What is 1heart?
1heart is a human accelerator designed to fully elevate an individual’s mind, body, and spirit with sacred plant medicine weaved with modern modalities. Over the years, we have invited and guided over 500+ high-performing and aspiring heart-led leaders & creators into our 8-week container (1 week together in Costa Rica) from many business leadership groups, one of which is the respected MyEO community and their leaders.
*This is not an EO event, rather 1heart invited EO members into the journey.
Introduction
Ronen, an EO member who also joined the 1heart Journey 14 cohort, facilitated a conversation with three other EO members to expand on their Ayahuasca experience with 1heart since they were all inspired to share their learnings with those who may be interested in elevating their personal lives and professional leadership in a very unique container.
They cover what an Ayahuasca dieta is, what advice they’d give to someone feeling the call to work with this medicine, their personal highlights, how integrating these life-changing experiences is going, and how 1heart has supported them to show up as better leaders in the world.
Ronen called this conversation unbelievable and shared that “when we all realize that if we actually want to change the world, all we have to do is change ourselves and [when] we lift our frequency we lift the world. So just focus on ourselves in an unselfish way so that we can go out and serve.”
It’s a heartfelt, empowering message from powerful entrepreneurs who believe 1heart is the best container in the world for a first-timer having an Ayahuasca ceremony.
“I was lucky to have had 1heart be my first Ayahuasca experience. I feel very blessed to have been in what I consider probably the best program. [It was[ absolutely the best program for me to experience [Ayahuasca] because it was very reverent and sacred and then [they] tied some very awesome programming around entrepreneurship and living your best life ever so the combination was perfect.” – Mark
And who are Ronen, Mark, Kent, & George?
Ronen was a facilitator in Journey 14 and an EO (Entrepreneurs’ Organization) leader who has supported entrepreneurs on life-transforming journeys with breath and psychedelics for years. He is an internationally Certified High-Performance Coach, entrepreneur, investor, youth & psychedelics expert AND an obsessive breather. Everything he does is driven by the intention to help people find their mental magic, and fast-track their human potential to become the clearest version of themselves.
“I had a debt to settle with Mama Aya. I had done Ayahuasca once before and it was somewhere between a horror show and a comedy show and I swore I would never do it again… Unless I was with an experienced crew and this was a supportive program and it was world class… and then my friend Brandon (1heart CEO) reached out and said I think it’s time for you to come co-host with 1heart and I thought well, Mama is calling. And I absolutely love and respect 1heart and the program and I’ve always wanted to experience it and so for me I treated that as the calling and it was the best decision.” – Ronen
Kent was a Journey 11 cohort participant and a group leader for Journey 14 cohort. As one of the first certified conscious capitalism consultants in the world, Kent has founded or led more than a dozen organizations as well as led many of his consulting clients through successful exits and fundraising over the past 35 years.
Mark has personal and professional experience in the psychedelic space, but never with Ayahuasca. Nurse Mark, as he’s called, is a psychiatric nurse by trade and recovering type A entrepreneur.
And George is a successful entrepreneur and internal explorer, having a background in modalities that deepen one’s relationship to their own and the collective consciousness. George now angel invests in young businesses and facilitates their growth through strategic input and financial assistance.
What advice would they give to someone considering an Ayahuasca experience?
Preparing for an Ayahuasca experience will strongly influence your experience. One of the questions we get the most is how to prepare for an Ayahuasca ceremony. While each organization offers different suggestions and recommendations, some themes around 1heart’s support in Ayahuasca prep that the four J14 alumni and EO members shared were:
- Understanding this is not a vacation. Sitting with the medicine is inviting deep, intense, and courageous work. That mindset has supported countless individuals on our Journeys.
- Having a relationship with self-awareness and your sense of self. This could be yoga, walks in nature, breathwork, cold exposure, writing, or meditation, among other grounding practices.
- Talk to people who have had experience with this powerful medicine. Ask them…
- What did support look like during your ceremonies?
- How did the Shaman(s) make you feel?
- Was there live or recorded music? And how did the music impact your experience?
- What was the dieta like for you?
- How has your life shifted since you sat with Ayahuasca?
What is a dieta? And how does a dieta support the preparatory process for an Ayahuasca ceremony?
A huge part of preparing for Ayahuasca is the dieta. And it’s not just cutting out certain foods. So then what is a dieta? A dieta, which translates to diet in Spanish, is a 2-4 (or more) week period where you refrain from certain foods and activities. Pork and alcohol are the most famous foods to cut out when following a dieta. As for activities, things like sex, excessive screen time, and doom scrolling are also things to refrain from as you prepare for an Ayahuasca experience.
Cutting these things out, even just temporarily, signals to yourself and the medicine that you’re serious about this work. You’re respecting the process, removing what doesn’t serve you, and inviting different, healthier habits into your life.
Kent started early; more than 30 days before the Journey, he eliminated distractions and noise. “[Anything] that would drop on me and zap energy but also to distract me.” He also shared the dieta “became a very spiritual moment because the moment I said yes I’m going to go on this Journey, I committed to the process and I was already with Grandmother Aya. And so I honored that in every step of the way so that the diet is all about sacrifice.”
Mark, being moved by Kent’s words, shared he shut down technology for a week before the Journey. “I very intentionally stopped all of that and it allowed me to just drop into this really meditative space before I ever got on and you’re right Kent, I mean I was with Grandmother from the minute I said yes to 1heart. That’s when Grandmother and I were sitting together and so this was an opportunity to really be in a sacred moment and be committed and disciplined to it.”
While George was grateful for the reading material, books, high level of support, and attention to detail 1heart provide in the preparatory phases of our Ayahuasca ceremonies, Ronen shared he regained his confidence by going cold turkey on his sleeping meds, “but I literally only had five days and so I went to cold turkey and felt like an addict that had just decided to lock himself in a room. So it was a crazy process, so my Journey started before I got on the plane. My journey started when I weaned myself off, and by the time I got to Costa Rica, I really felt like I’d got my confidence back that I could sleep on my own.”
What were your highlights from your time at 1heart?
Ayahuasca experience stories can range on a spectrum from intensely challenging to blissfully peaceful. Many include glimpses into profound insights, sacred interconnectedness, internal power, overwhelming gratitude, crystal clear clarity, spirit animals, ancestral communication, and so many things no words can ever properly paint.
For Kent, among the few big, profound insights, was a deep realization of how important it is to slow down even as a successful entrepreneur. His experience reminded him to “really slow down. Be in the environment [and] take the time to not only self-care but take the time for some really long thoughts. Don’t try to make decisions [so rapidly], let it evolve, and the synchronicities do appear, so that’s been more of a guide as to how my day looks so that it becomes more natural and in flow.”
Mark shared a beautiful message. After an Ayahuasca experience, we often hear that we get what we need, not what we want. If what you needed is what you wanted, consider yourself lucky. For Mark, he learned that pain is a portal. And thanks to the beautiful, safe container of 1heart, he could step through that portal into “this most glorious place.” And like so many other participants, he found himself lying on the grass, soaking the glimmering stars and light of a Full Moon as their Journey coincided with Lion’s Gate, a powerful astrological event.
And while all four men had highlights tied directly to their ceremonies, what stuck with Ronen and George was the community a 1heart experience cultivates.
Ronen spoke about how when we meet in this container, we “meet as humans.” We don’t meet as our achievements, accolades, business successes, or failures. These things don’t matter because they don’t define us. So by seeing a person as they as, we’ve learned to “accelerate a connectedness that transcends time.” Ronen also found it so “beautiful to see over the week how people dropped a lot of their baggage and their hearts started opening.”
At 1heart, we say you’ll come in as strangers and leave as a soul tribe. George felt that sentiment deeply. While he goes on to describe his experience of merging with the creative flow of the Universe, his highlight was less than 48 hours after being socially polite and meeting people he’s never met, he felt “so connected to these people like they were my family after the experience we shared. I’m quite a social person – I’m quite good at creating connections – I’m quite good with people, but to experience that intensity together and then have such a close meaningful bond with people so quickly was phenomenal for me. That was probably the absolute highlight out of everything. That community and that sense of belonging and the knowing that we are all together and we are actually all one even though we were diverse from different places, from different families, from different communities, from different countries, and it really showed me what’s possible when we start acting and thinking from our heart.”
How was your integration? How has your life changed in any way and what has been really good for you?
The question Ronen posed is important and too often underestimated when we have experiences that alter our consciousness. Psychedelic integration, whether at an Ayahuasca ceremony with 1heart or a ketamine experience in a vetted clinic, helps a person cement new agreements, release unhealthy habits, and be supported every step of their newly sensitive way.
What to do after an Ayahuasca ceremony is something 1heart has refined and polished over dozens of Journeys with over 500+ participants. It makes the 1heart container unique: our 5-week integration masterclass to help our evolving soul tribe continue breaking through, breaking down, or building themselves back up.
Ronen described integration perfectly when he said, “the benefits just keep on compounding as you do the work and so what many people do wrong is they go, and they expect everything to be sorted out in ceremony and over time don’t do enough integration, and often it becomes a fleeting experience as opposed to a launching pad for the work that leads you to your best life.”
Are you ready to be launched into soul work that will lead you to your best life?
George begged the question, “Where could I go if I wasn’t taking two steps back every other day? What could life be like?” He shared that he wasn’t “an alcoholic by any means… but this is South Africa, and we drink socially, a lot of the time. I would observe myself, and I say I wish I didn’t have those three glasses of wine last night, and I wish I didn’t have those beers at the rugby or whatever the occasion. it is because it kept bringing my state of being down 10 or 20 percent below what it could be.”
Not that you have to give up alcohol, but since George did, he’s experienced massive shifts. “So since I’ve come back, I haven’t drank in three months, and I have no intention to. I’m feeling better, I’m less inflamed, I’m losing weight, I’m getting stronger. My life is getting better. I’m much clearer, and I know exactly what I’m doing. I’ve been in flow. My meetings have been flowing, I’ve been meeting the right people that I need to meet to make things happen. The fear that I had around what I was doing which is investing in young businesses has dissipated. I’ve realized it doesn’t serve any value and what provides value is actually taking the action and facilitating and helping these businesses come to life and if they don’t, they don’t, but you may as well give all the energy you have available to making it come alive instead of some sort of worry or concern about something you can’t do anything about. So I’m moving at a speed I’ve never done before.”
What daily habits have you established since leaving 1heart?
It’s always interesting to see what people continue, pick up, or release as they settle back into their default world after a life-changing experience with 1heart and/or this sacred medicine. Most people now desire creative outlets, meditative moments, and meaningful conversations, among other soulful consequences.
While Kent beautifully shared, “it’s easy to do the right things when I stay off electronics in the morning in order to act in alignment with my 10 year vision,” it was George’s new habits that pulled at our heartstrings. “I’ve got two little daughters and a beautiful wife and I realized the strength of the power of the word. Sometimes with family you can project on them, a little bit, because you’ve had a long day and now you’re relaxed, just like the kids do to the parents. I now share my love more with my words. That I care for them in that they are enough, that I love them, and I speak to them very softly, and far more often. I hug them more and that’s been a fundamental change in my life and that’s brought a lot of security and comfort to me and makes me feel a lot more safe.”
I‘d love to hear from each of you how you think you’re showing up in the world as a better leader as a result of your 1heart experience.
We couldn’t have asked Ronen to wrap this up with a better question. Many leave 1heart as better versions of themselves, and with integration, we do our best so that their best continues to stick and gain momentum, leaving habits that no longer serve us in the dust.
There were many specifics these four alumni shared, but the themes we noticed were:
- Be less reactive
- Pass fewer judgments
- Have the capacity to understand that we’re all human
- The power of showing love and compassion
- Putting attention on what we can control and releasing the grip on what we can’t
- Be present with our hearts rather than only living in our heads
And leave it to George to close this article with empowerment, appreciation, and delight… “I finally believe something I’ve heard before because I have now experienced it, and it is that life reflects my inner thoughts and feelings. The problem is not out there; if I’m experiencing a problem in the world – it means there’s a problem within me, and I have the power to change it, and when I change it within me, it changes in the world. And every time I do it it blows my mind. And I’ve realized reality molds, to my opinion of it, and the more I experience it, it is more the truth than I’ve ever known the truth.”
