Ayahuasca Integration Podcast

David Vox

The Ayahuasca Integration Podcast is the only podcast in the world devoted entirely to the art, science, and lived reality of ayahuasca integration, — before, during, and long after the ceremony. Whether you’re preparing for your first journey, finding it hard to return to daily life after retreat, or supporting others as a space-holder or coach, this podcast offers real frameworks, real conversations, and real community. Episodes explore all dimensions of integration — emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical — with a focus on embodied practices.

  1. Death as Sacred Medicine: Ayahuasca Integration with Tina “Kat” Courtney from Plant Medicine People

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    Death as Sacred Medicine: Ayahuasca Integration with Tina “Kat” Courtney from Plant Medicine People

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

    43 min
  2. Ayahuasca and the Collapse of the False Self: Five Ways Your Identity “Breaks” Free

    31 ENE

    Ayahuasca and the Collapse of the False Self: Five Ways Your Identity “Breaks” Free

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

    44 min
  3. When Ayahuasca Reveals Pain That Is Not Yours: The Ancestral Healing Vortex

    24 ENE

    When Ayahuasca Reveals Pain That Is Not Yours: The Ancestral Healing Vortex

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

    48 min
  4. Your Service After Ayahuasca: From Healing to Holding Space

    12 ENE

    Your Service After Ayahuasca: From Healing to Holding Space

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

    44 min
  5. Too Much Light: Integration Through the Lens of Kabbalah

    12 ENE

    Too Much Light: Integration Through the Lens of Kabbalah

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

    59 min
  6. Where Are You Losing Your Feathers? Inner Child Integration and Restoring Inner Power

    12 ENE

    Where Are You Losing Your Feathers? Inner Child Integration and Restoring Inner Power

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

    42 min
  7. Integrating Your True Gifts After Ayahuasca: The Golden Shadow

    11 ENE

    Integrating Your True Gifts After Ayahuasca: The Golden Shadow

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

    57 min
  8. What Happens After Ayahuasca? When Healing Turns Into Service

    4 ENE

    What Happens After Ayahuasca? When Healing Turns Into Service

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

    15 min

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The Ayahuasca Integration Podcast is the only podcast in the world devoted entirely to the art, science, and lived reality of ayahuasca integration, — before, during, and long after the ceremony. Whether you’re preparing for your first journey, finding it hard to return to daily life after retreat, or supporting others as a space-holder or coach, this podcast offers real frameworks, real conversations, and real community. Episodes explore all dimensions of integration — emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical — with a focus on embodied practices.