Wake Up with Susan

My Ayahuasca Insights: The Individual and the Collective Experience

• Susan Sutherland

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This week I share a little bit about my journey to the breathtaking landscapes of Peru and one of the lessons from my Ayahuasca Ceremonies.  Maybe you don't have a trip to Peru in the cards for you, but I will share three transformative practices you can implement here to help with your healing journey ~ stepping out in nature, eating whole foods, and disconnecting from technology.  

Ever been curious about the insights that come from an ayahuasca ceremony? I’ll take you through my personal experience with “Mother Aya” and how two powerful nights of plant medicine and shamanic turned into a deep, healing journey showing me both the experience of the individual and that of a member of the collective.  It was a profound lesson in understanding some of the bumpy roads that we are here facing together. 

Healing isn’t just a personal journey—it’s something we experience together. We’ll explore how our struggles and breakthroughs connect us to those around us, reminding us why supporting each other is so important. As lightworkers, we have the ability (and responsibility) to lift others up, shining our light outward in ways that truly make a difference. So here’s to the wisdom, the growth, and the incredible people who help light the way. I’m beyond grateful for this journey—and for the beautiful community we’re building together.

Speaker 1:

Rise and shine everybody. It's time to wake up with Susan. Spiritual awakening can be a beautiful, messy and sometimes lonely journey, so let's do it together. I'm your host, susan Sutherland. I'm an intuitive healer and spiritual mentor. We are all called to rise up above our conditioning and limiting beliefs and shine our light on ourselves and others. So let's get to it. Hello, my family, I'm back.

Speaker 1:

I'm back from Peru and it was transformative. It was insightful about the next steps on my journey. It was nourishing for my soul and I am really excited to share some of the journey with you. There is a lot that I am still processing, I am still integrating and, you know, trying to get my head around, but there are some nuggets that want to be shared, and so I'm going to share those with you today. I will say that if you do not have a trip to Peru in the cards for you, there are still some amazing healing things that you can be doing. It was like a wake-up slap for me that going there and spending so much time outdoors and with my shoes off and touching grass how nourishing that felt to me and you guys.

Speaker 1:

I spent a month away this summer. First of all, I do think it was funny and after I put out the podcast, I thought it was funny that in my recap I skipped over the most impactful month of my entire year, which was being away in the national parks with my family. But I just breezed right on over that. When I came back from that trip, I didn't want to be inside, I didn't want to own a bed, I wanted to sleep outside and just be outside all of the time. It felt so healthy and so whole to me. And then I got busy right, that's what we do and I was focused on my podcast and starting this YouTube channel and creating content on my podcast and starting this YouTube channel and creating content whatever, which is very inside computer oriented tasks and I deprived myself for months of proper outside time. Now I will tell you, mother Nature did not help me with the weather. She delivered for many, many weeks.

Speaker 1:

However, I didn't make that a priority and I needed to return to nature to be reminded of how healing it is to step away from your tasks, step away from your phone and your computer and get outside and connect with nature. So I find that that was, you know, plant medicine aside, one of the most beneficial things for me was being reminded of how important that nature contact is for me and my well-being, and I really need to make it more of a priority now and I'm going to rethink my schedule. I was spending way too much time on a computer and I need at least a full day where that's not a part of my life and it can be hiking and being outside. So I'm going to renegotiate things to make sure that I am making that a priority. So that was really important. If you're not going to Peru, you can still go outside. You can still make sure that getting your feet on the ground is part of your day. Breathing fresh air is part of your day, because it genuinely is so healing.

Speaker 1:

Another thing that was amazing and makes me feel so good in my body is we had this diet that we had to follow in preparation for the plant medicine ceremonies, where you cut out processed food and you cut out sugar, added sugar, you cut out caffeine and you really get back to the basics of food, whole foods, nourishing foods, and I mean, even when you're there, you don't have American, you know toxic foods, which is an added bonus. But even here in preparation, cutting that stuff out of my diet was hard at first because I had become a sugar junkie over the holidays. And it is legit an addiction because I've never really been a sugar person and I was craving it and couldn't like pass by it. But even here in preparation, as I cut out sugar, the kids were like bringing crumble home and I was fine with not having it. Once you get through the hard phase, you don't crave it like you do. So being there and having this fresh tropical fruit and this amazing quinoa dishes and just really nourishing food is also so very healing.

Speaker 1:

So I am going to do my best to stick with this as long as I can. You know we cut out dairy and there are some things I will probably reintroduce to my diet slowly, but I'm going to try to keep the sugar and caffeine at bay as much as I can, because I do feel so much better in my body having cut all of the junk out. And even when we were like going in town, what I craved was a bowl of fruit. What I was craving was these natural sweeteners, this natural sugar, instead of all of the processed garbage. That is in everything. I mean when we were trying to cut out sugar. I mean it's in absolutely everything. It was in my creamer and my granola and my yogurt, like everything that we eat, even when we are eating healthy, has added sugar in it here. So being free of that feels really good, and that is something you can do without a vacation is start focusing on those healthy choices and really getting your body back in balance by feeding it nourishing foods.

Speaker 1:

The other thing that we can do here without making a trip is put your phone away, connect to the present moment, be present in what you're doing without your phone. We run around with this phone up and out all of the time, and it takes away from our intuition, which lives in the present moment. It takes away from our ability to engage with one another and to really connect with what we're doing and what we're experiencing. I'm going to be more intentional with that as well, because I do still want to create content, but a lot of times if you are creating content, that means you are on social media and I want to not get back into a scrolling rhythm, and some of the things I scroll are very uplifting. I like them, but there can be a time limit so that that's not running away from me because I feel wonderful, and I feel wonderful because of the plant medicine, for sure, but I know those three components have provided me so much healing focusing on my food and no technology and being in nature.

Speaker 1:

Those three components are something we all have access to. We can all make choices to really connect with healing and our health and love ourself. Just consider that self-care. How do you love yourself? You love yourself through allowing yourself to get outside each day, to eat whole foods and to put the stupid phone away. So those are things I am offering to you.

Speaker 1:

If a trip is not in the cards for you anytime soon, then those are things that you can do for your healing practice. And I am also going to be doing it because I know that was my intention when I came home from our summer trip and I let it slide and I'm going to try not to do that. So I'm with you on this. If you're going to practice it, okay, all right, let me tell you about I'm just going to tell you about two of my ceremonies. We did three ayahuasca ceremonies, one sapo ceremony, which is the buffo toad poison, which was interesting, and we did huachuma, which is from the San Pedro cactus, and so those were all incredibly wonderful experiences in very, very different ways. But today's podcast is about my first two ceremonies and just a nugget that I got from each of it. It's amazing to me because when we got there, we shared what our intention for being there was and I really feel like Aya has an intelligence of her own. Mother Aya, the ayahuasca medicine, has an intelligence of her own because I see how my ceremonies worked together to deliver the insights I needed and also the physical healing that I needed for my intention.

Speaker 1:

Everybody gets there with very different reasons for why they are at the retreat, and so we all had really different experiences. But we were lucky because we only had six people at the retreat and then all of the you know facilitators and staff, but it allowed us to connect in a really intimate way because we were a small group, but to understand their journeys as being so wildly different than mine. But it led us to the same place and it led us there at the same time, like we were perfectly orchestrated to be there together to support one another in this journey. So when I share my intention, know that that wouldn't necessarily be your intention when you go. It is just what called me there. Intention when you go. It is just what called me there. So my intention was to fully step into my power, to fully step into and understand my purpose and to remove anything, any limitation, any fear, any doubts that stand in the way of the fullest expression of both. That was my intention. That I went with was kind of plus power, plus purpose, minus limitations, and that's what I focused on in my ceremonies. You kind of always come back to your breath and your intention when the medicine gets overwhelming or it can. The medicine can get overwhelming and you just come back to your intention and your breath. All right.

Speaker 1:

So about ayahuasca? If you haven't heard of it, it is a psychedelic brew that is used traditionally in the Amazonian areas by tribes as a sacred healing ceremonial practice. It will give you psychedelic visions, deepening insights and awareness about yourself, and physical and emotional healing. So that is what it is and how you experience it is very individual. There were six of us participating in each of the ceremonies and each of us had extremely different experiences, and so I am only going to share with you mine, because there is an important message for us all in my ceremonies. It was meant to be shared, and this is a fragment because we took the medicine around eight o'clock and we're wrapping up ceremony between 1245 and 145 in the morning. So I'm going to give you a little snippet. That felt like it was meant to be shared, and so here we go.

Speaker 1:

So the first night when we did the ayahuasca, they start you on a smaller dose to see how you react, and then you can have a second dose and a third dose, but they write down your totals. They're great keepers of the medicine and keepers of the participants, making sure that we are in the right place and getting the right amount of medicine for what we feel comfortable with, what we can tolerate, right amount of medicine for what we feel comfortable with, what we can tolerate, what our physical vessels can handle. And so we started at a smaller dose and so the experience was I felt much more in control of it. We started with our initial dose and when it began to kick in which I think was like 35 or 40 minutes, but I'm not positive but we sat in pitch black in a ceremony temple and we had these soft beds but we were meant to sit up kind of in a meditation, meditative posture, like upright and kind of wait, and we just sat there in silence and in contemplation, remembering our intention, remembering why we were there, and when it started kicking in, which was before the shaman started singing their Icarus, which is almost like their tribal light language. So they're not singing songs, but they are channeling healing music and I mean you can just like ride on the vibrations of the song as they're singing. And both of them are singing their own, their own channeled message, their own music. You know they're it's not like a scheduled duet or something. They're just singing from the heart and you can feel the vibrations. It's really beautiful and you just know you're being healed by the song.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, so my medicine started kicking in even before they started singing. So my medicine started kicking in even before they started singing and it was really colorful and really bright and I was really kind of nervous going in there, because you don't always hear good stories about ayahuasca, but mine started out like I was at a carnival. It was very fun and lively and beautiful and I was smiling so much that my cheeks hurt, like I felt so connected. And there were, there were all these visuals going on and I just said in my mind. I'm used to. I'm used to talking to spirit in my mind or talking to my higher self in my mind, and so I just said there's a lot going on here and it's really pretty. I don't know what to focus on. If there's a message for me, please let me know. And then the message came in and was like that is the victory. Tonight is about your victory.

Speaker 1:

And I was like, okay, it's like the whole world is a circus and you allow it to go on behind you and you just say, hey, if there's something important, let me pay attention to it. And that really resonated with me. It's like I was telling y'all about my Hamilton journey is if you turn off all of the distractions and just say get my attention. If I need to pay attention to something, if there's something here for me, get my attention. But that's really a strategic way to live life and I was being celebrated for this choice that there can be so much going on and such a zoo going on that you know I can just choose to ignore it and let it be in the background Like yep, that's a lot going on. If you want me to pay attention to something, please let me know. So that's how it all started out.

Speaker 1:

And at this point they're asking if we want a second dose. And it was starting to ramp up for me and the facilitator had said if you can't walk up there, you don't need a second dose. But I did feel like I could walk up there. So I went and got my second dose and things kind of kicked in and I had some incredible conversations with Mother Aya. It was really wild, but it was.

Speaker 1:

I was asking questions and getting so much feedback and then I was feeling a little guilty because the other guests were having a hard time and I'm hearing them throw up, I'm hearing them purge some a lot, and I was just saying, hey, I'm also here to let go and release. You know, bring it on, I can do this. Go ahead and give it to me. What are we going to let go of? And I was told that what I was letting go of is guilt. I have a hard time sometimes because things are going well for me and because I have my health and I'm financially secure and I'm happy and my family's happy, and I hold guilt around that because that's not everybody's experience and what she was telling me is that this was the day to release the guilt, because I'm making choices with my time and with my energy and with my diet that not everybody makes. I am dialed in so that I may be healthy, so that I may be happy and feel purposeful. This is how I choose to spend my time and my energy, and my release was that I'm listening to other people throw up and I have to just be comfortable that in this moment I still feel happy, I still feel good in my body, I still feel like I am getting what I need out of this experience and it's really beautiful. But it was hard and I understood that that was the purge that was meant for me. This night was to release this guilt. We all have 24 hours a day, we all have the opportunity to put our phones down, we have the opportunity to eat healthier food, we have the opportunity to exercise. Now I realize I do live in privilege and I have more opportunity than most, but I know a lot of people who who have really hard circumstances and are making the daily choices so that they too are healthy and happy. So, anyway, that that was my first night.

Speaker 1:

Now there was a whole bunch of other stuff wrapped up in there. But this is the nugget I'm sharing with you because I need to share the follow-up, which was Ayahuasca 2. This was about me being in control of the situation, me controlling my decisions, and being celebrated because I am, you know, thriving in my life, and it is thriving because of those daily decisions I'm making and what she said. So when I say she, it's me having a conversation with the medicine, almost like I would have a conversation with spirit when I'm channeling. But she said, basically, they are in race cars. When you have just shown up and you hop in a race car, you get whiplash. But I have been doing the slow and steady road on the way there. So I have done so much healing from my inner child, but also generational healing and all of this healing before I got there. I have been on the slow, windy road to get there and some of them have had harder experiences. They knew they needed help and they showed up there, but it was like you know, here's your healing Bam. So it's a little bit of a different experience than I was having.

Speaker 1:

So I I left that experience and I'm telling you I was prepared, like I was prepared, for throwing up, I was prepared for pooping on myself. I had pants, I had skirt on over my pants and that was the only bad decision is we had had some like fava bean soup or something for lunch and I had on under my skirt. I had on leggings that had a tight waistband and y'all I had gas like you wouldn't believe in. This tight waistband should not have been on my body and I was worried because I had all this gas. Like if I take off my pants then I'm definitely going to end up pooping myself or something. And I'm trying to avoid that because I'm having such a happy experience where she ended up saying you are purging guilt, you are purging guilt, you are purging guilt, like, take off your pants, you're not going to poop, which was nice. And I was able to wrangle them off.

Speaker 1:

And I'm telling you that because the next two nights I had very different experiences. I mean, the third night I was so cold and I couldn't find my sweatshirt which was sitting beside my little mat. But I couldn't find my sweatshirt which was sitting beside my little mat, but I couldn't find it. I couldn't find my flashlight. To ask for someone to help me get the flashlight or the blanket that was on my bed at my feet. I was not in control of the situation at all. The only time I was in control was this first night, and it was the individual's journey. She allowed me to see how I was in control of my choices and my experience, and it was a one night affair for me to experience ayahuasca like that, because she definitely turned the tables on me. But I'm just saying like for me to be able to get my pants off in that situation was definitely a one time affair, because two ceremonies later, I'm sitting there shivering, which is a way of purging as well. Being really cold or really hot is a way of processing these energies and healing, but I was so cold and I couldn't even find my sweatshirt. And so I'm not bragging about all my ayahuasca experiences being lovely, because they weren't, but I'm telling you this because I want you to see the contrast. The contrast and how they work together is really important in understanding what message I received.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so the second ayahuasca ceremony it was the following night and I went into it really pumped. And I went into it really pumped, really, really pumped, because that was really good. Now I did ask her like, am I good now? And she's like no promises on the rest, like we'll give you what you need, but she just kept reassuring me so I'd take those stupid pants off because they were so uncomfortable. Like the purging for you tonight is just guilt. So, anyway, I went in much more comfortable the second time, mainly because even the people who had really rough experiences purging or even, you know, visiting some their personal demons, their, their personal struggles through hallucinations or visuals still felt like the ceremony was so meaningful for them. That is such a powerful release and it's one of those things where, if you know it can be awful and still healing, you're not as afraid of it. And so I guess because I'd heard them having a bad experience and they're still showing up the next day all the same that I felt comfortable going into it.

Speaker 1:

And the first night I had a lot of like, what are we doing here? So the second night I took double the dose to start with and had intentions. The first night I ended up taking like 55, whatever the measurement is I don't know if it's milliliters, I have no idea, it doesn't even matter but I did 2020, 2015, actually, and I was like super, super under the influence before they called the third dose. But it's like the medicine completely quieted down for me to be able to walk up there and I was like I can't walk up there. And then it's like the medicine completely quieted down for me to be able to walk up there and I was like I can't walk up there. And then it's like all just quieted down and I was able to walk up there and get my third dose, all right. So my intention going into the second was like I'll do 40 and then maybe 15 or 20. No, I didn't, sure, didn't Anyway. So you started at a higher dose, it was 40.

Speaker 1:

And as it's going, I am seeing all of these visuals go back and forth. It was darker and not dark, but it wasn't like cartoon-like and carnival-y, it wasn't clowns. And you know, the first night I had it was like I was at a circus with or carowinds, with all those fun games and fun rides, and it was just really happy and joyful. And this was almost like it was Japanese anime, but in, I don't know, in like squares flashing by me and again I'm asking the medicines like I don't understand what these pictures mean, do these have significance? And it was like it's to distract you from the pain and then I started feeling like lasers, almost like my face was being microneedled. So that was really wild.

Speaker 1:

That's not the point of the story, but I did start feeling like electrical work on the outside of my energy body, which was really interesting and fun, and then ended up feeling like my whole auric field was. This wasn't like I was being shocked, but it was like it was like downloads, like all of these downloads, like I was receiving instead of being worked on. I was receiving Anyway. So this experience was much more intense at first, like there would be no for a little while. There was no having conversations other than me saying I thought that I was going to be aware of the wisdom and it feels like I'm receiving wisdom, but I don't know what you're doing and I would like to be part of it. And then them being like this is not for you right now. This is not the time and the place for you to understand the information. We're just giving it to you for later. So that's fine, whatever. Um, I was a little irritated because the night before I had had such a beautiful dialogue, I felt like with the medicine and I was so in control and coherent of the conversation and this was like no girl, no girl, you are not in control. Anyway, that's okay.

Speaker 1:

What ended up happening is the two people next to me were purging around the same time, one of them violently and one of them. I was pretty hectic too, but it was like initially that they were doing it in my ear, like they were actually vomiting in my ear, and I was like, whoa, this is a lot, this is a lot. And as I'm thinking that I ended up, I'm not becoming their consciousness, but I ended up purging as if I were them, like I took on everything that they were doing, right, and then it is like I'm doing it and, to be honest, it's interesting because the next day I wasn't sure if I actually purged myself or if the experience of being them was so real that I felt like it, or maybe when I was them, I was purging. I can't even remember. All I remember was I am him, I am her and this is my experience, right, and so, when I was able to get through and it not be quite so hectic, I started processing what was happening, and what was happening is I was experiencing the collective and this is how it is right You're in control when it's your individual journey.

Speaker 1:

But it doesn't matter how good you are doing. If one suffers, we all suffer, and to turn our back on that is silly, and I know in this space, in the spiritual space, we often talk about it's you versus you. It's a one player game, but that means we're discounting the fact that we are also a collective. We are also in this game together, each operating our own game token. But you can have your own game token if you want to, and if somebody comes and just start shaking the board, you will be impacted.

Speaker 1:

So it was really a good reminder that, for me, where my focus is cannot just be myself. I am here to serve others, cannot just be myself. I am here to serve others, and that's really important in my journey. And so I got a little information about what that looks like for me, which is really important. But it was such a contrast after the victory lap I was allowed to have for my personal choices, for my personal success, like yay, you don't feel guilty, you're amazing.

Speaker 1:

And then the next day I am vomiting as if I am them and I don't know how to explain that other than I became them as I'm purging in my bowl, or if I wasn't purging in my bowl, I don't even know, but that was the experience I had and it's also a reminder that we signed up for this. We signed up for the collective experience, and so you might have to go through things because you are in agreement with a collective, because you signed up for this group experience as well, and there I had no control. I didn't have any control of that experience. I was experiencing his hardship, her hardship not anything to do with me, other than I signed up for the experience to be with them. And so that's really important for us to remember as well, as part of our journey is things are going to go wrong, and it doesn't mean that you've necessarily made bad personal choices. It's that you signed up for a collective experience and we are not always doing the right thing, but it makes it really purposeful for us to remember the plight of one is the plight of all.

Speaker 1:

If one person is suffering, if one person is hungry or sad, it is impacting the whole. We can't separate somebody who's not doing well outside of us. We cannot cast them outside of us. So while you are called to take care of yourself, that is your calling to nourish your own light. We can't do it at the expense of other people.

Speaker 1:

And I do know that there are lightworkers here, and this is what I kept being shown, as my new focus is to focus on the healers and the teachers, to really focus some of my time on helping them, to help others. And the visual I kept getting is we all have that light within that we are nourishing that, we are taking care of that, we are protecting that, we are doing all of our self-care to grow that light. And basically, it's not grow that light, it's to remove all of the barriers that we have had around that light. We have to take off the things that are dimming it. That's the goal. But then there's a lot of us who have a torch and we're not meant to just have our light within, we're meant to have a torch and take it out into our families and our communities and take it out and share light with others.

Speaker 1:

And I want to focus on them now, on pouring into those people who know that it's a one-person game but also have a desire. And it's not a desire, it is a calling, it is a heart calling to go serve in their communities. I just thought it was the most beautiful way to help me understand the individual and the collective experience and how we can get tossed around, how we can feel out of control and, you know, feel frustrated that I've done my work, I'm doing this and I'm still experiencing this hardship. Well, this is our experience and all we can do is keep not only making that internal light but seeing how you can shine brighter in your communities. How you can shine brighter in your communities. It is not about feeling sorry for people, but inspiring them to have hope, to see potential, to see possibilities in themselves. We help others, we shine on others by allowing them to see the light they have within.

Speaker 1:

But that's what we're called to do and unfortunately, that doesn't mean we get to just be like, yes, I'm doing a good job, I'm killing it over here, because there are others who need our hand. They just need our hand. They do not need our preaching, they do not need us to judge them, they do not need us to do anything except accept them and say I see the road's been hard. Can I give you a hand up? So that's kind of the big nugget I wanted to share with you first about this experience. It was truly beautiful. Yeah, it was magnificent, and it kind of got me pumped. It's got me pumped to get those torches ready to hopefully send people out into the world, just so that we can shine more light. There is definitely some loud darkness right now. Some, you know, hate speech and hate rhetoric is so loud right now and love can get loud too. We have to be love louder, we have to be love out loud.

Speaker 1:

So I thank Mother Aya for that experience, for making it so simple for me to comprehend and bring back to you. I hope all of that made sense for you as well and bring back to you. I hope all of that made sense for you as well, because I know many of you are also my torchbearers and I thank you. I thank you for doing the work on yourself and I thank you for being a light in your family, in your communities. We've got a big job ahead of us and I'm excited to do it.

Speaker 1:

I came back pretty pumped and hopefully we'll just get some more of that wisdom that was implanted in my field and I was apparently not ready under the influence of the medicines you receive, but I feel like it's there and going to be dropping into my awareness, which I'm really excited about. So hopefully lots of fun things will be coming through and coming up for me, but for now, keep those lights shining. Thank you for listening and sharing in my journey and thank you for being a light in your community, in your family. I love you. Thanks for listening, thank you.

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