084 Stace Povey: Founder of DreamGlade Shamanic Healing Center

This conversation covers various topics including the use of plant medicines for mood enhancement, the importance of self-awareness and healing, the distractions of technology and social media, the environmental impact of human actions, and the shift from a harmonious relationship with nature to a dominating and profit-driven mindset. Stace also explores the importance of addressing subconscious programming and reprogramming ourselves with positive beliefs and shares his current focus on coaching and helping others heal and develop self-awareness after recently selling DreamGlade.

If you've been following my journey, you might recognize the name DreamGlade, and that's because this is where I first experienced ayahuasca in September of 2022. I largely credit Stace and DreamGlade for the path I'm on now.

Connect with Stace:
Website: https://thehighestversion.coach/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stace_elate/

This episode is Sponsored by Fun Guy. Discover the incredible power of Kanna - known for its mood-enhancing properties that aid in supporting feelings of euphoria, reducing stress, promoting relaxation, and providing a subtle energy lift - through Fun Guy's delicious kanna-infused chocolates, gummies, and tinctures. Order at this link* and use code TRIPSITTING for 15% off your order: https://funguy.com?sca_ref=6166895.8eWv64zfLX

If you are interested in sponsoring an episode of The TripSitting Podcast, send an email to tripsittingblog@gmail.com

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Transcript

Cam
This episode of the TripSitting Podcast is sponsored by Fun Guy. Fun Guy uses Kana, which is a succulent from South Africa and known for its mood enhancing, euphoria inducing, and stress relieving properties. Sometimes it is referred to as nature's MDMA. It is legal in the United States and it is just wonderful. It's super heart opening.

It makes you feel good. They've put it in chocolates, fruit juice, and tinctures. And I recommend using it if at the beginning of the day, you want to just open up your heart and feel that throughout the day. Or if you're looking to go out with some friends and maybe you don't want to use alcohol or any other types of substances, it's a really great thing to have in the tool belt. So you can still be social and still feel good while you're out there and not have to deal with any sort of hangover afterwards.

So order at the link in the footnotes of this podcast and use code TRIPSITTING for 15 % off your order. Again, use the link in the footnotes of the podcast and use code TRIPSITTING for 15 % off your order of fungi products. 

Cam
This week's guest is somebody who has played a huge role in my own personal development. And that is because he is the founder of DreamGlade in Iquitos, Peru, which is the very first ayahuasca retreat center that I ever went to. And I learned so much from him, so much from the medicine. He's got so much wisdom and knowledge to share that I am honored to be able to bring him on this podcast to share this with you. Make sure that you are all following the podcast on whichever podcast streaming platform that you're listening to this on and give us a rating if you feel called to do so. So we get in front of more viewers and then also make sure you're following us on social media at underscore Tripsitting.

Now without further ado, is this week's guest, Stace Povey.

Cam 
How we feeling?

Stace
Okay, a little bit tired, I told you. Didn't sleep so good last night. But I'm good.

Cam
Feeling okay?

Cam
Yeah, any reason that you can pinpoint as to why you had trouble sleeping or just one of those nights.

Stace
It just, it comes in waves. I will sleep really well for months and then I'll just get like a two, three week period where I just, I'm just not sleeping well. And it's funny, my son who is nine years old, he's having the same issue. And we even, talked about it this morning and I was like, you know, I went to sleep and then I was wide awake at like four in the morning. He said, yeah, me too.

which is kind of strange, you know, I didn't really sleep after that. This was kind of, you know, trying half in and out until half past six, well, 20 past six when I had to get up and get the kids ready for school. So, yeah, I'm just looking at myself and going, he looks a bit tired.

Cam 
Hahaha.

Cam 
It's okay. Just give yourself permission to be tired.

Stace 
Well, being tired is actually sometimes a good state to be in because your mind is slower. So you're more in tune with your intuition, you know, and in the process of this interview, I would prefer to be coming from there rather than than there, you know. So I'm just going to create a different screen.

Cam
Yeah, for sure.

Stace
I'm not getting distracted by stuff. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I've got other tabs open and they're flashing at me like messages, messages. Yeah, yeah, turn that off. So yeah, there we go.

Cam
Hahaha!

Cam 
You know, it's funny. So this is for anybody listening to this. This is the second time we were attempting to record this because the first time there were some just technical issues. And I was, as I was going.

Stace 
Yeah. So we won't talk about the UFO visitation and the abduction, no? We'll keep quiet about that, yeah?

Cam 
No.

Cam 
We're just gonna gloss over that. That's old news. But I was going back even when I was editing it and trying to, and I was listening to it. And the funny thing is, as I was listening to it, I honestly thought that

Stace 
Alright.

Cam
was in such like a head space when we did it the first time. like usually I'm gonna, you I've been doing this for a while. I'm pretty fucking good at this at this point. I like how I sound. I like the way that I do these things. And that was an episode where all the technical difficulties aside, I don't think it even actually went super well. I think I was overthinking the fuck out of it.

Stace 
Hahaha.

Stace
Hahaha

Cam
I don't know why I did that. was trying to think this morning, like, why would I have done that? And I think it's cause like, I see you as somebody who has so much knowledge and so much wisdom and so much to learn from that I think I was like a bit nervous and almost feeling this like unworthy sense that like, who am I to like take up your time?

Stace 
Hahaha

Cam 
Just because of all that you've done for me and by that I mean you allowed me to stay at your retreat center for a week to help me figure my shit out and then I left.

Stace 
Yeah, all I can say is that if I could just allow you to have like a five minute peak inside my mind, you would no longer be so impressed or intimidated. I got the same shit going on as everybody else, mate, you know, and we like to think that we got it all sorted by the time we get to my age. I'm 53.

Cam
Mm-hmm.

Stace 
And I kind of had this high hopes that I would have everything sorted out by now. And yeah, I really don't. But it's getting more clear what it is I need to out. You know, there's no hiding from anymore. It's it's it's crystal clear. And I think that's the process that a lot of humans are going through right now. It's like a magnifying glass on our on our issues on our shadow on our ship that we have to we have to work through. Otherwise, it's going to torment us more and more and more. It's just

not going let us go, you know? And it's strange, I was reading about this almost 30 years ago, about this process, and here we are. It's exactly as they explained it.

Cam
Mm -hmm.

Cam 
So you're saying is there are no shortcuts.

Stace 
Honestly, I asked myself why it has to be so fucking difficult. Some days it's like, you know, I look at Gordon, like, really, was this the best you could do? You know, this is the best system you could come up with. I'm sure there's an easier way, you know. But yeah, yeah, here we are.

And I always tell people, know, the first thing always in the process of healing is awareness. You've got to be aware of what needs to be healed. And if you're not aware of what needs to be healed, how can you possibly heal it? Right. So at the moment in my own life, it's all about being very aware. I mean, just glaringly aware of this thing is that I need to heal about myself.

And that's, without even looking at the world, because the world, my God, there's, there's so much work to be done, you know? and it's coming to a head. It's definitely, you can see it, you can feel it, right? I mean, I don't even watch the news. but just feedback I'm getting from other people sending me messages and stuff is like, yeah, things are getting more more intense. I'm hearing here in Europe, in the States, it's

we're heading to a bottleneck. Yeah.

Cam 
Do you think that the more people that commit to doing their own healing and their own inner work will help solve those outer problems? Or do you think focusing on the outer problems is where the focus needs to be?

Stace 
No, yeah, 100%. If you if you're looking at the outer problems all the time, you're pretty much just distracting yourself from the work, the real work that needs to be done. And that's on you. The whole of this manmade reality that we're aware of the planet, you know, I'm talking about our creation is a reflection of the human mind, human consciousness.

So all of the stuff we see out there that is falling apart and in a big old mess, it's reflecting directly the state of our consciousness, you know, collectively. And the collective state of consciousness is made up of individual states of consciousness. And that's the only way we're going to change the collective one is to change the individual one. So I've met people who spend their whole lives

you know, protesting and working for Greenpeace and fighting against all the injustice in the world. And it's a bottomless pit. It's never gonna end. I mean, I see it as a worthy cause, as long as it's not something that's just a means to distract yourself from your own stuff. And that is very often the case.

I'm not saying it's always the case, but very often the case. And it's a way of feeling righteous and putting yourself on a pedestal of like, you know, I'm better than everybody else. So, yeah, it's all, all ego games and tricks. so, yeah, I would say people, I've been getting lots of messages from, from our ex guests from dream place saying, you know, England's going crazy. There's lots

problems here in the States, the States is good, Australia. And they all ask me, what do I do? What do do? And I'm saying, just get centered, get grounded, you know, and try and get into your heart and try not to let it affect you too much. Because if you start adding to it, if you start reacting, getting triggered, taking sides, then you're just adding to the, to the negativity, to the energy. Yeah. And that's what

Stace 
they want. We won't go into who they are, but that's what they want. I've been seeing this whole thing about these, you know, the dubious sexuality of these boxers in the Olympics. And I can't avoid it because it's everywhere. Yeah, it's on Google, it's on Instagram, it's on Facebook. I don't spend a lot of time on these on these sites, but it's just like, boom, boom,

And I haven't commented, I haven't taken a side, I haven't even, you know, just, just bemused by all the how, how angry and how upset and how, how, how everybody feels they're on the right side, you know, and it's just this huge divisions and conflicts. This is like, wow, this is insanity. What's, what's going on with us at the moment? Yeah.

Cam 
It's crazy to me how many people feel the need to voice their opinions on things that have genuinely nothing to do with them. Like you take out most of the things that are happening today and truly look at them like for what they are, regardless of what it does, like how much it's going to affect my individual life, basically zero. So why the fuck?

Stace 
It's like.

Cam 
Am I spending this time and energy like having an opinion about it? Like again, that's just, it's just distracting. Yeah, it's just distracting.

Stace
distraction. It's also, it's more distractions. Yeah. I'm the same. I'm like, how does this affect me? You know, in the beginning, I thought, wow. Yeah, this is that that's really not cool. If this guy was born a man, and then had a sex change operation, then he should not be boxing. Sorry, you know, not against women. That's not fair. But then I found that actually, this person was born with female genitalia. So is that well,

What's the problem? I'm getting confused now. then that was, that's when I kind of just, here's that issue again. Let's just distance ourselves from that. I haven't even watched the Olympics, you know, have no desire to watch it. Why am I getting pulled into this, this, this, argument, this, this, this distraction? Yeah.

Cam 
It's just so, so easy. Like we were so used to being distracted and like being told to care about these things. Like until I started working with Ayahuasca with you and then after that took just a lot of time to myself to be like, okay, what is it that I actually care about? Like I was so unaware of how much I was enthralled in all

the stuff, like it was truly, like, and if you would have told me like, hey, you're spending your energy this way, I would have been like, no, I'm not, like, this is just living my life. And so like getting that awareness is, I mean, as you were saying earlier, like that's the fucking key. I don't know how to really cultivate, like to just give somebody that awareness without them wanting it is the thing. Like, unless somebody is seeking

to do better and heal themselves. I don't know if there's a way to just like snap them out of

Stace 
it's not, it's not really your business. First of all, you know, you, you don't have to save anybody. there was a great metaphor that I read. I don't know where I read it. That if, if you've got a log in a fire and it's burning really brightly, and then you put, you know, a cold log next to that log for 15 minutes.

it's going to pick up the heat and the light, you know, so just being a higher or the highest state of consciousness you can achieve that in itself is affecting that sending ripples. And that's really all we need to do, I think, because otherwise, so easy to get into a preachy mode. You know, and there are so many preachers out there. And I guarantee that they don't

A lot of them don't walk the walk. They talk the talk, you know? So yeah, we've got to be careful with that one. If someone seems genuinely open and interested in a subject, by all means, share, you Or, you know, you can start a conversation about these things just as a test to see where it goes and see how they respond. But we always got to be careful about not getting on our soap boxes.

coming the preacher or the, I am on a higher level than you are kind of bullshit. So, but the other thing I was going to mention, because you're quite young. How old are you? You're maybe 30 something. 27. Yeah. It has the distractions have just exploded since the birth of the touchscreen cell phones.

Because, for a good part of my life, when I was in my twenties, we didn't have those. You know, when I was a teenager, when I was about maybe 12 years old, Atari came out. Right. And I didn't have one. I only one kid had one. We had a lot less distractions. And now you have so much information in the palm of your hand. You know, and so many opinions, so many subjects

Stace
to hook into that it's really hard not to get distracted by it all unless you can just maybe throw the phone away or, know, which is tempting, right? Or just turn it off most of the time and don't look at it. It's extremely challenging as a parent because I have children and they want to look at phones. They want to look at YouTube. They want to play games.

Cam 
Hahaha!

Stace
Then my eldest daughter, now she's 14. She wants to get onto social media. It's all, it's a minefield now as a parent. It's like, Jesus, where do you put limits on this? Where do, how do, how do we control this? Really difficult.

Cam
Yeah, how do you navigate having that conversation with them? Because these things, phones specifically, and every single app, especially social media, they're specifically designed to keep us coming back. They're designed to give us these little hits of dopamine every single time we do something. And then so we're chasing that and we keep going back and back and back and it keeps on. And now there's a whole algorithm that's involved to

Stace 
Sure.

Cam 
give us the curated things that it knows it's going to rile us up. And so how do you go about having that conversation with kids who don't wanna hear any of that shit? Like they could give less of a fuck.

Stace 
It's tricky. mean, my oldest daughter is not here. She's not living with me. She's in the Keto. So I've had that. I didn't notice her getting too into that, but that could have changed. know, so I can definitely have that conversation with her. son is only nine. He's not really interested, but he likes YouTube. He likes to play games.

So we have to give him like a limit of how much time he can play games each day. My youngest, she's one I'm a little bit concerned about because she just loves skimming around on YouTube. So I have to limit that as well. Right. Yeah. You got an hour or two and then that's it. We're turning it off. And I see them just spending so much time looking at screens and that Jesus, it was so much better when we didn't have this. You know, when I was a child in England,

In the 70s, we had three TV channels. That was it. And we had like an hour, two hours of kids programs per day. That was it from like three to five. And they weren't that good. we spent most of my childhood, I just spent outdoors playing on my bike, skateboarding, roller skating, climbing trees, da da da. mean, just being a healthy, fit young, young, young kid, you

Cam 
Ha ha ha

Cam 
And

Cam 
and then also

Stace 
And now clubbing.

But I'm quite grateful that I didn't have these temptations. And even when, you know, was probably 14 years old when arcade games started getting popular, you know, like the big machines and they had like, I put money in the machine.

Cam 
Mm -hmm. Yeah. The thing is, is you had to go somewhere to do that. Like it's still, it's, it's, it still took effort, whereas now it's so effortless. And if you, like, if you go to a lot of, like there are bars and stuff now that exists that are, you know, have like a bunch of those old arcade games and you can just play the games for free. Like, you know, because, because everybody's buying alcohol and everybody's doing that. So like they, just have, have the things there to just keep

Stace 
Cam 
Keep you there and keep you drinking.

Stace 
Yeah. I mean, the whole, the whole internet thing, computer thing, cell phone thing, there are obvious, there are obvious advantages. You know, I mean, you can just find any information you want like instantly. But yeah, we can do this. So there was so many benefits, but do the does the downside outweigh the benefits? Sometimes I think it does.

Cam 
You're dating yourself.

Cam 
We can do this right

Cam 
I think about that constantly about like, yes, it's so cool that we have all this information and that we're able to do this and able to connect with people across the world and shit, but like at what cost? like, it's just that it moved so fast. It moved so fast and it all happened before anybody that was like getting sucked into it had time to think, wait a second, is

Stace 
Sometimes I think.

Cam
what we should be doing. And like it was, I think it was just done without any genuine intention behind it. And then we've only realized.

Stace 
But that's, but that's, that's, that's the whole of human history, pretty much. You know, I mean, it's always, it's about money and profit. That's what it's all about always. Yeah. So, I don't think there was any way of stopping it. It's like they're going head, head first into the AI abyss, you know, which

We've had movies warning us about this, Terminator. Did they not see the Terminator? The Matrix of the possibilities of AI getting to the point where it's saying, hey, I don't need humans anymore. And everyone who has some kind of stake in that research, they all say the same thing. Yes, there is that risk.

Cam
I mean, me as a human, yeah, me as a human, if I'm thinking about it, if I'm thinking that I'm a really smart computer, I think the logical conclusion that I would come to is that we get rid of the humans because we're the ones that keep fucking everything up. So like, even as a human, I can come to that conclusion that like, yes, I absolutely see that and kind of agree with them. So maybe we shouldn't keep doing that and keep going down that road.

Stace
So why do you keep doing it then? This is insanity.

Stace 
Yeah.

Stace 
Yeah. And it's also, again, it's like people losing their jobs because of the AI thing. And the argument is, well, people have much more free time, you No, no, they won't. They'll just have no money and no food. And this is an interesting comparison that was reading a book. God, what was it called, this

Cam
Nah.

That's

Stace 
God, I can't remember, but it was about the slums of Calcutta. think it was a real story, true story about the real, real poor slums of Calcutta in India. And that there were these people in the, the countryside who would create bowls from wood and from ceramics. And for a thousand years, that's how their families made their living. They were the bowl makers.

Yeah, or the bag makers in the village. And these would be brought into the city and sold. And then plastic came on the scene. Plastic bowls, plastic bags, and this whole swaths, swaths, swaths, swaths of people who had traditionally made their living generation after generation after generation, it just ended. And those skills just died.

Nobody wanted to do it anymore because there was no money and you couldn't survive with it anymore. So here you are, this is an example of progress without anybody thinking too much about the repercussions and the consequences that are not great. I mean, I think for me personally, maybe the best and worst invention in history is the plastic bag. Yeah, I mean, it's very handy if you've got a bunch

Cam 
Mm -hmm.

Stace
you know, chicken entrails that you want to get home, you want to put it off some fresh fish. It's much easier to put it in a plastic bag, right? So they're really handy. Or if you're going camping and you want to keep everything separate and dry, know, really useful. But when you go past areas where there's indiscriminate dumping, which happens in Peru, especially in Lima, it's just horrific. And you think of the trillions and trillions of plastic bags.

that are out floating around in the ocean and the rivers and that we are producing daily and just throw one use throw away one use throw away. It's just insanity is that what are we doing? We're really, really messing things up. We got to think about what we're doing. But again, profit comes before thought.

Cam
I remember in college, I took this one course and we were talking about, like talking about environmental impacts. It was like some logistics business course or whatever, but it was silly talking about K -cups, which are like the curate coffee makers and you just put in the cup and it just goes down and talk about how that was like the most successful product that they've ever created. And then also has

Cam 
potentially like one of the worst environmental impacts of any product ever created in history because of just how many are used every single year and how they simply are not able to be recycled in any way, or form. Like I think we produce around 2 billion just disposable plastic cups every year that just get thrown away and they don't decompose and they just stay there. And it's just

It's crazy to think about that. And as consumers, at least like growing up as a consumer, like I didn't think of any of that shit. Like I'm not thinking of the environmental impact because I throw my trash in my thing, the trash service picks it up and then I don't ever have to think about it. Like because we don't have to think about our trash because it goes somewhere far away, like we get to have this illusion of feeling like we're doing the right things.

But like, you know, if there was a trash dump right over there and I had to see it all, I'd probably think twice before I bought some of the things that I buy.

Stace
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I always try and take a, if I go to a market where I always take a big bag of me and I, and I try not to put things in bags and it's, it's, you you have to make a bit of an effort. at least in the States, you've got a recycling program here. It's kind of slow to get off the ground. It's, it's happening, but it's very slow.

Cam
I don't think the recycling program here actually does a lot of the recycling that it says it does from,

Stace 
No, some, some, some countries are really advanced in this, like Sweden, I think it is, is actually importing trash from other countries because they don't have enough trash. And they're creating power, like electricity with the trash. so there are solutions, but, yeah, it's again, going back to that, that point we made in 10 minutes ago is about thinking about things first.

before just going steamrolling ahead. Not even caring about the consequences. know, at end of the day, it's like, well, I can make loads of money and fuck everybody else. I don't care if that's going to be a problem or that's for them or for them. I'm going to be okay. So it's the me, me, me, you know, service of self.

rather than service of others or service of the collective. Yeah, there's two distinct differences. the 99 .99 % of humans on the planet right now is service to self. We're very selfish. We don't care so much about how our actions are affecting other people, right? Or the environment, et cetera. And yeah, it's sad. It's concerning as a parent.

Because I, yeah, I mean, I was 18 years old. I was reading books about, about Greenpeace and about the environment. And it wasn't really a hot topic of those days, you know, people were too concerned. And this is 30 years ago. And I was reading stuff about what was going on around the world. And at one point, it just like just dawned on me. It's

Cam 
fucking bleak man

Stace 
We're in trouble if we don't change. We're in deep shit. Like you can say, this is where we are. And you just draw the lines forward. And at some point, we're gonna get to that point where we cannot sustain ourselves or the planet cannot sustain us

Cam 
Yeah, the planet cannot sustain us as humans. The planet's gonna be fine. The planet has a way of figuring itself out. Whether we stay on the planet during that process, that has yet to be seen. I think that if we continue down this path, we're simply not gonna be there. Like everything that we're doing should be thinking generations ahead. But we obviously tend to think about ourselves and our lifetimes. What can we do right now?

Stace 
Planet's gonna be fine. Yeah.

Stace 
Yeah. Yeah.

Cam 
and fuck that, like I'm gonna be dead, I don't care. like, you know, thinking about the collective involves me, us thinking, okay, what are my potential great, great, great, great grandchildren? How are their lives going to be? How is what I do right now and what we do collectively going to affect that? And understanding that these things take so much time and to tie this all back to just like healing in general.

Stace 
Yeah, exactly.

Cam 
It takes time. it's not, with ayahuasca, it's not like you go to an ayahuasca retreat and then all your shit's fixed and you get back and your life's perfect. It's a step in a very, very long process that in my opinion doesn't ever actually end. There's always more work that will need to get done as you continue to do

And I think it just made me a lot more comfortable with that fact of realizing that, okay, this is a process, it's slow, it's not supposed to happen overnight. It's taking one minute step in a new direction every single day and just trusting that that's gonna continue to get me to a better place wherever it is I'm trying to go. But like, that's it.

Stace 
Yeah, I mean, I've been reading recently about, you know, our history, if you want to understand the present, read about the past, right? But be careful of the sources. Because, want to say history is written by the winners, winners. So you have to read some some information that is unbiased as possible, and realize that pre Christianity, Europe was pagan.

Cam 
Mm -hmm.

Stace 
Basically, what does it mean to be pagan? means that they were very connected to nature and they worshiped nature. And it was a very feminine energy. They understood the balance of male and female and that both had to be respected. Both had to be honored that nature and humans were connected. We couldn't destroy our environment. Yeah, we had to take care of Mother Earth.

Cam
We are the environment. We are part of the environment.

Stace 
Yeah, we had to. Yeah, we are part of it. And this was the predominant human consciousness all over the planet. You know, whether you were in African tribes, or North American Indian tribes, or Central American, you know, Mesopotamian culture, or the Incas or the Maya, or the Aboriginals in Australia.

They're all pretty much on the same level. And then something changed, especially in Europe, Middle East as well. You had a couple of very big religions were birthed or created, know, Christianity, Islam, and they were similar in that it got very patriarchal. It became male dominated. It became this separation from nature.

especially female nature energy, and it became focused on dominating and conquering nature rather than living in harmony with it. And you can see that difference like in the rainforest of Peru and the Amazon, which I've spent quite a bit of time in, that the indigenous tribes spent thousands and thousands of thousands of years living in perfect harmony in this environment.

The Europeans arrived and they hated it. Why did they hate it? Because it made them feel so small and insignificant. Because it's so powerful and it's so brutal. And if you don't know what you're doing, you're dead in a couple of days, you know, because it's, it's, it's, it's heavy. It's a very serious environment. And the Europeans from day one wanted to dominate it, wanted to profit from it. And we're very frustrated.

by the fact that they couldn't. And then, you know, and for a group of tribal people to cut down a big 300 year old tree, would take them a month with literally stone age tools, yeah. And then the Europeans arrived with steel and they had axes. They could do it in a few days. Couple of guys working together. And then chainsaws were invented. Wow, you could do it in an hour. Yeah, bulldozers.

Stace
Then you start, then they start stripping and clearing the jungle, destroying it, dominating, conquering it, profiting from it. Yeah. They've been very frustrated man in these areas for a long time. There's all this area and we can't get anything from it. Yeah. We can't win any, get any money from it. and it's a very feminine energy as well. And then it's, and they've just destroyed it. And, know, and I don't want to go into an anti -religion rant,

They were treating the indigenous people all over the world, whether it was in North America, Central America, South America, Australia, South Pacific, Africa, treating indigenous people and their pagan earth worshipping beliefs as devil worshippers, and they were killing them and destroying their cultures. So there's been this split that happened, you know, probably 1500 years ago, 1700 years ago, where we branched off.

into a very dangerous direction. And we are now seeing the result of that, the end product of this separation from nature, separation from this, the feminine energy, and this, attitude of the earth owes us something that we it's, there to be plundered and conquered and destroyed and dominated. Yeah. so yeah, it's interesting times. What's going to happen? We, we, need to

Cam 
Yeah,

Stace 
Correct that course. We've been off course for a long time. We need to correct course. If we don't, then yeah, maybe Earth will just shake us off like a bunch of fleas.

Cam 
Yeah, the idea and like there's always something that a lesson that I had learned before when I was with you, but that came to me again over the weekend when I was sitting in ceremony is like, we can always choose to turn towards the light. Like we can always see the light even in the darkest times. Like it's up to us to be able to do that. There's humor in all of this. Like this is all a big cosmic joke of us even thinking that we can.

dominate the universe and that we can control and make a difference of these things that we truly have absolutely no fucking control over whatsoever. And the whole idea of killing other beings in the name of God, like that's objectively really funny to me.

Stace 
Yeah, was it's it's insanity. It's total insanity. Yeah. But it was for a long time and still today, but you know, not as extreme but for a long time. They felt completely justified and completely righteous about what they were doing. They were working with God on their side. So you know, if I had to mutilate and torture people and kill them.

And God was all for that. you know, it's like, okay, in the name of God, and if we could get rich in the process, awesome. And, know, and the organizations that God, you know, middlemen, get, got, got extremely rich, you know, and so now, you know, Islam and Christianity, the two most biggest, richest corporations on the planet. Yeah.

Cam 
In the name of God.

Cam 
God created the church, what do mean?

Stace 
So, you know, I don't want to upset people out there who are religious, whatever, or, or I would say is if you're going to worship someone like Jesus, you can just do it directly. You don't need the church, you know, you don't need the Bible. the Bible has been heavily edited over hundreds and hundreds of years by different people. And their main aim was to control and get profit and power. Yeah.

Cam 
Mm -hmm.

Cam 
control.

Stace 
There's, I think it's six gospels in the Bible. But they discovered that there was a whole bunch that weren't included, like another 25. And they omitted from the Bible because they didn't work for the... Yeah, didn't fit the agenda, right?

Cam
Didn't really work with what I'm trying to do here.

I mean, the funny thing about working with these medicines too, and like really just going down the more spiritual path is you can see, you can actually begin to really see a lot of the truth within those original religious, like spiritual teachings. Like at least for me, I felt more connected with the teachings of Jesus Christ after my experience with ayahuasca. And that's as a Jewish man, by the way, who never spent any

giving a fuck about any of that. I was like, I saw the genuine truth in it and then I saw how it's been changed in order to help control some people a little bit. And let's just change this wording, veer this, take out some stuff and now it's perfect.

Stace 
Exactly.

Stace
Yeah, I mean, we're talking all pretty much all organized religion. It's all been adulterated and edited and changed in order to suit the needs of the people in charge. Right. But these the figures at the root of these religions like Jesus Christ or like Buddha or like who's at the root of the Jewish faith. don't know. Abraham.

Cam 
Abraham, Moses, there's like a couple of

Stace
Yeah, there were some very highly spiritual beings that possibly reached a level of consciousness that we all aspire to. Right. And they were way showers. They came down and had these lives and shared this experience with as many people as possible to show people this is what is possible. You can do this, you know, but yeah, unfortunately it it got a bit twisted down, down

down the line. Like I say, I don't want to add any bit. I've had arguments with Christians and they're like, know, the Bible is the truth and blah, blah, blah. And I said, have you ever have you ever researched the history of the the of the church, especially the Catholic Church? Because if you do, if you read and I'm not saying you know, not read Catholic books and saying read unbiased books about what actually happened, you'll be horrified of the things that they did.

Cam
Just a tad.

Stace 
to people. mean, they killed a million women in Europe in the century. One million women were killed for being witches and they were tortured first, you know, usually for days or weeks. And when they finally confessed, which of course you're going to, then they were burned at the stake. You know, I mean, this this is horrific, demonic. And yet this was completely normal in those times, you know, in the history of the church.

So I would always say to people, yeah, do some research before you blindly following any organization or religion or cult, right?

Cam 
Yeah, it's hard and I feel for people that are very attached to like their belief systems, even if they're doing it in a good name or like, they're not trying to be dicks about it. Let's say whatever, they're not going out and killing people and being hypocrites and stuff, which a lot of people are, but like, it has to do

like their identity, their whole identity has been built on this thing that they believe is good and has done good in the world. And like all of the shame and the guilt that will come up when they realize that there's maybe it hasn't been the greatest thing over the course of history and then they've completely lost their identity. Like that's very uncomfortable to come to terms with.

And so I see why people would want to try to hold onto that for as long as they possibly can and never give that up because they won't necessarily know what to do without that. And it's tough. And I don't want people to be in complete disarray because, know, that again, that's just creating more and more chaos.

Stace
Yeah, yeah, it's,

Stace 
Sure. I've met Christians, Christians who really were or are good people and really try to live as much like Christ as possible. And I commend these people, you know, but they they seem to be in the minority in my experience. So yeah, I don't want to, I don't want to go religious bashing.

Cam 
Yep.

Stace
But we do have to, like you say, we have to be really honest with ourselves. We have to, and that's a hard one. Most people don't want to go there.

Cam 
Yeah, that honesty is, it's hard to be honest with ourselves when it comes to fucking anything. mean, just over this past weekend, I just at this point where I was looking for some more clarity and so like the first night I kind of got some clarity as to what it was that I needed to focus on and I realized that there was some self doubt in these things I was holding onto. And so the second item I was like, just help me let go.

Help me let go of whatever it is that I need to let go of. And then that took me to a place that I was just so unaware that I was still harboring all of these feelings towards. One of those nights where it's truly like, yeah, she's gonna give you what you want, just not in the way that you're, like, she's gonna give you what you need, not necessarily what you want. Like, she gave me exactly what I asked for, just not in the way I wanted it to happen. But it was what needed to happen of like, you know, these feelings of shame and guilt that I've been just carrying.

that I had no idea that I have even been caring for so long about this thing that happened so fucking long ago in my childhood. I'm like, well, I guess that's been subconsciously weighing on me for my entire life. So I'm glad I get the opportunity to deal with it, but some heavy shit sometimes. It's like, don't, like, come on, like I've got other stuff to do right now. Can we not dredge this up right now?

Stace
Yeah, mean, it's, it's, ayahuasca is, is, is very good at bringing stuff from the subconscious into the conscious. And, and often it's stuff that people weren't even aware of, you know, it could be lived 30 years on this planet and never really understood what was going on in the background. And if you want to understand

the programming is going on in the background, you need to look at your first seven years of life on this planet. That's a really important time in every human's life. Because the brain frequency wave, the waves of the brain are much slower. Theta, which is T -H -E -T -A, which is a kind of

Cam
Why the first seven?

Stace
a suggestive state, like a trance. Yeah. And basically we are just sponges with just sucking in information without analyzing too much. Yeah. And I do coaching work with people and the first few sessions, put an emphasis on them going back into those years and really trying to figure out what kind of programming did you pick up at that time?

because those programs are running in the background in the subconscious your whole life. And whenever you're not conscious, I whenever you're not present, which is most of the time, right? The subconscious programs take over. Yeah, so they're just running the show. This is why people who are kind of on a spiritual path and have read all the books and done the courses

are often very frustrated because they know what they need to do. They know which changes they need to make, but they can't seem they keep slipping back into same dysfunctional patterns. Why is that because the subconscious programs have not been addressed, have not been changed? Yeah, have not been brought to the forefront to the front of the mind.

Cam 
Like you're trying to essentially add programming on top of that rather than go back and maybe tweak the original programming.

Stace 
Yeah, they're very hard to budge because they're uploaded. You can look at them as, you know, uploaded onto a hard disk at a time when it's very easy to upload. But when you get to an adult state, your mind is working at much higher frequency. Yeah, alpha states, beta states.

It's very hard for the conscious mind to change stuff in the subconscious. It's like a barrier in between the two. You call it the analytical mind. And one of the ways to hack into those subconscious programs is to slow the mind down. How do you slow the mind down? Meditation, chanting, drumming, really good one. Yeah. That's why shamanic practices often use drums.

and I'll often do it as very slow beat, getting slower and slower, that as a process of slowing the brainwaves down, getting you into a trance -like state. And then you are much more open to new programs being put in there. So the first thing is to understand what programs are running in the background. And then the second stage is to think, well, do I like these programs? The second stage

Cam 
How is this best serving me at the moment?

Stace 
Yeah, is this best serving me? And if they're not, how can I change these programs into something that is more in alignment with my present state? Yeah. My present beliefs. So it's well known, you know, there was a famous quote by our snack. Was it this sacrifice? Yeah, can't remember the guy. He said, Give me give me the man.

Give me a child until he was seven years old and I will show you the map. Right. So he was talking about this exactly. The Sioux Indians, I don't know if we talked about this the first time, the Sioux Indians, which are a tribe, I think from California, yeah, who were very spiritual people. And they had ways of controlling childbirth, pregnancy through, through herbs, plants and stuff and observing cycles.

And when they had a child, they would practice contraception for seven years because they believe it took seven years to make a good suit. Right. So there's these clues left around, you know, in the older cultures that they understood very clearly. There was a very important time. It was like the building blocks of that hope that person's whole life. So.

If you want to get down into the dirty stuff, yeah, drink some ayahuasca, some psychedelics, they help. get you in there or just write about what was going on at that time and try and pull together a general, a summary of, right, so what were my influences? What programming was I receiving at that time? You know, in my case as a,

you know, a child in the seventies of hippie parents, very hippie parents, you know, we didn't have sofas in my house. We had cushions on the floor. have murals on the floor, on the ceiling. I was vegetarian. I had a girl's name. I was like the only dude, I was the only dude in England called Stacy, right? I had long hair. My mom would let me cut it. And you can imagine that primary school years, which is those first seven years, I got a lot of negative attention. Yeah.

Cam 
Ha ha

Cam 
That must have been rough.

Stace 
And so, and you know, how did I deal with it? I just used to punch kids, you know, just come out swinging. My father was very fiery, my mother as well. So that's where I got it from. And I looked back and I'm like, okay, so what did I learn? What programming did I pick up at that time? was what the world was a hostile place that I was not normal, that I was not accepted, that the people around me would attack

and, and, and, mock me or pick on me at the slightest provocation. And I had to be ready to defend myself at all times and attack if need be. And, and, know, this is recent, the last few years where I actually did this work and look back with a gulp. It was like an uncomfortable gulp in my throat. was like, shit that, that program has been running in the background my whole life. I've, that's how I've seen the world around.

just ready for the attack and ready to defend myself at all times. And I looked at it said, you know, it's served me well in many instances. It's actually not been a bad thing because the world is a hard place. Yeah, it can be. And it's not a bad thing to be able to defend yourself and be tough. But I was looking at it now at my age, it's like, is this serving me now? No.

Cam 
It can be.

Stace 
Not really. It's causing me problems now and I need to change it. So one of the things I recommend to my clients and myself, I've done it is to create a new program, such as, you know, in my case, the world is a benevolent place. I am loved. I am respected. I am supported. I am accepted and create like a mantra, you know, a sentence or two.

and just repeat it all the time over and over and over and over repetition, it kind of sinks in it breaks through that barrier into the subconscious. It's a bit like, you know, had a great and an illuminating experience whilst I was doing this work is that I had a kettle that I because I love my tea, right? I'm an Englishman. And I had a kettle that I would use every five, six times a day to make my tea and the bottom was on the bottom of the kettle. So I'm pressing the button.

and then the kettle broke and I had bought a new one and the button was on the top. Yeah. And how, how, for how much time do you think I've kept going to the bottom of the kettle? That took me a long time, a month. It took me a month. So there was, there was a very clear example of subconscious programming. I've been doing that same thing over and over and over for years, because that kettle we had for years, it

Cam 
years.

Stace
programmed into my subconscious. So I wasn't even thinking about it anymore. It's just like click, click, click automatically. And then when it comes to try and change that programming, it was very stubbornly just saying, no, the buttons on the bottom, the buttons on the bottom. What are you doing? What are you doing? What do you mean it's on the top? So through repetition of going to the top, going to the top, going to the eventually we replaced that programming with the new programming, right? But it takes

Cam 
Hahaha

Cam 
Yeah. And you have to be consciously going to the top of the kettle every single time, being aware and being present with the fact that I'm going to the kettle and I'm turning the kettle on at the top right

Stace 
Yeah, I

Stace 
Right. And I'm doing it as much as possible. So this is what I get my clients to do is like, well, we're going to create some new programs and you're going to write it down. And then you're going to say this to yourself as many times as possible each day, 50 times a day, a hundred times a day. And if you can keep it up for a month, you're going to create some new programs in your subconscious. All right. It's very simple. And finally, in one of my clients,

I'm actually explaining this and he said, I have a degree in psychology. And I was like, shit, I got really uncomfortable. I'm like, so you, I'm not telling you anything you don't know already. And he said, no, we didn't, he said, we didn't learn any of this stuff. And I'm like, what? What? How is this possible? I couldn't, I was just completely dumbfounded. Wow. That is like the most important part of psychology and you didn't even teach it to him. Or maybe he was absent in those classes.

But yeah, it's very effective, but more effective if you can slow the brain down first. Slow the brain waves down. Drumming. You drum, right? I can see you drumming. If you drum for 10 minutes, how does it make you feel?

Cam 
If you can get into, I do now, yeah.

Cam 
man, I'm relaxed. I'm in flow. Yeah. Yeah.

Stace 
Yeah, you've slowed your brainwaves down. That would be a very good time when you finish drumming to do the mantra for five minutes. The new programs, this is all right, you I don't want to, and you don't, you don't put in negatives. You don't say, I don't want to do this or I don't want to be this. You just put in positives. You know, the, I am, yeah, I am, this is exactly. So it's,

Cam 
Like, I am, this is,

Stace 
It's something, yeah, I practiced it myself and I practiced with others and it works. It's pretty simple. The only time it's a problem is that if they don't remember those first seven years.

Cam 
Yeah, what are the?

Cam
Yeah, I remember one of the exercises that you told us about during the retreat that you tell to a lot of people is that to like go in their journal, set a timer or something and just think about something from their past, like, know, some sort of moments, whether it was a moment where they had fear, felt shame, regret, anything like that, and just write it down in as much detail as they possibly can, not trying to analyze

just writing the factual ideas of like what happened. And then at the end of it, take that and then burn it and throw it away.

Stace 
Yeah, mean, the most important part of that process is you're trying to bring out repressed emotions. Because we are repressing emotions all the time.

Cam
But then being able to let go of those emotions, like while you're writing, yes, I remember I was doing that.

Stace 
Yeah, it's not, it's not, it's not even a question of letting go. It's question of accepting them. Actually, you want to let them in. Because when you, when you try and let stuff go, it's like, I'm trying to get this thing that I don't like so much away from me. And that doesn't work. That's resistance. Actually, you have to own it. This is mine. This is my pain. This is my rage. This is my sadness. When we have negative judgment about what we're feeling, we're repressing.

And this is most people all the time. And it's not our fault. We were told as children, don't be sad, don't cry, don't get mad. We were given very clear instructions that these emotions are not good and these emotions are good. So if you're feeling the not good ones, you're failing. Wrong, wrong, bad. So people are like, I feel really sad today.

Cam 
Hahaha.

Cam 
Put them down. Shove them deep down.

Stace 
shit, what's wrong with me? I shouldn't be feeling this way. I'm such a loser, right? Which of course creates more sadness. And then you just keep get caught up in that loop for years. And then you go to the doctor, I've been really unhappy for a year now. Doctor says, yeah, there's something wrong with you. You need to take some pills. I've got just the pills. There you go. Which doesn't fix the problem. It just buries the sadness just like any other addiction.

Cam 
Yeah you should.

Cam 
Yeah. Just cycle.

Stace
Yeah. And that's pretty much what addictions are all about. It's just hiding from the pain. whether it's, you know, smoking a crack pipe or smoking cigarettes or drinking too much alcohol or jerking off to internet porn or eating lots of junk food, which is the number one addiction in the USA right now. You know, I mean, it's more 60 % of people are obese now. yeah, using food as a way of coping with the pain.

Cam 
Something like that.

Stace 
right, because people don't want to feel the pain, they feel uncomfortable about feeling the pain, they beat themselves up for having the pain in the first place.

Cam
Yeah, there's so much shame around even having the pain in the first place that like this idea that I should have never even felt like this and now I'm ashamed of myself for it for even, yeah.

Stace
Exactly.

Stace 
Yeah. So adding even more pain onto it, you know, and you keep doing that for years and years and there's no outlet for that emotional pain. And then you get pulled to, you know, addictive behavior that is possibly probably not very good for your body, you know, whether it's junk food or alcohol or drugs or whatever. And then you do that, you know, for another 10, 20 years and then you get really sick.

know, at some point, the body is just, I've had enough. I can't, I can't survive anymore under this, you know, toxicity, physical toxicity, emotional toxicity, both of them are as bad. And they go hand in hand. You know, cancer is a relatively modern disease. Our ancestors going back 100 years or more, didn't get cancer much. It was very rare, you know, and they keep

putting all this emphasis on, we're trying to find the cure for cancer and all the big, all the big corporations are throwing in McDonald's has thrown in a hundred million and Taco Bell has thrown in 10 million and KFC. So they know it's their shit that is causing the disease. But nobody's talking about that. You know, I mean, now it's starting to get there a little bit. It's starting to progress, you know,

Cam
Nah,

Cam 
We're trying to solve problems that we created in the first place without addressing the fact that we created the problem. We're not going to the root of it of being like, well, this is when this happened, this is when we veered off. Let's go back to that thing and let's stop that.

Stace 
Yeah, but at that point where you get really sick, it's a crisis point. And it's an opportunity for you to see the light, realize that this thing was probably self created, and that you have the power to change your life and have to heal yourself. And I've met many people, you know, living in the Kittos for 15 years, I met many people who came from Western countries who were terminally ill with AIDS, with cancer.

Cam 
You gotta own it. Gotta own that shit though.

Stace 
who were told by their doctors they had no chance, know, say goodbye to the relatives kind of thing. Went out into the jungle, spent a year dieting with plants, drinking ayahuasca, doing a lot of work on themselves, know, clearing the emotional backlog of 30 years and curing themselves, healing themselves completely. And I had conversations with these people and they always said the same, emotional toxicity, physical toxicity. These are the two big issues you've got to deal with to heal yourself.

So the writing exercise is a very simple one is that you write about the painful experiences in your life, whether it was yesterday or 10, 20 years ago, and you bring deliberately bring up the pain, the sadness or the rage or the shame, whatever it is, without going into the story of why and allowing yourself to feel it in a safe, controlled way, accepting it fully and accepting yourself fully for feeling it and it will leave all the way

And that is such a practice to do, you know, if you do that every day for a month, you can clear years and years of this, of this, you know, toxic energy. Sadness. I always say to people, sadness is the number one most important, most useful emotion we have. Yet it's the one that everyone's trying to avoid. Like it's the plague. It's like, if you're unhappy, you're failing at life. No, you know, if you looked

Cam 
Mm -hmm.

Stace 
the world lately. If you're not unhappy, okay. Yeah, if you're not unhappy, okay, occasionally, there's something wrong with you. Yeah. It is a very healthy reaction to a highly dysfunctional world. When we are sad, we are forced to make changes. We are forced to take a good look at ourselves. We are forced to take drastic measures like going off to Peru and drinking ayahuasca.

Cam 
We should be sad.

Stace 
Yeah, or going on that yoga retreat or that healing retreat.

Cam 
or afterwards coming back and quitting my job and moving across the country.

Stace 
Exactly. Making big positive changes normally started with us feeling unhappy. So let's stop treating it as the enemy. It's our friend. It's our biggest friend, our biggest teacher. So when you feel unhappy, stop feeling, I'm really sad today and it's okay. I'm allowed to feel this way. Yeah.

Cam 
Powerful, man. I wanna wrap this up just cause I know that we only got limited time here. One, thank you so much for coming on and having this conversation with me. This has been truly a pleasure. I'm very happy to be able to connect. As I said, you've played a pretty big role in where my life has gone over the past couple of years. What are you up to now? Just cause we never really got a chance to get into that. Like how can people connect with you and all that.

Stace 
I'm like house husband at the moment because my partner is out working full time. And I'm actually quite happy to just spend lots of time at home and taking care of my kids, them to do the school runs every day, doing the shopping I got to do in the afternoon, go to the supermarket and also fixing up this house that we bought. So, and I'm not like desperate

to desperate to run head first into another big, time consuming business. Because I did that for 13 years where I was just working obscene hours every week, 70, 80 hours a week, you know, bringing bread to the table and being very successful, but neglecting myself and neglecting my family. You know, so my idea.

you know, the last six months or so is to see if I can do some coaching online. because it gives me the freedom to choose my own hours. it also allows me to share some of my experience because I have a lot of experience that we've had, you know, two and a half thousand people, two and a half thousand people came through the healing center, all needing to be healed or go through that process and being there with each, each one of them. You know, can't fail to learn

Cam 
That you do.

Stace 
If you're, if you're paying attention, which we were so, yeah, we picked up a lot of tricks along the way. So I've had some clients. It's not, it's not a huge number, which I'm happy about. I've had some, I've got some, at the moment that I'm working with and sharing with them my tricks and tools for self development for

Cam 
Hahaha!

Stace 
a lot of the damage that was done by our families, parents, school system, the world. And so far been really successful, know, really happy clients. They really like the work that we're doing. So yeah, this is something I feel like I need to continue doing. I enjoy it. It puts me in touch with my own work that I need to do.

Cam 
It's awesome.

Stace 
It reminds me, because when I'm reminding other people, it's when I'm reminding myself, right? So it's a win -win situation as far as I'm concerned. And it allows me, yeah, to spend more time at home and spend more time with my family and just slow down, you know? Because I spent so many years in a big rush all the time. And I realized in the last couple of years, I need to slow down.


Cam 
think we all need to slow down a little bit.

Stace 
Yeah, sure. But it's hard if you're in a big city, you know, like New York or London or LA. Good luck with that. It's easy where I am, you know, I mean, I'm on the outskirts of a small town, big garden, lots of nature around, nice old farm cottage that we bought. It's a slower pace. I like it. You know, but obviously I have to make a living. I have to pay the bills.

So it's finding that balance. That's what I'm striving for right now. Finding that balance.

Cam 
Well, beautiful. Thank you again for sharing. I appreciate you. I've got so much love for you. yeah, cheers.

Stace 
Thank you for inviting me, mate. It's been a pleasure. I think this one flowed a bit better. I agree. And the last one, hopefully you got some stuff, some good stuff in there that you can edit in and out. know, we'll, we'll let it down to 10 minute YouTube clip. All right, mate. Lots of love to you and good luck with it all. Yeah. Okay.

Cam 
100.

Ha ha ha

Cam
It's perfect. It always is. Cheers mate.

Cam
That is all I got for you this week. Thank you everybody for listening. Thank you Stace for coming on and sharing your knowledge with the world. If you want to get in contact with me, shoot me a DM on social media or send me a email. My email is tripsittingblog at gmail .com. If you're interested in just talking, if you're interested in sponsoring the show, collaborating in any way, I'm always happy to hear from people. Much love. We'll see you next episode.