (19m 20s):
Like there's there like our wounded inner children parts. And so this framework is the one most often paired with psychedelic assisted therapy. And so the one, one of those that are, is the fastest growing s psychotherapeutic frameworks, period. And when you read these three books, what happens is you are learning to be a facilitator, right? So imagine going into a therapist's office as a therapist, like how much more effective you can be at like, navigating your own experience, right? That's what we do, and that's what we advocate for. For anyone approaching psychedelics, especially if it's your first time, imagine if you go in as a therapist or as a facilitator, the same tools facilitators have, because these are the same books that we have facilitators read, you know?
Brian (20m 6s):
Well, it's interesting, one of the books is called Letting Go. 'cause I would think that doing something like this, this is like, I do, I mean, I do yoga and, and, and some meditation a little bit every day. But like, if you're not going into these ceremonies, I'm assuming with like the intention of just, you know, being present and letting and just, you know, letting go per se, it might be more difficult to get that experience out of it. Maybe I'm wrong on that, But it, same, you know, same thing with meditation. If you're like, not wanting to do it, or maybe even trying too hard, sometimes you don't get what you want out of it, if that makes sense.
Austin (20m 40s):
So, yeah, because I imagine in that case, like in, in fact the mind illuminate talks about this, there's a part that comes out, which is like, I gotta push through. Right? And so I take it you meditate often, Brian.
Brian (20m 53s):
Yeah,
Austin (20m 54s):
Yeah. Sometimes you ever have that like kind of whiplash effect where it's like your, your mind wanders to something else and you're like, whip it back and you're like, dammit. Right?
Brian (21m 5s):
Yeah. I mean, yes, yes. It happens. Yeah. Yeah.
Austin (21m 8s):
And there could be, I mean, for me, sometimes there's a part that's like, man, I gotta do better, you know? Right. And one of the things that mine illuminated talks about is like that part and says, be gentle on yourself. You know? Because the more gentle you can be on yourself and, and actually celebrate that, your attention came back to the most boring thing possible, which is your breath, right? Yeah. Like, then if you can celebrate that over and over, you're positively reinforcing yourself, right? Same thing in a psychedelic, like, I experienced something really hard, you know, we have people do a cold plunge as the final workshop before the actual ceremony, because the cold plunge represents something that people are really afraid of, of, they have lots of expectations on.
Austin (21m 52s):
It invites them to feel into their bodies versus dissociate from their bodies, right? And to hold that with attention. So in other words, whereas they might normally fight flight or freeze, no pun intended, they're invited to like be present with the experience of, of the cold. So when people go through that, they're always so scared, but after a minute, they're loving it. Same thing with a psychedelic, imagine visiting your most deepest trauma, but if you're able to train your mind to hold onto it with compassion, with equanimity, with presence, just like you did with the cold, then you're actually able to be with yourself in, in a place where you would normally run away or fight it. Does that make sense? Yeah,
Brian (22m 31s):
Yeah. No, it does. I mean, I do, I do plunge from time to time and yeah, it's, it's like I do it more just for the mental part of it, you know, just sort of the mindset and just like a little bit like you talked before about chaos and getting into the cold and just like quieting everything about that right? And quieting the mind and just sort of being there. So I like that. That's personally what I like about going in the cold from time to time. Yeah.
Austin (22m 59s):
You know? Yeah. Likewise.
Brian (23m 2s):
And so would you say, you know, I'm just thinking even someone like myself, right? I have some experience with meditation, obviously in plunging, but never done any, anything like the, like plant medicines. Where would you guide someone like myself, you know, once you get past reading the books and stuff? Could you
Austin (23m 19s):
Ask that again? Sorry. Yeah. Where
Brian (23m 20s):
Would, like what ceremony would you, would you tell someone to go to if they've never done anything like this?
Austin (23m 26s):
Our six day awaken program is kind of our flagship program, And what that does is it, it, there's three ceremonies in it that layer on top of each other. And, you know, we believe that the end point of psychology is the beginning of spirituality. And we facilitate a synthesis of, of psychotherapeutic practice and meditation into, into mindfulness practices that ultimately deliver people an extraordinary felt sense of a spiritual experience. Right? And we're non-denominational, non-secular. So, you know, we have people who are Christians and, and Muslim and Buddhists, they all come or are atheists, and everybody has that peak experience, that program we've already run close to 40 retreats in the past two years, two and a half years of that program, and is really consistent at delivering extraordinary results.
Austin (24m 18s):
Our three day program is more like an intro. You come in for a weekend, you do some of our workshops, you have a ceremony, and it gives you a taste of it. That alone people have described as getting, helping them get unstuck, right? So our three days, like you come and get unstuck from wherever you are, our sixth day with, with mushrooms, with psilocybin, it's a truly life transforming experience. About 20, 30% of the people that come to our three day immediately sign up for a six day Okay. Awakened program. And then our four day program with ayahuasca is something where it's really about the medicine and less about the process, less about the meditation, et cetera. And it's more suitable for people that have some experience with psychedelics or, or deeper experience with meditation.
Austin (25m 4s):
Yeah. Okay.
Brian (25m 6s):
And you know, what's, what's the journey like as far as going through, you know, like these ceremonies, like what type of transformations you see people get that come in and, and go through all this or that? Like the six day one, what, what, what have you seen?
Austin (25m 22s):
Wow, so much. So we had 1, 1, 1 guy named Judd that came in, A very dear friend. Now in the very first ceremony, he's been in ceremonies before, including with ayahuasca. On my recommendation, he puts on a blindfold so that he can go deeper inwards into his himself, right? And I'm watching as he, you know, is stumbling towards the bathroom. And later he would tell me that he thinks that he stepped in my dog's pee. So when he comes back, he asks me for a, a towel with some, some water on it. Okay. So he, he starts, I get it from him. He starts washing his feet, then he asks me for some soap. So I get it. And he's washing his feet with soap now. Then he asked me for some lotion. Now he's lotioning his feet. And for the next, for about an hour and a half, I'm watching the, you know, a blindfolded 50 something year old man, give himself a pedicure.
Austin (26m 7s):
And he's just like very carefully, deliberately rubbing his toes after the ceremony, he over, over the post ceremony meal soup and some bread and some, you know, easy to digest stuff. He said, I ask him, Judd, how's your, how'd it go? And he, he lifts his feet and he says, wiggles his toes. And he says, Austin, look at this. He says, great Judd, how is your so ceremony? And he says to me, for the last 20 years, he has not been able to uncurl his toes without extraordinary pain. And he was prepared to go to surgery in two weeks for what the doctors could only think of was rheumatoid arthritis, really. But after the ceremony, and I've checked in on him, you know, months since never, never pain again.
Austin (26m 50s):
And it turns out that what was happening for him in his mind, his father was a boxing coach, and he himself now is, is a high powered like personal injury attorney, right. And in boxing, you're constantly like pushing off your feet, you know, to, to create force. And somehow the, the trauma of like his father constantly pushing him, you know, to achieve, to be better, got lodged in his toes, the same toes that he would use to push off the ground to, to hit things, which is the same kind of energy that he would bring into his practice to like destroy his opponents, you know? And all of that was like stuck there.
Austin (27m 30s):
That has now been, now been released. That's just one story. And that's a clear story of physical healing. Has some humor on it. We've had people, my mother came, she did a,
Brian (27m 42s):
Did that take some convincing,
Austin (27m 44s):
A lot of convincing
Brian (27m 45s):
Because usually like family members probably, right? They're not the first to go. Yeah. Yeah.
Austin (27m 50s):
Totally. A month later, tumors on her liver disappeared. Her father, or not her father hurt physician was, was surprised and shocked at that. We've had people who processed a recent divorce and really fully let it go. And then was able to come back with a lot of love and, and care. We've had people get total relief from burnout. I mean, you name it. Like we've had combat veteran come who would be so disabled after even a hug that he couldn't walk to the bathroom by himself. And by the end of the retreat he was singing and dancing with everybody else. You know, he couldn't close his eyes because there was so much kind of trauma living in the system that just to go inwards into himself was too scary.
Austin (28m 33s):
You know? So tremendous healings that are possible.
Brian (28m 38s):
What's a typical day like? Like for the six day one,
Austin (28m 41s):
We start with workshops that, and farm to table meals that go to about 2:00 PM 3:00 PM ish. And then ceremonies usually happen, we have two ceremonies at night, and then one in the day in the morning. So our night ceremonies usually start around 6:00 PM depending on when sunsets and goes till around midnight. Oh, wow. So it's a really full day, but people are more energized than they've ever been in their lives. And that's because, you know, you kinda gotta feel it to like really understand it. You have no idea how much the stuckness inside of us is actually holding us back, depleting our energy. You know, if you've ever like struggled to wake up in the morning or be like, I just don't want to get up today for, I would pose the question to your audience if they've ever had that feeling, have they also ever had the feeling of great inspiration?
Austin (29m 29s):
Like, I can't wait to get up, or I can't, I really don't wanna fall asleep. This is too good right now, you know? Yeah,
Brian (29m 36s):
Yeah.
Austin (29m 36s):
Like that unlimited feeling of energy. Imagine having that, like for days on end, and then usually for people weeks afterwards,
Brian (29m 45s):
That's a long, so six o'clock this to midnight. So that's how long the ceremony is.
Austin (29m 49s):
Usually ceremony is around five to six hours. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian (29m 53s):
Do couples come?
Austin (29m 54s):
Yeah, we have lots of couples come. We, the vast majority of couples that come, I would say I've heard many, many, many times that this has saved their marriages and a handful of times where couples come and they've decided to, you know, conclude their relationship. And they were grateful for that too, you know, because they were able to conclude it in a very loving way. But, you know, we like to say in this work, like, the medicine doesn't always give you what you want, it gives you what you need. And sometimes that's what they need. Yeah. But in general, it, it enhances their relationship in a way that like, very surprising for anybody.
Brian (30m 31s):
And now, you yourself, do you participate in most of the retreats? I mean, or are you there for all the retreats? Or do you, do you go to some of them or you're here?
Austin (30m 41s):
I led something like 35 retreats before, now I've passed the reins on to other amazing facilitators that, that I've trained and they lead, I come back and lead occasional retreats. I'm planning leading the March one Awaken. Okay. Yeah. But there's, we have really phenomenal facilitators. You know, a lot, a big component of the ceremonies themselves is the music and the facilitators are so multi-talented. They're not only amazing counselors slash therapists, they're also typically amazing musicians too, and, and singers. And it's, it's a very diverse range of skills that are part of facilitation.
Austin (31m 20s):
Yeah. For example, our IAS Ghetto, our, one of my teachers and who serves Ayahuasca here, he's, he's Grammy nominated, you know, so like imagine Yeah.
Brian (31m 31s):
Being like under a concert.
Austin (31m 33s):
Exactly. Yeah. A lot of people come and they're like, after the first sermon, they're like, I had no idea this would be a concert. It's like the best concert ever. Literally the best music you'll hear in your life, you know?
Brian (31m 43s):
Also too, there's gotta be some powerful things with music. Like, it's amazing 'cause I've been learning guitar. It is amazing what music can bring to you.
Austin (31m 52s):
Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. I too have been learning guitar. Oh, it's such a incredible journey. I'll tell you, Brian, this work accelerates creativity and learning so much. In fact, our final concluding day workshop just give you a little preview, is on creativity and painting and, and singing. And many people have been blocked in musicality their whole lives, including myself. And then what plant medicine does is it totally unblocks that or can unblock that. And I have friends who went on what's called a deta. It's like you go to the jungle and you sit with ayahuasca for a week, you know, every day. And they brought a guitar not knowing how to play a single chord.
Austin (32m 33s):
And they come out playing better than I can now. You know, and it's, and it just goes to show you like what your mind is capable of when it is unblocked.
Brian (32m 43s):
It makes sense. It goes back to your analogy with like kids, like
Austin (32m 46s):
Totally.
Brian (32m 47s):
Right? Like how fast
Austin (32m 48s):
Kids can learn Yeah. Language or
Brian (32m 49s):
Like, like sponge. Yeah. Yeah,
Austin (32m 50s):
Exactly. Your mind becomes a sponge. And, and it also tells you like, picking the right facilitator is really important, right? Because when your mind's a sponge, that can go both ways. Sure. You can learn really great things like reparenting yourself healing, awakening creativity, so and so forth. You could also learn some really scary things because there are facilitators out there that are predators that are, you know, that are cult leaders that are so and so forth, right? Yeah. And what I share with people, like a reasonably good way of detecting bullshit is a first trust your intuition, but b, challenge the facilitator's beliefs, right? So if they ask them like, what do you believe about the medicine? Right? Or about ayahuasca or about psilocybin, if they tell you, and then if you just ask, how do you know that to be true?
Austin (33m 36s):
Right? And if they say, trust me, or if they get angry or, you know, or they get contentious, probably not gonna give you space to discover your own beliefs. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Brian (33m 48s):
Yeah. Well that makes sense. Yeah. It's funny, I, not funny, but I've, I've this keep these, these ceremonies have come up Before I had a former professional golfer, DJ Trahan, I don't know if you're familiar with DJ Trahan, but he, he, he's gotten into ayahuasca and plant medicines. And also there's, I know some ex hockey players who have struggled with like, concussions who, who have, who've gotten into, you know, the ceremonies and, and having them help heal from, from years of playing hockey and get in and having head injuries. Do you ever get any like former athletes come on? Oh yeah,
Austin (34m 23s):
Yeah, man, we've got everybody. I mean, because we're, as I said, one leading institutions in the US So we've had politicians, we've had, you know, combat veterans including like very high level individuals. We've had athletes, we've had celebrities, we've had well-known authors and speakers like yeah, you name it.
Brian (34m 44s):
Well, how many per, how many typically are in a group that come for like a six day? How many is it capped out at a certain amount?
Austin (34m 51s):
We cap at 14, usually it's 10 to 14 people. Yeah. It's a good number. And we have a pretty high facilitator to participant ratio. Usually it's, it's about one facilitator for every two to three participants. Hmm. Yeah. But what's really awesome about this, this program is because everyone's learning, kind of learning to be a facilitator themselves. You know, I started talking about that in, in reading the books, they're actually able to give each other support. And that's a really big part of the work that we do is developing community, right? And so any person in the 10 to 14 people you can talk to and ask for help, and they would actually be able to hear you and listen to you and ask you questions in a way that you could, you would get with another facilitator.
Austin (35m 34s):
Does that make sense? Not in the ceremony itself, but you know, on the, on the either side of it. Like there's a lot of communal support.
Brian (35m 43s):
Yeah. Very cool. And, and you have a book coming out, is that right?
Austin (35m 47s):
Well, I've had a book coming out for a long time, but you know, the best thing right now is on our website there's a free guide called A Three Secrets to Getting Unstuck. And it walks through our process that we, that I call inside out pastry. First we go do the inner work that's mindfulness and psychotherapeutic, right? And then the outer work, which is based on relational connection. And when we are able to master that inside out, it's almost like becoming superhuman. We were able to move through the world in a much more authentic way and attract to ourselves relationships that we've always craved. 'cause everyone is wanting authenticity. Everyone is wanting confidence, right?
Austin (36m 27s):
Like real genuine confidence that's rooted in, in like inner knowing of who they are and you just become magnetic.
Brian (36m 34s):
Yeah, no, I love that. Especially nowadays, I feel like with, we're all like detached to some, you know, a lot of people are detached, whether it's through like the work they do with Zoom and like you just, everyone's in their own bubble sort of. But like you, you're losing a lot of authenticity just because, almost like AI as well, right? Like you don't know if it's a real person or not half the time. So yeah, I think this, this is where, you know, obviously you guys can come in and Colorado, is it? How, where in Colorado are you? Or like what area? We're
Austin (37m 7s):
Very, we're actually halfway between Denver and Boulder, so Okay. You fly in, we're 40 minutes from the airport and on a, on a wrench, you know, with horses and it's really beautiful. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. That's really extraordinary. Come visit Brian.
Brian (37m 22s):
Yeah, I know. I trust me, I'm, I'm getting there. I am getting there. My other question was, can you help my golf game? Well
Austin (37m 29s):
Bring, bring your clubs.
Brian (37m 31s):
I, I, trust me, I will be bringing my clubs. 'cause I'll probably,
Austin (37m 34s):
You know what's, you know what's funny about that? I told you we've had athletes and Aaron Rogers talks about this, like the dude won Super Bowls. So if he's not a good testament to like improving your golf game, I don't know who would be, but, but also you'd be surprised, like yeah, the, the unconscious stuckness that we have in our systems covers every aspect of our lives. It's everywhere and we just don't know it.
Brian (37m 58s):
Yeah. And just from a golf perspective, like, I think what happens too with myself And, you know, I coach golfers as well is like, they, you get stuck. You're sort of stuck in like this range of outcomes of where you sort of lay and it's like getting through, breaking through and trying to, you know, create a better handicap or create a better score. It's not so easy when you're sort of in this range and you're stuck. And so I can see how doing something like this maybe could potentially help.
Austin (38m 29s):
Yeah, a hundred percent. Totally.
Brian (38m 31s):
I'll be your golfer testimonial.
Austin (38m 33s):
Oh man. Please. And
Brian (38m 35s):
Bring all your golf buddies. Well, I appreciate you coming on Ceremonia circle.org. Yes. Is that the best place to Ceremonia circle.org? That's right. Okay. And I'll be looking at, and I'll Yeah, I'll, I'll take a look and, and shoot you an email if I decide to, to go through. So I appreciate Austin for coming on and sharing all this with us. You're, you're so welcome. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to the Get Lean Eat Clean Podcast. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there and you've chosen to listen to mine and I appreciate that. Check out the show notes@briangrin.com for everything that was mentioned in this episode. Feel, feel free to subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend or family member that's looking to get their body back to what it once was.
Brian (39m 17s):
Thanks again and have a great day.
