The Crossroads of Breathwork, Ayahuasca, and Bounty Hunting

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you

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Hey guys, welcome to the latest Vaycay podcast. You know, where we are the only alternative, your natural source for premium destination for plant-based products. Joined by my co-host Chris Hansen from Miami. I'm here from our studios in Greenville, South Carolina. We're gonna talk all things, a lot of things today. Got some friends.

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If Chris is on, I know Chris is going to intro them. And I said pre-episode, I do another show called the Radcast. And we say if it's radical, we cover it. We've got some radical differences here today of a married couple. We're going to cover the gamut of a lot of different things. Chris, teed up for us, brother. Yeah, man. Happy to be here today. So today we've got some good friends of mine and I'll let them introduce themselves with a little background.

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So we, Elliot and Suzette and I met last year in Costa Rica, actually out in ayahuasca retreat that a friend of ours put together and going into it. He was a little nervous. Don't know who you're going to be sharing this time with. And I was blessed to meet Suzette and Elliot.

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I would venture to say there were some of my anchors during that time together in Costa Rica, but just a great story, cool background, a lot of awesome transformational growth with these two. With that, I'll leave it to you guys to give a little background and intro to yourselves and why you're joining us today on the VEHICAP podcast. Thank you.

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Yeah, thank you, Chris. Yeah, I just have to say, I was very apprehensive about going to Costa Rica. Elliot is way more open-minded, I would say, to doing stuff like that, and I'm not. And when I met you, Chris, it was so nice because we were both, what are we doing here? And I thought, okay, I found a friend.

02:06
That's how I felt. Oh, that was good. Yeah, but we've got three children. We've been married for almost 18 years. And we've run the spectrum of experiences, starting out in a very closed Catholic upbringing for myself and raising our kids to now he's off doing his bounty hunting. I started doing breath work. It's just been, it's been quite a journey.

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Yeah.

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I agree. Yeah, it's been an interesting turn of events for us the last four years or so. Like Suzette was sharing, she came from like a Catholic background. I came from probably more of an agnostic background, really a household that just didn't really have much spirituality into it. A bunch of love from my parents, holy child. But like when I met Suzette, that was the direction I was going. I was coming recently, I entered into Alcoholics Anonymous through my addiction issues

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teens and twenties. And that's where my spiritual path had started, getting to know a power greater myself. And so when I met Suzette and she was had a Catholic background, that was the direction that my spirituality went.

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And so we raised our family, attended mass and going to church and the kids going to, you know, Catholic private school and somewhere along the line, I think around when Suzette's dad passed, there was a lot of why questions that came up for her. And our path kind of shifted into why are we doing what we're doing? And that was more of her journey, but I followed suit, just being a spiritual person. Some of the biggest experiences I've had with God have been in nature, in the

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my bed praying or in different experiences growing up. And so that kind of one to open up our minds and more some of these different modalities that are out there and different spiritual angles, even medicine, ayahuasca and different things. I was very open to doing. Yeah. That's the beginning of our relationship and kind of a quick jump up to the last probably 15 years until we came into the shift that we're into now. What made, so you all three have done, I'm going to jump in because I get to be the.

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step back since you all three experienced one thing. I'm curious about each one of your journeys around the Ayahuasca stuff. And like for Elliot, you and Suzette, like what led you to that as a married couple? And what was that experience like? And Chris, I'd love for you to jump in after or during or whatever, same thing with you.

04:44
Did you want to share on that? Yeah, my, so this is one of the things I've learned about plant medicine. It was something that Elliot was already working with, and I was very anti anything psychedelic because in my opinion, I thought the body has the ability to.

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produced this type of result through meditation, breathwork. So why am I going to ingest something that I'm going to be out of control? And so I did not, I was not supportive. Plus the fact that you're talking to two people who have been in the AA recovery world, he had been since 2004, I'd been since 2011. So the whole idea of doing any sort of psychedelics, it's like, then you're relapsed, right? And that was just like how my mind thought. And so.

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It took going to therapy, learning about psychedelics. And for me, I had to go to the science and really start to dig into what is this about? Are we just trying to sit around and get high? Or is this really having an effect on neurological pathways and impacting our ability to see life differently? And so that was, I started opening up to the idea of it. And people will tell you in the plant medicine world, you're either called to it or you're not.

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speaks to you or starts to call you, you'll know. And I went through a process of about almost a year where it was no. And then all of a sudden it was yes. And I became open to experiencing with it. And I had worked with it once prior to that. And it was, it freaked me out. And so when they said we're going to have a seven day retreat, I was like, what? Because it's psychedelics is you don't,

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is what my experience has been is that you don't get to decide what you're going to work on. Ayahuasca is going to decide what you're going to work on and what the thoughts that you have, the experiences that you feel, what comes up for you while you're in ceremony and you're in it. It's not like you get to decide, Oh, okay. I've had enough. Let's take a break. You're in it. Yeah, that's a for sure.

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What did y'all do seven days? I know so little about it, man. No, Chris done it and people talk. I think everyone that talks about it in the way you did.

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I'm more like the, what do you do for, is it just, I wake up and I take some mushroom tea like every day, what is it? Yeah. That's what I think the destination part of it's nice when you, I've enjoyed to do some more of the bougie nice type facilities and to have these great, beautiful countries like Costa Rica, where you can go and do hiking or horseback riding or go to the beach or yoga, or they have all these opportunities to do things, really good food.

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beautiful countryside. So it's like you sit traditionally in ceremony. They'll have three or four nights out of that seven days. Okay. You actually sit. And I think when we were in Costa Rica, it was three days. So it was nice. You get to sit and then you'd have a day off to integrate or write or journal or rest. And then the next day you'd go back in. And so it was set up like every other day. Are you sitting in a room with other people when this, when you partake or is it?

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Yeah, you're in a year you have beds and you and it's the ceremonies are typically at night. And so you go find your spot and find your mat.

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You have your little bucket for any purging that's going to happen. And then the facilitator that we use, she's been doing this for over 20 years. She's a licensed psychotherapist. And so she's been working with the medicine for over 20 years. And she has a whole process to honoring the ceremony, honoring the nature, honoring the plant, and it's very

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almost, it's very spiritual. And so you sit down and you go through a whole process of inviting the plant in, and then everybody drinks their cup.

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and you sit for a moment while they play music, and then you feel the effects starting to happen, and you're going to want to lay down. That was the thing. I would always think, because I'm an analyzer, so I think, okay, I'm just going to sit up and watch what happens. And at some point, you're like, I got to lay down. And you lay down, and that's when the medicine takes over, and you go into your journey. And then they'll offer a second cup later on in the process,

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have to take but most people don't know that you get in and you just start taking a bunch of ayahuasca and then the next thing you know you're like off into the deep for a good few hours. When you say the bucket for purging is it just some people are just gonna get sick the stomach your stomach's gonna get sick you're gonna is it common to purge?

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Yeah, they say that you're gonna you can purge through being nauseous, throwing up, diarrhea, crying, yawning, any type of expression is a purge. And they talk about that there's stuff in your body that needs to be released. And like, for me, it was always very, it was always intense, you know what I'm saying? Get nauseous, and it doesn't happen to everybody. But it felt.

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Like it was stuff that needed to get out of my body, you know what I'm saying? Cause there was a lot of traumas and different experiences that I've had in life. I've sat in ceremony 10 times where there was just a lot of stuff that was coming up for me. And it was just very, I guess they talk about there's stuff that gets released. That's in like these toxins that are held in your body through purging. I've had not only like the emotional healing from sitting in plant medicine

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I've had physical healing. You know, I've had ulcerative colitis for 20 years, like severe ulcerative colitis where they've almost, when it's flared up, I'd be in remission for a couple of years and then flare up and I'd be sick for a year. And they're like, look, we're gonna have to take your colon out and I would go back in remission. And this happened, this has been happening every two or three years for damn near 20 years. Never brought that to ceremony. That was something I was looking to heal because I didn't know you could physically heal with your body through ayahuasca. I can sit here today.

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and say that my ulcerative colitis is completely gone after sitting at the ceremony of ayahuasca. My bowels and my intestines have completely healed and I don't know if that's from the trauma or the things that happened in my life, visiting that and releasing that. I don't know if that's why I had the symptom of ulcerative colitis or irritable bowel or whatever these symptoms are was from these, whatever I was holding so tightly onto in my body.

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of my subconscious I didn't even know of. And I guess through the work I've done, sitting in ceremony, I'm not gonna get too graphic with it, but I'm here for that. So, does people, and we probably could talk the entire episode about this, I didn't mean to like completely hijack it down the Hiawaska path, but I do think it plays into totally a lot of the alternative stuff we talk about. So I think it'll be fascinating for our listeners. I think the last thing I'd say is, did you...

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Most people come with things that they are bringing to the ceremony, thoughts, traumas that are on their mind that they're ready to release. They know or what they're going to manifest a little bit. Or is it, I know I need to release. This is my way to come and relax and to experience this and what comes up. Or is it meant to be one of the other? It can be, yeah, it can be one of the other because I've done, I've come at it from both angles where.

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when I first did it, I thought, I just want to be open to what the plant wants to teach me. And you go in with that intention. And when you're in it, people will tell you, just make sure to surrender and breathe. And you don't realize how much we don't surrender.

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to what is until you're in the medicine and you aren't wanting to think about what you're thinking about. You're not wanting to experience what you're experiencing. And the plant is this is where we're going and your job is to surrender.

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And it's a totally different understanding of surrender and not being in control. So like for a lot of us that are successful in life, like even though we may, there's always a sense of control that we have about something. We have control, like we deal with control issues and you get into that space and you do not have control. So you can go in with an intention. And Elliot has, he's done some work about being, he's done more.

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allowing in that sense, but I'll go in with an intention. It inevitably, it'll start to take me in a different direction. And when you fight it, it just makes the experience that much more difficult. You don't get to go back and be like, no, I want to go this way. Now, I'm more of a I like to write out some stuff and there's a whole preparation like.

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three to seven days before like a diet of Of what you're eating and you're cutting out any type of pharmaceuticals you're taking or any meat or any caffeine And there's a total preparation to the vessel a lot of times I like to journal for a couple weeks before and set some intentions and stuff. I'm looking like I'm seeking I'm saying I'm not my days of taking psychedelics in my teens and 20s and blasting off and going to the laser light show In Houston and like a rock concert those days are gone You know I'm saying so more of a conscious intention base

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sitting with the medicine and she's always been pretty kind to me as far as taking me through what I'm requesting and I'm like oh this is really neat and it's very timeline-ish you know almost like film running through and it's like taking me through my experiences and this is this and this is that and then she's like all right cool so now it's my turn and that's where it gets a little tricky like Suzette's talking about and that's been one of my sticking points where I'm like wait a minute

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I didn't want to go that direction. And then that's just where the struggle for me in some of these ceremonies, the start has been where I'm like, literally getting ground in the powder, literally just cheese. You're going to surrender. And I'm like, no, I'm not. And it's just, it's intense for me, but also on the flip side of that.

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I've had the gratitude and the love and all the stuff that comes from that struggle and that surrender is what makes it all worth it for me. Sometimes in the medicine it can be really tough for me and the being that I am.

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It reveals a lot of how I operate out here in the world. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And it's like that give and take and the control. And I got this God and I'm in here trying to rearrange and do everything my way and wondering why the world keeps slapping me in the face. And so a lot of times in ceremony, it spells it out for me. And I may not realize it in there. I may get a download later on or when I'm processing with Suzette or some of my friends.

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but that's a little glimpse into some of the breakthroughs I've had. Chris, do you want to just touch on your experience briefly? Yeah. We should probably come back to it in the full episode, but I think it'd be fascinating just to interplay. Yeah, it's interesting listening now, because I'm like.

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I try to think back free my experience in like talking like this, because this makes sense to your average listener who's never done this. Because there's so much curiosity about Ayahuasca right now. So many people are interested in the first thing everyone asks me is, did you throw up or did you like shake yourself? Which I'm like, dude, you throw up if you go out drinking too much. If throwing up or having an upset stomach can potentially...

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change your life? Are you that opposed to it? We do this with alcohol for years, we poison ourselves, which I didn't, I, my stomach got a little rowdy, but I didn't throw up. I did have tears, not even crying because I felt like my tear ducts were just releasing all this. They got crying. I'm not crying. But no, I went into it really pretty open. I think I've, my curiosity is always addiction, looking for answers within that.

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And I would say that I did find some answers to that and times 10, like Suzette said, the medicine shows you what it needs to show you, not what you want. And I had to totally, I'm a control freak. You just gotta roll with it, dude. And remind yourself like I'm safe, nothing bad can happen to me. This is all for my good. And

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Really that experience is what's got me focused on my breathing in general. Even this weekend I went out dancing actually and me and my buddy each took a gram of some mushroom chocolate. And even then I had to remind myself, take some breaths, everything's good. You're good, enjoy it, lean into it. And he said some statement, your breath is the quickest way to ground yourself. And it's so true and we forget that. I would challenge anyone throughout your day

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Check your ears. So I find myself an elevator with strangers, my neighbors, and I'll be like, dude, you're holding your breath. Why? Why aren't you calm and, like, why is this situation making you tense up? But yeah, my experience was phenomenal. Like Elliot mentioned, we did three different ceremonies. It was a different experience for me every ceremony. Everyone was valuable for different reasons, some enjoyable, some not so enjoyable,

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there's lessons in that. It's like life, like some things are painful, but when you look back, those are the greatest lessons or biggest growth can come from that. But I know even for myself, psychedelics were not something I ever considered, ever really had an interest in. If anything, I was afraid of them. And I heard about Ayahuasca like in 2015.

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And I remember it was a girl I was dating and I was like, this is some weirdo shit. This fucking hippie girl. Like I remember she wanted to be an actress in LA and I'm like, oh, this girl is one of these types. Broke her off, like I'm a business guy. And I was always afraid, like I would go do it and then want to become a vegan and move to the woods and live in a van. And our buddy, and our buddy who had arranged this retreat.

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I remember I said that to him, he's bro, I still drive a G wagon. And I was like, okay. So I was like, all right, which Queen's Nelly and Suzanne Nelly can attest to this, our buddy is funny as shit. We all arrive and he's in like Gucci head to toe in the middle of the Costa Rican jungle, Gucci shaman. Literally he was wearing Gucci Crocs. And I'm like, dude, but again, that was.

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It's like she said, when it calls to you, you'll know it's your time. I heard about it for many years. I'd been invited to many ceremonies. And now of course you've got guys like Joe Rogan and Aaron Rogers. Like it's being talked about on massive platforms, but it was really just, I feel like everyone has their own timeframe and own timeline. That's why I would never pressure someone to go do this or.

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It's, I don't think it's even for everybody. I just think if it's for you, you know it. And with full conviction, yeah, I'm doing this and I'm going to, I'm open to whatever it shows me. And I would say that it changed my life straight up, like completely changed my perspective, not to say I don't still have problems and I don't still need to work on things, but it completely opened my eyes to a different world.

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And I met some awesome people like Suzanne and Elliot, obviously. So it was a good transition since brought out the breathwork. I know Suzette, that's one of your focuses. You want to talk about some of that? Yeah. And like Chris was mentioning about the breath and, and that was something that was fascinating to me about breathwork is our bodies having this ability.

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to use our breath to alter our brainwave state to change our state of consciousness. Because when we are doing psychedelics, we're changing our state of consciousness. And we don't have control over that. Our state of consciousness is going to change. And we're going to everything's gonna we're going to think different. And that's the same thing with breathwork. You can use breathwork.

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that allows your brain to change its state of consciousness, which can tap into higher ways of thinking. It allows the body to heal the breathwork that I do, the somatic breathwork creates the space to allow the body that opportunity to release the emotions. And when I started learning about that, like, what?

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causes the disease in our body and our pains, our ailments, our ways of thinking, the mental disorders that that pharmaceutical companies are wanting to to cover up are all related back to what's going on in the body and that we have a mechanism through our breath that gives us the autonomy and the ability to do something about that without having now it doesn't happen

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however else it is that we've been taught what we need to do in order to feel better and be healthy, which is total sham. And so that was something that I thought, if people were not ready to go down that path of psychedelics, because it is something where you're not in control, then here's a method that allows you to go at a slower pace and have more control over it, because it's all about how intense you want to be with your breathing.

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long you are going with your breath, some of these holotropic sessions can go for three hours. But you can still have the same effect in your life with tapping in clearing the space in the body and tapping into those higher levels of consciousness, which is where the creativity lives, which is what creates our new lives, our new ways of thinking. It's another way of being able to do that. I've been

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I know Chris done a lot of it, but I've done a little enough to know the power of the way it makes you feel. And it, we harp on this all the time. Part of the premise of our shows, anti-big pharma and the hypocrisy of what has happened with making plant-based medicine bad and lab-based good. It's some play at some moment in time, we got fed that bullshit. And I don't know. I think it's starting to get better, but it's definitely part of our.

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premise to make it grow, but just our own ability to, I'm not saying heal ourselves, but take control. I think everybody on this has a little bit of, we all have control issues or wanting to do control, but for some reason we ceded control of our problems or our things to pills and everything else. We have this natural ability to help ourselves. The irony there is amazing.

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Everybody's a control freak and we have the ability to help ourselves, but yet we see that to something else. And we're so unconscious about it and not, and it's not our fault because it's through repetitive programming that we get to this spot.

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And that's why you're Joe Rogan's and Aaron Rogers and people that are going and doing these ayahuasca retreats and coming back and having their mind blown. Because if you've always lived in a box of thinking your whole life and you get a taste of maybe this isn't all that there is, you're like, Whoa, what if that's not, if that's, if this isn't true, then what is true? And then you start onto the search of it. And that's, I think what's happening with pharmaceutical companies is more

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that are starting and all of the research and stuff that's coming out with mushrooms, psychedelics and the benefits to healing and therapy and now it's being introduced and passed as acceptable uses of therapy. Now the pharmaceutical companies are trying to figure out how they get their hands around this and put it back in the box. Yeah, hopefully we don't allow that to happen. I'm trying to think of a really natural transition. I don't think I'm gonna find it. So I'm gonna need the bond daddy

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I do a lot of therapy. It's just, it's a captured audience. Exactly. You'd do a lot better if you weren't in custody right now, Hank. Let me tell you about my addiction history and where I was 20 years ago, where I am today.

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Yeah, that's my deal. And that's my I do own bail bond companies. And then I do bounty hunting. And I have a TV show on YouTube, your bond daddy. That's all of our social media handles and

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Really and truly being a recovering drug addict and alcoholic since 01 is when I came in to the 12 step programs originally and just the in and out and getting sober for a long time and then things shifted in my life years down the road and the medicine journey and things like that. Really everybody I'm dealing with that's needing my services on the bail side is drug and alcohol addicted. You know what I'm saying? Truly.

27:00
You know what I'm saying? You don't go to Deal Sober. I never have at least. I guess I'd only speak for myself, but I don't normally deal with like, you're intoxicated getting the DWI, you're intoxicated assaulting the wife, you're on some Xanax stealing from the mall. You know what I'm saying? You drive with a suspended license because you had a DWI. I mean, it's just all trickle down effects from drugs and alcohol. And so coming from that real long recovery background, and still today, you know what I'm saying? I haven't drank or done any powder cocaine in 19 years.

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That's still something I can share with people and let them know that there is a different way. You know what I'm saying? I appreciate your business. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Thanks for using my bail bond company. But you know what I'm saying? This is my story. And I share that not very often. But if you think about it, when you're sitting at the corner of a desk with your bail bondsman, you're probably at a really low point and you're really open to hearing a message, especially you're looking at a successful business guy that seems

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takes care of himself and I used to stick needles in my arm, you know what I'm saying? Like daily to get high, you know what I'm saying? That's how I lived my life, you know what I'm saying? For years. And I'll share with the family or I'll share with the person that's coming out and I've had a handful of people that changed their life and they're still sober today over the 20 years I've been doing bail. So there is that kind of recovery aspect to it, you know what I'm saying? Obviously I always joked about them being, it wasn't captured, it was they were, um,

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I can't think of what I used to always say. I used to have some little funny saying about that. They didn't have much options other than to hear my story. You know what I'm saying? Cause they were in jail, were in cuffs beside me. So I give them that. Captive audience. Yeah. Captive audience. Yeah, I had a brain fart there. Yeah. Yeah, I'm talking to them on a collect call from the jail and I'm gonna preach them a little bit about my story. And say, they can't really hang up cause they need me to get them out of jail. So I'm like, just hang tight. Let me tell you this and then I'll do your bond. Yeah. Really? Hey bro, you ever heard of Ayahuasca?

28:59
The sheriffs come to my house and knock on my door like, what? Yeah. I give them a chance to fight their case from the free world, you know what I'm saying? And come out and do their deal in a suit and tie or with their family. They're not in the big orange jumpsuit shackled in front of the judge. So we give them these opportunities and we give them payment arrangements and try to help them get out of jail.

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and fight their case from the free world. If they don't take care of the business, that's when the bond daddy, your bond daddy comes into play, because then I do my own pickups and we'll go out and take these people to custody and return them to the courts. How is that, man? Is it I watched I got your notes and I've caught did the stuff, but like I haven't gone down the rabbit hole far enough. But is that just is it as crazy as it sounds at times?

29:47
It's intense, man. I'm going to, like I said, I'm an old dope shooting speed head. You know what I'm saying? So the adrenaline rush is pretty, pretty intense. You're down in some interesting parts of the city or even up here in the country and you're gaining access to these people's house. You just never know when you go through a door, what's on the other side. So I try to keep things. Do you have a legal right? Do you have a legal right to capture them?

30:09
I do, yeah, I'm licensed under DPS, so the Department of Public Safety and then it's private securities under that. So I'm licensed to the state.

30:18
And I have all my paperwork and everything to be doing what I need to do. And the warrants and all this stuff, it's for the person, not the home. So a lot of times I'll go, we'll skip trace and find out where these people are and what their habits are, and then we'll hit the cars and head out in the field and go start knocking doors and shaking bushes and looking for people. And it's. Have you had firearms pulled on you? What's the most, what's the craziest?

30:45
story or things that's happened in hunting somebody down. Yeah, I had a guy, I had a guy think he was Superman. He jumped out like the third story parking garage down in the Galleria area down in Houston. I guess he.

31:00
I think he thought he was at parkour or whatever. Like he was over on and grabbed the side and swing down to the second floor. But we had tased them. And so he went flat like a board and just went right over the edge. Oh my God. And he got hurt. Copped him as he was running and we thought he fell by the wall. But like when we got over there, he wasn't there. We looked over the side like a movie. He's all like on the cement down there. And I was like, Oh my gosh.

31:25
Let's see. Okay. He jumped up and took off running after that. Oh, yeah. Get back down to the parking garage and go find me like a broken leg and broken arm. And the face is all skinned up and just just crazy stuff. Most people are wanting to get away versus squaring up on you. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's like a wrestling running, jumping that hiding like one of my T-shirts I've made adult hide and seek champion. Twenty twenty three. You know, because I got I love finding people in houses.

31:55
It'll be in dryers. I found people under Ottomans before, you know what I'm saying? Cutouts in the box spring under beds. Oh my God. What's your capture rate? Do you have of people that are not paid their bond or whatever, is there like a percentage like of people that you capture like more, I would imagine more than you don't.

32:17
Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I'm pretty much fine to everybody that I'm looking for. Like we do side files for other bail my companies. They need help like with their stuff, like help them out. But mostly my bond daddy stuff was designed to do my people that miss court for us. And I don't like paying. And I don't like paying a five hundred dollar bond. So like we'll beat the streets until we hunt them down. But yeah, it's a small amount, like one or two percent. We got a couple of thousand clients on bond. I'll have 10 to 20 that I'm looking for. OK.

32:47
100%.

32:49
Is that you just have the camera crew following you? Would he like when you do body cameras, go pros in the car, then have a camera guy that follows us. It's a full turnkey B-roll music. It's a full TV show. It's ready to go. Like we were in some talks with Discovery Channel and had some little opportunities that I have an agent that was working some stuff for us. Yeah, I just don't know. I don't know what that looks like. If that's going to be something if I want to sell that idea or what we want to do. So.

33:18
I like the freedom of YouTube. Yeah, like cost me a lot of money. I spend probably six grand a month doing your bond daddy. Yeah. I make 500 bucks from YouTube. Do it. So it's expensive hobby. Yeah. It's got potential. It does. The YouTube organically, it's like a eight, 10, 15 year game before you can blow up or you could just have one video that sends you over the top. Yep. Totally.

33:45
Yeah, so yeah, we are a little odd mix. We got my breathwork wife, and then you know, the bounty hunter husband. You know, a little raider. Spiritual shaman guru. Yeah. Which, that's what it, when I first met you, I'm like, all right, this dude's not some fucking hippie soft ass. Like, it's fucking bounty hunter out doing psychedelics, but.

34:10
When you think about it, it's been a lot of guys in this military law enforcement that have almost paved the way with some of this plant medicine stuff. It's not your typical what you think of. When I think back, like the sixties hippie movement shit, no, it's like a lot of hardcore dudes, alpha males that are tapping into this and exploring. And I don't, and I don't want to.

34:39
I want to use an example of something you shared with me. I know one of your experiences you talked about, you've been doing all this tactical training to get better at your job. And I remember when we were together, you said you had a vision of shit going south. Can you talk on that a little bit? Like and maybe how like your

35:00
Like the medicine has helped with your career, your how you function as a professional. Yeah, that is the deal. I mean, ayahuasca, like not to deter anybody from it. You can have that near death or a mystical experience. My stuff's always been like a lot of letting go and a lot of just being opening my mind to different possibilities or things I'm overlooking. And one of my experiences at Costa Rica was that I got killed, you know what I'm saying, while I was in ceremony. When I was, it was very visual,

35:30
The scenario, the person that got me, and then even like seeing like the effects, it was like a timeline issue, I'm saying. I was like, I died. I was like in the house with my wife watching her process without me being in the home anymore.

35:44
And it was, it was a lot, you know what I'm saying? I was like, man, dude, but what the, what are the takeaways? Cause I'm there not just to go blast off when psychedelics, like I'm there to change my life. And the chances of me getting shot going in a door is like very, that could happen. You know what I'm saying? Like one day I can leave here and go to work and somebody could kill me. You know what I'm saying?

36:05
And in that experience, I was coming out and we were eating afterwards and processing and talking. And I remember it just, it just had that. Like, so if I go in that house.

36:14
and I'm clearing a house, I need to get everybody out of the house because we didn't do that in that scenario, that experience in that ceremony. Like we went in, there was people in the house and I got shot. And I've actually put that into play. Like when we hit a house and I came back and told my team, cause this is stuff I'm wanting to better my craft and wanting to better myself as a father, a husband, a business owner, all that stuff. And I told my team, this is the experience I had. And when we hit this next house, everybody's come out of the house. Like we show them our warrant.

36:44
an entry to the house, everybody comes out, we clear the house. Yeah, because it's like adult hide and seek champion. Literally, you can be like, I've been in the house before and cleared the whole house and I'm talking to my team in the kitchen, looking back out, and I didn't check behind the curtains to the sliding glass door and a dude comes flying out like, oh, I'm right here, I'm right here. And I had my back to him, I'd already cleared the kitchen and I'm like looking down the hallway talking to my guys and this dude comes flying out of the curtains, you know what I'm saying?

37:14
for the sliding glass door. He was just, I didn't check there, you know what I'm saying? But he could have come flying out with a gun. And that's a fugitive I'm looking for, but the easier you can get the distractions out of the house, because like when somebody's trying to hide somebody in the house, they're very talkative and they're trying to engage you and they're trying to talk to you and distract you. But from that experience I had, we know now we come in, we remove everybody from the house, we do our job, saying we get the fugitive and we leave or we tell the people, thank you.

37:44
in their house, we put their house back together and we go. Zim, I appreciate you bringing that up because that is a common practice now since we got back from Costa Rica. Yeah, I just think it's important for, at least for me, it was, like, I didn't ever go into the experience thinking this could benefit me in my career. It was more of how can I help me on the inside? But I think looking at it, dude, it expands you in every way possible.

38:14
I think it's just such a transformational, expansive experience. And it might not always be pleasant like that experience. Because I remember talking with you about it around the fire. And then. OK, this is a negative, but how can I apply this to a positive in my day to day? I think that's just such a powerful thing to share.

38:34
Yeah. I, that's funny because I put that in the play and they kept moving. That's how a lot of life is right. These experiences and yeah. And I've done a lot of journaling and the IOT group that we sit with now. The nice thing with them is that we have calls we get on every week, like a little zoom call and we integrate, you know what I'm saying, weekly, we've been getting together for months since then, and it's nice to keep that stuff fresh in your mind and check in with that community. You know what I'm saying? Cause that's one of the things I missed from leaving religion, you

39:04
I'm saying was having that community. That was the big thing for me about attending mass. It was like, you saw your friends and your kids and you had this like group of people that you saw once a week or more frequently. So it's nice to have a community in this arena too. So it's got people that hold you accountable and people to process with and I'm a social being. I like having friends and stuff. How often are you guys doing the, if you're in that weekly thing, but how often are the ayahuasca trips or whatever?

39:34
journeys. We haven't, we the last time we did ceremony was I think it was June maybe June was the beginning of the summer. Right. Yeah. So how often are you doing them? Quarterly at best. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Probably twice a year with this group is what's gonna shape up the day. You know. Yeah I think there's an integration period that

40:04
has to happen. And I think that period of time is different for everybody, but you can get caught up.

40:11
in chasing the next thing. Okay, that was great. That was a great message. Okay, cool. And here's how I'm gonna apply it in my life. Okay, cool. What's the next one? That's my own personal opinion. Everybody's looking for more problems almost. Yeah. And what are you taking the time to really allow? That's just like the same thing with breath work. Are you taking the time to allow the new ideas, the new thoughts that you have, to apply those into your life and see how that impacts your life or are you just rushing back in

40:41
experience because that's what we do. We're just constantly rushing for that next thing. And then we start using the plant rather than allowing the plant to work with us. Yeah. A lot of people come from addiction backgrounds that are going down this route, but it's, you're not going to be robbing some old lady's purse to go get some ayahuasca. You know what I'm saying? When people talk about it, I don't have addiction problems. I don't have issues with alcohol and everything like that.

41:11
people but you don't come away from that. You can be transformed but the transformation happens because you're willing to take the lessons and apply them to your life. It's not because you come out of the ceremony and bing! I'm a new shiny object. You still have all the stuff to work through. It's just that you now have the opportunity to look at it differently. Yeah. I think that's important to talk about because I do, I have run into people that

41:40
They seem to do it quite often. And it's like you said, at what point are you just chasing the experience? I feel like even now it's almost a year later, I'm still having realizations. And if anything has given me the self-awareness to identify like these bad patterns or things I need to work on or whatnot, and some of that might take another experience.

42:08
in life, like a normal day-to-day interaction to be like, what, I need to reevaluate this. This is not a good trick or pattern or whatever. So I do think to anyone listening, these medicines, fungi, they're not to be taken lightly. You need to be intentional and respected. Because even right now with mushrooms, for example, I feel like every weekend I'm hearing

42:34
groups of people, mushrooms and chocolate and all this, where I'm glad people are becoming aware of these things, but I worry that one bad experience, we talk about this with VK and our THC products, why we make these lower dose products, one bad experience and that person is never going to look at these as a therapeutic ever again or what they can benefit. So I do think it's something that people need to be intentional and do your research.

43:03
And you nailed it. You'll know because it'll call to you. You'll have no doubt in your mind if this is something that maybe you want to explore. But it's a value when you are using any sort of psychedelic or something. It all goes back to what's the intention. Right. And what is it that you're seeking? Are you seeking?

43:28
to just escape and maybe that's appropriate sometimes or is that becoming what's repetitive? There's that saying that a medicine can become a poison if not used with intention. And I think that's responsible because...

43:45
If we don't come at it from that perspective, then it ends up being just another thing that gets this bad stigma. When it doesn't, it has the potential to be this really beautiful healing journey. It's fascinating. I feel like we could talk for hours, but I do want to, and maybe we'll do a part two. We'll talk more bounty hunting and breath work. The double B's. Maybe doing both. I think I'd have to.

44:15
leveraged by a breath work about bounty hunting. Okay. I just tell people to come in town and we'll take you out and go out to the ranch and we can go pig hunting and go fishing and go hunting human and breath work. That sounds an experience. I'll ride that ride. Is that Kerwin's or at Six Flags? Hey guys, tell everybody. I know you probably both have links and social media handles all that stuff and you're bond daddy. So.

44:42
Let's tell everybody where they can keep up with everything you guys are up to. Yeah. Mine is my first name, last name, Suzette Sondag, which is my Instagram handle. And then healing breath Texas is my business. No. And then your bond daddy, that's our YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. We're in between seasons right now. We just, we have 59 episodes up on YouTube right now. We're kicking off season two, hopefully here in the next 30, 60 days. And.

45:10
Got some stuff kicking out there. That's it, man. That's us, man. Love it. Thank you, Elliot. Thank you, Suzette. Really appreciate you guys coming on. Thank you.

45:20
I'll, Chris and I Chris have to drive me to Houston next time. And we'll, we'll do, we do all kinds of pig hunting and breath work. I'm hoping the medicine starts calling to Ryan sometime. We'll see. And then we can do a proper ceremony. There we go. We go to the ranch house and do it up for sure. Cool. Thank you guys. Appreciate you coming on. Hello everyone. You know where to find us? The pad, the vacaypodcast.com. You can also find us at vacay.global on Instagram.

45:49
For Chris Hansen, I'm Ryan Alford. We'll see you next time on the VK Podcast.