Today’s Guest

About Jo Casey

Jo Casey has over 20 years experience of working as a trainer and consultant in the corporate, public and third sectors. Her flashy clients and workplaces have included Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC), The NHS, BT, Toyota Motors, Peugeot Business School, The Welsh Assembly Government, The Girl Guides UK, Vets4Pets/Companion Care, several Local Government Authorities, and The Department Of Work And Pensions. But she’s also worked with many no less wonderful smaller ventures, micro businesses and SMEs.

She’s a self-confessed nerd and has taught at college and university levels and is a visiting lecturer at the University of Chester. Jo has a Masters Degree in Coaching and Organizational Development and she’s an NLP Master Practitioner, MBTI qualified professional certified Emotional Intelligence EQi 2.0 consultant.

She’s been coaching for over 15 years now – clocking up over 1000 hours of coaching experience. Basically, she carefully treads that line between being passionate and a tiny bit obsessive about what she does (obsession often wins). Jo runs accredited coach training programs and coaches people from all over the world via the power of the internet.

Listen to this episode

   

What You’ll Learn

• How does the “no pain, no gain” philosophy apply to healing and personal development?
• Why we sometimes need to look at the dark stuff – but not wallow in it
• How these types of therapies can help us to expand our comfort zone
• Why it’s so important to feel safe and supported when working with the more intense therapies
• Is there real value in these intense healing experiences?

Other Resources

• Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body, by Peter Lavine 
• How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics, by Michael Pollan
• IEMT, or Integral Eye Movement Therapy 
• DIY Dentistry, by Andy Riley  (This is actually comedy, and not how-to!)
• International Association of Kambo Practitioners
• Kambo Dots

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into The Woods Podcast, episode 294. This is your host, Holly Worton, and I am back with another episode with the fabulous Jo Casey.

Today, we are going to talk about the philosophy of “no pain no gain” and how it applies to healing and personal development. Is it necessary? Is this an important part of healing? Are there times when we need to step aside from the more gentle types of healing and therapy and turn to something a bit more intense? Is this kind of healing right for everyone? And how do you know if it is right for you? In this episode we explore the world of more intense therapies based on some recent personal experience which you may be aware of if you listen to my previous episode. So, what are you going to learn today? We talk about how the no pain, no gain, philosophy applies to healing and personal development and we ask the question: does it apply, is this a valid way of approaching healing and personal development? We talk about why we sometimes need to look at the dark stuff but yet not wallow in it and how it is really such a delicate balance of looking at the stuff but not dwelling on it. We discuss how these types of more intense therapies can actually help us to expand our comfort zone in other areas of our lives. We also talk about why it is so important to feel safe and supported when working with the more intense therapies and in any kind of therapy really but even more so in this type of work. And we ask the question: is there more value in these more intense healing experiences?

So, tune into this episode and see what you think, see if you are drawn to experiencing these kinds of things for yourself, and is this something you would like to give a try? I share links in the show notes of the place I went for the thing that I did, and you will hear more about that in a bit. As always, I welcome your questions, feel free to drop me a line: [email protected] and I will answer any questions your age.

Before I hand you over to the episode, I would like to extend an invitation for you to join me on Patreon. If you head over to: http://Patreon.com/HollyWorton you can join me there, membership starts at just $1 a month and you get exclusive access to content and done-for-you healing and mindset work I don’t share anywhere else, including a monthly Q and A. So, I would love to see you there, it is http://Patreon.com/HollyWorton. Now, onto the episode.

Holly: Hey Jo!

Jo: Hey Holly!

Holly: How are you doing?

Jo: I am good, my dog Lucy who normally makes a guest appearance, at least in barking form, on most of my podcast episodes had her lady op yesterday, so is feeling very sorry for herself and is curled under my desk, at my feet, so you may hear the odd doggy whimper, I feel so bad for her. Other than that, that was all a bit stressful yesterday, but other than that I am good. How are you?

Holly: Good, good, very much looking forward to our topic today.

Jo: Yes, I am intrigued. You came up with this topic, we have not discussed anything about it so far because we thought we would save it all for the recorded bit, so what is on your mind?

Holly: So I have been thinking about the whole “no pain, no gain” concept, and does this apply to healing? Does it apply to personal development? Is it necessary? And what does that even look like or what does it mean? This kind of came up based on a conversation I had with a friend a few weeks back, because I had done this Kambo frog-medicine ceremony thing, which {laughing}…

Jo: Hold on, hold the phone, you are going to have to explain what that it {laughing} because it sounds amazing.

Holly: I had never heard of it until I got this text from a friend, just before Christmas, saying: hey, merry Christmas, I am running a Kambo ceremony in February, I think it was, yes it was last month, and do you want to come? And I was like: ah I don’t know what that is, so I Googled, and I thought: well, give it a try. So, what Kambo is, it is called frog medicine because it comes from the secretions of this South American frog, I think it is native to Brazil and under its arms it secretes this stuff and what they do, when you have the ceremony is you drink a lot of water, two litres in ten minutes, because most of that water is going to come out. The person who is holding the ceremony burns holes in your arm or some other part of your body with a stick of incense, they scrape the skin off the holes and then they put the frog medicine on your arm, they kind of mix it with this resin first so it forms kinds of dots. And that is how the medicine is absorbed into your body, through this wound in your skin.

Jo: That sounds kind of horrific, how big are these holes? {laughing} I am imagining flaming torches.

Holly: {laughing} I this just like a little dot. That is actually the easy part because then you start purging.

Jo: Oh!

Holly: All the water that you just drank. So then you spend the next 30 minutes bringing the water up into a bucket, everyone has their own bucket, and you are in a room full of nine other people who either have done the same thing, or are waiting to do the same thing and they kind of did two people at a time, so there is a whole room of people who have just been sick, or about to be sick, or are being sick, so it is a weird, I don’t know, I had not done that kind of healing process before and at the time that I was doing it, all I could think was: why did I sign up for this? I am never doing this again, ever, ever, again, why am I doing this? But after it was over, and we were having our little light dinner at the end of the day we were all talking about it and we were saying: would you do it again? And some people were like:  I don’t know and some of us were like: I think so. And I think I will do it again, there is another ceremony coming up in June and I think I am going to do it. But the fact that it was so difficult as I was going through it, made me wonder, most of the healing techniques I use are very gentle, very soft, very deep and very profound and get great results but they very gentle, they are not vomiting into a bucket. So, that kind of brought up the conversation which I had with a friend which is: is this kind of healing necessary? Do we need to make this a part of our healing, or can we just do the softer stuff? What…what?  {laughing}

Jo: {laughing} So, okay, so, I don’t know if it is the introvert in me, or the slightly uptight person, but the though of vomiting in front of other people and being that vulnerable just in itself. But, tell me, what was the outcome of it? What healing effects did you experience?

Holly: Obviously, you set your intention so…let me rewind and say that I did this at a healing centre with people that I mostly knew. So, I didn’t know the person who was facilitating the ceremony but I did know the woman who was hosting the ceremony and knew a lot of the people there, so it was a very safe environment and it was a very loving and caring environment and when the guy who was facilitating the ceremony said that he had never had such a beautiful ceremony, he thinks it was because a lot of us knew each other, and it was a very different kind of, super-supportive environment. I was really concerned about being sick in front of a roomful of people but as I was going through it, nothing existed outside of my bucket, I knew stuff was going on, but it wasn’t my reality. So, what was the question you asked?

Jo: What was the healing that you achieved?

Holly: Right, at the beginning of the ceremony we all had to go around state our intentions and my intentions were kind of healing the last remnants of my relationship with my ex-, you know my ex-business partner, and kind of cutting those ties, cutting those cords, which I have done a million times before and I have done ten years of healing this relationship and there is still stuff. So, my intention was to dredge to the bottom of that, get rid of the stuff that was still there and really let go of it. And, I have been in the process of signing a legal agreement with this person for the last several months, we have been negotiating back and forth, I finally signed it, this contract in December and I have been waiting for the other person to sign ever since, the day after the Kambo ceremony I got an email saying it had been signed. So that was huge for me, and that was kind of the thing that said to me: okay, something happened here, I have been waiting for months for this, it is not just a coincidence. Yeah, so that was something that made me think: there is something here, because it is not like a hallucinogenic, it is not like Ayahuasca where you are purging but then you are experiencing an altered state of consciousness, you just purge and then you kind of snuggle back into your blankets and go to sleep for a while, because you are exhausted. But you are not experiencing any altered state of consciousness so that was also really strange to me, because I went through this whole thing and then I kind of rested because apparently it is spirit medicine, it works on the spiritual level, so there is not much happening, except for being sick into a bucket, there is not much happening at the conscious level. It is very different from any kind of healing stuff that I have done before.

Jo: It sounds absolutely fascinating and I would love to know more about the history and the background and how it is traditionally used and things. So, I guess it depends on, my view on these things and I have never done anything remotely, it sounds like, extreme, as that. But what I do know is that there is a school of thought and a tendency within personal development, and within spiritual healing, that we are not going to look at the dark stuff. I don’t think, you and I are very much on the same page with this, it is not that I believe that we should really go deep down and wallow in the dark stuff, but I think we have to acknowledge it. So, I experience anxiety and depression and just trying to ignore it and fight it and turn away from that and resist those “dark” intense feelings when they are coming on actually just prolongs it, so there is some definitely recognise there can be healing when we go into the darker spaces, the more painful, to go back to your original question, the more painful places.  I also think of things like body healing, physical therapy, if you go to a physiotherapist or something, I used to joke that you had to have a certain train of sadism in you to be a physiotherapist. Sometimes even if you have a deep intense massage, I don’t enjoy a light touch massage {Holly: me too}, I like somebody to really get in there and make me kind of wince, I want to feel bruised afterwards because that, for me, seems to be the thing that my body responds to in that context, so I think there can be most definitely some healing properties within the light and the dark, I don’t think it is an either/or and I think when we think: no, I just want it to be light and nurturing. Don’t get me wrong, I do want everything to be light and nurturing {Holly: laughing} I don’t want pain, and I am not attracted to the pain and the dark, but you can’t avoid that, so I am intrigued with you experience of this ceremony. Just the idea that you purge everything and that is what facilitates the healing or triggers the healing?

Holly: Yeah, because you are letting go.

Jo: Yeah, exactly.

Holly: And you can’t not let go because the second those dots go on your arm it takes about a minute for you to start purging because it just instantly hits your system and you get sick to your stomach. So, it is quite, you can’t not purge.

Jo: That’s intense. {laughing}

Holly: Another thing that you brought up, you said as an introvert you don’t necessarily want to be getting sick into a bucket in a room full of people, I also think there is great value in doing things that take me outside of my comfort zone. I think this ripple effect, anytime I do anything that takes me outside of my comfort zone it helps stretch my comfort zone in other ways as well. So for me this was a huge stretch because I am very fearful of pain, I am terrified of other people seeing me be sick, and I had a lot of fears because it wasn’t just the Combo ceremony, in the beginning we did these eye drops, I forget what they are called, it is this other South American eye drop thing that is supposed to help deepen the healing of the Combo but they are incredibly painful, it is the most pain I have ever experienced in my life.

Jo: What?

Holly: Yeah, the guy is going around giving people eye drops and I started, I couldn’t handle the pain, I started kicking and this woman had to come and hold down my legs, so I didn’t hurt anyone, it was crazy. Then, at the end of it, to help ground us, when we were coming back from waking up after our naps, they did this snuff called rapé, they take this powder and they blow it into your nose through this twig, oh my god the pain, it was like a nerve that just went, and oh my God it was so painful. So there are three kind of stages of pain in this thing and I am very fearful of pain so the fact that I kind of took that risk, and did that, because everyone else was doing it, and It was part of the ceremony, I could have said no, but I think the fact that I took that risk also was helpful to me, because it took me outside my comfort zone.

Jo: Yes, so… {laughing}

Holly: It was a lovely day! So, so, wonderful!

Jo: So, obviously I have never deliberately, that’s not true, actually, I have to be really careful of the way I am not in any way, shape or form likening spiritual rituals and things like the one that you went through to self-harm.

Holly: Oh, yeah.

Jo: But I do know as somebody who has self-harmed in the past, when I was in a much darker place when I was younger, that there is a physiological thing that happens on the other side of the pain. That your body releases: go into shock basically, your body is: oh my God, all hands to the pump so chemicals are released in the brain, oxytocin your body’s natural painkillers get released and that can have a very relaxing and analgesic effect.

Holly: Okay.

Jo: Which is one of the reasons why self-harm can become a little bit addictive, in a similar way to having a tattoo can for some people be a little bit addictive. I am somebody who really enjoys getting a tattoo.

Holly: See, I am terrified of those!

Jo: It doesn’t feel especially painful to me, it is like accumulative pain, and by the time the pain point kicks in I am lucky to have good endorphin release, so the last tattoo that I had, is the largish one that I have on my forearm and it took about three hours to do, although I have to say about 45 minutes of that was just the tattoo artist getting the lettering straight. So it wasn’t actually constantly for three hours, so there was a bit of a break in between, but I was there with two other people who were both men and they were wining and going: oh God! They were really vocalising it. At one point…

Holly: They have a lower pain tolerance because women are designed for child birth.

Jo: Yeah, and I was there kind of going: this is fun! Having a bit of a kind of I am wonderful right now! {laughing} So there is a physiological thing that kind of goes on, so there is that, but I am also fascinated about the level of spiritual healing that happened. Can you articulate? Do you have words and language?

Holly: I feel like I don’t, because this was the first kind of healing that I had done of this type and it happened at a level that I wasn’t conscious of, only conscious of purging and relaxing afterwards. Stuff was going on at other levels, but I don’t have the words for it because I am not really conscious of what happened there. I was glad that the facilitator explained at the beginning that it was spirt medicine so that we are not going to be tripping or whatever because that kind of helped me to understand the experience because I was thinking: what the heck happened? I have no clue! And I feel like I need to say that all of the stuff we did was totally legal here in the UK and legal in many countries around the world. I don’t anyone to think that I am doing drugs! {Both: laughing} The frog medicine is perfectly legal! Interestingly the Kambo is legal in most parts of the world except for the country, Brazil, where the frog is native.

Jo: Woah, I wonder why that is?

Holly: I don’t know, obviously it is an indigenous healing thing, I don’t know, and it is strange also because obviously it is the kind of thing that you need to do with a facilitator, you can find the drops online but there is no way in hell that I would buy them online and do them myself at home! {laughing} One of the things was it was a very supportive experience, we were doing this two-by-two, there were two facilitators, one with each person, I felt very, very, supported. The guy was right there with me every step of the way until I told him I was done and then he moved over to the next person, but I felt very supported in this and that’s also something I didn’t suspect, and I was very, very, pleasantly surprised to experience.

Jo: I think that must be one of the kind of essential parts of something like this, we know from neuroscience. I did some work, particularly last year, I did some work around nervous system healing and the polyvagal nervous system and things like that and you read things like, when we talk about healing the nervous system and the physiological, biological responses. So, Peter Lavine’s work on healing trauma, talks about how we are hard wired for connection with other humans, so there is a measurable effect on our nervous system of when we are in the company of other people, compared to when we are on our own. So, if we experience trauma with other people, with somebody who is just able to place a hand on you, in a supportive way, has a very different effect on our nervous system than if you were experiencing something like that on your own. It reminds me of a book called Changing Your Mind.

Holly: Oh yes, Peter Lavine.

Jo: Yes MP’s book about all the research that has been done into the use of psychedelics, effectively, and how they were up until the 1960s, when they were being used a lot recreationally, they were the primary research route for treating psychological conditions like depression, like anxiety and things like that and then all of the research stopped. The research was banned but there is still  a huge amount of data in there and now studies being done that show that used correctly, used well, they can be huge healing effects through using psychedelics. But, one of the things, he shares his experience of going on a guided trip, so there are people that you can hire, they have to be really careful because it is still illegal, particularly where he was doing it in the United States, to administer, but he is guided through this very lovely experience of having a trip, and he found it incredibly healing, but, of course I think one of the big differentiators there is the fact that he had somebody there who was trained. I think it was a psychotherapist, or certainly a trained counsellor, who was doing it, who emphasised and made sure that it was a very safe environment, him feeling secure and safe was paramount to the experience. And that sounds like certainly one of the elements from this, this frog experience, frog-medicine experience that you went through!

Holly: Yeah! And I think that is a really good point because if we are going to do some of these more intense types of healing or the no pain no gain kind of thing. I think it is very important to be doing it in a very supportive environment where you know you are being held, and you know that you are doing this with experienced facilitators who know how to work with people in this way.

Jo: The ethics and, I suppose, having that kind of ecology check at the heart of it all the time, because, as we all know, we have all come across people who are in the healing professions or using healing modality and there is just a weird and unhealthy power thing going on.

Holly: Yes, absolutely, and I have been very grateful to have trained in techniques particularly PSYCH-K® where they spend a lot of time really make sure that the facilitators come from the right place when they are working with people to the point where, when you are doing the muscle testing with your client, you are either both standing or your both sitting but you are always both at the same level, you are never standing while the client is sitting, because that unconsciously projects: I am the expert and I am treating you. They are very, very, careful with the language: you work with someone and you don’t do the work to them or one them. So, yeah, I think that is also very, very, important.

Jo: Yeah, I am really lucky as well, we have had similar training backgrounds in those types of things, with my NLP, and in my hypnotherapy, it was very much the same thing, you sit next to people, rather than across from them if possible, if they are in the same room it is a bit different if you are working virtually {laughing} can we all sit sideways on our computers? It doesn’t quite work but it is about that ecology check, it is having a psycho-educational experience and the people are very aware of what is going on and why do certain things and they are very much in control and have agency through the process rather than it being a done-to. So, it is one of those things, again, where if your intentions are good and you have full ethical check and you do an ecology check then it is full permission based and it is consent based, then you can I suppose guide people, lead people, through certain more intense experiences in a healthy way. I think there are sometimes even the so-called lighter touch, non-invasive, not that we stick pins in people necessarily, although in this case yes they did, they burnt you with a flaming torch in my mind. {Both: laughing} There are times when I think, even if you are doing quite a light touch non-invasive modality, the power imbalance is messed up, that ecology check isn’t there, then that is still known to be a negative and an unhealthy experience.

Holly: Yes, absolutely. It has kind of raised the question for me that moving forward how am I going to incorporate some of these more intense type of therapies into the stuff that I currently do? Am I going to have a mix? How is the balance going to be, how am I going to move forward?

Jo: Do you mean to do it with yourself or work with clients?

Holly: Yes [with myself], no, I don’t want to facilitate this kind of thing.

Jo: {laughing} Come round tonight and we will set up some stuff in the shed at home and… {laughing}

Holly: No, I’m not up for that! That’s a huge level of responsibility I think that I am absolutely not up for it and I have great respect for people who can hold that kind of space, because holding space for people, doing the kind of mindset work is one thing, but holding space for people who are literally being sick into a bucket, that’s another thing. They were so lovely, some people were purging in other ways so they have go to the toilet, so the facilitator would go and sit outside the bathroom door and sing to them, medicine songs. It was just so lovely.

Jo: I am just having an image of me stuck in a bathroom with somebody singing outside the door. {laughing}  I would just be like: just leave me alone! Obviously, I have all kinds of, I think I have a sick brain on me today! So, I am very curious then, as to what brought you to the conclusion that this is something that you would like to do again?

Holly: Well, it was because I had such a very clear sign the day after doing the ceremony, and I do feel that was not coincidental, it might have been, but my gut says no. So, I feel like I got results from it and I am very curious to see what it would be like a second time, because now I know what to expect. Obviously, every ceremony is going to be different, but I know what to expect with the eye drops, and I know what to expect with the Kambo, and I know what to expect with the snuff. I am also very fearful of going into experiences for the first time, not knowing what it is. So, I think it is going to be a very different experience the second time around, I don’t know if this something that I am going to keep doing on a regular basis, but it is definitely something that I am going to try again, it takes me out of my comfort zone, it is a bit scary to me, even though I have experienced it, so I definitely think it is something that I will want to try at least once more. [Joking] Then I start getting addicted to it and doing it every month!

Jo: I was just running that question in my head: is this something that I would like to do? No! {laughing} I think going outside of my comfort zone might be something like: maybe try some hot yoga!

Holly: I think that is really important, we have got to do the stuff that works for us, or the stuff that feels right for us. The second I started reading about this I knew I had to try it, even though I was also simultaneously terrified of it.

Jo: So how did you know it was something you had to try? Was it a gut…?

Holly: It was a gut feeling. I was reading about it and I thought: this is something that I want to experience, I want to try it. It scares me, but I want to try it.

Jo: It is a bit like some people think: I have always wanted to jump out of a plane! And I am like: nope.

Holly: I have too, I have always wanted to, but I never have. I really want to, and circumstances haven’t made it a priority for me, but I would love to.

Jo: Ah, watch this space then, I will wave you off and I will be there with a blanket and a cup of tea on the ground.

Holly: I did bungy jumping in Central America whenI was teaching English there in Costa Rica and that was terrifying. I did it because I wanted to do it but with a bunch of friends, we were all starving student English teachers, so we haggled the price down and later I was thinking: why did we do that? What if we died.

Jo: You haggled! I would say as a rule in life, if somebody has literally your life in their hands, don’t haggle with them! {laughing}

Holly: I know, that’s what common sense says, and common sense kicked in like a day later. But that was another thing that’s terrifying, life threatening, totally took me outside my comfort zone and I am really grateful for that experience, because it is really scary to jump off a bridge even though you know you are tied to the bridge in some way, it is just not natural.

Jo: No, no, it is definitely not. I am wondering if my experience, as someone who does kind of live with an anxiety disorder on a regular basis, alters my view? Well, clearly it skews my view on this, because there are just some normal day-to-day things in life which terrify me, I don’t have that bit of my brain that says: oh yeah, just go jump out of a plane that will be scary and exhilarating, it is like why would I want to? Doing my tax return to me is like jumping out of a plane.

Holly: That’s why I pay someone to do it for me!

Jo: {laughing} Even getting the stuff ready to do it is…

Holly: I know!

Jo: I find this whole subject a really interesting one and kind of an important one as well, because I do think that there is a desire to spiritually bypass, this is something I was talking with a couple of clients with this week around: I have got one client who was talking about being in a particular energy-healing community and she was having a bit of a tough day, and the leader of the group was saying: just release it, just release it and she was going: I am trying! It is not that easy and it kind of reminds me a little bit of the: oh, just pull your socks on and get on with it, just push through it, type thing and I think there are some things that yes, it is useful to do, just grit your teeth and go through it. There are also other times when actually it is really important to stare this down and look it in the face and look at my fear, the dark places, look at the things that I am trying to run away from, because I think, if we don’t, we miss a lot of learning opportunities, but we also have no chance of that thing moving through us, because we are kind of blocking the energy of it.

Holly: It is like you have got to accept it and let it go, not cling to it, but you gotta look at the dark stuff, I think, not dwell on it, again, there is such a delicate balance. I really don’t like traditional talk therapies because I feel with that you dredge up the crap and then you really look at the crap and then you analyse the crap and it is like hours of crap. I think you need to look at it, you need to bring it to the surface and then you need to release it and again that is not always easy. Like I said, I spent ten years healing from this relationship, but I do think you can’t bypass the dark stuff, you have got to acknowledge it in some way and then work on healing it.

Jo: And also acknowledge the fact that we never “done” as human beings, I did a podcast that was released last week it is a solo episode and I talk about perfectionism and I know that this is something that you and I have talked about endless times, that the thing that you have worked on so often, and you think: I have done the healing…these different modalities and you think: okay I have done that, I am groovy with that and then it all comes back from a different angle and you are like: this again?!! I am doing this again? But it is another growth opportunity, I think these are the patterns that we have and the healing journey that we are on personally, they are what gives us the insights and the empathy and gives us the right to be able to work with others around similar things. We become pathfinders and fellow travellers with it, not necessarily gurus who have all of the answers and never have dark thoughts ever again, because you are not human if that happens. I know that I am never in a good place, I have never been my best self, when I am trying to push away a load of stuff that I am not trying to look at and trying not to acknowledge.

Holly: Oh, yeah! Because you end up pushing down other stuff in the process, it is not like you just isolate that one thing and say: we are going to compartmentalise that, and it is going to go away. It drags other stuff down into the darkness.

Jo: So, I am wondering if this ritual that you went through and something about the purging of stuff that spirit medicine, this is the stuff that maybe on the kind of conscious level you can’t see, you don’t know it is there, but it is still kind of dragging you down and still blocking that energy and there is something in that purging, in that spirit healing that has gone on, that has allowed you to release it and releasing things isn’t always neat and happy and pretty, sometimes it is puking into a bucket.

Holly: Yeah, it is and interestingly, in the weeks since that ceremony, I feel like I have a new sense of clarity, I have been super-focussed, I have been working on my projects, I finished my manuscript for my next book and I sent it onto the editor, it has been really easy for me to focus and to get shit done. And I don’t know if that was because I was able to release stuff that was holding me back, but I feel like I am so much more on track and flowing through life, I have already got my next two books planned. I don’t know, it is like everything is all on track and going really, really, well in other ways, not just specifically the thing that was my intention for that ceremony, I feel like maybe letting go both spiritually and physically, and mentally and emotionally, has helped me – I am going to say it again – get back on track and stay focussed on the path that I know that I want to be on.

Jo: And I guess as well, from that experience that you had, like you said those dots placed on your arm and within a minute, you have no control over it, it is a bit like I don’t know sneezing or something, or going to the toilet, or childbirth or something. Once it kinds of starts you have no conscious control over it, you can’t stop it, you can’t in the middle bit say: no I changed my mind, with it, you have you have to, I was going to say commit to it but you don’t, you don’t have to consciously do anything. It is kind of like body and soul are doing this stuff so your conscious brain, I think those experiences can be a good reminder that the conscious bit of our brain, our consciousness, our ego, or whatever we want to call it, it is not necessarily in control nearly as much as it thinks it is, nor is it needed for some of the deep, profound stuff that is going on, we don’t need to consciously think about breathing.

Holly: Exactly.

Jo: So maybe, I know with modalities that I have used, hypnotherapy, for example, or IEMT, which is integral eye movement therapy, you can’t really explain what is happening on a conscious level, because it is not working on a conscious level. Some things are good for the ego, as in the ego doesn’t necessarily like it, but it is good for keeping the ego in check.

Holly: Yes.

Jo: Because you realise there is so much power and potential, there is so much stuff going on that doesn’t require me to sit here thinking myself through it.

Holly: Yes and analysing.

Jo: Yes.

Holly: I have always been attracted to therapies that are like that, that are: let’s not analyse why we got to this situation, let’s just figure out what do we want instead and focus on programming that.

Jo: It sounds fascinating, so have you got any plans for other intense {Both: laughing} therapies?

Holly: Stay tuned. {laughing} We will see what comes up, because like I said, I wasn’t looking for this, I had never heard of it, it came to me. I had two other things going on that day, one of which I signed up for and I ended up cancelling this other thing that I had that was also really important to me, because I felt this was an experience I needed to have, and I needed to do it that day with those people in that moment and I am really glad that I did it because it was just an absolute lovely group of people. So, yeah, I will be doing it again, I think in June, we shall see.

Jo: Do you think you could ask someone to just switch the voice recorder on your phone on and you could do an audio diary throughout the day? Like an audio diary throughout the day – that probably wouldn’t be appropriate would it? {Laughing}

Holly: You wouldn’t want to hear me! {laughing}

Jo: We don’t have to hear that bit! {laughing} I guess if the rest is you sleeping…it may not be the most interesting episode to listen to {laughing}.

Holly: It is so funny, when I walked into the room, I was like: where should I sit, where should I sit? Two of the buckets were green and one of the green buckets had already been taken and I was like: I want a green bucket, because if I am going to be feeling sick, I want to be sick into my favourite colour {laughing}. It was like I was even looking for that level of comfort, I don’t want a blue bucket, I want a green bucket, because green is my colour! I was trying to hold onto anything to make the experience a little bit easier…how your brain works!! {laughing}

Jo: I can’t imaging going into a room and going: okay where do I sit and puke now? {laughing} Where would be a good place to sit and throw my guts up! Oh wow! So I am also wondering about how we safely and responsibly share the information about this, because I think it is important to stress again, you have already said it, I know that everyone listening here is an adult but please don’t try this at home. Don’t look into this and think: oh, I will DIY it in the shed or something like that. One of the things that has stuck me so profoundly about your experience, Holly, was the fact that you said that the thing that made it for you was the fact that you were so exquisitely held, you felt so safe, you felt so supported. It was a lovely group of people and I think it is really essential that if you are curious or intrigued or thinking: I want to go and experience that level of intensity and healing, that you find experienced people. Is there a qualification, is there a certificate?

Holly: I don’t know, there is an international Kambo association, I will link to this in the show notes so people can look at that link. Definitely go online and find someone who resonates with you and that you trust, get a recommendation from someone, I will share the guy who did my ceremony in the show notes as well, based in London. Find someone that you know, like and trust or get recommendations from other people, be safe, this is really intense healing and it is also, first of all you are drinking a ton of water in a very short period of time which can be dangerous if not done properly. So, just drinking the water is dangerous but of course you are bringing it back up again quite soon, so you don’t start drinking the water until about ten minutes before they put the dots on because you need to drink it and bring it straight back up otherwise you can have too much water in your system. Every part of this was very, very, precisely managed by someone who had used this many, many, times with themselves and many times with other people, so he had experience of knowing what was going to effect other people. Even before I signed up for this thing, I had. To fill out this four-page medical thing with: what medications am I taking, what health stuff do I have, I have asthma, so I took out my inhaler and put it next to me, I didn’t need it but had it there visible where they could get it to me, they were very, very, careful about how this was going to effect my system in other ways based on my particular body. They were very careful, and I feel like they were very, very, responsible.

Jo: I think that is absolutely essential and we will link to the place where Holly went but please do your due diligence, if you are not in the UK, research this, this is like DIY dentistry just don’t, just don’t. There was an infamous book, I don’t know if you can still get it, it was called DIY Dentistry, which seemed the most ridiculous thing. This has been fascinating Holly, I have never heard of this particular type of ceremony and to hear your experience of it, has been really enlightening. It is not something I am going to plan on doing personally, because it is not something that I feel is calling to me.

Holly: And that’s the thing, go with what calls to you and don’t go with what doesn’t call to you, use your gut on this, everyone who is listening to this, use your gut. If it resonates, research it, if it totally does not resonate then find something else and that same goes with any kind of healing. Whether it is the super intense kind of healing or the super gentle kind of healing.

Jo: Thank you so much this was great.This has been really interesting and juicy and really good fun and I have learned lots and yeah it is really interesting question, this idea of: is there: no pain, no gain, is there value in having intense, not always having flower crowns and butterfly kind of healing experiences and I think we are in agreement that yes there definitely can be, in the right circumstances and with the right super version, so thank you. This has been really interesting thank you.

Holly: Good, I am glad we just jumped right into it, we always come up with bullet points, and we have an idea of where the conversation is going to go, but I am really glad that we decided to wing it on this, because I think it flowed really well and I liked not having the structure, I think that was important for this particular topic because you never know what is going to happen in this type of therapy {laughing}

Jo: Exactly, exactly. Thank you for listening, if you have questions as usual drop me a line: [email protected] and is it still [email protected] {Holly: it is} and you can always hop into my Facebook group, the Coaches and Healers Collective and leave any comments in there or find us on Instagram and things like that. Do you have a publication date for your book yet Holly?

Holly: Yes, it will be available early April, but the official launch date is April 23d.

Jo: I can’t wait! Yeah, so we will be shouting about that when it happens no doubt. Thank you all so much for listening.

Holly: That’s all for now, I hope you all enjoy this episode and found it interesting and useful. Please drop me a line and let me know what you thought, you can email me at [email protected] or find me online and get in touch. Thank you so much for listening, and if you enjoyed this episode and are not yet subscribed, I would love to have you as a subscriber that way you can get the episode as they are published every Monday. So thank you thank you thank you again for listening and remember to visit: http://HollyWorton.com/294 for the show notes on this episode.