395.“Ayahuasca Will Always Give You What You Need” | Psychedelic Healing with Melissa Osorio

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Melissa Osorio:

I would like for them to become more aware of their actions and emotions, not to just live life in autopilot, but question themselves. And if they find things that don't fit, I encourage them to really look for the answers, however they want to, relentlessly.

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

Hello and welcome to The Daily Helping with Dr. Richard Shuster. Food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, tools to win at life. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. Whoever you are, wherever you're from, and whatever you do, this is the show that is going to help you become the best version of yourself. Each episode, you will hear from some of the most amazing, talented, and successful people on the planet who followed their passions and strive to help others. Join our movement to get a million people each day to commit acts of kindness for others. Together, we're going to make the world a better place. Are you ready? Because it's time for your Daily Helping.

Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Daily Helping Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Richard, and we have an incredible guest today on the show. I'm so excited for you guys to meet her. Her name is Melissa Osorio. She's a transformational speaker and bestselling author who has turned a harrowing journey of childhood trauma, emotional detachment and self-doubt into a life filled with purpose, passion and self-discovery. 

We're going to get into her story because I'm excited about it, but I'm not gonna share anything about it now, but I will tell you that one of the things she's also an expert in is healing through plant medicine, which has become really popular in recent years and a lot of people are talking about it online. So, we're gonna get to hear the truth about that and the science behind it. So, you're gonna love that. We're also gonna talk about her newest book, Hidden Memories: How to Discover What's Blocking You from Life and Love. Melissa, welcome to The Daily Helping. It is awesome to have you with us today. 

Melissa Osorio: 

Hi, I'm very happy to be here. Thank you for having me. 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

Of course. So, as you know, my favorite thing is to get at people's why, right? What put them on the journey they're on today? So to start right off, I want to jump on the Melissa time machine and talk to us about what put you on your path. And let's just begin there. 

Melissa Osorio:

Well, I was basically pulled into this path that I'm on now without any other option. It was a case of like I went to the island and someone burned the boat for me. So there was no way back to my previous life. So to just go down to the why, my life had really, really declined. The quality of my life had declined tremendously. And I was desperate enough to try something that I didn't know if it will help me. 

And as it turned out, it really did help me without its challenges. It was extremely, extremely difficult, but it also set me off on this path that was completely different to who I used to be before, which was very success-focused and, you know, making sure that I was living the life according to the standards of society versus where I am now that is really about helping others find their inner strength and giving hope. Hope on transformation and trauma healing is possible and I'm a living example of that. So sharing that message. 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

So, we've talked with a lot of, kind of, vagueness, right? And I'm excited because it's teasing what's to come, but talk to us. I know trauma is part of your story, childhood trauma is part of your story. Talk to us about your youth a little bit. 

Melissa Osorio:

Yeah, so I was born in Venezuela. I was born into a picture-perfect family, as we looked from the outside. Obviously, behind, the closed-door story was very different. Venezuela was a very dangerous country. And I left the country after having a tumultuous childhood that I didn't really remember until recently, when I actually got the help of psychedelics. I left the country at the age of 16, a few months after my father was murdered.

Dr. Richard Shuster:

I feel like the psychedelics is what you were alluding to, right? Like you tried this thing and that's what puts you on a different path. So, for those of us, and I'm in this category who has never done psychedelics, you can't just go to the grocery store and order up some psychedelics. So, you tried them at the age of 16. Were you still in Venezuela when you tried them or had you come to America already? 

Melissa Osorio:

Oh no, at the age of 16, I left the country when my father was murdered.

Dr. Richard Shuster:

Left the country, okay.

Melissa Osorio: 

And then I moved to Florida and life happened for the following 20 years. So from age 16 to 36, I worked really hard to be successful, to marry, you know, the handsome guy, to try to make that marriage work to get a… you know, then proceed to get a divorce and to try to take all the boxes of, you know, society's success. So, during those 20 years, I tried so hard to be happy. Like people can identify with this. Sometimes, we're doing everything we can. We're reading all the books. I was drinking the self-help Kool-Aid. I was going to the seminars. I was watching the YouTube videos, but I was deeply unhappy. 

There was something missing and I didn't know what it was. In fact, I had no clue what it was. I had never been to a psychiatrist or a psychologist. I had never been taking prescription medications. I did self-medicated with alcohol, which is, like, just the easiest way. Sometimes, people have to regulate their nervous system, right? To attempt to regulate their nervous system. So, then at age 36 is when I actually went down to Costa Rica and I participated in some treatments that involved a substance called ayahuasca. 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

Okay. So, it was at Costa Rica where you had this burning of the ships. Life is never going back to the way it was. So, you got this in Costa Rica. So again, ayahuasca, a lot of people have heard of it, they know it's a form of plant medicine, but tell us specifically about ayahuasca and drop a little science on us. Give us, kind of, ayahuasca 101. 

Melissa Osorio:

Okay, perfect. So, first I want to remind those who are listening that we tend to call ayahuasca and other plants the alternative medicine, but plants are really the original medicine. We've just forgotten that and we think that synthetics are medicine. So, ayahuasca is an original medicine that has been used in the world for centuries, if not millennia, to help with mental explorations, trauma healing, expansion of consciousness, whatever purpose people were using it for in the past. 

In the present, it's largely being used for mental health to improve the processing of difficult memories and trauma. So, ayahuasca is a mix of two plants. One is a vine and the other one is a plant that has an active compound called DMT. DMT is something that we all have in our brain. It's a naturally occurring compound that happens in our brain naturally. So, what ayahuasca does, it enhances the amount of DMT that's available and it allows, you know, for the use of the DMT that we naturally have in a more effective way.

So, the way that these plants work is really astonishing because let's just first say ayahuasca tastes really, really horrible, in all honesty. And it has no other purpose on earth than the use that we give it for mental health. It's not a plant that looks pretty. It's not a plant that flowers. It doesn't smell good. It doesn't taste good. It's not a party plant. Nobody's going to go drink ayahuasca and go out on a Friday night. It doesn't work like that. It has one specific purpose.

So, if you think about the brain, when we face difficulties, whether it's in childhood, when the brain is developing, or even during our adult life, certain things happen that change the way the brain works. Number one is your amygdala, which is your fear center, the activity gets super heightened. So, it literally takes over your brain and in effect, shuts down your rational brain and your memory center. So what happens is that the memories of trauma are not received or consolidated or retrieved later like a normal memory is received, consolidated and retrieved. 

So what happens with ayahuasca and with other plant medicines is the opposite, and this is the magical part. They literally do the opposite in your brain. So they quiet down your fear center and they increase the activity between your memory center and your rational brain. And there is even more blood flow in between those two. So you're able to process difficult memories without the fear, the intensity, the intensity of the emotions that you felt when the traumatic episode occurred. 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

You know, what I'm about to say next is only because I saw it on Netflix, but I saw something on Netflix where they were talking about ayahuasca and that it had been used in Mesoamerica and like the Amazon for thousands of years. And what's really fascinating about it is that you mentioned that it's two medicines kind of cooked together, right? And I'm not sure if it's the vine or the other piece, but one of them actually, it's the perfect concoction to where part of the plant, because they're mixed, allows the ayahuasca to actually pass the blood-brain barrier. And that's how it impacts the brain where otherwise it wouldn't. 

So, I think it's probably a whole nother podcast to speculate on how people thousands of years ago knew exactly how to put two different plants together that would allow ayahuasca to penetrate the blood brain barrier because that's the kind of stuff that we do with pharmaceutical companies in a lab today, right? But it's very interesting. 

And you're right on about, you know, procedural memory gets stored differently, right? We store, you know, phone numbers and facts and, you know, where we grew up, what street we lived on in the hippocampus. But the amygdala is where all of that emotionality sits. And when you talk about processing trauma from a clinical standpoint, it's really being able to address the trauma using our prefrontal cortex, right, our reasoning skills, our rational brain, so that we can move it through and get past it. So, what I'm hearing from you, Melissa, is that ayahuasca is a way to drink something, albeit foul tasting, that can help a person move through that process? 

Melissa Osorio: 

Correct. So, you know, just to give you a lived example, I did not remember my childhood, and I was not versed in mental health. Now, I know that when you don't remember your childhood, or you have large memory gaps, that is a strong indicator that there was something there that was overwhelming enough for your brain to have protected you from it. 

So that is like the first thing that people, when I start talking about this, they're like, "Oh, I don't remember my childhood," or "Why didn't I remember the years that I lived in this or that house?" You know. So, I didn't remember my childhood. I was never able to connect with people. I felt disconnected from myself. I was unhappy. Literally, and I know this sounds harsh, I really dislike children. Like, I really, really dislike them. I didn't want to be in the same space where a child was. And I felt really inadequate because of that. I felt like I didn't have a maternal instinct. You know, at the time, you know, I was married and I had a little stepson that was four and I could not love that child. So all of these things were there as signs and tips and breadcrumbs that you carry through your life, right? Because you're right, the memories don't get stored as usual, but your body stores the memories of trauma and they remain in your subconscious. 

So, there I go to Costa Rica and drink this medicine. And then what happens is I'm thinking I'm just going to go and, like, find a life purpose. And I was heartbroken at the time. So, I'm just going to get over this guy and, like, move on with my life. And then, I was shocked. I was completely shocked on my third treatment because I started to remember. And I started to have images come back and flashbacks. And more than anything, I felt all the emotions I felt as a child when the traumatic things I survived happened. 

And I fought a lot the memories at the beginning. Like I fought an invisible war for hours on that mat where I was in Costa Rica. However, there came a moment where I realized that every part of me already knew the story and I just needed my brain to catch up. And in that moment, I accepted, I wanted to know, and then the medicine, in a really unexplainable, smart way, helped to bring those memories to my conscious awareness in a way that I could absorb them. 

And for sure, I was not healed after that experience. I was, in fact, completely and absolutely destroyed. Emotionally, mentally, physically, it left me in pieces. However, however, the next day I had another treatment because I always recommend people not to just go and do one treatment and then go back to their lives. That's another story. I like places that do a series of treatments. So I had another treatment and I was able to start to piece myself back together. 

And I realized that the life I was living behind, the person that was completely shattered, is not who I was meant to be. That is a person that was attached to a story that I was not remembering. So in that moment, I started the hard work to rebuild myself with better tools, with a full knowledge of, you know, my past and using it as a springboard for my future rather than a sad anchor that was holding me back. So it is a beautiful process. It's very challenging. However, I believe it's more challenging to live a life that is not who you're meant to be. 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

So there's a lot of things you said in there that I want to address. One is that you confirmed and answered the question I kind of alluded to because, you know, I don't know where a person goes and gets ayahuasca. You went to a facility in Costa Rica that delivered this to you. The other thing you said was that after the third treatment, so you had multiple treatments, and you said, you don't advise people to just do this once. Your next one was the fourth time and that's when things kind of started coming together. 

So I have two questions. One, can you describe to us what the experience, and I presume there's gonna be some variance for different people who do this, but what does it feel like physically? What are the potential side effects? Any health risks of taking ayahuasca? What is it like to take ayahuasca? And then, I'll hold my second question, but let's start there. 

Melissa Osorio:

So I love that you asked this question. And, you know, I think it's really important to just educate people. Sometimes the fear of psychedelics is just because they don't know enough information. And just to mention in my book, I actually take a pause from the narrative of the book, and in the middle, there are six chapters where I just dedicate the writings to educating people in all of these that we're going to talk about, but of course in more detail - psychedelics, different types of psychedelics, what to look for in a retreat, what are the dangers, what questions to ask. 

You know, just to give you an overview here, ayahuasca is likely the most powerful substance out there for psychedelic purposes. So it's not a substance to be taken lightly. It's not something that you're walking down the streets of Tulum and someone has a sign, "Hey, ayahuasca tonight," and you just happen to fit it into your schedule. Please don't do that. That is when people get experiences that are not very healing because they're not taking it seriously. 

So, going to a center that all they do is they just help people with ayahuasca. They're experts at, you know, holding the space and the energetic space is super, super important. And then also, as you mentioned, going to a place that does more than just once. Why? Because the medicine has to work through different blockages and a series of treatments is much… and people get much better results. 

Now, what it's like to actually drink ayahuasca? Well, as I mentioned, it's a difficult substance to swallow, but beyond that, it's a very healing substance in all levels. So ayahuasca is known for healing physically a lot. So, it's a very purgative substance. And I know people might, like, go, like, "Ugh, no!" Like, "Did she say purgative?" And yes, that is exactly what I said. 

And it's an incredible aspect of this medicine because if you think about it, through our lives, we're accumulating toxins and we're accumulating, you know, all sorts of things in our tissues and even trauma that are issues are in our tissues. So our tissues are full of traumatic experiences. You know, that knee pain that you have might be just stored trauma. That GI problem that you just cannot be able to shake might just be, you know, unresolved trauma in your gut. So, it's the beauty of it. Ayahuasca will cleanse your physical body quite a bit. 

And then, of course, there is the other elements which is actually a very smart plan. So, you're able to… your experiences are unique to each person. It's impossible to predict how your experience will look like. Even from one day to the next, you're guaranteed to have two completely different experiences. But it's always working as it should. The medicine will always give you what you need and know what you want. And that is a very popular saying, you know, in the medicine space. 

So you will go into these treatments, you will drink the medicine. You will feel the effects, you will perch lightly, not everybody does. But yes, it's hallucinogenic, so you might have some visions or the way to heal whatever you're trying to work through will be to actually see it in some way, or it might just be you feel it in your body. There is no rules for how it will go or not go. But one thing is for certain, it facilitates whatever you are trying to achieve. It's an accelerated path to healing.

Dr. Richard Shuster:

And so this is also probably a loaded question, but on average, as you've been around this a long time now, how many sessions should most people take, if there is a number at all, to start having the healing? You clearly said one, you don't advise one. So, you've come in contact with hundreds of people who have done this, if not more. Is there an average number where people start to have breakthroughs?

Melissa Osorio:

There is not an average number. People can start to have a breakthrough from session one. From session one. And it might be that they go to a center where they offer four sessions and the person does one session and they're complete. So, you know, it's just having it available for you to be able to do it more than once if you feel incomplete after your first session. 

Now, what is interesting about this and, you know, I ask the listeners to just open with… listen with curiosity. In the medicine world, you know, the shamans, the people that have been serving these medicines for, you know, probably millennia, they say that the medicine develops a treatment plan when it comes in contact with you the first time. And that treatment plan might just be one or two sessions with a medicine and then that's it. That you clear what you needed to clear, you discover what you needed to discover.  Other people's treatment plan is longer. And they might feel cold to go and drink ayahuasca, sit with ayahuasca many times during their lives. My treatment plan was longer. 

So, I think it also depends on how much you have to clear and also your coping mechanisms to be able to work with a medicine because this is a partnership. This is an intelligent medicine that doesn't work like an Advil. It's not a magic pill that you have a headache and you take it and it's gone. You don't drink ayahuasca for your trauma and then the trauma is gone. You're working with the medicine. 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

So what if somebody's listening to this and they say, "You know, Melissa, this sounds really interesting, but I really don't consider myself to be a person who had trauma. I've never been in a car accident. I've never been assaulted," what's your response to that kind of thinking? 

Melissa Osorio:

Well, my response is an analogy that I give in my book. So I'm just going to repeat it here. Imagine your life and my life as a cup of water. And imagine my experiences, my traumatic experiences as blue dye. Now, imagine your traumatic experiences that you don't think you had as yellow dye. Now, let's dive deep into what trauma can be. Trauma can be literally your mom dropped you off in your aftercare one day when you didn't want to stay and she left, and you were left behind. And in that moment, your little heart failed, unloved and abandoned and ever since you chase women that are unavailable and you try to make them love you. That's just an example. 

Trauma can be your brothers used to pull your hair all the time. They used to bully you all the time. And now you're a bully at work. You don't treat people well. You're unhappy all the time. You want to trick people. You're not an honest person. So, those things. 

So, going back to the analogy, those traumatic experiences, the yellow dye, that might not seem like too much, when you drop the yellow dye in your cup of water, the entire water becomes yellow. The same way that my big traumas were blue, my cup became blue. So the nature of the trauma, the severity does not matter. Your cup of water, your life gets tainted. 

And in many cases, which is one of the things I'm more passionate about, you don't remember the trauma. Your brain hides it as a survival mechanism. So, what my book invites people to do, apart from listening or reading my story, is really a mirror. So, it's consistently inviting them to analyze their own lives because the key to understanding ourselves is to see those patterns of behavior or those emotions that we cannot explain or we cannot change. We know it's not the nicest way to be, but it's just who we are. That's not who you are. That's who you have become because of something that happened that you might not remember.

Dr. Richard Shuster:

The book itself, and I love the title, right? Hidden Memories: How to Discover What's Blocking You From Life and Your Love. So, if somebody reads the book and in the middle you said you have a whole big section about psychedelics and what to do, what not to do, all those things, what comes after, right? Like you take the ayahuasca, you have the breakthroughs, what are the things that you recommend people, after the fact, to keep themselves in a positive place, so they can prevent what's blocking them from life and love?

Melissa Osorio: 

Yeah, so this is a very important question because these treatments are often life-changing. And I find that in general, people go back home and they don't have the tools to be able to properly process and integrate their insights. So, one of the things I recommend for people is to definitely have a plan in place for after they do the experience. And I'm just gonna throw in there, I'm super excited because I am completing an online course that I'm gonna make available for people at the beginning of next year, exactly for this purpose. You go and have an experience, go to a retreat, and then you come to the course, and I'll give you actionable tools, and tips, and different theory and exercises to be able to integrate your experience. 

But just to give you an overview here, self-awareness will become your best friend. You really have to find ways to process your emotions. You're gonna be feeling a lot of emotions and learning the ways that you can process your emotions, especially when they're stored in your body, which is always grounding techniques, ways to release emotion, as well as to be able to handle incomplete insights. Those things that come up and they don't leave you with answers. They might leave you with more questions.  So, you know, it's a process. It's a process for people to be able to transform their lives, but it's possible and more than that, it's incredibly rewarding. 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

Fantastic. Now, it is interesting how much more and kind of the zeitgeist ayahuasca is becoming as well as the medicinal value of other psychedelics. So, your timing is excellent with this. The book is called Hidden Memories: How to Discover What's Blocking You from Life and Love, available everywhere. Melissa, I have loved our time together. As you know, I ask my guests just this one question at the end. What is your biggest helping, that single most important piece of information you'd like somebody to walk away with after hearing our conversation today?

Melissa Osorio:

I would like for them to become more aware of their actions and emotions, not to just live life in autopilot, but question themselves. And if they find things that don't fit, I encourage them to really look for the answers, however they want to, relentlessly. 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

Beautiful. Melissa, tell us where people can learn more about you online?

Melissa Osorio:

Yeah, so my website is melissa-osorio.com. There you have links to the book, both in Audible, which I narrate and it's such a heartfelt experience, Amazon. As well as I share a lot of content in my Instagram, so you can access everything through my website. 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

Perfect. And we'll have everything Melissa Osorio in the show notes at drrichardshuster.com. Well, this has been a really awesome conversation. Melissa, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today. 

Melissa Osorio:

Thank you for having me. 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

Absolutely. And I want to thank each and every one of you who took time out of your day to listen to this. If you liked it, if you're inspired, if you're going to start investigating your own ways to do an ayahuasca ceremony, give us a follow and leave us a five star review on your podcast app of choice,  this is what helps other people finally show. But most importantly, go out there today and do something nice for somebody else, even if you don't know who they are and post in your feeds using the hashtag #MyDailyHelping because the happiest people are those that help others.