The Matt Chambers Show
Welcome to The Matt Chambers Show, where we explore the world of traveling, living and doing business internationally. Hosted by Matt Chambers, this podcast connects people, places, and ideas, offering inspiring stories and practical insights to help you design a life beyond borders. Whether you're seeking adventure, remote work tips, retirement ideas, or entrepreneurial guidance, each episode brings you closer to turning your global dreams into reality.
The Matt Chambers Show
Royal Marine Fights for Survival
What can a former Royal Marines commando teach us about inner peace and spiritual awakening? Join us on this fascinating episode of Matt Chambers Connects, where we sit down with Ricardo, a man whose journey from violence to tranquility is nothing short of extraordinary. Raised in a challenging environment, Ricardo opens up about his troubled youth, the void left by his absent father, and the critical role his uncle played as a guiding force. Despite the adversities, Ricardo’s childhood was imbued with an abundance of love and discipline, setting the stage for his current path as a spiritual life coach.
Ricardo's stories of close encounters with violence are gripping and eye-opening, portraying the relentless pressures to prove oneself and the brutal cycles of retaliation that ensue from unchecked egos. He recalls a near-fatal ambush and a terrifying escalation of teenage bravado involving weapons, fear, and the desperate need to escape. These harrowing experiences highlight not only the physical dangers he faced but also the intense internal battles that shaped his adolescence. Transitioning from these violent years, Ricardo found solace and transformation in physical fitness, eventually overcoming deep-seated insecurities about body image and confidence.
But the most profound change came when Ricardo discovered Colombia and the powerful effects of psychedelic medicine. His encounters with alien entities during DMT ceremonies opened his eyes to the cosmic purpose of life, leading to a spiritual awakening that redefined his existence. As he now dedicates himself to helping others through psychedelic treatments for addiction and mental health, Ricardo's story is one of incredible healing and transformation. This episode promises to challenge your perceptions and inspire you with a raw, unfiltered look into a journey of self-discovery and profound personal growth.
Hello and welcome to Matt Chambers Connects, a podcast hosted by Matt Chambers. This is the podcast that transcends boundaries, empowers cross-cultural connections and fosters a more connected world. I'm your host, matt Chambers, and I invite you to join us on this quest to expand our understanding and build bridges between my two favorite places on the planet Latin America and the United States. I've been traveling, living and doing business in Latin America for nearly two decades.
Speaker 2:All right, ricardo man. So you spent 10 years as a Royal Marines commando and the British military in some of the world's toughest places Afghanistan, northern Ireland but your biggest battles from what I see in reading the book and knowing you, is definitely the demons that you've been fighting within yourself, from addiction to steroids, professional lovemakers your own term there, professional lovemakers to finding peace in Latin America and healing through the power of psychedelics. Your raw and unfiltered journey is definitely one of self-discovery and ultimately and you're now studying to be a spiritual life coach and you plan to share those lessons from your own incredible life with us here today and we're hopeful that you're here to inspire us all. I read absolutely every word of your book, from cover to cover, literally could not put it down. I was on the edge of my seat from the first page to the last page.
Speaker 3:So welcome to the show, thank you yeah, I appreciate you inviting me on man yeah, absolutely, man.
Speaker 2:I'm excited about it. So let's, let's start with your. You know, the absence of your mother was a sink and and then also let's chat a little bit about the violent neighborhood experiences that you talked about in the book that ultimately, I think, shaped the understanding of your world right, and let's get into that a little bit, yeah, of course.
Speaker 3:So I would say, yeah, I was raised by my mom. She was a single mother. My dad would come to the house now and then, you know, and he was never really there. And it's weird because as a child, through my childhood eyes and understanding, there was a part of me that thought like this is how families were. Dads were never around, you know, and it's only as you get older that you're able to understand these things.
Speaker 3:Like this is what I was seeing at home and so, as well, my mum being a single mother, you know it was hard at times to try and raise three kids, you know me, my brother and my sister, and what I imagine I could see. At times it was very tough, you know, trying to put food on the table for all three of us, keep electricity, gas and and water in the property, you know. So it would be tough and as a child I would obviously, um, do things that would make it tougher for my mom at times, because I was exploring, I was being a child, you know. So I would go out there and get into trouble, me and my brother as well. And then I remember there were times I stole from my mum. You know, this is and this is also things I've spoken about openly before. It's like I don't know why. I don't know why I'd done that, but I would go through her, her drawers and stuff and steal things that were shiny or or look like they had value to them, or money, which was crazy right, because she was a single mother trying to make ends meet every day, but yet I was there stealing from her and and I would spend the money on cakes on the way to school, which was yeah, yeah. So it's like I don't. I can't tell you why I did that, apart from I guess it's something that maybe not all kids, but some kids do. So there was that.
Speaker 3:So I definitely didn't make it easy for my mum at times, you know, but luckily, whilst growing up, I had an uncle, my uncle Richard. He would come by the house every now and then and help my mum move my knee, and he was one of, for sure, one of the biggest influences, one of the biggest masculine influences in my life, you know, as my dad wasn't really ever there, and so he would help my mum from time to time, you know. And then we had my auntie pauline, who would come by and also, she was in the same situation as my mom, but they would help each other. They were really close friends. So they would, they would help each other, and this is the childhood that I, that I grew up in, like we never had much.
Speaker 3:When I say much, I understand that there's people who are a lot worse off, you know, I guess most people who were raised in a in a single parent lifestyle would understand this. All right, so my mom gave us what she could, and one thing that I was always aware of that was that, even though at times we didn't have much, there was always so much love there, you know, there was a lot of love. We didn't have much, but we had. We didn't have much together, you know, and um, and that being said, when I did mess up, when I did the things that deserve discipline, my mom was very quick and stern to discipline us yeah, she didn't have any problem with that.
Speaker 2:I read that in the book. She certainly didn't have any problems.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she could pick up a lot of us. Yeah, the thing is, I think I think sometimes if I mention it she can feel a bit or something like that.
Speaker 2:But ultimately because now, because now she maybe Looking back on it she regrets a little bit of how well feels that maybe the way I'm, yeah, the way I'm, the way I Put it across.
Speaker 3:Maybe sometimes you take the ad with an attack from her son. He was maybe what he was trying to do is do a best and discipline. She's raising two, two men, yeah, yeah, and I I'm not saying women can't raise a man, because women, single mothers, do raise men, but I guess there's certain things I guess only a man can teach a man, right?
Speaker 2:why I think they they've studied that through and through, I've seen, seen it and psychologically, kids need both parents, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure, I mean they need that masculine example around them. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's what I mean. So my dad went around, so my mom had to be the disciplinarian as well, and she disciplined us at times and, honestly, looking back on it now, when I tell this to everybody that I share this story with, is that I deserved it. I've done some things as a child that deserve on it, right?
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm the same I. I look back. You know some of the ways that my mom disappeared and I wouldn't you know. I was just pissed I'm. She kicked me out of the house and sent me to my cousin's house to stay for the weekend. I mean, I had sort of similar and now that I look back on it I'm like the only thing she did was kick me out and sent me to my cousins. It really wasn't that bad. I just went up the street and hung out with a cousin who was cooler to hang out with mom because he wasn't going to discipline me. But now that I look back on it as a as an adult, like she was stern but at the same time probably a little softer than she should have and the thing is, we need it right, because look at the man you turned into today and I look at you myself.
Speaker 3:I didn't have the discipline that she gave me.
Speaker 2:God knows what I would have been doing, you know, yeah right like when I think when, when I look back on my childhood in the area that I grew up in, the majority of kids that I went to school with are I mean, I know, yeah, definitely the majority in the area that I grew up in they've ended up on drugs. They haven't done as well as they have. They just have all kinds of issues that myself and my sister have never had, and so it's inarguable that whatever my mom did worked.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly yeah, so I've got no regrets. So, even though my mom did work yeah, exactly yeah, so I've got no regrets. So, even though my mom may take it as though you know there's a part of me that holds a response, but I don't, I don't and I don't regret any of the disciplines that she gave me, I don't. I look back on my mom and she's my hero. Sure, you know, everything she's done, she's done by herself. She raised us by herself, she disciplined us by herself, and she was a strong woman, is a strong woman, and so she's my hero, and that's the way I look at my mom yeah, and so let's talk a little bit about the issues you had Some of the most exciting parts of the book, or?
Speaker 2:you know, in the beginning for sure was the issues that you have with some of the neighbor kids. I mean, you guys you weren't just schoolyard fist fights with these kids, you guys were brandishing weapons at times. I mean this could have gotten really violent. And if some of this stuff you know would have happened the way that you thought they were going to happen in the book, yeah for sure, or they would be in jail or dead, exactly yeah.
Speaker 3:And the thing is right is sure, or dead Zane would be in jail or dead Exactly yeah. And the thing is right is that, let's be honest, when you read that book it sounds violent, but there's things that go on in London and, I guess, many other cities that escalate a lot further than to where they escalated with me. So I see myself as lucky because, man, I mean, I had an axe, I had an axe. It was like a little axe and you were chasing this kid with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it was called a stainless steel shaft and there were many occasions where I had you know, we had a gun in the house. At one point, I had jackknives, I had machetes, I had hunting knives, and the thing is that any moment, any day, I could have done something with one of these guys I was having altercations with, but they could have done something to me that would have drastically changed our lives in such a massive way that it's just unthinkable now, right, I could be in prison, like mentioned before, dead.
Speaker 2:No doubt about it, and what's what's like story is is one of the most exciting story you know. An audience might want to hear about those altercations you have with those guys.
Speaker 3:Tell me the best one well, I guess one day I was coming out of college and, um, the guys that I was having problems with actually happened to me behind. I didn't realize that they were going to the same college as me, so I was walking down road. I was in college on a on the one day that I would go to college, as I was studying to be an electrician, and so I was an apprentice, and during the classroom break I headed out with two friends from the class and we were walking for the shop and I said to them look, I'm in some trouble with some guys at the moment. If you see anybody around, you know, looking suspicious or coming towards me, just give me an early warning, like, let me know.
Speaker 3:And as I've said that to them, I looked over my shoulder, because when you start getting into problems like these with other young men, looking over your shoulder is something that just comes naturally. You have to look at what's going on behind your back. And as I did that, lo and behold, there they are three of them. They'd already seen me, unbeknown to me, and they were following me. And so I'm like, oh my god. And at this point all I had on me was, like you know, like an extendable police baton yeah, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I had one of those yeah, exactly yeah, and I used to hide it in my inside pocket of my jacket. And I was walking and I looked behind me and I seen three guys. One of them had these hands down these pants, like now we're landing at this time. If you had your hands down your pants in this certain way, chances are the person's holding a machete. And the other guy was like you know crutches that you wear when you've got a broken leg or something like that one. And the other guy, the guy I had the problem with, he had a machete, sorry, he had a jackknife, that's what it looked like.
Speaker 3:And so I've left the guys I was with to try and cross the road, but I'm not running, just more like calmly cross the road, like I'll go this other way. But they've clocked, they've seen me. And the next thing I heard was get in Obviously a lot more colorful than that. And let's get in obviously a lot more colourful than that. And so I started running, they started running. I'm running so fast that it felt like I would chip over my own feet. Just one, one step and I would have been on the floor and they would have been all over me and I imagine that would have happened. No doubt they would have stabbed me or whatever. I don't think the aim would have been to kill me, right as soon as the whole thing started off, by us looking at each other and this is something that goes on between young men, right, who you're looking at, what you're looking at and then it escalates from there. So I believe. But then obviously, if time goes on through seeing each other and these things escalate and then before you know, it ends up where we're at. So I believe who knows what would have happened if I'd have fallen over? I believe I would have been stabbed, but what normally happens is in that moment people get carried away. They're with their friend, they got knives but crutches, they got gas, whatever. People get carried away. So I knew I couldn't allow myself to fall over.
Speaker 3:I ran through my old school, which amounts my old school, so I knew the way I ran through my old school, which amounts to my old school, so I knew the way. I ran through the main corridors, through the hall and I made it through the other side, to where the car park was, and through the car park out onto another main road and then managed to catch a bus. It took me home and obviously now, in this elevated state that I was in, I'm calling my brothers, I'm calling my friends. You'll never guess what this just happened, you know. So I'm getting together my crew now and we've all met up and we've got like I had like other tools in my house at the time, like I had the axe that I speak of.
Speaker 3:That was also called a stainless steel shaft because I was an electrician at the time. So these are all the tools that I'd ordered ordered I would keep it in my toolbox. We had a gun, unbeknown to my mum, that we kept in the attic so it's special and some other various bits and bobs, like a knife that also had like a knuckle duster bit on it with some horrendous sharp bits coming out of it, just stuff like that. So my friends came to my house. One of them had a car. I shared the weapons around and we went out. The aim was that I would sit on this wall in front, near the college in front of it, and my friend would sit in the car so it wouldn't like I was by myself.
Speaker 3:Now in my mind I'm expecting to see these guys if I see them at all walk past me on foot. I looked out there and time got on. I thought I'm not going to see these guys. This is it. What happened was car pulled up, get it up. They jumped out the vehicle and I don't know if you guys know what a stop lock is. A stop lock is one of those things that go through the steering wheel and they're like fluorescent colors, like, yeah, that keeps the steering, yeah, to stop, to stop someone stealing it. So it's like a metal thing, so, so long. And it goes through the steering wheel so that you can't turn it. All right wheel so that you can't turn it all right, so it's got to stop.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we don't call it a stop block it.
Speaker 2:We call it something else, but yeah, I know what it is. Yeah, I can't remember the name of it either.
Speaker 3:So one of them, he's got out the car. The main guy I'm having his problem, he's got out the car with one of them and I've seen him. I've got my axe down, my down, my washino jeans, you're ready to kill this guy?
Speaker 2:I mean, you were, you were prepared to kill him if you needed to. Well, in my mind.
Speaker 3:I left the house and I wasn't trying to kill anyone. Look, I'm young and I'm scared. I don't want to go to prison. I don't really want to kill anyone, but what I'm thinking is, if it keeps going this way, it's me or it's him. So what happened was he's running towards me and the cars pulled up a lot closer than I initially thought. I was able to see them right, so I've jumped off the wall. I'm trying to pull this axe out. I hadn't even practiced how to get it out if I needed it in time, so I couldn't get it out. So I've ran away from him whilst I'm trying to pull this axe out of my jean, and whilst I've created enough space for training, I've managed to get the axe out. I turn around and I'm like what let's go like? And obviously now he sees the axe and he stopped dead in his tracks.
Speaker 3:Now me in my mind the reason why I went out on the street with an axe and why I would go out with like these massive hunting knives that I could buy from. I don't know why or how they sell massive hunting knives that isn't in the shops in the uk, but I bought it from a legitimate shop. But the reason in my mind why I would buy these things is because someone sees you with one of these things, one of these type of weapons. They are menacing and scary. Now I don't know how to knife right. So the thinking was if I scare someone with this, I'll just. We won't even have to get into a fight, the person will run off. I won't have to see how far I'm actually willing to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you're not a violent guy. I've known you for many years now and you're a big bear, right. You're not a guy that I meet and I'm like, I'm scared of that. I mean, you're big, you're big, you're powerful, all these things, you're not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it wasn't me. I didn't want to listen and I realized and I would have never admitted this at the time, but I'll admit it now. The point is that at that moment in time I was scared People coming at me with weapons. I cried to speak to these guys. Look at that age, people don't want to just call it a day, people want to make a name for themselves, right. And then ego gets involved. He done this to me. I've got to go do something back, and before you know it, you're in this horrendous, vicious, self-perpetuating circle that you can't get out of, and so basically what inspired all this, though?
Speaker 2:like what what happened between your group of guys, or between you and this particular guy in his group?
Speaker 3:that, yeah allowed this to escalate. So, basically, what allowed this to escalate was that one day it started off, when I was in school, this incident that I'm talking to you right now, it happened. I guess, what was that?
Speaker 2:16, 15?. Okay, so you were in high school testosterone, natural testosterone, you know, pumped up, yeah, but when I don't even know if that's an excuse.
Speaker 3:it starts off by staring at each other, staring at each other. Then someone goes what are you staring at? What are you looking at Like? Do you know who I am? You can't look at me like that.
Speaker 2:It's crazy and then obviously. Everyone's had that famous like do you know?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Do you know? Yeah, you can. Yeah, you can't look at me like that.
Speaker 2:now I need to kill you, but crazy, it's crazy. So and that's really like it was just really them trying to prove themselves everyone else in in the neighborhood, to their friends, that they were the yeah, superior species, I'm not going to say that.
Speaker 3:I don't want to make it sound like it was all on them, because it wasn't take two to dance, right and I. I went and got weapons so that I would have them in my house, right, and so that that day what actually happened was, once I took the axe out, he turned around. It's menacing. So I imagine he saw that and thought, fuck, no, I don't want any part of this. And he turned around and ran off. And obviously, because he's running off now, I start growing in ego and confidence and I chase him.
Speaker 3:By now my friends have got out of the vehicle that they were in. My brother had the gun on him, but no, no bullets, no, nothing. And as he tried to run away, my first friends hit him, tried to swing for him with the police baton I'd given him before he left the house. My brother with the gun gun batted him and he lost his footing. And as he lost his footing, I don't know how, but he regained himself and it's like because if he lost his footing, now it's all on me. What am I going to do? He's on the floor. Am I going to do something here?
Speaker 3:Someone was on his side that day and someone was on my side so he ran out into the road. I chased him into the road and I swung for him like an idiot. Before I left the house I thought to myself when I see him, if I see him, I'm gonna beat him with the back of the axe blade right the spine of the. In that moment, with people on the street walking by, girls, other men, I think I'm gonna show these people who I am swam from with the blade of the axe and I'm so glad to this day that I missed him, missing by mere inches, centimeters, that I don't know, but the fact is that I missed him and if I had meters away from going to jail?
Speaker 3:yeah, and, and and. We'll get into this later, but now I can't imagine hurting someone like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I've known you since 2017.
Speaker 3:I don't want to hurt nobody like that. I look back on that now and it just reaffirms to me I was scared and I was caught up in some sort of youth culture. I was trying to play the part that I felt I was being forced to play, and it wasn't me. It's not me.
Speaker 2:I think, to some degree, all of young boys have had some kind of story, maybe not where they were chasing people with axes, but they have. You know many stories from their adolescence and especially teenage years where you'd be. You know, you know other other guys in school or on football team, maybe not again, maybe not quite to that level, but you know other other guys in school or on football team, maybe not again, maybe not quite to that level, but you know, I think this is something that happens to all of us at some point, cause, um, you know you also talked about your relationship struggles and that's that's something I definitely wanted to get into, because all this leads up to. You know where you are.
Speaker 2:At some, you know, relationship struggles seem to maybe stem from your childhood and how you grew up in a single-parent household. Maybe you didn't, I don't know, I'm just guessing, but maybe you didn't have trust in yourself or trust in women or relationship, and then that led into an addiction to the gym, ultimately an addiction to steroids as well. Can we get into that a little bit? Just talk a little bit. Just just talk a little bit about your relationship, what you think your relationship struggles were well.
Speaker 3:The steroids came a lot later, but I would say that as a teenager I wasn't very good with women. I didn't really have much confidence when it came to to that side of things. I'd never been shown how to talk to women, right. My dad was never really in the house. I never really saw how he was with my mom and there was no older brother who, like, passed me down many pearls of wisdom, yeah, and so this isn't blaming anybody. This is the life. This is the card that we get dealt right, and there was. There's a reason why I got dealt these cards. There's obviously some lesson in there for me to learn.
Speaker 3:So I really had no sort of understanding of how to talk to women, but I'd see women that I liked all the time, beautiful girls, right. And there's other guys my age with girls, and I just didn't really know. I think I dated a girl very briefly whilst I was in school, but even then I didn't really know how to be with her. It ended quickly. I didn't really know how to be with her. It ended quickly. I didn't really, you know, I had no confidence. So that was something that followed me for many years, many years, and so my brother was younger than me and was better with women than I was I guess the first time I was actually with a girl. I think I lost my virginity when was it at 17 or something like that, and I'd be in school. When I was in school there were guys talking about having sex and stuff like that, and I'm thinking what these guys are out of section. I mean, like I think we were like 14 or something 14, 15 probably yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And for example, we were sat on the table once, right and there were guys and girls on the table and all these guys were saying like, hey, do you go down on girls? And it was going around the table and a lot of guys go nah, nah, nah, I don't go down on girls For some reason, that's like something. You don't go down on women, right? And I knew the question was coming to me and I'm thinking in my mind I haven't even had sex yet, I've never even seen a girl make it. I'm like, but in my mind, only in the movies, only in the movies. So by the time the question came round to me, I'm like everyone obviously said nah, sam, I'm going to say nah, nah, nah, sam, I wouldn't do that. But in my mind I knew that the very first opportunity any woman gave me to go down in there.
Speaker 2:I was going to make you give you one up on those guys, yeah I just there was something in me that obviously wanted to do that.
Speaker 3:That was that's who ricardo chin it. He's a guy that does that sort of stuff, you know, I mean he does that he goes the extra mile that he likes yeah, yeah, I'll bridge the gap to them off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So I guess I guess in my experiences with that, that was some became harder and more hurtful as time got on, not being able to talk to women. I'd try and talk to women and the feeling would come over me of like red. I'd go hi, what's your name? And then looking at you like you know. But what I realised is that if you don't have confidence or believe in yourself, that's what I'm emanating, and most women want a guy who's confident, right and believes in himself. When you approach a woman, excuse me, you know it's like it's not attractive, and this is what I've come to realize for myself, for a lot of tough lessons, embarrassing lessons, yeah, it's like if you ask for permission to talk.
Speaker 2:It's the same as in sales If you ask for permission to talk, you'll never get permission to talk, you just have to do it.
Speaker 3:Exactly, yeah, and I get it because at that age I'm not going to put it all down to my father. It's down to what's inside of me as well, you know. But it's just like.
Speaker 2:It's not his fault. That's the life that he was living at the time and it's just the cards that you were dealt right, that you at the time and, um, it's just the cards that you were dealt right, that you said earlier that you just have to, yeah, navigate through. I mean, we all have those things at some point, even even the people that grew up in very stable homes. They have their own issues in a different way, right? So yeah, exactly yeah, I don't think, I don't think we can like pin it all on your dad.
Speaker 2:It's just. It's just him not being there left a void at. You've spent 40 years, uh, trying to fill, I think yeah, yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 3:And the thing is with with that, once you discover that you're not very good with women, what do you do in school? You don't go to another guy and say hey, um, I'm not very good with women, can you?
Speaker 2:yeah, you have to act like you're good, even if you're not.
Speaker 3:That would make it around school like wildfire, right, and I already had my mom cutting my hair and stuff like that, so you know what I mean. There's plenty of stuff to get ridiculed about already, so I couldn't be down on top of it.
Speaker 2:You know, it's amazing to me and it's always been amazing to me about, um, women's. Well, guys, this thing, this thing, there's some ugly dudes out there, man, the hottest women in the world, and you're like, you walk by and you're like a nice looking dude, well put together, and you're like, did he get hurt? Like and I think it comes down to confidence, right, he just had, you know, this insane confidence in himself that allowed him to walk up and talk to the hottest chick in the bar. I have a buddy who's in Atlanta. He was always beautiful women in the whole city.
Speaker 2:But you look at this, his theory was I walk into a bar and I walk up and talk to the absolute hottest girl in the place. He goes. I almost never get the hottest girl in the place, absolute hottest girl in the place he goes, almost never get the hottest girl on the place. But every other girl there all of a sudden wants me because I had the balls to go and talk to the hottest girl there. And you couldn't argue with this theory, man, because every time this guy went out for even one or two beers, he was walking out with a girl. You're just, we do that. So, yeah, um that.
Speaker 3:That was his theory yeah, what's the change for the moon? And if you fail, at least you're amongst the stars you'll land amongst the stars.
Speaker 2:That was his theory, man. It worked I. I adopted it to some degree for for many years. Even when you're nervous and you, you know, you think that, um, you know, you don't have the guts to go talk to that girl. If you go talk to the hottest girl in the bar, you'll walk away with one that you're happy with. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:But what led into this?
Speaker 2:Is this void, like this insecurity with women? Is that what led into you just being obsessed with the gym and then ultimately wanting more and more?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's one of the things. Yeah, so it's one of the things. So, one of the things. Yes, it's one of the things. So one of the main triggers for the gym was I had gynecomastia as a.
Speaker 2:As a teenager, I had no idea what it was it's called when you add that that's something most people get when they load up on testosterone and don't imagine this was.
Speaker 3:I was in school, I hadn't even gone to the gym, let alone started taking steroids, and I had this thing. So at first they're sensitive and you're like see these things, what is that? Why is it sensitive? And then it starts protruding right and I'm like what the hell is this? And at school you've got, when you've got to go into physical education, pe, you have to get changed right off my top and getting these out in front of this guy to come out and like so you're really hard on yourself.
Speaker 3:I'm at home and I see myself with this kind of chemistry and I'm beating myself up over it. Right, it's like I can't talk to a woman. It's all. These are things that help batter my confidence, right, because I can't approach anybody and talk to. I can't talk to a woman. I mean, underneath this t-shirt I've got gy Guy Nicomasio. My boobs look happy. So it's like yeah, exactly who's a man of big eyes and I would look at them and I wouldn't tell anybody. And then one day at PE I would change my top quickly and someone would see it and then they would tell me oh my God, why have you got fish tits?
Speaker 3:When you're with a girlfriend who sucks, who kicks her, all that sort of stuff was coming out, yeah, and it's like but it's trying to show a brave face, but inside you're like, you're crying. It's like this is my body, what can I do? I don't know how to change these things that I'm unhappy about with my body. And so I eventually told my mum and she's like let's go to. She was saying look, your body's changing. You'll be okay. She didn't want to do anything. But I'm like no, I'm the one living in this body. I have to go and do something about it. I want to see the doctor.
Speaker 3:So my mum being my mum, I love my mother she organised a doctor's appointment. So we went to the doctor's appointment and the doctor's seen it. He prodded it, looked at it and said okay, yeah, it's, it's normal. You're a teenager, you're going to have this imbalance in between estrogen and testosterone and it will go away. But in the meantime, if you're if you're really upset about it, you can start going to the gym to pad out this area right around your nipples. I was devastated. So I'm thinking where's the magic pill? I thought I was going to get a tablet. Let's take the tablet and then these bitch shits would be gone right, because it's like, it's horrible and I don't mean to offend anybody by saying the word bitch shits, but this is what that's what it's called in the right, especially in the men's world.
Speaker 3:This is what it's called and these are the names that you're getting called when you've got these things. So I was devastated.
Speaker 3:I remember went on holiday to Barbados at one point and I would keep my t-shirt on and on the beach because I couldn't take that out for the risk of somebody seeing that on the beach, especially a woman. So it's like I started going to the gym then. That's one of the reasons why I started going to the gym to try and pad this area out. And another reason was that during the exams in our final year of school, we'd gone to a friend's house and he had a york bench in his house and I think he was like you get like hollow bars and you've got like these concrete field weights that go on the end of them, right, and I think, if I remember correctly, it was like I think it had 10 kilograms on each side and all the guys that were there went on the bench and just repped out a couple right, and I'm looking at them thinking I've never lifted weights before in my life. But if they can do it, I must be able to do it.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 3:So I get on the bench, everything it takes to get off, and as I take it off, all was flat on my chest. I had nothing in the tank and I'm like grimacing, and the guys over there they helped me lift it off whilst laughing Obviously it's fun, right. And in that moment then I was so embarrassed I said to myself, I thought to myself I would never, ever be the weakest man in any room, ever again. So from that day I started going to the gym. I didn't even really know what I was doing, but I had a friend who I used to go to the gym with and he'd done bits and bobs, and so we started going to the gym. It wasn't until I was 21 that, I would say, I started really understanding what I was actually doing in the gym, you know. So it's a long. It was a long journey from, I think, 15 and three quarters when I started going to gyms, when I actually started really understanding more about what I was doing in the gym. And then obviously came the steroids, yeah.
Speaker 2:So and then you've been. You've been pretty consistent with that for years, right steroids for about 17 years on and off yeah, you cycled them on and off yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I've took serious about 17 years of my life. I loved them. I loved steroids. When I was on them, they were a part of who I worked with, part of my identity. I needed them because without them I'm a skinny tween.
Speaker 2:That was the thing in my mind, but now you're off those completely and I guess maybe the psychedelic treatment kind of helped you with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, massively. It's been a massive part of it is the reason why I stopped taking steroids, you know, is the reason why I stopped. Yeah, how this.
Speaker 2:Psychedelics are amazing man, they, they, they cure so much. Man. It's amazing and I would assume that that's what led to you know, you got in better shape, you're obsessed with the gym and then maybe you still had mental issues with the girls. Then you move into what you call love makers, which I thought professional love makers, which I read this and said you've got to get this story out there, to get it out of your head and to get your real story out to people. It must have been that, yeah definitely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely it was. I think there was something within me that had to get the story out. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Has it given you a lot of peace?
Speaker 3:Writing a book is very therapeutic, very, very therapeutic. I wrote it so, from start to finish of me writing the book, it took four and a half months Wow that's it I would have thought way longer, because you probably had.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I'm guessing the book edited right now is 316 pages on Kindle, so it had to be 500 pages or something before editing.
Speaker 3:So it was 349.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you didn't have that much editing really so I wrote 113,000 words.
Speaker 3:Once I got the editor in, he got it down to 107,000 something, and then each version that went back and forth, I would add something and he would mention me back at the end saying please, Ricardo, no more simpliferous words. Your manuscript is already a very long manuscript.
Speaker 2:I really hope Go ahead sir.
Speaker 2:By the time we finished it, it was about 108,000 words 349 pages, it's edited down to 316 on Kindle and, man, it's a page turner. I really hope that you and we and whoever can help you get this out there, because I think it's something that works. I said this to you in a text. I think it's something that I said this to you in a text. Like if the, if everyone had the balls to sit down and write their story as candidly and as honestly as you, we, man, I don't think I'd leave the library. You know, I mean cool stories there would be to read about. If everyone did this. Like it's incredible, dude, and I think it's inspiring to a lot of. I've thought about writing a book, or maybe maybe they they're having similar issues in their lives and writing a book about their own story would help them. I'm really hopeful that we can get that.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I hope so too, and I believe it's actually the same thing. It's important. I think we all hold a piece of the puzzle of what life is, and if we all share our stories, we get to make that puzzle and see what the bigger picture is right make that puzzle and see what the bigger picture is right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's, um, let's move a decision to you know, to go into the british marines and a little bit about that experience yeah, so I guess what had happened by then.
Speaker 3:I now had two sets of different enemies, and one of them lived right around the corner from where my mom lived and did come to the house with guns. And so in my mind I'm thinking and it felt like I was the main cause of this problem between again started off from staring at each other what you're looking at? Crazy. This is how that escalated. Yeah, and so, before you know it, they were coming to the house with guns. And in my mind I'm thinking, I can't, this can't happen. My little sister lives here sorry, my little sister and mum lives here. This can't be how it's happening, you know. And so I'd lost my job by that point.
Speaker 3:On the apprentice to be an apprentice to be an electrician, because I was caught bringing that accent to work and so started labelling with someone, I met a guy who said that he used to be in the territorial army in the UK, I guess in the States you call it reservist threat and so we spoke a little bit.
Speaker 3:I joined the territorial army, which then led me into wanting to become a regular, and because I had these dramas with these boys, what I actually wanted to do was there was a part of me that wanted to kill them. I wanted to hurt them bad, and so I know if I did that, obviously I'd go in prison or they're going to come back and retaliate and I'm going to get seriously hurt, or my brother's going to get seriously hurt. So whilst I was at work one day at the labourer, obviously all this news starts coming on with what happened to the spent towels. Right, it's a very sad day, and so in that moment, part of me knew it I'm gonna join the regular army. Yeah, I'm gonna train as a regular. I'm gonna stop all of this. I'm gonna go kill people legally for a living.
Speaker 2:That's what I want to do and I feel like it's this neighbor kid every time I kill yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's great because I look back in an hour and I think how must that be for a young man to decide in his mind what he wants to do in life is to kill people? Like it's sad. It's sad because, looking back on it now, because I don't want to hurt anybody and killing, taking someone's life, is not something that I would ever want to do now, but obviously it was a phase of my life that I had to go through to get to this understanding. And so I met a guy who had been in the Marines and he started telling me all the stories about he had to train him. He had to do 30 miles in eight hours. He had to do the endurance course, the bottom field, nothing different. And I was just, I was turned on. I'm like, wow, this is what I need to be doing.
Speaker 3:And so I left the Territory Army and I went for PRMC Potential War Marines course territory army and I I went for prmc potential war marines course, which I passed even though I I'd studied, I'd tried so, trained so hard to get onto this potential war marines course, like with running in the physical side of things, that I hadn't paid any attention to swimming. To me, swimming's like some water. How hard can it be? I've seen it on tv. So I'm running every like four days. I'm running like four days a week. Six miles, three miles, and just running, mashing out the miles. I get down into this prmc and physically, uh smash all of the things I need to do. That. The three mile running under 21 minutes, the bottom field, um introduction course, a great, I can't remember what they call it.
Speaker 3:And then it got to the swimming bit and everyone's on the diving board, jumping in, swimming halfway out and then turning around, swimming back and shredding water and I'm like by now in my mind, I've got this, it's easy. I've passed, jumped in the water from the diving board, started doing breaststroke, started drowning what's going? Diving board, started doing breaststroke, started drowning, what's going on. So I started doing it faster, thinking I'm not doing it fast enough, and the faster I tried to do it, the faster I drowned and I was at the bottom. I was drinking water, I was drinking all the pool water. I didn't understand what was going on and then I felt this thud in my neck and as I was feeling this th prod, I grabbed onto it and the PTI that was there. He's pulled me out with that stick that stuck the hoop at the end and he looked down at me and all he said was you better sort your fucking swimming out before you come back here, fella? And that was a rude awakening to swimming and so, honestly, I had to go and sort my swimming out, which I did.
Speaker 3:I paid a lot of attention to swimming. I'm never going to be an olympic swimmer, but I've done enough that I was able to pass that test once. I went back and drain the marines. So that's, that's what really. What was the catalyst that you want to train the marines? Because I wanted to. I guess, looking back on it now, as someone who was hurt, I wanted to hurt people, right, hurt people, hurt people, which is? It sounds so cliche, cliche, but it's one of the truest things I've ever heard and that's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:Again, it's really weird because you know now that when I read that book I wasn't expecting the violence. You know you being a violent teenager or a violent person Because when I met you I I remember walking into dance free to the salsa classes in columbia, and I say I mean if there was 200 people in the class or in, uh, at the social, you stood out. You were by far, by far, like three times bigger than anyone there, including the americans that were just cheerful and muscle. But you had this big, huge smile on your face all the time and I just remember thinking if this guy wanted to kill these little four-foot-seven Colombians. But you're not that. You're a guy that everyone that I've ever met loves. You. You're the most gentle soul I've ever met, loves you. You're the most gentle soul I've ever met. When I read this book and I find this violent childhood, I'm just like it's weird and so, that said, I want to kind of transition into. You know Colombia, how did you discover?
Speaker 3:Colombia. So Colombia I actually, by the time I discovered Colombia, I left the military. So I left the military in 2012. And I left the military because I went to. During my time in the military, I deployed twice to two different wars. The first one was Iraq in 2003, I'll tell you. And then I went to Afghanistan British and Arabic 5, in 2006-7. And I got shot in 2007, january. Once I'd been shot. It was a case of me thinking well, until I got shot, I never thought it was even possible, because you don't go out thinking that it's going to be you. You go out thinking if anyone gets shot, it's going to be someone. Maybe the guys beside me Not gets shot, it's going to be someone, one of these guys beside me, not in a bad way, but in a like I'm invincible.
Speaker 2:I think you kind of have to have that as a military guy right, otherwise you're just going to stay in bed if you think you're going to get shot every day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly. And so you have to go out with this idea that I'm invincible. If anyone gets hurt, it's going to be anyone but me. But on that day I realized I'm not invincible, I'm just as mortal as the next man.
Speaker 2:I had a really close friend, really close friend, that got killed by an IED in Iraq in 2005. Yeah so yeah, but then you discovered Colombia after, so you got shot. You were obviously you're fine.
Speaker 3:And I thought to myself once I got shot. I thought, if I'm actually going to really risk my life and get shot, I want to get paid more money for it. So in 2012, I left. I'd done maritime security for two years and then after that I got. Whilst I was in maritime I was on a vessel with a friend. She said to me he said ken. He said, look, I'm married with a beautiful family in that now. But when I was younger, I always had these dreams of learning spanish and going to cuba. He said as a young single man, you should be doing stuff like this. And I was thinking but you know what? He's got a point. So I investigated it. I started by banishing cd spanish and I went to cub, to Cuba, first to study Spanish at the University of Havana. Cuba was amazing.
Speaker 1:Everyone says that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was really amazing, but there were still parts of it that were quite limited, you know, down to communism and stuff like that. So it was such a beautiful country and so after that I went back to Spain for a little country. And so after that I went back to spain for a little bit still, going to universities and schools to learn spanish, and a friend said to me, you need to go to, you need to go to medellin, and so I went out to, I went out to medellin and never looked back I remember getting to medellin I remember getting to medellin.
Speaker 3:I got in the taxi from the airport and the whole journey to where I was staying was just me turning my head like that all of these beautiful women on the street absolutely.
Speaker 2:I tell people all the time I'm like I don't know what it is about that place, but I've done 30 plus countries now it's the only place I've ever been that the second I got into the airport I was just like you just feel this peace that comes over you the minute you land there and then you get in a cab, you're driving down the mountain, right, beautiful mountains all around you, the air is fresh, incredible, and then you, and then the sea, you know, just opens up and you're in this incredibly beautiful city with incredibly nice, beautiful and that fucking place just won't let me go, man. Every time I try to leave.
Speaker 1:It's like early even.
Speaker 2:I'll talk to anyone for three months and all of a sudden ten people text me like where are you, don't? See these people on a head is calling the pressure. It's the same that happened to you. You know, you just can't get away from it, it is.
Speaker 3:And you know the crazy thing when people meet me like that, you live in Columbia as much as you can say. You live anywhere. When I work in Iraq for eight months of the year and I spend four months of the year over there, right. But it's like people have got this idea that there's these big, they think of um columbia, right, and they think of narcos or queen of the south, that there's cartels everywhere killing everyone, and you know, and it's just not the case. It's such a beautiful place. When people ask me that now I say people say what's it like? Did you see much more stuff happen in london when I'm in london, well, all of those cartels are there.
Speaker 2:You just don't know who they are and where they are because you're not involved in any of the stuff. The minute you start getting involved in all that, you're going to find out who they are and where they are. Right, but the same in any country, right, exactly. And so guys like you and I who were there hanging out with their buddies, you know, and, and going to nice restaurants, going to salsa dance events and salsa dance classes, you're not seeing any of that man and you're just completely oblivious to all of it almost. And it's, it's weird when you, you know, you almost can't tell an outside, someone who hasn't actually experienced medellín, you know, you can't.
Speaker 2:It's hard to tell an outsider how peaceful that place is. The reputation that it has right, just like you just kind of said, it has this reputation of just being a crime, ridden drug and if you're not involved in that, ironically it's the most peaceful place I've ever been. And um, and there's there's a love, a bond I think that you get with it. That never has allowed me, never has let me go, and I don't think it's going to let you go. It's not like all of us guys that just continue to go. There's just a lot of love and a lot of peace in that place, and I'm sure that's what helped change your life and catapulted you from discovering psychedelic medicine. Right yeah, that's where you discovered it Massively.
Speaker 3:It's so funny. Like so, I was at work here and a friend had come back off leave and I went to go and see him in his room and said hey, what's happening, man? How was your holiday, you know? He said to me he looked like a different person to the man that I knew he wouldn't leave. And he looked at me and he said smoke, something called dmt. And I met an alien. Most people would run for the hills like this guy is nuts but he smoked some shit.
Speaker 2:That made him sick.
Speaker 3:And it wasn't that. He didn't say I saw an alien. He said I met an alien, like there was an interaction, shook hands. That's what a meeting is I met an alien. I didn't say I met an alien, I walked in the restaurant, yeah, yeah, and we spoke.
Speaker 3:So it's like, instead of wanting to run, there was a part of me that was like you need to smoke that, which was crazy for me, because at that time, all I've really done is smoke a little bit of weed as a teenager, right, and then I'm dabbled with a little bit of cocaine, but you dabbled.
Speaker 1:I mean, it doesn't it almost?
Speaker 3:doesn't. Yeah, it's not, it's not my thing, but the minute you said that, something deep within me was like you need to do that. So, for having only smoked a little bit of weed as a teenager and then dabbled with some, I don't know how I ever made that decision and then, but I did, you know. And then I phoned my friend, a good friend of mine, back in columbia and I was like hey, have you ever heard of dmt? And he's like that. No, oh, I'll ask a few friends and let you know. He gets back to me like a week later. I've asked around, nobody knows. I'm like damn, so I finish out my four weeks here before I go and leave. Once I get, get back to Columbia. I've already forgotten about it, it's not on my mind anymore. Four weeks have passed. I'm walking down the street with another friend of mine, derek, and we're talking and he says to me, derek, the.
Speaker 3:Japanese, you know, derek.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, derek, you know.
Speaker 3:Derek Taiwanese, yeah, Taiwanese yeah, oh, Taiwanese okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so he said to me hey, I had an intense experience. I was in the DMT ceremony and he explained to me what happened. And there's something in me like, oh my God, this thing's calling out to me Now I come, I've forgotten about it. I come back to Colombia and somebody tells about it. So somebody tells me about it again. It's like DMT is whispering to me hey, come, smoke me. That's what it feels like. I'm being shown that this is something that is meant for you. And so he gives me the contacts for the guy who facilitated it for him. And we end up going out to Guatapé and doing it there at a friend's thing car. It changed everything. Smoking that DMT, which took from the moment I smoke it to the moment the whole experience finished, let's say, 10, 12 minutes. That changed everything, 10-12 minutes that changed everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's nice like Adele it doesn't accelerate your heart or mess with your mess with anything in terms of vital organs.
Speaker 3:No, it was all just I went for a different universe, but this one, this was like an introduction to it for me, right. So it was like it was really weird. I mean, like you want to hear the experience of what happened to us. I must say, absolutely I was getting ready to ask yeah, okay, okay, so, so we get to, we get to. Uh, quite a pain it starts up. You know, you give this rap first rap is something that I know focuses you, it gets, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So it gets you to focus right, and it was like think about what it is you want to ask, and at this point I didn't know who I was. This is one of my things. What am I supposed to be doing here? And this is the question that had been with me for a very long time now many years like what am I supposed to be doing in life? I didn't know, I was lost, and so that was the question that I asked, and I smoked this thing now, which is in a pipe, which is quite off-putting, because every time I see a pipe, all I think is crackheads right, yeah, yeah, and so he's given me this pipe and he gives it to me and I hold it to my heart first, right, he holds it to your heart, and then you set your intentions.
Speaker 3:And my intention is please, can you give me a little guidance? I don't know what it is I'm supposed to be doing here. But then I hold my mouth and he lights it up and it's like you're sucking like a second through a straw. You hold it in your lungs for like 10 seconds and then you exhale, and then he gives me another risk and I do it, but this this next time, it's like as I'm doing it, I start to lose sensation on my body. It's like the only way to explain it is that my soul is untethering itself from my body and as I'm falling back like that, I reach out and I'm like please, no, no, no. And he grabs my hand and he puts them both there like that, and then lays me down to rest and my eyes closed involuntarily, and as they closed, this music starts to play, which I now know he put on. This is the music that was playing right, and it's called called.
Speaker 2:It's called Canthodilus Harmonicus and it's like you gotta send me that you gotta send me that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's such a powerful rap, but at the time it felt menacing and it's. I love the harmonica now and as I've gone into this existence, I didn't know well. First of all, there was a voice saying you've done it's over, we're going to be stuck like this forever, which I now know to be the ego. Right, and I arrive in this place and there's a there's like geometrical patterns and colors that's coming at me from every single direction and angle. And then they call it a demon. I don't know why, because it didn't do anything demonic, but but it was all obscure and it was like it had like a jester hat on, but no color, it was just black, the jester hat, you know, like with the yeah, the pointy things that come out of it, and it was there. I didn't know who I was, where I was or when I was. I was just an absolute awareness and then started to panic. There was a feeling that we started, started to panic and as I started to panic whatever it was I was in that moment started to fall. I had this sensation of falling and then what I call the demon, the gesture just grew bigger and bigger and bigger, and all the colors that had initially been there, the geometric pattern. They started to turn dark, and then things started to turn dark and then things started to come back to me. It's like I'm Ricardo Chin.
Speaker 3:I just smoked something Daniel told me. The guy who facilitated this experience said to me if you meet any beings on your journey, show them love. And so the minute I remembered that I just love, love, love, love. I just started thinking about love and bang came out of it. I was awake. I saw my friends that were there. I saw Daniel. Daniel was looking at me, just capping his capping his heart, and as I looked out to the night sky, I saw the stars glistening. They looked like diamonds with like long rays coming out of them. I looked at the reservoir of Guatapé and it was like glistening. All the plants had like a green aura from it. I'd never seen such beauty, and so, from that experience alone, I knew that there was something about that I had never really known and that this was going to be the gateway into understanding more about life.
Speaker 3:And when I was in the camp it made a sense, yeah, and there's something about these places that you go to that are so familiar. You know these places better than you know anywhere else, like so you know a place that I don't believe I've ever been before, but I know this place. There's a sense of familiarity and there's an inner voice that communicates with you the whole time, that lets you know whatever you're experiencing is true beyond doubt, and so, yeah, it changed everything.
Speaker 2:So this one particular experience didn't necessarily guide you to what you were looking for. Well, it didn't tell you specifically what you were looking for, but it guided you to the next experience with psychedelics, and it was that road of going medicine to medicine, to medicine that showed you what you were supposed to be, yeah, and it can't give you the answer straight away, right?
Speaker 3:So what I'd said is look, I'm lost. Please can you show me what I'm meant to be doing? But it can't just go from A to Z, you have to understand why. So what I believe that third journey was about was that showing me that there's more to reality, to life, than ever meets the eye. So it was the doorway. It's like there's this, and if you follow this journey, you'll end up getting the answers to your questions. That was how I. When I look back on it now, I think that's what that journey was about showing me, allowing me to see that there's more to life than I could ever imagine, and it has I mean look, I'm still figuring things out now.
Speaker 3:That that was 2019. That was 2019 just before christmas, and my last, my last bit of medicine was early this year and I'm still figuring things out, you know, but your last bit of medicine.
Speaker 2:Was dmt again, or was it ayahuasca?
Speaker 3:no, it was it was um, it was mdma.
Speaker 3:I've done mdma twice now but all of these journeys have been really special. But there are certain journeys that are just like waypoints. You know that are just like the big ones that are like, I would say. The first time I took MGMA, that was one of one of the very most powerful experiences I've ever had in my life. And the second time I smoked the. The second time I did Ayahuasca. That was just once.
Speaker 3:You've done medicine so many times. You don't get things, but some of it's like okay, this is more of the same. But there were some experiences and god knows why they are different from the rest. But there were some that are just. They can change your perspective on life and, like an instant and I don't, I don't know why it happens or you can't like guess, or, or when it's going to happen it just happens and you'll have some massive change in perspective and it will change everything you know, mdma, they're actually studying and, and I think even uh, to cure ptsd and depression and many other things now, and and also I I've all but proven mushrooms are sure for, and then they're also studying it for Alzheimer's.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you knew that, but, um, there's, there's a lot of people that they have some studies going on and some very high level that seem to think that the answer to Alzheimer's might be in magic mushrooms. Um, so, these are not. You know, a lot of people think all these crazy guys is down there doing a bunch of South American jungle drugs. Um, that's not what this stuff is. I mean, these, these medicines have been around for thousands of years, being used in the Amazon jumbo for years to cure, you know, even cancers. I do, um, a shaman in Columbia Uh, he actually on my podcast, is on episode 10, I cancers. I talked to a shaman in Colombia. He actually on my podcast, he's on episode 10, I think and he was telling me that if there's some cancers, that if they detect them early enough, they have cures for those.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not going to hear that mainstream right Because they're trying to sell pharmaceutical drugs. They're not going to tell us what the medicines are. They're going to tell us what the drugs are because they made more money on the drugs. Yeah, exactly. It's too cheap to go to the Amazon jungle and get a handful of mushrooms.
Speaker 3:They can't make any money.
Speaker 2:They don't need a cure. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So which led you, the culprit, in leading you to that aha moment that, oh, now I know what I'm supposed to be doing, and what did it tell you?
Speaker 3:a massive shift in perspective was the second time I drank ayahuasca and I went to costa rica. I went to costa rica and what happened was I drank my third cup.
Speaker 2:I believe it was of the night cup in the same same night.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, and I went back to my mattress and I and I laid down and I was in my third cup now and I was. I was laying down like this, my mattress, and the weirdest thing happened Now in this room. There's about 70 people in this room and you can hear people crying, laughing, screaming, burping, farting, vomiting. You hear it all right, and I'm aware of that. I'm laying down there and I can hear it all. But after this third cup, I went down a lay down. I could hear it and all of a sudden the room went quiet and I became very aware of my heart beating and I was like it made me aware of that. The medicine, my soul, whatever it was, made me aware of that so that I could no longer hear the people and all the goings-on that were happening in that meloka. All I could hear was my heart beating and it stopped. It made me aware of that so that I would hear when it stopped. That's what I believe. It stopped and I I didn't know what was happening, the scene of that stop.
Speaker 3:The next thing that happened was involuntarily. Again, I went and I felt it in my toes. It was like you know, when you hear people dying, they release their last breath. This is what that was. I released my last breath and I felt it in my entire body and as I lay there like that, my eyes closed, I had no control of any of this. My eyes closed and then it was made clear to me, like when you're on these medicines, your feelings will stick to you. You understand what's going on in your body and in the surrounding environment. And it was made very clear to me that I had just died.
Speaker 3:And I start to panic. I'm like no, I knew I shouldn't have done this. Why did I do this? I'm never going to get to speak to my mom again. I need to tell her that I love her. I'm never going to get to my brothers, my sisters, my nieces. What have I done? And all of a sudden, the feeling of equity washes over me and there's, I feel exhilarated that I'm not being burdened by the human body anymore. It was like the human body felt so heavy and now I was free of it and in that moment I understood it didn't matter if my mum, brothers and sister had to suffer my death, because that would have been part of what they came to this experience for that would have been one of the experiences that they would have needed, that, hopefully, would have led them to awaken or evolve along their experience of life. Right Once I thought it was a relief. It was like oh my God.
Speaker 3:And then I travelled. I went through, like oh my god. And then I travelled. I went through all these different realms and finally I got to the realm and there was an alien there. It had like an upside down triangle head. It was green, facial figures were very slight, but the hands I got there and it just went. They pointed with its left hand and I looked where it was pointing to and I saw the body. I saw the avatar of Ricardo Chin stood there motionless. My body saw it there. And then it pointed with its right hand and I looked where the right hand was pointing. It was another platform, but it was empty.
Speaker 3:And I looked back at Alien and I spoke to it in English I don't understand and then it pointed again left I and before I turned back, whatever I was at that time, whatever my being was, loads of information came into me and I understood everything and I spoke to it again. But this time when I spoke, it was like a long, ominous noise that came from the throat. I didn't even regret it enough. I wanted to, but it was would be sounding like a deep throat noise. And as I made this noise, I understood everything that I was communicating to it. And then it spoke to me back. It spoke back to me and I realised, with its hands that was its native way of communicating and I understood it. And what it said to me was that you are all a, which I had been told in a previous mushroom journey, but I didn't try to interpret it because I didn't want to just give it a false meaning. Sure, it told me, you are all aliens and you all come here to this place, where I was in this journey to enter the game of life, which is this where we are now, right. And then it was made. It gave me like it was made clear.
Speaker 3:I understood that for, for example, you could have like maria, maria's. Maria's gonna have this life. So you could look, maria's gonna be born into the game of life. She's gonna have a daughter, he's gonna have a daughter, kids. Maria's gonna know what it is to be a mother, a grandmother and be loved, amongst many other experiences in her life. Then you're gonna have john. John's gonna have a daughter who's to die at five from terminal illness, he's going to understand what loss is amongst many other things in his life.
Speaker 3:Then, ricardo, ricardo Chin, he's going to be born into this life and he's going to experience loneliness and be unlucky in love. Then, as the soul, as the spirit, as the aliens we are in comparison to this life where we are now, we get to think loneliness, what's that? I've never experienced that before. I'm gonna go be ricardo chin lost what's lost. I'm gonna be john. What is it to lose a daughter? Let's go and see what that's all about. Or you can be maria love. What is it to be a woman? What's a woman, what? What is it to give birth? And so we choose the lives that we want and then we're born into earth with no idea of who we truly are and we're living that experience that we've chosen.
Speaker 2:So you're saying we basically live the whole time trying to navigate?
Speaker 3:the game? Yeah, but it depends, because some of us get this feeling, this calling right. What is life? What are we meant to be doing here? What is the point of this?
Speaker 3:But not everyone, some people are happy just living through life, and it's like I feel like once I understood that for myself it changed everything, and maybe it's something that a lot of people already know or believe they know, but for me, the reason it changed everything was because anything that negative that's happened to me in my life it now had meaning, like, why did them guys come to my house with a gun? Why did I get shot? Why did I lose friends whilst I was in the military? Why has anything happened to us that we have thought of as something negative? Right, and it's because it's the experience that we chose to come here for. And so when you realize that it gives a whole new meaning for life, it's like whenever anything is happening that you would like to call negative, look for the lesson in it. Whenever anything good happening, look for the lesson in it. Whatever it is, there's always a lesson there and it just changed my whole view during this whole experience.
Speaker 2:Where did the inspiration for it come from? Yeah, so.
Speaker 3:I think I'd always told stories when I was in the military and a few people were like, well, you can write a book, and you laugh it off as if I'm going to write a book. Who am I to write a book?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And then, as time went on, a friend came out here one day and he'd already written a book. He would. He'd been one of the last things out of football when the taliban retook it and he wrote a book about that and so he was an ex-marine. So when he came here, the feeling was like, and he told me so I was like, oh my god, he wrote a book. Not that he's a nobody, because it's not the case, but in my mind at that point there was something that was like you have to be somebody, uh, famous celebrity, to write a book and get recognized. But he wrote a book and I was like this guy's an expert, he wrote a book. If he can write a book, I can write a book I can write a book, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:So it was really, really inspiring when he came to this contract and showed me that, and so I went back and I decided I was gonna say.
Speaker 2:It's really amazing that you know I know you've the quote we are an average of the five people that we hang around with most and I probably could write a book just about my life and when I've been around a specific circle of guys. You know my life took this road when I got around this particular group of guys, my life. It's amazing how everything changes dependent on the circle of people that are hanging around.
Speaker 3:Absolutely and most of the time it's just the perspective that we have on things.
Speaker 2:Crazy, it's such a subtle change, but it changes everything that we have on things crazy, such a subtle change, but it changes everything, yeah, and man, I mean again, I'm just, I'm just amazed at the vulnerability that you were able to um, you just you just made yourself so vulnerable, which totally made that book just just just incredible. I can't say enough about it. I know I've said that like three or four times. I feel like I'm being redundant, but I really mean that from deep down.
Speaker 2:But, what advice do you think you have for others? Based on what you've experienced and everything that you talk about in the book, what advice would you have for someone maybe going through a similar thing? Maybe someone has another issue. Potential explorers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say medicine is not going to be for everybody and so you have to know deep within and it has to be your decision. When I first started doing this, I started telling people you need to do that. And it's not true. People need to do what they feel called to do from deep within. If it's not what you're meant to be doing and you go and do it, there's going to be consequences. So I guess if you feel the calling to go and do medicine within you, it's something you should honor. If you feel the whatever you feel the calling for deep within you and you know it to be true, your truth, you should definitely go and investigate it.
Speaker 2:I think from my, from my experience sorry to interrupt you, but from study on psychedelics. I've been studying psychedelic medicine for quite a while and then, hearing stories like yours, I think it's almost inarguable at this point that someone addicted to drugs right, should absolutely at least begin to study psychedelic medicine, because there's countless of guys laying on the street completely addicted to heroin, cocaine, whatever it was that have discovered psychedelic medicine and now they're completely cured. In fact there's uh that went down his mother. He's from the us. His mother went down to peru. He was, he was addicted to heroin in the us.
Speaker 2:His mother was looking for a way. She literally left him on the street because she couldn't have him in the house, left him on the street. She didn't know what to do. She discovered uh and then went by herself down to peru to a retreat center and spoke with those people. And then she goes back to her son and says hey, I think I discovered something that'll help you. He agreed to go.
Speaker 2:He went, cured himself of the addiction and fell in love with the plants and now he's actually working the last I knew he was working at himself of the addiction and fell in love with the plants and now he's actually working. The last I knew he was working at one of the most popular uh, you know psychedelic medicine retreat centers, and uh, in peru. So there's someone that's addicted and just can't get off drugs, maybe even that person that's like really depressed and they've taken every antidepressant, they, they should at least begin to study it. I'm not saying, go do it tomorrow, but you should at least start reading about it in hopes that you know the inspiration might hit you someday. Because if you're on your last leg and you don't have much hope with whatever you're going through, you at least have a chance with psychedelic medicine. I think.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's important that there are options and the options that there are in terms of pharmaceutical drugs aren't working right. Sending these people to dry-out centers that cost $20,000 a month aren't working, or they work temporarily and these people get back on. Psychedelic medicine has cured a lot of alcoholics. I know that for a fact. Drug addicts just like I just said.
Speaker 2:Um, it's at least worth um there's a reason that hospitals like, uh, I think it's john's fins, yeah, in new jersey or something, that's really some some studies up there and there's a lot of people that are studying that would be my take it's starting to look into it, absolutely. So let's end on a different note here. Man, I want to talk a little bit about your travel. I know that you talked a little in the book about how these travels through Latin America changed your life, and not necessarily just the medicine, but the friendship, the things you learned. I mean, how has that shaped your worldview and how has that alone contributed to ongoing growth?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's just massive, I guess, being able to step outside of what I always do.
Speaker 3:So, leaving London and joining Marines, my mindset was changing, but it was always the same.
Speaker 3:But once I do so, leaving London, then joining Marines like, my mindset was changing, but it was always the same. But once I didn't move to Columbia, I started meeting people like yeah, at dance school I met Americans, I met people like myself, I met entrepreneurs, and my mindset changed completely. I was able to meet people from completely different walks of life and so my whole mindset was able to expand in such a way that changed my life massively, right, and plant medicine being one of the biggest things that changed. But then meeting people that are just on completely different walks of life, which is ultimately making me want to leave this job and pursue other careers, and just see the people that I've met and the freedom that they have because they believe in themselves, you know, and then meeting that, learning Spanish, and meeting beautiful, amazing Colombian people that just have changed everything for me, just Just amazing, amazing. It's like I almost feel like there's times when I feel more at home in Columbia than I've ever felt anywhere else.
Speaker 2:No doubt about it. I can attest to that for sure. The only reason yeah, if I didn't have business aspirations, I would have never left Columbia. It's the most peaceful place I've ever felt in my life. It's the most peaceful place I've ever felt in my life. It's the most at home I've ever felt.
Speaker 2:The only problem I have with Columbia as an American or ambitious person is the problem with Columbia is it's okay to be whoever you are, and I guess that's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. But at the same time, if you're ambitious and you have goals in life, man, you have to go get around those go-getters just like you and the guys that are where you will. That was my, I guess, negative about columbia just wasn't uh, evolving as a businessman there, in fact, I was going backwards and so. But as far as peaceful man, it's the most peaceful place. You just find a lot of love there, man, that you can't find anywhere else. I think that's what you found, and not not only with Colombian people, but it's with the other Americans.
Speaker 2:I think I was telling my buddy the other day. I was telling him the other day, I think, at least on a high level, most of us foreigners that fall in love with a place like we all have similar voids. Maybe in our lives that Colombia feels voids, maybe in our lives that columbia fills, you know again, a lot of love, a lot of just peace every minute that I'm in that place again, as crazy as that sounds, the most people are like, oh, it's nothing but a war zone, drugs, all this other stuff. It's only that, if you want, and um, yeah, and so incredible story, brother, I'm glad you can um, and let's, let's plug the book a little bit. Do you have a copy of the book that you can show that maybe we could um, don't, I don't have one here at the moment.
Speaker 3:But um, yeah, it's available on amazon and there's a site that people can go to. The book's called.
Speaker 2:A few words from an absolute nobody it's an acronym, though, right, if they look it up, it's uh a f w a a n a f a f w f a a n he works from an absolute nobody.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, yeah, it's uh and um, but it's going to be a new cover as well, so the new cover is going to just have it written out there, like that. I guess it will be easier for some people to to remember yeah, I think that's going to do you some favors actually.
Speaker 2:um, yeah, by by spelling out the acronym, because you, I think a lot of people will probably look at it and be like what the hell is that? But when you spell it out, man, it's more attractive and I think everyone should read it. Man, I know I've said it.
Speaker 3:Thank you, man, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you so, congratulations brother.
Speaker 3:Let's start as well. So RicardoChenuthorcom, ricardochincom com yeah, got it Perfect.
Speaker 2:And is there any other way they can reach out to you? If people need to chat or Instagram, try the book, right, ricardochin? Yeah, exactly, yeah, perfect. Thanks for your story, brother. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to get this out. I really, really appreciate you and what you're doing here. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of matt chambers connects. Stay tuned for upcoming episodes where we'll dive deeper into these two fascinating worlds. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe to our youtube channel, matt chambers connects. You can also find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts, youtube Music and many other major podcast platforms so you don't miss a show. Also, please join us on our social media channels so you can connect with other listeners and ask your most pressing questions and also tell us what types of guests you'd like to see on the show. Thanks again and I'll see you next time.