The Expansion Container
Trauma-Informed Preparation & Integration for Your Plant Medicine Journey
Stepping into sacred plant medicine requires more than just showing up, it asks for genuine physical, mental and nervous system readiness. We provide comprehensive online preparation before you travel and dedicated integration when you return home, ensuring your experience is grounded, safe and sustainably woven into daily life.
Is Grandmother Ayahuasca Calling You?
If you’re reading this, chances are Ayahuasca has been sitting in the back of your mind for a while. The call of plant medicine rarely sounds like a loud demand. More often, it’s a subtle, persistent nudge: stumbling upon books, listening to podcasts, or feeling your heart skip a beat every time someone shares a ceremony story.
Maybe you’ve reached a point in your life where you’ve done the mindset work, the therapy and the personal development, but you can still feel a block stored in your physical body that logic alone just cannot shift. You know you are ready to meet yourself on a deeper level, unwind old patterns and step into true alignment. You just need the right doorway.
High-End Support Meets Traditional Medicine
Stepping into the Amazon jungle to meet Mother Ayahuasca is a profound leap. For many, traveling to a center independently can feel daunting. How do you prepare your nervous system? How do you know how to navigate intense ceremony states? And how do you make sense of everything when you land back in the modern world?
That is where we come in.
We are not shamans and we do not serve plant medicine ourselves. Our role is to be your grounded bridge.
We combine trauma-informed somatic practices, conscious breathwork and nervous system regulation with traditional plant medicine wisdom. We walk alongside you online before and after your retreat so you never have to navigate the depths raw or feel lost upon returning home.
Choosing the Right Center & Honouring Lineage
When it comes to plant medicine, we hold traditional lineage with deep reverence. Sacred medicine is an initiation, not a tourist attraction or a box to tick.
Whether you are traveling to the Amazon, the Sacred Valley, or sitting in a dedicated center abroad, choosing where you journey matters deeply:
Honoring Lineage & Safe Space: We advocate for centers that honor authentic, traditional master plant dietas and prioritize participant safety, ethical facilitation and experienced healers.
The Power of Simplicity: Real medicine work is not about luxury, it is about the clean, focused container created by the shamans, the plants, and the diet.
A "Little Goes a Long Way": Traditional medicine is potent. When your physical and energetic systems are properly prepared, you do not need overwhelming doses to do profound, life-altering work.
A Loving Reality Check: The Jungle is Raw
To step into this initiation, you have to leave modern comforts at the door:
Rustic Accommodations: Most Centre have simple wooden rooms, plain beds, screens and basic fans.
Simple Living: Cold jungle showers, limited Wi-Fi, heat, humidity and the raw sounds of the rainforest.
Traditional Dieta: Good, nourishing food, but intentionally bland and unseasoned to honour the plant spirits you are dieting.
This trip will challenge your body, mind and spirit - not just inside the ceremony room, but throughout your entire stay. This is precisely why our support container exists. When the environment or the medicine gets intense, you won't have to navigate it alone.
Why Trust Us? Years of Lived Experience
We don't guide from textbook theory; we guide from a decade of our own lived experience.
Over the last 14 years, both of us have walked through the depths of our own inner work, medicine journeys, deep somatic training, and nervous system work. We know what it feels like when the medicine cracks you wide open and we know exactly what tools are needed to regulate your nervous system when overwhelm hits.
By integrating everything we’ve learned across multiple modalities: breathwork, meditation, somatic tracking, energetic boundary work and space-holding, we give you a true, practical framework for this journey. When you step into this container with us, you are supported by people who have walked this exact terrain, integrated the lessons into real life and know how to keep you grounded in truth and safety.
What the Support Container Looks Like
Pre-Travel Preparation (Online)
Intention & Mental Readiness: Aligning your mindset, clarifying your core intentions and understanding the energetic boundaries of sacred medicine.
Somatic & Breathwork Tools: Safe practices to regulate your nervous system and expand your internal capacity before entering ceremony.
Dieta Guidance: Practical, structured advice on what to scale back in your lifestyle and diet to prepare your body for the plants.
Practical & Emotional Logistics: Clear guidance on packing essentials, travel doctor considerations and calming pre-travel anxiety.
Post-Travel Integration (Online)
Decompressing the Experience: A grounded space to process intense ceremony downloads, visions and emotional purges.
Somatic Grounding: Utilizing gentle breath and body awareness to regulate your system during the vulnerability of post-ceremony life.
Weaving Wisdom into Reality: Translating spiritual breakthroughs into real-world changes across your career, relationships, daily habits and emotional health.
Safety & Medical Responsibility
Your physical, emotional, and psychological safety is our absolute priority. Ayahuasca is a powerful biochemical and energetic medicine that has strict medical contraindications (including SSRIs, blood pressure medications and certain heart conditions).
Before placing a deposit, every guest goes through an initial private pre-screening questionnaire and a 1:1 conversation with us. If you are taking medication, we want to work with you early so you have ample time to consult your healthcare provider about tapering safely.
Work With Us 1:1 or in Small Cohorts
Preparation & Integration Package
Format: 1:1 Online Support or Private Small Group
Includes: Dedicated 1:1 preparation calls prior to departure + follow-up integration sessions upon your return, with ongoing check-in access.
Investment: Available upon inquiry / tailored to your travel timeline.
Frequently Asked Questions
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You do not need prior experience with Ayahuasca. Our 1-month pre-travel container is designed specifically to meet you where you are, teaching you nervous system regulation tools so you feel capable and prepared.
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This is completely normal. Ceremony can bring up deep emotional purges. You will never be alone. The Shamans hold the room energetically, and there are always facilitators there to give additional support if you need physical or emotional assistance.
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Yes, our somatic tools and integration support are designed to accompany you no matter which reputable center you choose to sit with
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Absolutely. This is your journey, and honoring your body’s limits is a core part of the process. If you are feeling under the weather, energetically full, or simply need a night to rest and integrate, you are completely free to skip a ceremony. You can also usually choose to sit in the ceremony without drinking medicine at all to soak in the healing icaros (songs), take a micro-dose for a mild meditational space, or even just dab a drop of medicine on your skin. You decide whatever pace your system needs.
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The Dieta works in two stages:
1. About 2–3 weeks before traveling, you will begin scaling back on specific foods like salt, refined sugar, red meat, alcohol, caffeine, and processed items. These food restrictions prepare your physical body and energetic system for the Ayahuasca ceremonies, making space for the medicine to work deeper with less resistance. During our pre-travel prep, we will give you a clear, easy-to-follow guide so you feel confident and supported.
2. If you are going to a Shipibo Centre, you will most likely receive a Master Plant Dieta prescribed specifically for your needs. These are non-hallucinogenic medicinal plants and trees native to the Amazon that you will ingest daily during your stay to heal, strengthen, and ground your energetic field. The clean, simple food provided at the centre creates the exact energetic environment required for these master plants to anchor into your system safely and effectively.
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Jungle vaccines and health requirements take time to organize. We can share the exact checklist and timeline we used for our own travels, so you can review it easily with your local Travel Doctor. Vaccines are not compulsary and your travel doctor will recommend to you what is absolutely essential to take vs. precautionary.
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Center staff and shamans are usually well-equipped to support common jungle ailments (like stomach bugs or heat exhaustion), and they can provide medication or traditional herbal remedies and hydration support. In the event of anything serious, most centres should have established protocols for medical transport to a nearby medical facility
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In our experience and opinion, contracting Malaria depends on where you go, but in our case it has been very rare. Neither of us took malaria medication during our own month-long stay in Peru. While preventative tablets are an option, some guests find their side effects can interfere with ceremony work. Please inquire with your retreat centre what their protocols are If any symptoms ever come up during your stay. They should be able to immediately take you to a local medical clinic for testing and prompt treatment. We always recommend speaking with your Travel Doctor so you can make the choice that feels right for your body.
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A Vomitivo is a traditional cleansing ritual performed on your first morning at the center. It is prepared using a traditional, pureed or scraped plant root mixed with water, which you will drink under the care of the center staff to initiate a physical purge.
While the idea of purging might sound intense, it is a deeply therapeutic Amazonian practice designed to flush out physical toxins, clear digestive heaviness, and reset your stomach. Energetically, it opens up your channels and cleanses your system so your body can absorb the Master Plants and Ayahuasca with far less physical resistance and discomfort during ceremony.
Connect With Us / Inquiry Form
Preparing to sit with sacred plant medicine, or recently returned and looking for grounded integration support? Fill out the form below and let’s connect to see how we can support your journey.
Want a Peek Behind the Scenes?
We know how reassuring it is to hear real, unfiltered stories before taking a leap like this. If you want to dive into our own personal medicine journeys, hear how we navigated the raw moments in the jungle, and get a true visual sense of what living at Nihue Rao is actually like, we’ve documented it all for you:
Read Our Honest Reflections: Browse our insights, and integration reflections over on our Jungle Diaries Blog
Watch Our Personal Journeys: Grab a cup of tea and sit down with us as we speak openly about our ceremonies, challenges, and breakthroughs on our YouTube Plant Medicine Playlist.
Seeing and reading our lived experience will give you a real feel for who we are, how we hold space, and what you can expect when stepping into the Amazon with us.
No matter where you are on your path, thank you for trusting yourself to explore these deeper spaces. We can’t wait to connect with you.
— Wessel & Giulia