Ayahuasca Integration Podcast

Do you feel broken beyond repair? Have you come home from an ayahuasca ceremony carrying something so profound you have no idea how to integrate it into your everyday life? Are you navigating a dark night of the soul—that terrifying space where everything you thought you knew has crumbled, leaving only confusion, fear, and the raw possibility of transformation?This episode is for anyone who has sat with plant medicine and struggled to make sense of what happened afterward. It's for those in the depths of a spiritual crisis, questioning if they'll ever find solid ground again. And it's for seekers who want to understand what true integration actually looks like when you're bridging mystical experience with the demands of modern life.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:What a dark night of the soul actually is and why it feels like being thrown in a blender—plus how to navigate it without losing your mindWhy you're not broken or unfixable—Kat's controversial perspective that challenges everything we think about healing and therapyThe difference between transformation and spiritual bypassing—and why most people fail at integration because they skip the embodiment workHow to know if a ceremony space is actually safe and what red flags to watch for when choosing where to sit with medicineWhy the medicine keeps showing you the same lesson over and over—what ayahuasca means by "doing your homework on the teacher's desk"Concrete integration practices that actually work—beyond just meditation and journaling, the physical actions required to embody your insightsHow power gets abused behind the altar and what Kat learned from being "fired by ayahuasca" after a devastating falling out with her teacherWhy death is actually a gift and how making endings sacred transforms our relationship with grief, loss, and transformationThe interconnectedness of all beings—Kat's story of searching the entire cosmos for her dead soul cat, only to find him in her lap the whole timeWhen to do solo ceremony work (and why most people shouldn't)—the risks of drinking alone and why community mattersHow to ask the right question after ceremony: "How am I really feeling?" and why honest answers create the map for your integration workWhy you can't think your way to integration—the body must move the energy through dance, yoga, nature, or physical action in the worldMeet Tina “Kat” Courtney:https://www.plantmedicinepeople.com/coaches/kat-courtney If you want a deeper container for this work, go to ⁠www.davidvox.com ⁠Here are three ways to step into the work of Ayahausca integration:The Sacred Integration Facilitator Training: Become a guide in the integration space:https://www.sacredfacilitator.com/ Sacred Service & ImpactA six month, 24 week container for leaders building their offerings and platform in a soul-aligned way. Explore options and book a consult via ⁠https://www.davidvox.com/⁠Follow and connectInstagram: @davidvoxFacebook: Ayahuasca Integration AllianceYouTube: @Ayahuasca-IntegrationResources and podcast transcripts: ⁠ayahuascaintegration.orgKEYWORDS FOR THIS EPISODE:ayahuasca integration, plant medicine integration, dark night of the soul, spiritual awakening, Kat Courtney, afterlife coach, death doula, shamanic healing, psychedelic integration, ayahuasca ceremonies, spiritual crisis, shadow work, embodiment practices, grief and transformation, making death sacred, plant medicine safety, shamanic apprenticeship, spiritual bypassing, integration coaching, psychedelic therapy, consciousness transformation, ego death, spiritual emergence, trauma healing, somatic integration, ceremony preparation, set and setting, mystical experience, non-ordinary states, entheogenic healing, sacred plant medicine, plant medicine people, integration coach,

You drink ayahuasca and suddenly you feel a collapse of your own self. The life you have built — studies, work, relationships, identity — cannot hold the person you are becoming.You touch your life’s calling, your authentic energy, your deeper capacity, and everything that is not aligned begins to fall away. The ceremony ends, but the real work starts after. What feels like your identity breaking is often identity breaking free — a rebirth into something truer and more alive.In this episode, we explore how new reference points emerge, what they are, and how they reorganize your life, purpose, and self. I share my most difficult integration experiences, including letting go of a successful career, releasing material status, and returning to Norway to confront the foster family I had not spoken to for over twenty years.We also break down the five primary reference points ayahuasca activates, and why each one reshapes your life in ways that cannot be ignored:1. Spiritual Reference PointsDirect encounters with Spirit, ancestors, or the Divine. This reference point reorients how you relate to existence, suffering, and life itself. It lands physically, emotionally, and mentally, reorganizing what is believable in your inner world.2. Emotional Reference PointsAccess to states you may have forgotten, never experienced, or thought were impossible — joy, grief, love, safety. Once it arrives, your emotional baseline changes, and you cannot live as if it never existed.3. Physical Reference PointsChanges in how you inhabit your body. The way you breathe, move, hold yourself, speak, or occupy space may shift. Your body itself becomes a reference point, organizing how you engage with the world.4. Mental Reference PointsSudden clarity that reorganizes your entire story about who you are and why your life unfolded the way it did. Mental reference points cannot be ignored; pretending they don’t exist causes tension and inner conflict.5. Ancestral Reference PointsReleases inherited patterns, trauma, and unresolved energies from past generations. These reference points often touch multiple layers simultaneously — spiritual, emotional, physical — and demand acknowledgment to prevent repeating cycles unconsciously.Each reference point is a new organizing principle. Once it arrives, it shifts what you can live with. Ignoring them or trying to bypass them leads to fragmentation, internal conflict, and stalled growth. Integration is not optional — it is the work that allows your life to align with the truths the medicine has revealed.In this episode, I share:How the medicine gave me the word “teacher” and then the teaching of “respect,” and how it reshaped my life.The hardest integration task ayahuasca ever asked: letting go of career, possessions, and identity to confront a traumatic past.How inner expansion without outer integration becomes another prison.Why purpose is revealed slowly, often through repeated reference points that show up across decades.How integration transforms chaos into a coherent, living masterpiece of identity and purpose.If you want a deeper container for this work, go to ⁠www.davidvox.com ⁠Here are three ways to step into the work of Ayahausca integration:The SACRED INTEGRATION FACILITATOR TRAININGFor those called to integrate and hold space for others.The SACRED MIRROR & The Celebration CircleA six month group container with 24 live calls, built for people whose gifts are coming back online and who need clean mirrors, real witnessing, and the skills to stand in what is true without shrinking.Sacred ImpactA six month, 24 week container for leaders building offerings, a practice, or a platform in this space. Explore options and book a consult via ⁠https://www.davidvox.com/⁠Follow and connectInstagram: @davidvoxFacebook: Ayahuasca Integration AllianceYouTube: @Ayahuasca-IntegrationResources and podcast transcripts: ⁠ayahuascaintegration.org

What if the pain you are trying to heal is not yours to carry?Imagine drinking ayahuasca for your own healing and suddenly finding yourself face to face with your father’s shame, your grandmother’s unresolved pain, or your great-grandfather’s grief from a war you never lived through.For many people, ayahuasca does not work only on a personal level. It opens the lineage.In this episode, I speak about the ancestral dimension of ayahuasca experiences and what it actually takes to integrate lineage material with responsibility, discernment, and respect.In this episode, we explore:Why ayahuasca often brings up ancestral and lineage material before personal trauma is resolvedHow to recognize when the pain, shame, or grief you are feeling does not originate in your own biographyWhat happens when family secrets, unspoken histories, and inherited survival patterns surface through ceremonyThe difference between carrying ancestral material and being consumed by itWhy some energies do not want to be purged, fixed, or pushed out, but instead demand respect and surrenderWe also explore the four types of ancestors that commonly appear in ayahuasca work, and how to recognize which layer you are engaging:Ancestors of the bloodline: parents, grandparents, and family lineage whose unresolved trauma, shame, and survival strategies live in the body and nervous systemAncestors of the land: the spirits and memory of the places we live on, including histories of displacement, violence, and belongingAncestors of the soul: previous lives and spiritual memory that surface as embodied knowing rather than story or identityAncestors of affinity: chosen ancestors, guides, and spiritual allies we align with across lifetimes, including plant spirits and teachersThis episode also addresses:What can happen after lineage revelations, including confusion, destabilization, and unexpected liberationA personal story of receiving a lineage truth in ceremony that altered my understanding of my family and identityWhy confronting family members too quickly after ceremony can create harm, even when the information feels undeniableHow to integrate ancestral truths without collapsing, reenacting the past, or trying to heal an entire bloodline aloneIf you want a deeper container for this work, go to www.davidvox.com Here are three ways to step into the work of Ayahausca integration:The Integration CircleA grounded space to process what happens after ceremony and translate insight into daily life, guided with emotional safety, confidentiality, and practical integration principles.The Celebration CircleA six month group container with 24 live calls, built for people whose gifts are coming back online and who need clean mirrors, real witnessing, and the skills to stand in what is true without shrinking.Sacred ImpactA six month, 24 week container for leaders building offerings, a practice, or a platform in this space. Voice, vision, structure, integrity, and the lived embodiment required for your service to land.Explore options and book a consult via https://www.davidvox.com/Follow and connectInstagram: @davidvoxFacebook: Ayahuasca Integration AllianceYouTube: @Ayahuasca-IntegrationResources and podcats transcripts: ayahuascaintegration.org

Feeling the call to be of service? This episode is for you.If you have done a few ayahuasca retreats, you know the shift. You entered the medicine path for your own healing, and somewhere along the way a seed starts growing: “I want to give back. I want to support others.” That impulse can be real, clean, and sacred. It can also get tangled in performance, spiritual identity, and the need to be liked.In this episode we bring service down to earth.Service is not a persona. It is the natural overflow of integration. It is where your gift and your grief meet. The places that broke you open often become the places you can hold others with uncommon precision, especially in the retreat and post-ceremony landscape where people come home with a lot of light and not enough structure to live it.I use a simple metaphor to name what stops most people: the hermit crab crossing. You outgrow your old shell, you see the next one, and the only way there is to walk naked across open ground. Many people keep stepping in and out of the same shell for years. They volunteer once, post once, offer once, then retreat back into hiding. The call is not the problem. The crossing is.We also get practical about boundaries and integrity in the service field.If you lead with empathy before respect, you will get drained. If your service depends on approval, you will dilute your truth. If you confuse peak states from ceremony with readiness, you will overreach. True service is stable, relational, and grounded in daily life: how you speak, how you follow through, how you hold your energy, how you treat people, how you protect your nervous system.This is especially relevant if you want to support others after ayahuasca retreats, hold integration space, assist in ceremony, or build a real practice. The foundation is not branding. It is embodiment.The “healing to service” threshold after ayahuasca retreatsGift + grief as the real source of serviceThe hermit crab crossing: leaving the old shell and becoming visibleServing without needing to be liked, praised, or validated“Who before how”: stop obsessing over strategy and choose one person you want to serveClean boundaries: respect first, compassion secondHow to reconnect with retreat community without hidden agendaWhy integration is not complete until it reaches behavior and actionReach out to one retreat friend with zero agenda: “You came to mind. How are you doing lately?”Identify one boundary that protects your energy without closing your heartNotice where you are trying to “prove” your service, and remove that motiveCommit to one small daily act that builds trust with yourselfIf you want a deeper container for this work, here are three ways to step in:The Integration CircleA grounded space to process what happens after ceremony and translate insight into daily life, guided with emotional safety, confidentiality, and practical integration principles.The Celebration CircleA six month group container with 24 live calls, built for people whose gifts are coming back online and who need clean mirrors, real witnessing, and the skills to stand in what is true without shrinking.Sacred ImpactA six month, 24 week container for leaders building offerings, a practice, or a platform in this space. Voice, vision, structure, integrity, and the lived embodiment required for your service to land.Explore options and book a consult via davidvox.com.Follow and connectInstagram: @davidvoxFacebook: Ayahuasca Integration AllianceYouTube: @Ayahuasca-IntegrationResources: ayahuascaintegration.org

What happens when you drink and touch real light, but you don’t integrate it? The vessel cracks. The current keeps coming, and what could have become wisdom turns into overload, inflation, chaos, or collapse.Today I’m sharing one of the most important lessons on the medicine path: the light can be so strong that it becomes difficult to hold. Ayahuasca, breathwork, and deep spiritual practices can open you to an unfiltered current, a level of clarity and unity that dissolves separation. Then real life returns, and the system struggles to translate what it touched into something livable.You’ve seen the pattern. People speak about visions and missions, but the world of action stays untouched. Monday arrives and the body is dysregulated. Time collapses. Money becomes messy. Relationships strain. Boundaries blur. Service becomes an idea instead of a lived offering. The gap between spiritual peak and daily life widens, and many people respond by chasing more light instead of strengthening the vessel.In this episode, I bring the lens of Kabbalah to sacred integration through the concept of tikkun: repair and restoration. In the Kabbalah creation story, infinite light pours into vessels that shatter, scattering sparks. The work becomes gathering the sparks, rebuilding the vessels, and restoring unity where there has been fragmentation. I’m offering this as an integration framework, not as formal religious teaching.The point is practical: integration is vessel-building. You learn to hold the light without leaking it. You bind insight into time, structure, and action. You translate revelation into responsibility. The world of action becomes the altar where the divine actually lands.I also name the risks I see when people bypass this step: addiction to peak states, spiritual inflation, arrogance, over-giving, bread of shame dynamics, retraumatization through overload, and deeper fragmentation. If you facilitate, this becomes a responsibility conversation. Sometimes the most loving move is to pause medicine and build structure.You’ll leave with a clear map of what to watch for, how to ground what you receive, and simple daily practices that strengthen the container so the light can dwell, not shatter you.Why powerful spiritual contact can become overwhelming without integrationThe Monday gap: peak-state visions vs embodied daily lifeKabbalah as an integration lens: tikkun as repair, restoration, reintegrationThe “shattered vessels” metaphor and why chasing more light can be dangerousHow overload shows up: anxiety, depression, dissociation, fragmentation, collapseSpiritual inflation and identity attachment to visions, roles, and “vibration”The world of action as the altar: time, money, body, relationships, boundaries, serviceOver-giving and “bread of shame”: when receiving without earning damages the vesselBuilding the vessel: structure, discipline, humility, follow-through, completionFacilitator responsibility: requiring integration and knowing when to pause medicineSimple daily practices: one promise kept, one action completed, one boundary heldIf you feel called to go deeper into your own integration work, I offer three journeys:The Integration CircleA six-month container for people walking this path with sacred plant medicine. Real integration, real mirrors, grounded structure, and consistent follow-through.The Celebration CircleSix months of learning to inhabit your life instead of chasing it. A structured practice of receiving, self-respect, gratitude, and integration of your gifts.Sacred ImpactA six-month journey for transformational leaders who carry vision and depth and need it brought into form. Platform, offerings, structure, integrity, pacing, and delivery.Explore options and book a consult via davidvox.com.

Inner child integration is a practical return to inner power, self-trust, and coherence.In this episode, I share a medicine dream from my fiancé during the COVID period. In the dream he is a child with white angel wings, free and light. Every time he lies to someone else or to himself, a feather falls out. Over time the wings become bare, and adulthood arrives without lift, without movement, without trust. Years later, I realized that dream was also a mirror for my own path. I know how easy it is to give away feather after feather, truth after truth, to keep love possible, to keep peace, to keep belonging, until the cost becomes your freedom.From that story we go into integration work you can actually apply. Restoring inner power is built through micro-truth: the small choices where you abandon yourself and call it “being easy,” the small agreements you keep to avoid conflict, the small betrayals that slowly train your nervous system to distrust you. This episode tracks how those feathers disappear, how to notice it early, and how to stop the quiet self-plucking that leaves people feeling hollow, compliant, or exhausted.You’ll be guided through The Feather Audit, a simple integrity practice you can run daily or weekly:Truth I lived: what I knew was true and embodied through actionTruth I avoided: what I felt or knew, but did not say or doTruth I owe: what needs repair, a conversation, a new agreement, or a clean actionWe also look at “characters” and personas: how they form in childhood, how they adapt to groups and authority, how they can appear spiritually sophisticated, and why they cannot receive real intimacy or real nourishment. Then I share a grounded framework I call The Four Ps for inner child integration: Passion, Purpose, Playfulness, Prosperity. Passion and playfulness fuel the child’s aliveness. Purpose and prosperity protect the child through structure, rhythm, and sustainability. Together they create a life that holds both freedom and stability.Core question to carry into your week: Where are you losing your feathers right now, and who are you losing them for?Inner child integration as the restoration of inner power, coherence, and self-trustThe “angel wings” dream: feathers lost through lies, wings lost through self-betrayalHow people trade truth for belonging, peace, approval, love, and safetyMicro-truth: the smallest yes/no choices that build or break integrityThe Feather Audit (Truth I lived, Truth I avoided, Truth I owe)Repair as action: new agreement, clean follow-through, restored trustPersonas and characters: why they form, what they protect, what they costWhy a character cannot receive real intimacy, real love, or real nourishmentInner power as lived truth, not truth performed or spokenThe Four Ps framework: Passion, Purpose, Playfulness, ProsperityChild fuels the adult (passion, playfulness); adult protects the child (purpose, prosperity)A weekly practice: identify one feather, name it, and stop the leak earlyConnect with DavidIf you want a deeper container for this work, here are three ways to step in:The Integration CircleA grounded space to process what happens after ceremony and translate insight into daily life, with emotional safety, confidentiality, and practical integration that holds up outside the room.The Celebration CircleA six-month group container with 24 live calls for people whose gifts are coming back online. Clean mirrors. Real witnessing. The skill of standing in what’s true without shrinking, performing, or abandoning yourself.Sacred ImpactA six-month, 24-week container for transformational leaders building offerings, a practice, or a platform. Voice, vision, structure, and integrity, brought into form through lived embodiment and real-world action.You can explore these journeys and book a consult via davidvox.com.Instagram: @davidvoxFacebook: Ayahuasca Integration AllianceYouTube: @Ayahuasca-IntegrationResources: ayahuascaintegration.org

Most people don't fail at transformation. They stall at expression.In this episode, we go straight to where integration becomes real: your gifts. Not your skills or credentials. Your natural way of being—what moves through you when you stop performing. We look at why sharing your gift often feels threatening, how fear protects it by delaying it, and how the "golden shadow" forms when your essence gets wrapped in strategy.You'll hear the classic traps that keep talented people stuck preparing forever: "once I have more time," "once I'm healed," "one more certification," "I need a total reset." We also name the deeper layer—old agreements, unspoken promises, and the quiet deals you made to belong.In this episode, we explore:What a gift actually is, and why it's not the same as a skillThe golden shadow: the gift under constraint, the gift under protectionFear that sounds spiritual—false humility, waiting to be ready, endless preparationThe "not yet" strategy and why it keeps you stuckWhy gifts and wounds travel together (same source, different expression)Stillness as a prerequisite for hearing your real signalSmall honest actions that restore your voiceCONNECT WITH DAVID:If you feel called to go deeper into this work, I offer three journeys:1. The Integration CircleA six-month container for people walking the Ayahuasca path — real healing, real mirrors.2. The Celebration CircleSix months of learning to inhabit your life instead of chasing it. Celebration isn’t the reward, it’s the rehearsal. 3. Sacred ImpactA six-month journey for transformational leaders who need their service, gifts, and vision brought into form, structure, and integrity.Learn more or book a consult at https://www.davidvox.com/Follow & connect:🌿 Ayahuasca Integration Resources: ayahuascaintegration.org📸 Instagram: @davidvox📘 Facebook: Ayahuasca Integration Alliance📺 YouTube: @Ayahuasca-Integrationayahuasca integration, integration after ayahuasca, psychedelic integration, post ceremony integration, ayahuasca ceremony integration, plant medicine integration, spiritual bypassing, shadow work after ayahuasca, integration practices, psychedelic aftercare, spiritual ego, integration coach, healing integration, transformational work, ceremony integration

Many people come to ayahuasca to receive medicine for their own healing.Fewer are prepared for being called to serve. Because what happens when the medicine is no longer something you only drink in ceremony, but something you start living with day by day? When it begins shaping how you move through the world, how you relate, and how you show up?After ten years on the ayahuasca path, I’ve watched many people move from personal healing into service. Not because they planned to, and not because they took on a role, but because the medicine kept working through them.The episode includes a short guided meditation, designed to help you connect with the people you feel called to serve in this lifetime.This episode is for those who feel that the medicine is asking something more of them than personal healing, and want to listen carefully to what that might be.CONNECT WITH DAVID:If you feel called to go deeper, I offer three journeys:1. The Integration CircleA six-month container for people walking the Ayahuasca path — real healing, real mirrors.2. The Celebration CircleSix months of learning to inhabit your life instead of chasing it. Celebration isn’t the reward, it’s the rehearsal. 3. Sacred ImpactA six-month journey for transformational leaders who need their service, gifts, and vision brought into form, structure, and integrity.Learn more or book a consult at https://www.davidvox.com/Follow & connect:🌿 Ayahuasca Integration Resources: ayahuascaintegration.org📸 Instagram: @davidvox📘 Facebook: Ayahuasca Integration Alliance📺 YouTube: @Ayahuasca-Integrationayahuasca integration, integration after ayahuasca, psychedelic integration, post ceremony integration, ayahuasca ceremony integration, plant medicine integration, spiritual bypassing, shadow work after ayahuasca, integration practices, psychedelic aftercare, spiritual ego, integration coach, healing integration, transformational work, ceremony integration

Your first home was the heart.Before language. Before identity. Before effort.This guided meditation takes you inward, through the layers of the heart, into the rhythm that existed before memory. You are guided to reconnect with the maternal heartbeat, the ancestral feminine line, and the inner masculine energy that protects and carries. The meditation moves through descent, remembrance, integration, and return, allowing forgotten or exiled parts of the self to be felt, witnessed, and gathered back into the heart.This is a heart-centered integration meditation.Best listened to lying down or seated, with eyes closed, in a quiet space.Merry Christmas.If this season carries warmth for you, let it deepen here.If it carries grief, absence, or complexity, you are not doing it wrong.This meditation is offered as a place to rest inside yourself, when the outer world feels loud or tender.This meditation is designed for ayahuasca integration and deep inner work. After plant medicine experiences, many people feel powerful energies, memories, and identities awaken without knowing how to hold or integrate them. This heart-centered guided meditation supports the integration process by helping you meet the feminine and masculine energies within, feel them in the body, and bring them back into coherence through the heart.This is a guided heart meditation for integration, emotional healing, and nervous system grounding.Best listened to lying down or seated, with eyes closed, in a quiet space.CONNECT WITH DAVID:If you feel called to go deeper, I offer three journeys:1. The Integration CircleA six-month container for people walking the Ayahuasca path — real healing, real mirrors.2. The Celebration CircleSix months of learning to inhabit your life instead of chasing it. Celebration isn’t the reward, it’s the rehearsal. 3. Sacred ImpactA six-month journey for transformational leaders who need their service, gifts, and vision brought into form, structure, and integrity.Learn more or book a consult at https://www.davidvox.com/Follow & connect:🌿 Ayahuasca Integration Resources: ayahuascaintegration.org📸 Instagram: @davidvox📘 Facebook: Ayahuasca Integration Alliance📺 YouTube: @Ayahuasca-Integrationayahuasca integration, integration after ayahuasca, psychedelic integration, post ceremony integration, ayahuasca ceremony integration, plant medicine integration, spiritual bypassing, shadow work after ayahuasca, integration practices, psychedelic aftercare, spiritual ego, integration coach, healing integration, transformational work, ceremony integration

Are you hiding your gifts after Ayahuasca?Many people leave ceremony with insight, clarity, and energy—yet struggle when their gifts begin asking to be lived. This episode goes straight into that moment of truth.At a certain point in the integration journey, healing is no longer the work. Expression is.Your gifts want space. Your light wants movement. And as that light grows, the shadow doesn’t disappear—it activates.In this episode, we explore what really happens when your gifts come online after Ayahuasca. Why fear, doubt, procrastination, and self-protection often intensify right when you are closest to your purpose. Why the shadow is not a problem to fix, but a guardian responding to expansion. And why true integration is not about more insight—but about honoring what wants to move through you.We go deep into:Why gifts—not wounds—become the center of integration after AyahuascaHow your shadow activates as your light grows strongerThe difference between healing work and embodiment workWhy many people get stuck in “preparation mode” instead of expressionHow purpose, power, and gifts are integrated through action, not perfectionThis episode ends with a guided heart-based meditation designed to reunite two energies that often haven’t met in years:the part of you that carries your gifts, and the part of you that protects you from being seen.If your Ayahuasca journey has brought you to a threshold—where insight is no longer enough and your life is asking for alignment—this episode is for you.Your gifts are not the result of integration.Your gifts are the integration.CONNECT WITH DAVID:If you feel called to go deeper, I offer three journeys:1. The Integration CircleA six-month container for people walking the Ayahuasca path — real healing, real mirrors.2. The Celebration CircleSix months of learning to inhabit your life instead of chasing it. Celebration isn’t the reward, it’s the rehearsal. 3. Sacred ImpactA six-month journey for transformational leaders who need their service, gifts, and vision brought into form, structure, and integrity.Learn more or book a consult at https://www.davidvox.com/Follow & connect:🌿 Ayahuasca Integration Resources: ayahuascaintegration.org📸 Instagram: @davidvox📘 Facebook: Ayahuasca Integration Alliance📺 YouTube: @Ayahuasca-Integrationayahuasca integration, integration after ayahuasca, psychedelic integration, post ceremony integration, ayahuasca ceremony integration, plant medicine integration, spiritual bypassing, shadow work after ayahuasca, integration practices, psychedelic aftercare, spiritual ego, integration coach, healing integration, transformational work, ceremony integration

Did you know that we all play games in healing and transformational work?You have seen how healing turns into performance.How spiritual language starts replacing actual change.How people adopt identities that are not lived in daily life.How strong reactions appear in ceremony spaces without being understood.These are integration games.They are recurring patterns that show up when experiences are intense but not yet embodied. They are not personal defects. They are part of what happens after ceremony when insight has not been metabolized into action.There are ten integration games that tend to appear during and after ceremony. Most people play several of them. Awareness does not resolve them on its own, but it creates the possibility of choice. That is where integration begins.In this episode, I walk through the ten most common integration games I have observed through years of work with ceremony, integration, and facilitation. Each game is named clearly and examined for how it affects behavior, relationships, and everyday life, so the work can move beyond insight into lived change.You’ll hear about:How healing turns into performance, identity, or spiritual theaterWhy insight without responsibility quietly collapses back into old patternsThe avoidance games that protect us from real changeOversharing, explaining, and guru energy in integration spacesProjection, comparison, and subtle group dynamicsBelonging, isolation, and identity protection in ceremony containersPleasure, distraction, and boundary-testing behaviorsCosmic confusion and the “ayahuasca told me” trapThe endless search for a missing pieceShame, guilt, and the inner critic after awakening experiencesThese games show up because they protect something vulnerable. Awareness doesn’t end them. It creates choice.This episode is an invitation to recognize the patterns without shame, so the work doesn’t just feel deep, but actually changes how life is lived.CONNECT WITH DAVID:If you feel called to go deeper, I offer three journeys:1. The Integration CircleA six-month container for people walking the Ayahuasca path — real healing, real mirrors.2. The Celebration CircleSix months of learning to inhabit your life instead of chasing it. Celebration isn’t the reward, it’s the rehearsal. 3. Sacred ImpactA six-month journey for transformational leaders who need their service, gifts, and vision brought into form, structure, and integrity.Learn more or book a consult at https://www.davidvox.com/Follow & connect:🌿 Ayahuasca Integration Resources: ayahuascaintegration.org📸 Instagram: @davidvox📘 Facebook: Ayahuasca Integration Alliance📺 YouTube: @Ayahuasca-Integrationayahuasca integration, integration after ayahuasca, psychedelic integration, post ceremony integration, ayahuasca ceremony integration, plant medicine integration, spiritual bypassing, shadow work after ayahuasca, integration practices, psychedelic aftercare, spiritual ego, integration coaching, healing integration, transformational work, ceremony integration games

Ayahuasca can show you the truth.But it cannot live it for you.In this episode, I speak about the part of integration that’s rarely named and often avoided: the quiet, daily cost of self-betrayal. The small lies. The compromises. The feathers that fall every time we abandon what we know is true.This is not about ceremony, visions, or peak experiences.It’s about what happens after.When the medicine is gone and your life is still there.I share a story about devotion, loss, and what it took to refeather myself. One truth at a time. One boundary at a time. Until the wings returned.If you’ve worked with ayahuasca and still feel stuck, fragmented, or tired of carrying insights that never quite land, this episode is for you.Integration doesn’t ask for more love and light.It asks for truth.What we cover in this episode:Why ayahuasca isn’t the medicine - your lived truth isAyahuasca ceremonies can reveal deep insight, emotional truth, and unconscious patterns. But the medicine itself does not heal your life. Healing happens in integration, when the truths revealed during an ayahuasca ceremony are lived daily through honest choices, integrity, and embodiment.What really breaks integration after an ayahuasca retreatIntegration after ayahuasca breaks down when people return to the same relationships, environments, and behaviors while ignoring what the ceremony clearly showed them. Avoiding necessary changes after an ayahuasca retreat creates inner conflict, confusion, and a sense that the medicine “didn’t work.”The hidden cost of calling self-abandonment “love” or “devotion”Many people leave ayahuasca ceremonies believing they need to give more, love harder, or sacrifice themselves to be spiritual. This episode names how self-abandonment is often mislabeled as love, devotion, or surrender, and how this quietly destroys integration and self-trust over time.Why people feel stuck, fragmented, or exhausted after ceremonyFeeling worse after ayahuasca is common when insights are not integrated. Seeing truth without acting on it creates fragmentation in the nervous system. The exhaustion people feel after ceremony is often the weight of avoided truth, not a failure of the ayahuasca experience.Responsibility after ayahuasca: what the medicine gives back to youAyahuasca does not remove responsibility, it returns it. After ceremony, responsibility means response-ability: the capacity to respond to what you now know. Integration requires choosing truth over comfort and taking responsibility for aligning your life with what the medicine revealed.The Truth Map: how to locate the exact truth you’re avoidingThis episode introduces a simple truth map for ayahuasca integration. Wherever your life feels heavy, resentful, or stuck after ceremony, there is usually a specific truth being avoided. Integration begins by identifying that exact truth instead of seeking another ceremony.How boundaries restore self-trust and bring the feathers backIn ayahuasca integration work, boundaries are not walls, they are medicine. Each boundary restores trust in yourself and repairs the damage caused by self-betrayal. This is how the wings grow back: one truth lived, one boundary honored, one feather at a time.CONNECT WITH DAVID:If you feel called to go deeper, I offer three journeys:1. The Integration CircleA six-month container for people walking the Ayahuasca path — real healing, real mirrors.2. The Celebration CircleSix months of learning to inhabit your life instead of chasing it.Celebration isn’t the reward, it’s the rehearsal. 3. Sacred ImpactA six-month journey for transformational leaders who need their service, gifts, and vision brought into form, structure, and integrity.Learn more or book a consult at https://www.davidvox.com/Follow & connect:🌿 Ayahuasca Integration Resources: ayahuascaintegration.org📸 Instagram: @davidvox📘 Facebook: Ayahuasca Integration Alliance📺 YouTube: @Ayahuasca-Integration

If you’re navigating the complexities of Ayahuasca healing and you find yourself moving too fast on your path — pushing, improving, “doing the work,” yet still feeling that quiet internal pressure — this episode goes right to the heart of why.Because that pressure isn’t random.It’s the signature of a part of you that’s been left behind.In this episode, we explore the core mistake almost everyone makes in deep healing: outrunning the very part of themselves that holds the truth, the timing, and the healing they seek. Through the story of a master diamond thief who searched everywhere for a diamond that was never lost — only hidden where he’d never think to look — we examine how most of us do the same in our spiritual and ayahuasca journeys.What if the diamond you’re searching for was never missing… just placed in the one part of you you’ve been avoiding?The slowest-moving part.The tender part.We go into the three phases of the Ayahuasca journey — Healing, Integration, and Transformation — and why they move in spirals, not straight lines. In this episode, we focus on the healing phase, the cocoon where you stop outrunning yourself and meet the parts of you that carry your real identity, your timing, your inner child, and the emotional truth that never disappears.You’ll learn:• Why most people run their healing at the same speed as their trauma, and why nothing lands when you’re ahead of your body• The difference between fast energy (sympathetic activation) and slow energy (parasympathetic connection)• How overwhelm drops you into dorsal freeze, and why this matters for your integration• Why your slowest-moving parts are not the wound — they’re the doorway to your wholeness• How Ayahuasca slows you down on purpose, so you can meet what you’ve been refusing to feel• Why the “diamond” of your journey is hidden inside the part of you that refuses to move until you’re readyWe explore the four pillars of the healing phase — Surrender, Listen, Open, Warrior — and how SLOW becomes not just an acronym, but a nervous-system truth. Fast is fear. Fast is survival. Slow is where your soul lives. Slow is where the real medicine works.This is an episode for anyone who has felt:• “I’m behind in my own life.”• “I’m ahead of myself, out of sync with my body.”• “I’m doing everything right… so why am I still not landing?”• “I’m exhausted from chasing clarity, purpose, or healing.”If you’ve been searching for your wholeness, your purpose, your voice, your gifts — there is a real chance you left them behind with the part of you that moves the slowest.And just like the diamond buyer who hid the gem in the thief’s own pocket, close to his own heart…you may have been searching everywhere except the one place that holds everything you’re trying to find.This episode invites you into the pace where real ayahuasca integration finally occurs.The pace where healing becomes embodied.The pace where transformation emerges naturally.The pace where the diamond reveals itself.Slow down — the treasure is closer than you think.CONNECT WITH DAVID:If you feel called to go deeper, I offer three journeys:1. The Integration CircleA six-month container for people walking the Ayahuasca path — real healing, real mirrors, real integration.2. The Celebration CircleSix months of learning to inhabit your life instead of chasing it.Celebration isn’t the reward, it’s the rehearsal. It changes everything.3. Sacred ImpactA six-month journey for transformational leaders who need their service, gifts, and vision brought into form, structure, and integrity.Learn more or book a consult at davidvox.com.Follow & connect:🌿 Ayahuasca Integration Resources: ayahuascaintegration.org📸 Instagram: @davidvox📘 Facebook: Ayahuasca Integration Alliance📺 YouTube: @Ayahuasca-Integration

Ayahuasca healing can transform your life in unexpected ways. In this episode, we explore the profound journey beyond trauma—that moment when healing shifts from repair to remembering the innate gifts you've always carried. With over a decade and more than a hundred ayahuasca ceremonies behind me, I share how this medicine revealed the hidden strengths and abilities within me, gifts I never knew existed.Whether you're seeking deep ayahuasca healing, authentic integration guidance, or insight into what unfolds when you commit to the medicine long-term, this episode offers a heartfelt narrative and practical wisdom. Discover how ayahuasca can help you release trauma, recognize patterns, and embrace your true self through an ongoing integration journey.Tune in if you're preparing for your first ceremony, navigating post-ceremony integration, or supporting others in their transformational process. This episode is a vital resource for anyone dedicated to embracing the full depth of ayahuasca's healing potential.Connect & Learn MoreFor ayahuasca integration resources, visit 🌿 ayahuascaintegration.org — the home of the Ayahuasca Integration Alliance and the Ayahuasca Integration Podcast.For my personal work and all current programs, go to 💫 davidvox.comFollow and connect:📺 YouTube: @Ayahuasca-Integration📘 Facebook: Ayahuasca Integration Alliance📸 Instagram: @davidvoxThe Three Journeys You Can Join:1. The Integration CircleA monthly circle for people walking this path with ayahuasca.Your first circle is free. Come, feel the field, and stay if it resonates.2. The Celebration CircleA 6-month journey of remembering your gifts, reconnecting to what is whole, and rebuilding your inner alignment through daily celebration and sacred practice.3. Sacred ImpactA deeper leadership journey for those called to serve.This is where you develop the inner architecture, the energetic foundations, and the outward expression of your true work in the world.You can explore all journeys and apply at davidvox.com

What actually happens when people start treating ChatGPT like a guide in their Ayahuasca integration?This episode goes straight into the rising trend of using AI for plant medicine integration, trauma healing, spiritual awakening, and inner work — and the real risks it creates for your path.More and more people are turning to AI to interpret ceremonies, analyze relationships, decode spiritual openings, and give them answers about their shadows. For many, ChatGPT has become a “digital shaman” — always available, always responsive, always ready with a polished line.And that’s precisely why it’s dangerous.In this episode, we explore:• Why AI feels like a guide for people who’ve never sat with Ayahuasca• The difference between a living intelligence and a linguistic engine• How ChatGPT mirrors your language but cannot feel your consciousness• How AI stabilizes illusions, strengthens ego, and feeds bias• Why real Ayahuasca integration is somatic, relational, ancestral, and communal• Why AI cannot co-regulate your nervous system or hold emotional truth• The illusion of progress AI creates — without any embodiment• How AI derails intuition and replaces real human connection with artificial feedbackI also share the story of my own year-long experiment with AI during a deep integration period — how it pulled me into loops of analysis, disconnected me from my intuition, and eventually showed me exactly why this work can never be outsourced.Ayahuasca is alive.AI is engineered.One expands your soul.The other rearranges your sentences.If you’re walking a plant medicine path, doing shadow work, navigating spiritual awakening, or holding space for others, this episode gives you a grounded map of where AI fits — and where it becomes a real risk for your healing.Connect & Learn MoreI’m David — a professional coach for transformative leaders, shaped by years of work with Ayahuasca into the field of deep integration.For inquiries about 1-1 work, visit davidvox.com.To explore more on Ayahuasca integration, visit 🌿 ayahuascaintegration.org — home of the Ayahuasca Integration Alliance and the Ayahuasca Integration Podcast.Follow and connect:📺 YouTube: @Ayahuasca-Integration📘 Facebook: Ayahuasca Integration Alliance📸 Instagram: @davidvoxTwice a year, we host a 6-month Sacred Integration Facilitator Training, guided by a medicine carrier, a psychologist, and myself.Created for those walking this path deeply — facilitators, space-holders, and practitioners who want to master Ayahuasca integration with depth, safety, and respect for tradition.Learn more and apply at ayahuascaintegration.org or davidvox.com

What can happen when you walk with Ayahuasca for ten years?In this Ayahuasca Integration Podcast series, I look back on a decade of ceremonies, healing, and integration — sharing the most powerful gifts and hardest challenges this sacred medicine has brought into my life.I speak about the early years of fear and resistance, the nights of deep purging and release, and the moment joy finally returned to my body after years of trauma. This is not a story about escape or visions; it’s about integration — the long, grounded process of turning mystical experiences into real change, peace, and creativity in daily life.Whether you’re preparing for your first Ayahuasca retreat, in the middle of an integration process, or simply curious about what long-term work with the plant can open inside a human being, this episode offers a raw and honest reflection.We explore:– Ayahuasca integration after ceremony and how it evolves over time– The importance of trauma-informed facilitation and safe ceremony spaces– How sound, song, and traditional healing tools help release emotion– The return of joy and the awakening of the inner child after deep healing– What “living in integration” looks like years after the retreat is overTen years, more than a hundred ceremonies, and one ongoing conversation with a teacher older than time.If you’re walking the path of Ayahuasca, plant medicine, or spiritual integration, may this story remind you that healing doesn’t end when the ceremony closes — it begins there.Connect & Learn MoreTo explore more on Ayahuasca integration, visit🌿 ayahuascaintegration.org — the home of the Ayahuasca Integration Alliance and the Ayahuasca Integration Podcast.You can also find more about my personal work and upcoming programs at💫 davidvox.comFollow and connect:📺 YouTube: @Ayahuasca-Integration📘 Facebook: Ayahuasca Integration Alliance📸 Instagram: @davidvoxTwice a year, we host a 6-month Sacred Integration Facilitator Training, guided by a medicine carrier, a psychologist, and myself.This program is created for facilitators and space-holders who want to master the art of Ayahuasca integration and bring this work forward with safety, depth, and respect for tradition.Learn more and apply at ayahuascaintegration.org or davidvox.com.

Do you feel like you don’t fit in your own life anymore?That’s the moment this episode lives in.The ache between lives.Where your consciousness expands but your world hasn’t caught up.We’ll talk about what happens when awakening stops being poetic and starts burning through what isn’t true.About the strange beauty of falling apart, the danger of spiritual quick fixes, and what it actually takes to grow into the next version of yourself.If everything feels too small right now — stay with this one.You’re closer than you think.Who am I?I’m David Vox, a professional coach turned integration teacher, with over a decade on the ayahuasca path and years of guiding others through the real, lived process of transformation.If you’re somewhere between shells right now — expanding fast and needing grounded guidance — I host a six-month Sacred Integration Facilitator Training, a deep-dive for those walking the path of service, healing, and embodiment.You can learn more or join upcoming circles at ayahuaschaintegration.com or davidvox.com.Enjoy your week, fellow hermit.Keep walking that sandbank — bare, brave, becoming.

If your ancestors were sitting in a cinema right now, watching the movie of your life, what would they be screaming toward the screen? What would they be celebrating, trying to share with you? What would they be praying for?This episode is an invitation to explore these questions deeply. Through a guided ancestral meditation, you will connect with all your ancestors—those of your lineage, the ancestors of the land you inhabit, and the ancestors of affinity, including the teachers, guides, and plant allies you have chosen along your path.We begin by preparing a sacred space. You are invited to create a small altar to honor your ancestors, bringing intention and reverence into the practice. You’ll write down a question for your ancestors—perhaps about healing your lineage, fully expressing your gifts and service in the world, or learning how to honor and celebrate yourself completely.The meditation will guide you through a deep dialogue with your ancestors. You will witness the energy, love, and wisdom they bring, and you will feel their guidance and presence. This is a time to integrate their support into your life, to reflect, to celebrate, and to honor both your lineage and your own journey.Set aside a full hour for this practice. Pause this episode until you are ready to give yourself the space and attention it requires. This is a sacred opportunity to go deep, to feel your connection across generations, and to express yourself fully.Through this meditation, you’ll engage with the essence of the Day of the Dead, a sacred time to honor and celebrate those who came before us. By connecting with your ancestors, you strengthen the flow of love, wisdom, and life that passes through generations—and reclaim your own power, gifts, and ability to celebrate yourself and your journey.

Trigger warning: This podcast mentions trauma. So who am I, really — the person behind the Ayahuasca Integration Podcast? And what first called me onto this path with Ayahuasca more than ten years ago? In this first episode, I take you with me into my very first ceremony. It was not a clean or polished story of bliss. It was a raw encounter with myself: rage that erupted from a place I didn’t even know existed, grief that returned in waves so deep it felt like drowning, and the first time in my life I allowed myself to be witnessed without masks.This is the beginning of my path, the place where Ayahuasca and integration collided for me. Integration wasn’t something I read about in a book or picked up as a clever concept. It came in the sweat lodge, in the circle, in the dark night where strangers shared their most hidden secrets. It came in the trembling of my own voice when I spoke truths I had never dared to share. That’s when I understood what it meant to integrate — to not just survive a ceremony, but to bring what surfaced into the light of community and allow it to change me.Ayahuasca Integration is at the heart of this podcast because it has been at the heart of my own healing. When I first drank the medicine, the ceremony opened the shadow I had carried for decades — rage I didn’t know was inside me, grief I had buried since childhood, and the silent voice of an inner child who believed he was unworthy of love. Integration began the moment I allowed that child to be seen, and the moment I let others breathe with me in that space instead of hiding it away.For me, Ayahuasca integration is not about visions or mystical imagery. It is about what happens after the cup is empty. It is about the sweat lodge, where we sit in total darkness and discover that every person has a story that can break your heart open. It is about the integration circle, where shame dissolves as people listen instead of judge. It is about the collective breath of strangers who suddenly become part of your healing body.Healing does not happen in isolation. Integration is not something we can do alone. It is conducted together — in sweat lodges, in circles, in songs, in the shared silence after someone has spoken a truth they thought they would never share. That is why I am here, and why this podcast exists: to honor the power of integration, to tell the stories of what it really looks like, and to keep weaving this path with all of you.In this episode, you will hear:How my first Ayahuasca ceremony surfaced rage, trauma, and grief.The scream that changed my energy field and gave me back my space.Why the sweat lodge became the most powerful moment of integration.How sharing secrets in community dissolves shame and creates repair.The shift that made me see love in the eyes of others where I once saw only anger.Ayahuasca is often called the “grandmother” or the “vine of the soul,” but without integration its gifts can fade or even fracture. Integration means bringing what is revealed into daily life — embodying it, living it, sharing it. This story shows how integration works when it is real: through rage, through tears, through being witnessed, and through weaving the experience back into life with others.For anyone curious about what Ayahuasca integration really feels like, this episode offers a raw and honest perspective: the dark sweat lodge, the circle, the secrets finally spoken, and the transformation that follows when we conduct the work together.📖 Full transcript available here:https://ayahuascaintegration.org/2025/10/03/ayahuasca-integration-first-ceremony-sweat-lodge/🌐 Learn more about Ayahuasca Integration:https://ayahuascaintegration.org👥 Need an Integration Coach?https://davidvox.comIf this story resonates, subscribe to the podcast, share it with others walking the path, and join the ongoing work of integration — the practice of turning ceremony into lasting change.

What really happens after ayahuasca? In this landmark episode of the Ayahuasca Integration Podcast, we go inside the largest global study on ayahuasca integration ever conducted — “Life After Ayahuasca: A Qualitative Analysis of the Psychedelic Integration Experiences of 1,630 Ayahuasca Drinkers” (2023). Across five continents, participants shared their real stories of life after the ceremony: the struggles, the breakthroughs, and the slow, layered work of turning visions into lived change.We unpack:The most common challenges people face after ayahuasca, including disconnection from friends, family, and culture.The shift in values and priorities that follows the medicine — and why it can feel like “reverse culture shock.”Key practices and support systems that actually work: community, meditation, somatic practice, nature immersion, and ongoing integration circles.Why integration is not a checklist but a psychosocial–spiritual process of weaving insight into everyday life.How retreat centers and facilitators can close the “post-ceremony support gap” revealed by the study.Evidence of long-term transformation: personal growth, deeper compassion, improved mental health, and reconnection with nature.This episode moves beyond hype to focus on the real work after the visions fade — the part of the journey most people never see. Whether you’re a first-time seeker, an experienced facilitator, or running a retreat center, the data in this episode can help you build more effective, ethical, and human-scaled integration support.