Discovering Inner Strength | Iván Chocrón

Join me as I chat with Iván Chocrón, a healer who blends science and spirituality to tackle trauma and resilience. Broadcasting from Buenos Aires, Iván shares his journey from a scientific background to embracing spirituality, guiding over 10,000 individuals on their healing paths.
Iván reveals how unmet emotional needs fuel our wounds and offers tips on healing by meeting these needs. He stresses the importance of emotional intelligence and how societal norms can stifle it. Through engaging stories, Yvonne shows how science and spirituality can unite for a holistic healing approach.
Dive into plant medicine like Ayahuasca, as Iván discusses facilitating healing with and without these tools. He shares his insights on conducting ceremonies and finding trustworthy facilitators. Yvonne also talks about overcoming resistance in clients and building trust.
This episode is packed with wisdom for anyone curious about trauma and healing. Ivan's insights will inspire you whether you're a parent, educator, or on your healing journey.

How to contact:
https://www.ivanchocron.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@ivanchocron

Transcript

Tiffany: Are you ready to get practical strategies to support survivors

>> Tiffanie: Are you guys ready to get practical strategies to support survivors, focusing on breaking cycles of harm and fostering resilience? If so, you're in the right place. Welcome or welcome back. This is True Crime Connections. I'm your host, Tiffanie, and this week, coming from Buenos Aires. How cool is that? Is Yvonne, who is a educator, consult and coach in healing. Thank you so much for being here and welcome.

>> Iván Chocrón: Thank you so much for having me, Tiffanie. It's a pleasure to be here.

>> Tiffanie: You, I love. So.


I just find it so interesting the way you do spirituality and science

Okay, let's start this over. So I watched a few of your videos, and, one of them was why you hate people saying everything happens for a reason. You have me dying.

>> Iván Chocrón: Uh-huh. So that's the one you watched. Okay.

>> Tiffanie: You are just so charismatic and funny in it, and I can see why people are drawn to you.

>> Iván Chocrón: Yeah. I was mentioning, ah, off camera, how important it is to bring some humor to these kind of topics, because otherwise it just gets too serious. And as a person who has been coming from a more scientific background in general, spirituality or anything related to it has always been a thing that created a lot of aversion. to me, this is in the past. It's not like that anymore. And so I feel like if we. If I would have been introduced to healing work and spirituality in the way in which now I present it in a way in the way in which I wish it would have been presented to me, me, then I would have most likely been, much more drawn to it. And so, yeah, putting a little spark everywhere to, you know, make it entertaining. And so it's not only just education and so much content. I feel like that also helps keep people engaged and bringing the attention span to a rest so that you can then deliver whatever comes next. So thank you for appreciating that and foreseeing it, of course.

>> Tiffanie: I just find it so interesting the way that you do spirituality and science, because when you think about, I mean, they do go hand in hand, but it's not something that people really put together quite often.

>> Iván Chocrón: Correct. And that was also myself. So, as I mentioned, I came from a scientific background. And, to me, spirituality was the opposite of. Of everything I ever, believed on. Right. If you cannot prove it, then don't even start talking to me about it. Go with whatever it is that you believe for no reason. That's kind of like the scientific or the atheist mindset. And because I come from that background, I understand it really well. Fortunately, I'm now on the other side where I have broken from what I would call A limitation because it is ultimately a point of view. And if that's the only point of view you have, then it is going to be a limitation whether you like your limitation or not, or whether you believe you like it, because that was me. But where I'm at today, I like this so much better. And with this, I don't mean that I discarded all the science, right? Quite the opposite. I still, have a very pragmatic way of seeing things and including spirituality. I also didn't think about them as, ah, compatible. And now it's quite the opposite. I can't imagine anything where you could not see it from either of those angles. And most likely both are right. Just using a different language, if you will. One analogy that I sometimes use is that it's like a French person saying, to a person that speaks Spanish. the way you say hello is by saying bonjour. And the person in Spanish is like, no, it's by saying hola. And it's like, no, it's bonjour. No, it's hola. And it's like you guys are both saying the same thing. It's just in a different language. And science and spirituality are very akin to that example. I have plenty of examples to give if you're curious. But at, ah, the end of the day, they are their ways of experiencing and seeing the world. And in my experience, they are both right. None of them are wrong.

>> Tiffanie: You have, guided more than 10,000 people through challenging healing journeys. I mean, you help with ptsd, depression, sexual violence, physical violence. That's a lot of people.

>> Iván Chocrón: That is a lot of people. And that's not anything I would have ever imagined or expected. But life has this thing about taking you in the most unexpected places. And I, am extremely grateful for that because one of the reasons why I understand the mind so well and how to heal what is trauma, how it's caused, what are the common mistakes that we make in our healing process. Why so important to heal all of these things? I know them thanks to having, if you will, gotten a, peak like a view of 10,000 people's minds. And you know, in a way, as I was mentioning, I still have that scientific way of thinking. So I take all of them as inputs in a database and understand what are the common, what is common to all of us, what is about being human. so if you see a pattern over and over again, even if they are different examples or the content is different, then you realize, oh, this is how we all get Wounded. No matter if you're from China, if you are a, ah, woman, if you are young, if you are like, we are all human and we all get wounded in the exact same way. For example, in the case of. Wounding is. Wounding happens when an emotional need goes unmet. Right? And that sounds generic, but it's because that is true for everyone. Now the content of that can be very different. What is an emotional need? What are the needs of each person? All of that can change. But, at the end of the day, that is something that is common to all of us. And so there's also something that's common to all of us about how we heal. There's something common to all of us about how we handle fear, shame, other emotions. And So, I had a lot of times psychologists come and ask me if I studied just psychology because I speak pretty much in their language. And I said I didn't in university, but I did. Through each one of you, you know, through each person that has come for healing. and honestly, that has been a lot of my education. I'm so grateful to those 10,000 people, to each one.

>> Tiffanie: That's honestly a gift to be able to take that from each person, because holy crap, the mind is a scary place. It can be. And everyone's is different. So. And there's things that we have in there that we don't even think about, but they're still there. So I can only imagine how hard it can be sometimes to access those areas and like, how far down you.

>> Iván Chocrón: Gotta go after you have worked with a lot of people who can access those places, then you get a new, challenge, if you will, which is how do you work with people who cannot access those places where you, as a facilitator, you can tell that there is a lot there that it is stored or suppressed or protected. and maybe even the person knows that too, but they don't know the content and they don't have any way to access it. And a lot of times I have been challenged where I'm like, I have no idea how to help you, but I'm going to try. And by trying together and by being honest about that, right? Like, hey, I have never seen a case like yours. It's pretty unique or extreme. And I really.


We need to start giving children the foundation to work through their emotions

You don't fit in any of the, you know, categories of ways of healing that I've ever experienced. But let's do it together. Let's, let's, you know, let's remove the, the pressure that I, you will come out of here healed and let's explore together. And it has been extremely helpful to do that because with people like that, I realize it's not about releasing trapped emotions, it's about helping them reconnect with their emotions. And how do you guide a person to do that is a very different thing, that you have to do than how do you help people release, emotions. So in each one of these cases where I have been challenged or where I have not known what to do because I have never seen it, I've always taken the if you will handle route, the I don't know what I'm doing route, let's do it together. And it has been so educational for me and you know, this then repeated over and over again to the point where at this point, I don't encounter too many cases that I haven't seen. But if I were to do it, I've already done that enough times where I have seen, where I have not known what to do. and now I trust the process of what to do with people that way. So, yes, the mind can be scary, but mostly can be a, complex maze to navigate if you don't know how to do it. But once you do is actually not that hard. So if we were taught in school, in elementary school or in high school, at least the basics on how to navigate the mind, I think that the population would be less afraid of what is it that they are storing and more capable of doing Self healing.

>> Tiffanie: Oh, I agree 100%. We need to start giving children the foundation to be able to work through their emotions instead of keeping them balled up because then they get older and they're shooting stuff up and they're, you know, it's just, it can go so left. So, like, if we can get to the minds when they're still, like, forming and they're young enough to understand and process, I think the world would be a much better place.

>> Iván Chocrón: Yeah. And sometimes people, ask me, why do you think that is not the case? Is it a conspiracy? You know, like, is it that they want to keep us uneducated? They, I, I always laugh when they use that word. They. Who, who's conspiring to do that? No, I think that the reason is because our educators have not learned this. Our educators are like anyone else. Like, our parents, like everybody are traumatized people. And a lot of the systems that have been created have been created by people who have not done healing work. And so how can you teach something that is not something that is an intrinsic part of your practice and of your being. But this is not our educator's fault either, because they don't know what they don't know. We, ah, as a collective, have not created a society where healing, has the priority that it deserves and that it should have. If we would have more, like a culture, right, where healing is key, is essential. What do we give priority to? We give priority to work, to career, to family. I'm not saying those things are not important. They are. But I, would venture to say that they are less important than healing, including family. Because prioritizing your family without prioritizing your healing is not really prioritizing your family, because you're going to basically be giving to them parts of your trauma, unintentionally, and you're going to be harming them without you knowing. So prioritizing your healing is actually prioritizing your family as well. Part of the reason why I'm making those videos, since you were mentioning them, is to start doing what I can to create that culture. And many of my videos, talk about how important doing healing work is, not just how to do it or why we shouldn't say everything happens for a reason or things like that, which obviously is. It's also part of what I have to give. But, kind of like us making people realize how. How much more important doing healing work is than what we're giving it, today.

>> Tiffanie: I totally agree. I mean, it's breaking the generational cycles that we all have, we all go through.


We do that so much unconsciously, not even realizing what we're doing

But in the video, you said something, and I think this could be like an aha moment. It was kind of for me, and I think it can be for the listeners as well, is when you were talking about the Olympian who expected to win. Everyone expected her to win and she didn't. And her mom, instead of, like, holding her and saying, you know, you'll be okay, instead, she's like, well, yeah, but look how far you got. How many people can say that, like, didn't really allow her to feel her feelings. And I think we do that so much unconsciously, not even realizing that's what we're doing.

>> Iván Chocrón: Oh, yeah. and it's everywhere. I gave that example in the video because it's everywhere. And a lot of people can identify or at least resonate or know that they have heard it or that it has been done to them or that they have done it. I definitely am guilty of having done it too. but it goes from the most basic thing, for example, but one thing that I named in that part of the video is that, it's not the mom's fault. The mom is really trying to make her daughter feel better, even though it's not the right way of doing it. But we do it a lot of times from that place of we want to make the person feel better. For example, one of the most common things that we have heard as children is, our mom or our dad or a teacher say something like, oh, don't be sad, right? And it's super basic. I'm not saying something that sounds that terrible. But what. Basically what I'm telling you is don't feel what you're feeling. And, your sadness is not welcomed. You should be feeling something else. And so what that M makes is it creates a. Well, we were talking about cultures, right? It creates a culture where not every feeling is honored or welcomed. And so a lot of them become harder to feel later on in life because we have learned that these feelings are, not going to be received. Instead, we should tell the child that sad. It's okay that you're sad. Let me, Let me hold you. It's okay that you're. Let me hold you as you're going through that. So that the child feels loved. Whether they are sad or, or feeling joy or angry or whatever that is. Whatever you're feeling, it's okay. Let me hold you in it. Now that's the most basic thing we say. But we, we tell people basically to not feel what they're feeling an array of different ways. And we do it every day. If you really pay attention, you will hear it, you will hear it in the, in, in the dinner table. You will hear it at the grocery store. In Waiting to pay. You will hear it coming from your own mouth and you will hear it being said to you, I know I've done it.

>> Tiffanie: But so you. And then you said it's because the mom is hurt as well, and she doesn't. I was just like, mind fucking blown. Like, oh my God. It, like it's a ripple effect. It's because the mom was hurting, that her daughter was hurting and she didn't want to hurt either. So it was just like a way to kind of minimize it without even realizing what you're doing.

>> Iván Chocrón: Yeah, it's so unconscious. At the end of the day, she is not comfortable with her own daughter's sadness because she's not okay with sadness in general. So if her mom would have been told as a child, it's okay that you're sad, her mom would have internalized that. It would be part of who she is. And when she sees her daughter sad, she would know that that's okay. So I don't have children yet. but we're planning. We've been trying actually for a while with my wife. And I know, you know, we talked about the 10,000 people. In a way. These 10,000 people were, in a very strange way, my children. Because I got to see. To talk with all of them about their childhood and about what were the things that have made them, that have created and, perpetuated trauma. And not feeling your feelings or being told that your feelings are not welcomed, whether that is directly or is, implied, like the way I was just saying. One thing I've learned is the importance of honoring children's feelings. But in order to do that, I need to honor my own feelings, especially the ones that I have a hard time honoring. So if when you got angry as a child, your father told you, don't talk to your father like this. Now you're grounded. Then you also learned that's one way in which your dad is telling you anger is not welcomed. Anger is, a, ah, dangerous emotion to feel. When you feel anger, you get grounded, basically. Right? So with that, I realized that I need to be okay with every feeling that I have. And ah, work on that. So that when I have children, if my child gets angry or if my child gets sad, I will be. I personally will be okay. Because I know that it is okay to be sad and it is okay to be angry or hopeless or defenseless. These are all feelings that are okay to experience. So if my child experiences it, then what's a big deal? You know, I mean, this doesn't mean to dismiss or to ignore or to not love the child while they're going through that, but it's just another feeling that is okay to feel. As I said, what's a big deal? I could feel another thing coming up, for me, which is the collective it is a big deal. Sadness is a big deal. What do you mean? What. What do you mean with what's the big deal? Of course it's a big deal. And the answer is no. No, every feeling is valid, but it's not a big deal, or it's not a big deal that we make it to be. So my child is sad. It's okay to be sad, dude. Like, I know exactly how it. Come, let me hug you as you're doing that. So in the case of the mom and the Olympians, if the mom would be okay with her own sadness, she would also be okay with her child being sad because she didn't win the Olympics. And thus she would have less of a need to try to make her feel better by dismissing her sadness. so at the end of the day, what I'm saying is it all starts with healing yourself, and then the arrest comes kind of automatically.

>> Tiffanie: That makes so much sense.


What are some things that people have said that messed kids up as kids

What are some of the other things that people have said that kind of mess them up as kids? Like, I guess that's a nice way to say it just for, like, people who are listening that, you know, maybe they are expecting or they're new parents. Like, what are some of the things that we do that we really need to stop?

>> Iván Chocrón: Ah, what a great question. You know, I think, I mean, I've talked about this many times, but I think it's the first time that somebody asks it directly like that. Like, make a list of all the things that we do to our children. That could be a great video, by the way. I think I'm gonna write it down.

>> Tiffanie: I'll watch it. You should.

>> Iván Chocrón: okay, so anything that implies, that whatever you're experiencing is not okay. So I already mentioned from don't be sad to don't talk to your father like that, to a very common one too, is this happens a lot in Asian cultures, but it is not limited to them. And it is that, I am proud of you. When a child does something good and. Or something that you as a parent believe that is the right thing. For example, the most common one is having good grades, right? And to not say that in contrast, when the child doesn't have good grades. And so what basically you are telling the child is when you perform or when you do what I expect you to do, then you receive my love and my pride. When you don't, then you don't receive my love you don't receive. Which is coming in the form of pride. Love is too generic. Love can take any shape. It's like the joker card in a deck. it's not just love. Love always comes in the form of something. It can come in the form of touch. It can come in the form of attention. It can come by saying that you're proud of someone. So if you do X, you get my love in the form of pride. If you don't, then my love disconnects from you. What does the child learn then? That, performing is being worthy of love. And that, ah, not performing is not being worthy of love. and so that the child might become an over performer or overachiever later on. And even though that can bring a set of really great skills and gifts and qualities, it is mostly wounded, driven. And the child is not going to. Or at that point the adult is not going to be doing it because it's what's truly, truly coming out of their heart, is doing it because they are escaping the idea of not being worthy of love. And that always brings, some sort of harmful consequence to yourself and to others. You might do the same thing to your child later on or to your partner. So that's a very common one, is to give love sometimes and remove it some other times based on what you as a parent think is right.


One common way we shame our children is by saying how could you

Another common one, which to also keep on the topic of your question, is ways in which we shame our children. So from. How could you do that? Anytime you ask the question, how could you. You're basically implying something is wrong with you. Like if you would not. If there wouldn't be anything wrong with you, you wouldn't have done that. How could you do that? Right? Meaning like something, something's wrong with who you are. And, and so that's, that's what we, we say that to our partners too. We don't only say to children like you might, a wife might say to the husband, how could you mix the dark clothes and the white clothes in the laundry? Instead of saying, so if you, if you ask me, Ivan, then what is the right thing to say? The right thing to say is to honor your feelings and say, I am angry at the fact that you mixed those, the, the clothes in the laundry. because me on the other end, I'm like receiving your anger and we are having an honest conversation about what's going on. But instead of honoring oneself's feeling, we dismiss them. And when we shame the other person by saying, how could you do that? the answer to how could I do that? Is because I didn't know. There's nothing wrong with not knowing, but there is an intention of shaming there. and so we do it with children a lot. We shame our children. We, project into them what we believe is right. We tell them what they believe, what they should believe. From religion to lack of religion, which was my case, my parents basically, I would say, forced me into atheism. And, it's not that they were like, you shall be an atheist. But it's like when your parents tell you there is no God, like anyone who believes in that is an idiot, then that's that's they're installing, they're basically installing a belief system in you. In this case, it's the belief that there is nothing, instead of, ah, what is the true role of a parent is not to install their own beliefs, is to guide the child into growing up to be their own person and support them at every stage of the way. Protect them, obviously not shame them and help them honor their own emotions. I will make a list, a much more concise list based on your question, because I think it's a great question.


You developed a methodology that bridges science and ancient wisdom without relying on plant medicine

>> Tiffanie: Thank you. Yeah, you talk a lot about like your different practices and that you developed a method, a methodology that was a big word for me. A, methodology that bridges science and ancient wisdom, that offers tools that empower people to move forward even without relying on plant medicine or elaborate therapies. So what is it that you teach that you don't need? Plants. And then I'm so curious, what plants are you using?

>> Iván Chocrón: Great, great question too. So when I started serving plant medicine, in this case ayahuasca and San Pedro cactus, which I don't know if you know that one.

>> Tiffanie: I don't know that one. I know the first one. My best friend did that one.

>> : Yeah. So when I first, when I first did that and when I first started serving it, I thought that, it was the plants who was helping us do the healing. And in a way that is true, they are helping us. But that can be very confusing. That can be confused very commonly with them healing us. And, they are just helping us learn how to heal. And so after years of holding these ceremonies, I realized that a lot of the times the healing was coming not necessarily from the plants, but from the conversations that I was having with the people that maybe the plants would kind of bring things up like oiling a rusty machinery or something that is like just really assisting a lot in maybe accessing those places that we were talking before that some people have a really hard time accessing, but that the healing wouldn't be complete until we would talk and help the person process those emotions. And so later on I started taking people outside of the ceremonies with the plants doing, coaching one on one. And the healing was equally as powerful. And so I'm really grateful to the plants because they have taught me how to do the healing without them. With them, the healing is easier and it's like lower hanging fruit. And it's much. It just helps people who are very closed up to access places that most likely they wouldn't be able to Access any other way but to complete the process and to finish it there. There is what I would call the healing process. So to talk, to answer to your question, there is a process in which we all get wounded, and there is a process in which we all get healed. And they are very related.


To get wounded, we need an emotional need go unmet

So I mentioned earlier, one thing that we all share is that to get wounded, we need to have an emotional need go unmet. And that creates a wound. the wound is an emotional hole, if you will, in our emotional body where something that I really needed has not been given. And so emotionally I feel empty there. And so what does that part do is it starts seeking to be fulfilled, like a hungry stomach. And, the hungry stomach most likely will want things with nutrients, you know, the spinach and the avocado. But if you have, if that's taken away and there's none of it left, and all you've got is like, I don't know, glass noodles. I know. I'm thinking of whichever food has no nutrition at all. Yeah, potato chips. And that's all you've got, then your stomach is going to be asking for that. Now if. Instead of. And you're going to give it, and it's going to keep you alive, but it's not going to make you thrive. It's going to make you survive but not thrive. And, survival has been at the forefront of our priorities for a very long time. However, I really feel that as humans, we have reached a point in which, at least this is obviously not the case for everyone in the world. There's a lot of really intense poverty and a lot of people are still in survival, but there is a lot of people who are not in survival and that, still have a surviving mentality when the priority now should not be about surviving because that's taken care of, it's about thriving. And you cannot thrive, your body cannot thrive with potato chips. In the same way your emotions are not going to be able to thrive with, whatever that wound is seeking. So if I didn't get the love that I needed, that emotional hole is going to seek for the closest similar thing. If I needed the touch of my mother, and my mom never touched me because it was part of her own wounding, then I might seek for women in my life that touch me, even though I have no idea that that's what. Why I'm doing it. But maybe a woman touches me and that, to me becomes exactly like food in the middle of the desert. Maybe a woman says something to me and I don't care. But when she touches me, I'm like, oh, my God. This is. Is like quenching deep thirst that I don't even know that I have. and the problems that can arise from that is that, I might not see a, huge amount of red flags that this person might not be for me just because this person is giving me the water in the middle of the desert. And, so if the wounding happens through an emotional need, going unmet healing happens by meeting that emotional need, by giving the avocado, by giving the spinach. Right. In this case, how do you do that? Is the methodology that I have developed. And I have developed it, developed it through all the people that came before me, thanks to, like, parts of the things that I learned with the plants and, through empathy, but also through methodologies like ifs, internal family systems, through classic psychology, and through some, you know, intuition with working with people. So there is a wounding process, there's a healing process. And you can really write them down in order on how that works. And once you deliver that to people, this is how you got wounded. Let's go and explore these lines. You got it. Now this is how you heal those. Those places in you. Let's go step by step then. The healing that's available for people is pretty beautiful and profound. When you work with plant medicines, a lot of these processes happen kind of automatically. But, when you don't have plants, you can still do as, as much deep, meaningful healing as if you would have plants.


Do you get met with a lot of resistance from people in which way

>> Tiffany: Very interesting. Do you get met with, like, a lot of resistance from people in which way? Like, I mean, I guess if they're coming to you, they know there's a problem. But it could be like, I'm fine. And you're like, no, you're not. Like, let's. Let's explore this a little bit more.

>> Speaker B: I definitely count with the advantage that they are coming to me and I am not coming to them. Right. That helps. though every now and then you get someone who's like, I came here because my friend told me, and they are already not wanting to be there. so, yes, sometimes I am met with resistance. And I think part of the skill that I developed is to put those guards down. So at first I would have been like, you should, like, like, this is your opportunity to heal. What are you doing? Wasting. Do you know how many people would love to be in your spot right now? Like, you, blah, blah, blah. like, that's kind of like what used to show up for me. Naturally, and eventually I started. There was a lot of compassion coming from me. Like, the person. It's not their fault. It's not their fault that they are the way they are, that they are traumatized. Like, and it's. I am the facilitator. So in a way, it's up to me to put their guard down. It's not their responsibility to come with the guard down. And, it is potentially within my skill set to help them do that, to help them understand that it is in their own benefit, but that if I push against the defense, that's what the defense is there for. So that's not going to be a good strategy. So, that is a little bit more intuitive or like, how do you call it? Like, a little bit of an improvisation every time. But a lot of it comes from having shifted my mentality into, this is a chess game right now, is me against this person's defenses. Let's see who wins. Let's play. You know. And so humor is a big part of it. Asking questions is also a big part of it. Asking questions is a great way of playing chess. So if the person is like, I shouldn't be there, instead of, sorry, I shouldn't be here, or this ceremony is bullshit, whatever they are saying, rather than me getting into the defense state, which, that's it, now I reduce myself to that, and now I'm clashing against his defenses. I could just ask questions and say, oh, tell me more about it. Why is this? Oh, because look at that person all in white. And that one's, like, pretending to be all spiritual and like, what is this place? I mean, I'm exaggerating this. It's not very common to get someone like that, but, you know, versions of it, for sure. And so I'd be like, why does that bother you? It doesn't bother me. it's like, what's unique to you, that bothers you? That. And why would you think it doesn't bother me? And so we start, like, engaging into, like, an exploration. And by doing that, the person's already in it. It's already, like, going deep inside of. By the time that, you know, they've realized what's going on, it's too late. They already have explored a lot, and we already laughed. And, Like, I take it. I don't take it personal. So, yeah, I am met sometimes with a lot of resistance, but I became skillful at trying to diffuse it. And sometimes, even after having done it many times, I am not successful at It. And I have come to the place of acceptance of it. It's okay. It is my responsibility to do my best, but it is not my responsibility to. To have 100% a successful result. so, yeah, I have fun. I really have. Every time. The more complex and challenging the case, I have learned to approach it with, more curiosity and more like a chess game. And, I want to win this game. So it's on, bitches. It's all. Exactly.

>> Tiffany: I love it.


So how often do you do these ceremonies? At this point, I do them once a quarter

So how often do you do these ceremonies?

>> Speaker B: At this point, I am doing them, like, maybe every two or three months. I used to do it every week. yeah, I burnt out. I used to be in an airplane every week, in a different time zone every week. And, And I did it for many years. I was very, at first, I was very passionate about it, so I wouldn't get tired of it. I was fine being in an airplane and in a different time zone every week for years. At some point I, started asking myself, like, what are you doing with your life? Why are you. Why are you getting into a TSA check again? Like, why are you not going to sleep again tonight? To. Why are you going to explain all of this? Are you sure this is, you know, that doubt started creeping in and, so I first thought I was losing my passion, but, it was just doing something too much and I started doing it less and less. And at this point, once a quarter is good because when I come to the ceremony, I feel very refreshed, ready. and that's how, if I were a participant, that's how I would want my facilitator to be. Right. To be, at their best self. Especially with something as important as your healing and as, ah, scary. it's not that it's necessarily scary, but people have this idea that taking plants and diving deep into your subconscious mind is a very scary thing. And so they come nervous and afraid. So I want to be my best self in those moments to honor their trust in me. And so at this point, yeah, once.

>> Tiffany: A quarter, I think that's good. I would love to do one of those. Do you, like, change the places up or do you kind of have your set schedule where you like to go?

>> Speaker B: I have a place now. I have a retreat center that we, have everything. Mats, cups, plates. It's all beautifully set up and I used to travel everywhere and now I'm asking people to come. But it's going to be worth it because the place is set up specifically for that.

>> Tiffany: Yeah, no, I mean, that's great. I mean, I think that sounds amazing. When my best friend did ayahuasca, she was like, holy. So I was like, I want to check that out at least once.

>> Speaker B: Who did she do it with or where?

>> Tiffany: in Arizona. M. She went somewhere, she said, like, she was like, on a mountain. That's really about all I know. And she couldn't like, really talk throughout it, obviously, because you're busy, taken all kinds of weird. But she felt so lighter when she left and like, she felt like she got answers that she needed. And I just thought that was just so cool.

>> Speaker B: And, the answers you get, you feel like you would never come up with them yourself. It's. It's pretty mind blowing. Very transformative. Yeah. If anyone has the opportunity to do it. There's a caveat with what I'm going to say. But, yeah, if you can do it, if you get the opportunity and you feel ready, go for it. the caveat is the most important thing is to make sure that you go to somebody, that somebody has entrusted you, that somebody has gone first and said, I trust this person. I trust their integrity, I trust their knowledge and I know that you'll be okay. Don't get anybody off the Internet or an advertisement or, and if you're listening to this, including myself, because nobody has recommended you to me and at the end of the day, you don't know me. And so it's. There is a lot of. There are a lot of settings and circles that, either don't take this seriously or they take it too seriously. or there's something that might be off, or they don't. Might not have enough knowledge or they might be too spiritual and know nothing about science. there's. There's an array of potential issues. So you want to do this being and feeling safe. Now, if you have somebody, you have the opportunity, you have someone to go to and you get the chance. I can, promise that if the ceremony is properly held, there is almost no chance. And I say almost because you always have to give 1% there, but almost no chance that your life won't improve drastically and that you won't feel amazing after it. It can really change how you experience the world, to the better on yourself at the end of the day.

>> Tiffany: And who doesn't want that?

>> Speaker B: Well said.

>> Tiffany: I'm going to make sure that I do put the link though, to your website in the show notes. That way, if anybody does, I mean, I trust you. I don't know if that means anything to anybody. But.

>> Speaker B: I mean, I know myself, so, I'll tell you. Come with me. But, you know, wouldn't that be what. Whoever. Everybody would say that. So I guess that's exactly what a scammer would say.


A lot of what you take in is related to your own wounds

>> Tiffany: When you're ever done with these, do you ever feel like you need to, like, cleanse yourself? Like, do you ever take on all these emotions and stuff from people?

>> Speaker B: I love your questions today. They're. They're really great. Yes, I do. I have become better with time at, taking less in. And a lot of what you take in is related to your own wounds. So this is a side note for anyone who's going to a facilitator, know that your facilitator is also wounded, because it's very common to idealize the person. Like, somebody might hear all the things I'm saying now and be like, oh, wow, that's so cool. There's so much wisdom in there. And then if on top of that, you give them medicine and their life changes, they might start idealizing you. It's a very common effect. So your facilitator is very much wounded like anyone else. and it's very common to take things on without you realizing that are directly related to your wants. So an ex. Extremely. An extreme example to get the point across is if you have lost a child, right? One of the most traumatic experiences a human can go through, and then that trauma is not healed, and someone comes to your ceremony who has lost a child, every time that they cry, every time that they talk to you, every time anything that happens in ceremony is going to affect you so deeply, and then you're going to go home and, you are not going to be in the same way as if that person wouldn't have come to your ceremony. You will have. You will most likely be affected deeply. And you couldn't have helped that because you have a one that has matched a participant and you have, whether you like it or not, take it along. So this is obviously an extreme example. But, if you reduce that to all of the little ones that you might have, those, places are being consciously or not affected by others. So with time, I've worked on myself more and. But also I have become more aware of the ones that have not healed. And so when somebody comes that matches that, I consciously make a commitment to myself of not disconnecting from the person yet, understanding that this is their journey and that it is not up for me to take, a very common thing, especially for facilitators is to believe that it is you who has to heal a person. and I learned that that is not true. I don't have to heal a person. I am there to help the person heal themselves and, guide them through that. I don't need to take on the other person's journey because I have my own. And that would be a disservice to the person. If I take their journey, then what about them and their journey? Like you are disempowering them to learning how to heal themselves. So by understanding all of these, things, with time, I became better at, emotionally letting people have their own journey without disconnecting, without making people feel that I don't care. Because I do care. And at the same time, I both care. And I also know that this is your stuff. So, yet, yeah, I always need to clean at least a little bit. I have a little routine after, afterwards with, for me, sports. I, I am a little bit of a, maniac with doing sports. Let me see if I have it here. This, I ran it a few days ago. It's an iron Man.

>> Tiffany: Look at you. That's awesome. congratulations.

>> Speaker B: Thank you.

>> Tiffany: I love the look.

>> Speaker B: I know with the headphones.

>> Tiffany: I mean, you could start a new trend. I don't know.

>> Speaker B: so, yeah, working out and going to a spa and you know, writing. And I have my own routine and that has also helped a lot. So. Very recommended. For anyone holding space. For anyone else, be aware of which parts your wounds match. And then whatever you have taken on, go, wash it out.

>> Tiffany: Yes, yes, Yvonne, this is great. And I just want anyone who's listening, if this resonates with you or, you know, somebody who needs to hear it, make sure you share it because this is some good.


Stop holding ourselves back. If you are holding yourself back and you don't know why

Is there anything else?

>> Speaker B: The style of your podcast.

>> Tiffany: Thank you. I get that a lot. Yeah, I mean, it's what it's about, right? I mean, we're all here to learn, but let's have a good time while we do it and better ourselves. Like, we could all live the life that we want. We just have to allow ourselves to get it. Stop holding ourselves back.

>> Speaker B: So if I were to hear that in a ceremony, I would be like, you're absolutely right. But it is also not our fault that we are holding ourselves back. Why are we holding ourselves? Like, if you were to think, about it, nobody would choose to do that. So something is creating that and that is usually rooted in wounding, which is why so many Times throughout this conversation, I said that healing is one of the most important things we could do. When you start doing healing work, then you start realizing what are the things that have happened to you that you didn't know that are holding you back. And so you stop holding yourself back. But telling someone, like, stop holding yourself back. I mean, I get it. and I'm not criticizing you. This is, you were talking about earlier about examples of how we say these things to people all the time. This, this is like, it's such a common way of saying, you know, from this side, it's like, I'm your friend, I stop holding yourself back. I'm like, come on, like, go for it, right? Like why, why are you doing that? And the answer is probably like, you don't know it. It's rooted in your wounding. And start doing some healing work and you'll find out and then the rest will come effortlessly. So thanks, thanks for saying that because it has given me the chance to say yes, don't hold yourself back. If you are holding yourself back and you don't know why, then one thing you can do is start doing some healing work, whatever that is, whether it is with plants or somehow else. But most likely the answer will come naturally as a consequence of the healing you do.

>> Tiffany: Mine was fear. I had to face fear. I had to get real comfortable being uncomfortable.

>> Speaker B: Do you know what you were afraid of?

>> Tiffany: Rejection, I think.

>> Speaker B: I'm tempted to keep asking you questions and then start a process like rejection of what? Have you found the root cause? What have you done after that? Have you cried it all out? Are you still holding on to resentment? Like, oh my God, we could go to so many places down the rabbit hole we go.


I love this idea of things that show up because they don't seem to

>> Tiffany: Well, is there anything else that you wanted to add? Anything that you want the listeners to know?

>> Speaker B: let me see if anything shows up. I usually wait when I ask, when people ask me this question, I wait to see if there's anything that wants to be said rather than me wanting to say, okay, what is showing up? I love this idea of things that show up because they don't seem to. Why, why did this show up? Like, I just closed my eyes and this thing just, boop. Just pops up for no reason. Right. So, what showed up was this idea that life is a game, can't be seen as a game if you. Life can be seen as whatever you wanted to see it. So if you're seeing it in a way that is not serving you, and you realize that as you're hearing this. It is also.


You can always do healing. There's no reason not to do it

There is also other perspectives available, and one of them is seeing it as a game. And the rules of the game are to get wounded and to heal. And wounding is important because through wounding, a lot of our gifts get developed. And healing is important so that when we give those gifts, they are coming from a, healed place and not from a wounded place. And so I have been feeling that more and more that we just sign up to play a game where we get wounded as children and, we heal as adults. And that healing gives a lot of meaning to our past and to the parts of ourselves and our, history that we wish would have been different. So rather than wishing for things being different, we have an option that is very similar to that, or at least it has similar effects. and that is that you can always do healing. And once you do it, the desire for things to have been different goes away, no matter what that is. From, the least traumatizing to the most traumatizing things. I have heard people that have experienced levels of trauma that are really hard to hear, that are okay with how things played out in their life because of the healing work that they have done. And because of the healing work that they have done, they also got to see the powerful gifts and the powerful people that they became thanks to it. So your trauma is okay. Your trauma is there for you, not, against you. When you do healing work, if you don't do healing work, then it will feel like it's against you, and it most likely will. but when you do healing work, you basically make trauma your friend. And, I don't think there's anything worth more than that. So that's what was showing up.

>> Tiffany: I love that through pain is purpose. So if you can make it through, I mean, you never know what gifts that you have that you can share with the world.

>> Speaker B: Yeah. Imagine looking back at your past and not wishing that anything, nothing at all, would have been different. Nothing. Not the death of your parents at some age, not a, heartbreak. Not when you lost all your money, not when you broke your bone, like, not when you got bullied. Now imagine that you look at every part of your life and, ah, you're like, I am, exactly. I am perfectly fine with things the way they played out. Exactly the way they played out. But that, that comes genuinely and naturally without any effort. That, that's just oozing out of you, though. That's one of the most beautiful, consequences of doing healing work. So no reason not to do it. This. There's no. There's really. I find no reason not to do it.

>> Tiffany: Me, too. Well, I think you are going to make a fantastic father, so thank you.

>> Speaker B: That's really sweet of you to say. I can't wait.

>> Tiffany: Well, it was such a pleasure having you on. And like I said, I will put your links in the show notes, so anybody who wants to come and find you, they can do that with ease. And, we will stay in touch.

>> Speaker B: Yes, we will. Thank you so much for the space. you're really bubbly. I really appreciate your whole vibe and the start of your podcast. And, yeah, thank you for giving space for this kind of content to be out.

>> Tiffany: Absolutely. We need this. We need it for sure. All right, let's stop. Yeah.