Listen on Itunes, Spotify, or Youtube.
This week’s episode is with my good friend and former Shaman Zach Poitra who I’ve worked with during 3 separate ayahuasca retreats.
Zach’s story is amazing. After working for an investment bank for 10 years, he moved down to Peru to live in the jungle and work on himself. What he thought would be a temporary stint transpired into him meeting and training with his shamanic teacher in the jungle for 4.5 years before becoming a full-time shaman himself. Now after many years helping others with their own inward work, he has felt a calling to re-enter the world of finance which was something he would have never anticipated.
I personally find Zach’s story very inspiring and in many ways it mirrors my own unfolding. In the throes of a materialistic existence, we were both compelled to seek something more. We both then did a 180 spending years primarily inwardly focused only to return to familiar settings with a different vantage point.
In this episode, Zach provides an inside look at what the life of a Shaman is actually like demystifying a lot of common misconceptions that I know I originally had. We discuss his inner experience of being guided to return to finance which to many seemed like a surprising move. I think its a fantastic example of surrendering to the universe. When we surrender to the divine will, things often take different forms then what we would have expected which seems to be the case here. Though it often doesn’t seem like it in the moment, it’s my experience that when we have the courage to trust and align ourselves in this way you typically experience superior outcomes.
Also, fun fact, my fiancee and I got engaged after the 2nd night of a private ceremony with Zach earlier this year. He’s the person behind the camera that captured the proposal and we are so honored that he was a part of this experience.
I didn’t intend to propose that night, but the inner directives I was getting to pop the question as we were all sitting around the dinner table after the ceremony were so strong that I could not ignore them!
A funny thing about this whole experience is that I didn’t even know we were going to be drinking ayahuasca that weekend. I thought Zach was just going to come to do some of his illumination energy healings on me which we talk about in the episode. I did not realize they were going to be in conjunction with a plant medicine ceremony!
This was about as visceral an example of ayahuasca showing up in your life when it was supposed to as I could imagine. I surrendered to what life had placed on my doorstep, literally, and had a tremendous weekend.
I hope enjoy this conversation with Zach. He is an amazing person with a big heart.
Love always,
Scott
A few resources mentioned that I’ve listed here for your convenience:
What It's Actually Like to Be An Ayahuasca Shaman