Please enjoy this transcript of The Ideal Psychedelic Retreat webinar.
In this webinar, learn from the founder of Third Wave, Paul Austin, on how to choose an ideal psychedelic retreat for your specific needs.
In this webinar we talk about:
- How to choose the correct psychedelic retreat for you.
- Synthesis, the psilocybin retreat center Paul co-founded in the Netherlands.
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0:00:06 Paul Austin: Hello, and welcome to Third Wave’s webinar on how to choose an ideal psychedelic retreat. I see there are about 30 of you who are already in here. So welcome, welcome, welcome. As you’re coming in, it would be great if you could just briefly introduce yourself in the chat box. Just say, “Hi,” and tell us a little bit about where you’re from, and why you’re interested in psychedelic retreats. Why are you attending this webinar today? Hi, Mahesh, good to see you again, Mahesh. I’m so glad you’re here. So I’d love to hear about a little bit about why you’re here. So your name, where you’re from and… Woops, hold on. A little bit about… Your name, where you’re from, and why you’re here. So just go ahead and write that in the chat box. We’re gonna wait about probably another three or four minutes before we start the actual webinar. That way we have everyone here who can contribute and be part of our exciting webinar today, about how to choose an ideal psychedelic retreat.
0:01:14 PA: For those of you who don’t know, my name is Paul Austin, I’m the founder of Third Wave. And also a co-founder of Synthesis, and Synthesis are legal psilocybin retreats in Amsterdam. And although I am wearing my Third Wave hat, I also need to be fully transparent that I’m a co-founder of a retreat center. And in a lot of this webinar today, I’ll be drawing from my own personal experiences and how we’ve cultivated and curated the experience at Synthesis to discuss what we think is an ideal psychedelic retreat. I will also discuss some of my own past experiences. I’ve been in a couple other psychedelic retreats myself. As well as another one of our partners that we are working with, Soltara, who does ayahuasca in Costa Rica, talk a little bit about what they do. This is the first time that we’ve taught a webinar like this, so we’ll see how it goes. As you’re coming in, just for those of you who are coming in, if you could please write, introduce yourself, say, “Hi,” just tell us your name, where you… We already know your name, but tell us where you’re from, and why you’re here. That would be great to learn more about. I’m actually in LA at the moment, I live in Brooklyn, in New York, but I’m just hanging out, where it’s warm and nice and all those things. Coming at you from LA. If any of you are also in LA, just maybe holler and say that.
0:02:54 PA: So I’m loving some of these responses already. Nick needs to find a guide. I saw a couple of people about… Interested in psychedelics in a more therapeutic setting. Here is about retreats including, Synthesis and honing in on a decision. So a few of you have had been on retreats before, and they’ve been poor experiences, so we’ll talk about some of those differences. We have about 50 people here. We’re gonna give it about two more minutes and then we’ll go ahead and we’ll start the experience. Charlie, who’s one of our team members at The Third Way who has taught a webinar before, Charlie is gonna be in the chat box, helping out you all with specific questions. So, if you have any questions, Charlie will be handling those live and we will have Q&A at the end. Hi, Michael, from San Francisco, welcome. Hi, Roger, from Edmonton. Hi, Jacklyn, from New York City. Like I said, we’re gonna get going here officially in a couple minutes, and then we will start. And for those of you don’t know my name, Paul Austin, I’m the founder of Third Wave and the co-founder of Synthesis, a retreat center in the Netherlands, which we’ll talk a little bit more about today.
0:04:08 PA: There will be a replay of this, so if you can’t stay for the whole thing, it’s no problem at all, this video will be available. And like I said, we’ll probably spend the last 10 minutes or so for Q&A, 10 to 15 minutes for Q&A about psychedelic retreats. Because although I’ll try to cover the gamut of things, there will be some things that I miss and I’m sure there will be some extra questions, so please stick around if you do have questions. And with that being said, let’s go ahead and get started. Let’s go ahead and get started. So, basically, the primary focus of today’s webinar is to help you learn how to choose a great retreat. As you’ve already seen with some of the responses, there are some people who have had not so great retreats, there are probably a few of you who have had great retreats. And so we’re gonna talk about what’s the difference between a not so great retreat and an ideal retreat. How do we use different substances, like for example, ayahuasca, or psilocybin, or 5-MeO or iboga for entering into psychedelics retreats. We are going to talk about a retreat location. What makes a great retreat? So things like trust and safety, alignment with your personal goals. Does it match your style and preferences, what you really want? And then preparation and integration.
0:05:30 PA: We’ll also talk about legality, where are psychedelic retreats legal? And then we’ll wrap up with some takeaways, before we finalize the Q&A. And as I’ve already said, but I wanna repeat this, once more in full transparency, I’m here representing Third Wave, which is a non-profit that we founded about three years ago, that is focused on changing the cultural conversation around psychedelics through digital media, in person events and microdosing research. However, I’m also the co-founder of Synthesis, a legal psilocybin retreat in the Netherlands. So far, we’ve facilitated a total of 10 retreats for people with psilocybin, serving over 100 people. And in the retreat… Or I’m sorry, in this webinar today, I’m going to be talking largely from my experience in getting Synthesis set up for the past year, and what we’d looked for in terms of what makes a great retreat and a not so great retreat. Last thing, if you decide after this webinar today to attend Synthesis, Synthesis will give Third Wave as a non-profit referral fee.
0:06:36 PA: So by choosing to attend Synthesis, you can actually directly support our mission, our non-profit mission at Third Wave to change the cultural conversation around psychedelics. And so, in full transparency, it’s good to be clear and upfront about that. So let’s start, why is it so important to find a great retreat location? The first and most relevant thing is that during a retreat experience, you’ll be highly suggestible and in a highly vulnerable position, and while that ultimately is how we have such tremendous amazing experiences with psychedelics because we’re able to let go, we’re able to be vulnerable, we’re able to surrender, we’re able to get out of our ego and our head and into our heart, our body and just completely open, it also if it’s not done within an appropriate container can be quite dangerous. And as a worst case example, there have been many cases of, for example, sexual misconduct with male shamans and particularly female participants although male participants as well when under the influence of psychedelics.
0:07:48 PA: So it’s really, really critical that you choose a retreat center that has certain ethical boundaries, and standards, reviews and has been vetted by an external location, so that you know that you can trust those people that you’re going… Trust the people that you’re going to really surrender yourself to. Within that as well, particularly if you’re looking for a retreat center from a therapeutic perspective, there is a potential for intense material to surface and you need an appropriate container to work through that, you need qualified professionals who can be there to help you if you’re dealing, if you’re going from a clinical condition like depression or PTSD, or addiction. If you’re just going as a “healthy normal”, someone who maybe doesn’t have a clinical condition necessarily, but still is interested. Believe me, we all have our shit in the unconscious basement. That’s gonna come up. So it’s really important that you have experienced people who can help you to work through that. The last point to make about finding a good retreat location, is that it’s not easy to actually find a great one because as probably many of you who have noticed, who have done any sort of research, there’s not really a Yelp of psychedelic retreat centers. There’s not really a central place where you can go and vet and go, “Okay, I can trust this one, or I can’t trust this one.”
0:09:09 PA: In fact a lot of people still just go down to the Amazon to Iquitos, Peru and just randomly choose a shaman to work with. So there’s certain risks in that. So by doing your due diligence and by attending this webinar today, you’re gonna significantly increase the potential upside of doing it right. And that’s really critical because a psychedelic retreat can either be something that is so-so, or is a waste of money, or in the worst cases, can be even more traumatizing than how you came in, but if you really pay attention to certain factors, which we’ll talk about today, and you choose a great retreat center it can be an incredible vehicle for growth and transformation. Okay? So I’m just gonna check in with all of you see how we’re doing. Sounds like we are doing well, we have about 58 of you. So before I get further into some of these things, I’m just gonna quick pop a poll your direction, which is how many of you have attended a psychedelic retreat before? And I just wanna… All right, let’s start over. Have you is what I’m wondering. Give me a sec, I’m just typing this up right now. Have you attended a psychedelic retreat before? Yes, no. Let’s go ahead and publish this. So go ahead and fill out that poll quick. And I’m just curious in terms of our audience here today, how many of you have attended a psychedelic retreat before and how many of you have not? Wow, okay. So keep putting in there that’s gonna be helpful.
0:11:00 PA: What I’m seeing is about a quarter of you have attended a psychedelic retreat before and a quarter and about three quarters of you have not attended a psychedelic retreat before. Now, I’m curious, I’m gonna do one more poll just so I have a bit more context for those of you who have attended a psychedelic retreat. When you attended a psychedelic retreat what substance did you use in your retreat? Was it, these are the legal ones, Psilocybin, like truffles or mushrooms, ayahuasca, 5-MeO-DMT, or San Pedro, AOD, and finally iboga. Just curious again, so we can see what people have done. What substance did you use in your retreat? And this is also important so that people have a clear understanding of if they’re going to choose a retreat, what substance might be ideal or best for that. And if it’s more than one, just pick the one that maybe you’ve used the most in the retreat space.
0:12:10 PA: This is great. So none of you have done iboga. Okay, that’s good to know. And I think more of our audience today is gonna be interested in Psilocybin and ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT. Now, let’s take that same question again, because we have this poll about 35% of you are interested in, or have done a retreat with Psilocybin. Most of you with ayahuasca, about half of you. So one more poll quick just so I can get a sense for who’s here and what your interest is. What substance are you interested in? Is it psilocybin, ayahuasca, San Pedro, 5-MeO or like the last one, iboga. This is for all of you. Just getting a sense for what substance you’re actually interested in when it comes to psychedelic retreats. And this will just, again, help inform what we talk about today. Wow. Okay. So about 80% of you are interested in psilocybin. About 10% of you are interested in ayahuasca, and about 10% of you are interested in 5-MeO-DMT. That’s actually super helpful ’cause then I know that in today’s webinar, I’m going to mostly talk about Synthesis, and what we do with psilocybin in particular. And then I’ll bring up every now and then a few things about Soltara, which is a retreat center that we’re partnered with in Costa Rica that works with ayahuasca.
0:13:43 PA: And I don’t have any personal experience with 5-MeO-DMT, although I can recommend… We can recommend a retreat, which will be happening in April in Ibiza. Actually, our lead facilitator at Synthesis, who’s this lovely woman named Natasja, is the 5-MeO-DMT ceremony as well. So we can provide some of those follow-up details either after this or in our upcoming newsletter. So let’s get back into the information. I wanna make sure we make this as valuable as possible for all of you who are here. Let’s go ahead. And I’m gonna get back to my notes, so I have that. Cool. So what makes a great retreat, right? So we already talked about why it’s important to find a good retreat location. Suggestibility during psychedelics, you’re very vulnerable, there might be some intense material that might surface, you need a container, and it’s not easy to find a really good retreat location. But if you do, there’s a tremendous upside to that. So what makes a good retreat location, then? The first thing that’s most important is trust and safety.
0:14:49 PA: So there are a lot of retreats that are publicized online, for example, that say, “Hey, it’s legal to do it here,” even though it might not be. I’ll give you one example. A few days ago, we had a piece… There was a Magic Mushroom Wellness Retreat piece published in Vice that Synthesis was featured in. And one of the other retreat centers that was featured in there does psilocybin retreats in Mexico, and when I went to their website, they made it… They tried to spin it in such a way, and I’m hesitant ’cause I checked with another friend who runs retreat centers, that mushrooms are basically fully legal. So what they’re doing is fully legal under Mexican law. And I checked with another friend of mine who I trust who I know, I’ve looked into the law a little bit. We know that mushrooms are decriminalized, and that means that you won’t get in trouble for using them personal possession, but that doesn’t mean that it’s legal. There’s a significant difference between decriminalization and legality.
0:15:52 PA: So if there’s a retreat center that says, “Hey, it’s fully legal,” but it’s not, that’s something to be aware of. And just off the top of my head, what I can tell you right now where we know psilocybin is legal is the Netherlands, with psilocybin truffles, is Jamaica, and is Brazil, and the British Virgin Islands as well. If you see a psilocybin center that’s in any other place, I would do your due diligence in terms of making sure that it’s legal. Ayahuasca is legal in a few more places. But that’s one thing to consider when choosing your retreat is there a lot of underground retreats, ayahuasca circles, and all these things. And while it’s very, very unlikely that anything would ever happen in terms of something occurring, for a lot of people, they like the peace of mind in knowing that it’s fully legal. So it’s the first thing to check when you’re doing a retreat, is it fully legal?
0:16:48 PA: The second thing to check when it comes to trust and safety is, do the providers have the requisite experience. In other words, if they’re offering psilocybin retreats for PTSD, depression, OCD, and addiction, does that retreat center actually have the credentials, the clinical credentials, to handle issues that come up when you have clinical depression? There is a retreat center, which I won’t name, in Jamaica that basically advertises as they’re offering “psilocybin-assisted therapy for OCD addiction, depression.” But if you actually look at their staff and who’s facilitating, no one on their team has any sort of clinical expertise or background. That’s really important to figure out. If you’re going to a retreat center that is advertising for helping with clinical conditions, they should have clinical people on board to make sure that they can help you. And I would say even if you have a clinical condition, again one of these, and you want to attend a psychedelic retreat, be wary and be aware that if you’re going to attend a retreat, try to make sure that they have a requisite… The requisite experience to handle anything that might come up.
0:18:06 PA: This is a really important part of the healing process. Now, that’s different than what, for example, we offer at Synthesis. So right now at Synthesis, we don’t accept anyone with clinical conditions. We have people fill out an extensive application form, they have to sign a waiver that promises that they are not treating or they’re not looking to treat any sort of clinical condition. And that’s, one, for liability reasons from a business perspective. But two, it’s because we also don’t have anyone who’s clinically trained to handle people with, for example, treatment-resistant depression or addiction. And so instead, we have made Synthesis available for, again, what we call healthy normals. Now, that’s not to say in the future we might not hire a trained clinical psychologist or therapist so that we can start to accept people. But for now, that’s not feasible. So keep that in mind in terms of the trust and safety element. If you’re going to a retreat center, make sure their copy and their messaging is actually in alignment with what they can actually offer. And the last thing about trust and safety is do they have the type of support on-site that you think you might need.
0:19:20 PA: So another example of this with Synthesis is we have medical staff on hand for every experience. In the past, they’ve been either nurses or doctors. They’re there just for the ceremony day. Nothing has ever happened, again, because psilocybin is a very, very, very safe substance when used appropriately, but it gives people peace of mind. And peace of mind is really important again because when you’re going into a psychedelic retreat, you need to fully let go, be vulnerable and surrender. Okay? So again, what makes a good retreat? That’s point number one, trust and safety. Is it legal where you’re doing it, and maybe you don’t care, and if you don’t care, that’s okay, but for some people, that does matter and you don’t want to go on a retreat where they, “Say it’s legal but it’s actually not.” One more thing to add about this, we’re gonna be publishing a content series on Third Wave over the next couple months, all about psychedelic retreat. So this is really just the start from a webinar perspective, but we’re gonna provide more and more education about this because these are difficult questions when you’re assessing what’s appropriate and what’s not.
0:20:34 PA: Again, trust and safety. Is it legal? Do the providers have the requisite experience and do they have the type of support on site that you think you might need? Two, in terms of what makes a great retreat, alignment with your goals. Why are you attending a retreat? For some people, it’s to heal from depression, addiction trauma, deep trauma. For some people, it’s to unlock consciousness. It’s to explore their horizons, to expand their boundaries, for some people it’s… There’s an emotional block, they just need to bust through. I’ll give you an example for myself, I went to Synthesis and was not leading retreats but just around the retreat center for much of November and actually went through the Synthesis experience myself, had a huge emotional blockage and was able to completely dissolve it. I cried for three hours because the experience was a lot about sadness, but it just got it right out and I felt so much lighter afterwards.
0:21:36 PA: So that’s really important, why are you attending a psychedelic retreat? And then, how can you find a retreat center that aligns with those goals? So for example, with Synthesis, we tend to attract a lot of people who are interested in exploring psychedelics for the first time, who have read about it in Michael Pollan’s book, who have seen a news article about it, who are generally up to date day in the research, and they wanna go have a safe, legal, psilocybin experience in a very modern, professional setting. So, those are a lot of the folks that we attract also, we screen out clinical issues, so we don’t attract some of those.
0:22:14 PA: Whereas if again, the purpose that you’re going is to heal, then the retreat center for example, Soltara and Charlie, I don’t know if you’ve provided a link, I think, we might do that towards the end or in another email, but Soltara has medical staff on hand. So if you’re going to deal with a clinical issue, Soltara is a great place to go because as I mentioned before with the trust and safety element, you wanna make sure that you go to a place that actually has psychotherapeutic professional support on hand to support your own process. Dig deep, look into the details for that.
0:22:55 PA: So what makes a good retreat? Aligning it with your personal goals, in terms of why you want to attend? Three, what makes a great retreat? Does it match your style and preferences? What type of retreat, do you want? Do you want a 3-day retreat where you come in, you do a day of prep, you do a day of ceremony, you do a day of integration and you’re back home. These are usually great for busier professionals who maybe wanna squeeze something in, don’t have a lot of time necessarily, but they still wanna have this experience. In fact, this is what we offer at Synthesis, are these 3-day retreats. They’re a bit more intense, they’re fully jammed and packed, but they’re a 3-day retreat. Is that something that you want? Maybe you want a 7-day retreat. Last November, about a month ago we did a week-long retreat for Synthesis participants. So instead of taking mushrooms once or truffles once, they took them three times, but that comes with a lot more work. You’re taking truffles a lot, you combine it with breath work, you combine it with other modalities that can be deep, deep stuff.
0:24:02 PA: So do you wanna commit to a 7-day process? I know, Soltara offers 7-day and 14-day, other places offer 10 days. So first, how much time do you wanna commit to this? And the lengthier the time, the deeper the work you can do, which often is very effective. So that’s the first thing, intensity and time commitment. The other thing to be mindful of is, what level of comfort and convenience do you want? If you want a more shamanistic traditional way of doing a psychedelic retreat, where you might sleep on a mat and go deep into the jungle for the adventure. Then there are a lot of great retreat centers in Peru, that will be low budget and will cater to your needs but if you get uncomfortable and hot, in humid temperatures, if it distracts you from really working on the process of going inwards, of self-reflecting, of self-inquiry, and that might not be so best.
0:25:02 PA: So that’s also something to consider, is what level of comfort and convenience? And if you want more comfort and convenience, it’s obviously going to be more expensive. If you’re indifferent, it will be less expensive. Other things like, do you want all-inclusive meals? Do you want a beautiful location with an infinity pool? What about massages? Maybe all vegan or vegetarian food? Ayurvedic food, right? So just really getting clear about what is it that you want, will help you to choose an ideal retreat.
0:25:36 PA: And the last thing, when it comes to style and preferences, and I’m kind of… I’m reading off notes right now, but I’m gonna check in on the group here in a little bit, to see what sort of questions are popping up and just checking all of you. But the last thing to be aware of is this spectrum between ancient ceremonial shamanistic ritual, which most people from Western countries are not familiar with, and the modern-day scientific approach. So I’ll give you two examples, when you go down to have an ayahuasca retreat, it’s a lot about, the medicine knows what’s best. You’ll take the right amount of medicine. There’s a lot of feathers, there’s a lot of incense.
0:26:20 PA: The approach is much more about energy, it’s much more about spiritual healing, and the language that they use is much different. Now, that modality is great, and I love it and I’ve been in it but it’s also not what everyone is looking for, other people are looking for a much more scientific, modern approach to working with psychedelics. And again, I think this also comes down to the difference of ayahuasca vs psilocybin, ayahuasca inherently is going to have that because it comes from this indigenous tradition, although psilocybin does have an indigenous tradition in a modern-day context it’s the substance the psychedelic that has been most used in clinical research. So we know that its efficacy at treating a number of issues and facilitating certain outcomes is clearly established. And this is what we wanted to build on at Synthesis. So what we do is we try to offer a balance between the ritual aspect and the modern-day scientific. And so what that looks like is we have about 14 people per retreat and we have a ceremony center setup.
0:27:21 PA: Everyone lays down on a mattress and this is similar to ayahuasca. Everyone lays down on a mattress, there’s a connection point between the whole group. But as soon as they consume the psilocybin truffles they put on an eye mask, we play moving music in the background and then they go inwards. And we encourage people to make the experience as individual and inward as possible because psychedelics are this tremendous tool for self-inquiry. So we’ve taken certain aspects of the ritual and we’ve combined it with this is the scientific approach. So for example, if you look at the Johns Hopkins studies that they do with psilocybin, they usually have people wear an eye mask. They have them laid down on a comfortable couch, they play music. So we actually use a lot of the same soundtracks as they use in the clinical retreats and then they let them go from there. Okay. So I’m seeing a few questions which I will get to and I’m loving these. Hey Bill. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m just Bill just actually came on our week-long Synthesis Retreat about a month ago. So I’m really really glad to see him and I’m just checking in on making sure it looks like Charlie is handling all of your questions. That’s great to hear and like I said, we will cover more of these questions in the Q&A. I wanna keep going because I think we’re getting a lot of great information and knowledge at this point and I wanna keep the ball rolling.
0:28:55 PA: So let’s keep moving. The last… Okay, so I wanna do a quick recap. Why is it important to find a good retreat location? Suggestibility. You’re highly suggestible. You’re very vulnerable, intense material might surface and it’s not easy to find a great retreat location but there’s huge upside if you do. Now what makes a great retreat? Trust and safety. Is it legal? Do the providers have the requisite experience? Do they have the type of support on-site that you think you might need? Two, is alignment with your goals. Why are you attending a psychedelic retreat and does where you’re going offer something in line with that? And then three, does it match your style and preferences. So there’s a big difference between going down and drinking ayahuasca for 10 days in the Peruvian jungle and coming to Synthesis, which is just outside of Amsterdam in an old reformatted Church within a village for a 3-day retreat. So what is it that you want? Okay, let’s move in now to preparation and integration. So with preparation and integration, every psychedelic… If you’re attending a psychedelic retreat, it should have both preparation and integration.
0:30:22 PA: All right, and that should be clearly outlined on their website in terms of what they offer. So the role of preparation is to prepare you to go inwards because as I said before this retreat or I’m sorry, as I said before psychedelics facilitate a deep, deep level of self-inquiry. So what a psychedelic retreat center should do is have clear materials for you in terms of the preparation that they offer. So if you’re looking at a few different psychedelic retreat centers, let’s say you’re not sure who to choose, email them and ask them if you know, “Can you show me some of your preparation materials that you send to people in terms of how they prepare for things? I’m considering a couple different options and I just wanted to get a sense for them.” That’s a really good way to do it. What we offer… Again, I can largely speak from our experience in terms of what we’ve done. What we offer at Synthesis is we give specific tips and recommendations about how people can start those methods of self-inquiry as part of preparation. These are things like a meditation habit. So there’s a couple great apps Calm and Headspace which it can help in building a meditation habit.
0:31:32 PA: You can do certain things about journaling, so questions and props that we can ask ourselves and write about for the week to two weeks leading up to the retreat the help us to again deepen that method of self-inquiry. We also ask people to read a few books. And again just a couple books that I highly recommend reading before you go to a psychedelic retreat one is Michael Pollan’s new book. I’m sure many of you have seen it or know about it. That’s a great one, “How to Change Your Mind“. Another great one is “Stealing Fire” by Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal. Another excellent one is “Sacred Knowledge” by Will Richards, and I believe we recommend one more book but I… Oh, and the last one, of course, “The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide” by the man, the myth, the legend, Dr. Jim Fadiman. Jim’s great, and Jim is one of our advisors at Third Wave, actually. I had lunch with him the other day in Menlo Park and he’s tripping along. So The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide is also a fantastic resource to look at for preparation. So that’s one thing to be aware of, what are they offering from a preparation perspective? But what’s in some ways even more important is integration and although I won’t go too deep into what integration is. Basically the concept of integration is you’ve had this really expansive experience.
0:33:07 PA: You completely shifted or changed your way of perceiving the world around you. You’ll have… For many of you, if you attend a great psychedelic retreat, it’ll be, although it might be challenging or difficult at times emotionally, most likely it will be transformative to some degree. So you’ll have this period afterward where you have an afterglow effect where you’re like, yes, I’m gonna make these changes and I’m gonna eat healthier and I’m gonna meditate more and I’m gonna have better relationships with my spouse and my children and I’m gonna spend more time in nature, I’m gonna less time on my smartphone, I’m gonna spend more time reading. You’ll have a lot of these sort of, I really wanna connect and really wanna feel great, but over time that starts to dissipate as we get back into the machine of the world, as we feel the pressure of everyday life, as stress starts to build up again. So integration is the process of ensuring that that open window that afterglow lasts longer, and longer, and longer and that you can start to properly integrate that peak experience into your everyday life.
0:34:11 PA: So the way that we teach about it at Synthesis for example is with integration. Think of the metaphor of going to the dentist. Now going to the dentist and having a psychedelic retreat are in fact about the polar opposites of what you can experience in life, but let’s just go with this metaphor for now. So every six months you go to the dentist, and the dentist gives you a deep clean, very hygienic, very nice, not really nice, but the after-effects are nice. You feel, you feel great, you feel clean. And then he tells you to come back in another six months, but what else does he or she tell you? They also tell you, you should probably brush your teeth and floss every day, so you brush your teeth and you floss every day, between the six-month experiences. Now, this is similar to psychedelics and integration. If every six months you have a peak experience, that could happen on psychedelics. For some people, that’s going to Burning Man, for some people it’s spending a week in the woods, going to Vipassana retreat, doing a big fast, there are many ways to have a peak experience, but psychedelics are one. And in between those peak experiences you decide to meditate. Decided to journal, decided to eat healthier, exercise more, sleep better. So the big peak experiences are going to the dentist, the deep clean, the deep reset, whereas the flossing and brushing your teeth, are things like daily habits of self-care.
0:35:47 PA: And self-care, I spoke about this in a webinar we did earlier this year, self-care really can be broken into three main things. It’s physical, which is sleep, diet, exercise, largely. Emotional, meditation, yoga, breath work, journaling, relationships, presence, and then spiritual, which is often purpose and meaning; why are you’re here, what are you doing, where do you find purpose and meaning? And these are the three elements of self-care that, if you go to a psychedelic retreat center, they should have a clear idea about how they’re helping you to integrate this new perspective into your everyday life. So again, that’s something that if you’re interested in a different retreat centers, to check with them, ask them, “Hey, what’s your integration program like? How do you help people integrate? Do you offer Zoom group calls?” This is what we do at Synthesis, we offer Zoom group calls after. We have a WhatsApp group chat that everyone can speak to. We have coaching available for people if they need coaching, so there are lots of things that we offer on the back end to help people integrate, and of course, we’re just getting started. There’s a lot more that we can do and will do, but for now we at least try to cover the very basics.
0:36:56 PA: So again, retreat centers, they should have both preparation and integration. We’re gonna go for probably about 7 to 10 more minutes, and then I wanna hop into questions because I think there’s gonna be a lot of questions for this. So let’s talk about where it’s legal to do psychedelics. That’s fun. And we have, Charlie, I believe we have an article on our website about the legality of psilocybin mushrooms, I wanna say, and maybe ayahuasca, I’m not sure, I know when we publish the content about psychedelic retreats, we will be publishing this. So make sure you’re on our newsletter because we’ll send that out at some point. But in terms of off the top of my head, where I know it’s legal, is the following places. For psilocybin, I already mentioned this, but it’s worth repeating again. Psilocybin truffles are legal in the Netherlands. Sad, but interesting story, in 2008, a French tourist died by jumping off of the balcony, I believe, something happened with the French tourist, she was very inebriated, intoxicated with alcohol but also had taken magic mushrooms that evening.
0:38:06 PA: Up until that point, magic mushrooms were legal in the Netherlands, however, to appease the French government, the Dutch government, made magic mushrooms illegal, but, and this is according to my co-founder, Martijn of Synthesis, but to keep this open mentality that the Dutch have, they allowed for a loophole in the law where psilocybin truffles remain legal. So, truffles are like the sclerotia, kind of the condensed mycelium that grows underground that’s almost like a little tuber and those are what we eat fresh at Synthesis. So those psilocybin truffles are legal in the Netherlands. Psilocybin, as far as I know, is also legal in Jamaica, so there is a retreat center down there, which I would again without going into details, I would be highly skeptical of, for a number of reasons, largely because they don’t offer the service that they promote, or advertise.
0:39:08 PA: There’s also, it’s also legal in the British Virgin Islands, and in Brazil. Now there are also psilocybin retreats popping up in Mexico, which I mentioned earlier. I do not believe it’s legal in Mexico, I believe it’s decriminalized, but not legal. And as far as I know, it’s not really legal anywhere else at this point. So, no places in Asia or the South Pacific, no other places in Europe outside of the Netherlands, there are a number of places where it’s decriminalized, the Czech Republic is one, Portugal is another, I believe Spain is one, Mexico is one, Peru is another one, but again, decriminalization is different than legal, so that’s important to know.
0:39:56 PA: That’s for Psilocybin. For ayahuasca. And I know most of you here for psilocybin so I wanted to make sure that that’s clear. For ayahuasca, it is legal in Oregon and New Mexico in the United States through the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. So if you join one of the syncretic churches, either the UDV or the Santo Daime you can drink ayahuasca legally in Oregon and New Mexico. Ayahuasca is also legal in Peru, and Colombia, and Brazil and Ecuador. I believe that is it. I could be wrong on that. I’m not super, super familiar, but it is not, this is actually interesting, it’s not legal technically in Costa Rica. However, there are a number of retreat centers that are popping up, offering it there because the government really doesn’t care.
0:40:47 PA: In fact, Soltara has started to offer, who’s a partner of ours, they’re offering ayahuasca retreats in Costa Rica. Is iboga legal in Costa Rica? I think it’s just not scheduled. So there’s no laws around it. I think that’s similar to Mexico. Most places where iboga is used, there’s just no laws in the books around it. So yeah. And in terms of ayahuasca’s legality in Europe, as Marissa just mentioned, ayahuasca is neither legal nor illegal in Spain. I think that’s the case for Portugal as well, and a few other places. I know ayahuasca is highly illegal in the UK, for example, but in certain countries, they just really don’t care. But now law enforcement seems to care less and less and less about psychedelics generally, which is why there’s so many underground circles popping up.
0:41:44 PA: When it comes to 5-MeO-DMT, 5-MeO-DMT just isn’t legislated in many places. So it is illegal in the United States, but I know there a lot of people host 5-MeO-DMT ceremonies in Ibiza because there’s really no legislation around it. Either way in Spain, people are doing it in Mexico and Costa Rica for the same reason. There’s just no legislation around it. I think people are also using 5-MeO-DMT in ceremonies now in South America. So with 5-MeO-DMT is highly illegal in certain places like the United States and many other places just don’t have any laws around it. So that’s also something to be mindful of. And finally, San Pedro again, it’s illegal in the United States. If you’re not using… Basically everything, every psychoactive drug is illegal in the United States outside of tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine, or scheduled at least. But, San Pedro is legal in Peru, I think all same places, Peru, Brazil, Ecuador. Peyote, I think is legal in Mexico and also in certain reservations in the United States, but I think you have to be a Native American to have access to that. So besides that, that’s a brief overview of it.
0:43:00 PA: Okay, so let’s go, and I wanna transition into Q&A, ’cause I know we have a lot of great questions that I think will be really helpful for a lot of people who are attending. Let’s really hit some of our take-aways. Okay? So these are questions that you should be able to ask your retreat provider when going on the retreat. And I’m actually gonna copy paste these because I think they’ll be great for people to know. Let’s just go through each of those a little bit, so that as you’re looking at potentially attending a psychedelic retreat, you can do this. So first of all, what is your experience and how many retreats like this have you facilitated? So and I’ll answer each of these for Synthesis, some people are aware of this. Our experience at Synthesis is we’ve run a total of 10 retreats. So far, we piloted our first program in April 2018. We had three retreats then, 2 recreate in July and August, 3 retreats in November, and 2 in December. And although myself and my co-founder facilitated the first few retreats, we have now brought in three experienced facilitators, one of whom is a woman, her name is Natasja, she has extensive experience leading more shamanic-oriented retreats with 5-MeO and she is stunning and fantastic and an incredible facilitator.
0:44:27 PA: And we have Daan who has some credentials, he is a masters in counseling and care, and has a psychotherapeutic background, as well as a deep Buddhist practice. And then Tessa, who has led retreats in places like the Amazon with ayahuasca before, we’ve now brought her in to help with psilocybin. So that’s a little bit about Synthesis. Let’s go to the next question, what is your philosophy around what role psychedelics play in the growth or healing process? Why are psychedelics useful? Is it just about the “drug”? Or is it about the larger container that you’re creating? And the way that I like to contextualize or paraphrase or look at psychedelics is they’re a catalyst. They’re a catalyst to help you to do the work of self-inquiry that we all need to do of being reflective, of understanding yourself, of increasing our level of self-awareness, but they’re simply that. They’re a catalyst and psychedelics can just be a drug experience and the insights that we have can just dissipate with time. So ultimately, psychedelics are a catalyst for a new path and if we use them properly and integrate properly, they should help us significantly with growth and development afterwards. That would be my philosophy, our philosophy on what role psychedelics play in the growth or healing process.
0:45:41 PA: Next, what should I be prepared for as a participant, and what can I expect from you? So, I get this question a lot in application calls that we’ve done. For example with Synthesis, what should I be prepared for as a participant? There will be a day of preparation, when you come to the retreat. It’s a 3-day retreat. A day of preparation where you get to know the other retreat members, where we help you to start to feel safe in the space, open, connected to the retreat participants. You get to know your facilitators. We talk about what we call flight instructions. Okay. How can we prepare to make sure that we’re as ready as possible to go into the ceremony the next day? And then something that we offer is we offer one-on-one conversations for at least 30 minutes with every one of our facilitators. So if you’re coming to the retreat, you get one-on-one conversation with one of our facilitators in preparation and a one-on-one conversation in integration as well. And that’s the advantage only providing retreats for 14 people, 14 to 15 people at a time.
0:46:41 PA: Finally, the next day is the ceremony you’ll come in, we’ll start with some breath work in the morning to start to open you up, we’ll then serve the truffles in the ceremonial setting that I mentioned and we’ll experience that for 8 hours and you’ll then have a circle afterwards where you share about your experience. And then day three is about integration, having another one-on-one conversation with staff, doing an integration workshop and starting to look at how we can integrate these insights long-term. That’s the brief answer. There’s a lot more in there, but that’s a brief answer about how you’ll spend your time when you’re there. Another question to ask is, “What sort of medical or emergency staff do you have on site in case any issues arise or happen?” As I mentioned with Synthesis, we specifically have medical staff on hand. Sometimes a nurse, sometimes a doctor who can help if anything arises, nothing has happened so far, but it’s really useful to have someone who has that expertise and background. And then finally, “How do you support my experience in regards to preparation and integration?”
0:47:43 PA: And I’ve already covered a lot of that in terms of how we can support your experience with preparation and integration, but in short, preparation is largely about doing the work before you come to the retreat. That might be the food that you’re eating, with ayahuasca, they have a dieta. That could be reading certain books, that’s gonna be a lot of journaling, a lot of meditation, a lot of just generally self-reflection. So that’s how we help with preparation. And then with integration like I said, we teach a workshop, the follow-up calls that we offer with coaching are, if they’re one-on-one and specific to coaching, those have a fee, someone I saw had asked that but we also generally offer a couple of group conversations in Zoom. And then also basically we offer depending on where you’re going back to, to connect you with someone who is a psychotherapeutic background, and could help you ongoing with the integration process. We don’t know people in every city in the world, but we have a great network in most of the major cities, LA, SF, New York, Denver Boulder area, Vancouver, London, Amsterdam, a handful of other places as well, in Europe and the United States.
0:49:04 PA: Cool. Alright. So I wanna do one last kind of review so that we go away from this feeling, feeling groovy and informed and like we’re ready to make a decision. Why is it important to find a great retreat location? Suggestability, vulnerability intense material may surface, it has a lot of upside. What makes a great retreat? Trust and safety, alignment with your goals, does it match your style and preferences, the preparation and integration and then make sure if you want a legal treat to clarify whether it’s legal or not and then we also provided some questions for you to ask your retreat providers as you go into this process. Great. So what I wanna transition into now is a bit of Q&A, so Charlie, if you could queue up some questions for me to dig into. Right before we dig into that, I will just say Charlie has already provided a little bit of details, but if you decide to go and attend a Synthesis retreat, like I mentioned before, that will support Third Wave, if you choose to do so. We are right now offering 3-day retreats, we have three available in January, three available in February and three available in March. And the price for those is 1750 Euros for a 3-day retreat.
0:50:26 PA: And that’s if you wanna learn more about that, Charlie would provide a link, it’s synthesisretreat.com, and Charlie was telling me the questions are in the Q&A section, so let’s dig into some of those questions as soon as I can find the Q&A section, Charlie. Hold on. Got it. Okay, so let me see, I can probably answer some of these, but I’m not sure. So Magalie the first question, “I appreciate the speaker bringing up considerations for minority populations, I’m wondering what retreat centers are LGBTQ sensitive. I loved my ayahuasca retreat especially since it was led by indigenous and not white people, but they kept asking about my husband and children and it felt uncomfortable as a queer woman.” That’s a great… That’s a great question. I think generally, I would say in terms of I’m wondering what retreat centers are LGBTQ sensitive, if that’s something, so for example, you said it made you feel uncomfortable as a queer woman, ’cause they were asking these questions. It might be helpful to for example in our application retreat we have extra comments available when people are applying. So that could be something that’s just clarified from the get-go, if that’s something that you feel comfortable doing.
0:51:46 PA: I think generally, when looking for a retreat in terms of people who are considered a minority populations and LGBTQ sensitive, any retreat center that talks, we talked about earlier in terms of being a great retreat center, it matches some of those things that we spoke about. They should also be LGBTQ sensitive, especially if they’re modern, very modern. I think that’s one thing about ayahuasca retreats. If they’re in more indigenous oriented places, is there is still a level of traditional or conservatism there, not conservatism but just traditional, more traditional value citizen. So that might come with that experience. Chris asks, “Hey how do you dose for the first time users at Synthesis?” We first get a sense for their background, in terms of their previous experience with consciousness exploring activities like meditation. We try to get an assessment for if they’re neurotic or if they’re very sensitive to other substances. If they’re neurotic that’s gonna require more to really have a breakthrough experience. And then we usually err on the side of giving them a little too much, because a lot of people who are coming to the experience, especially for the first time want to have an experience.
0:52:56 PA: And so if people are just coming the first time, they have one chance, we provide a minimum amount that for almost all people will do some sort of experience, and if they’re still like, “I’m not really feeling anything.” We will give them more at a 2-hour mark. So that’s typically how we dose people for the first time there. Main question, “I take SSRIs for depression, can I still do a psilocybin retreat?” Without getting into the medical side of things, Joan, I would say be very cautious about where you choose to do a psilocybin retreat. There aren’t any fatal contraindications between SSRIs and psilocybin. However there, like I said there’s a retreat center in Jamaica for example that advertises psilocybin assisted therapy for depression but they don’t actually do any medical checks and they have no staff on hand who can actually treat those issues. So just be wary of that. You can still do psilocybin retreat, right now for example at Synthesis we could not accept you because we screen out people who are still taking prescriptions. Because we don’t have a psychiatrist on board and a doctor present for these things.
0:54:12 PA: Jacqueline asked, “Can you repeat where it’s legal beyond Netherlands.” I think I did repeat that so we’ll skip through that one. Karen asked, “What kind of breath work, do you add to the 7-day retreats?” We also have this breath work in 3-day retreats it’s transformational breath work and it’s led by the lovely Philippa Wilkin. We actually need to get dets about her, on our website.
0:54:32 PA: It’s excellent and it’s really, really helpful in terms of helping to open up further. Patricia, “What about Rythmia in Costa Rica for ayahuasca, is this a reputable retreat?” Great question, Patricia. I’ve actually been to Rythmia. I really enjoyed my retreat experience there. It’s really high end. They have great food, they have great accommodation, a beautiful pool. It’s in a beautiful setting. My main concern with Rythmia is that typically they’re serving a lot of people at once. So you’re gonna drink ayahuasca with 60 to 70 to 80 other people, and that’s a lot of people. Whereas with something like Synthesis, it’s with usually just 14 to 15 people, so it’s much smaller groups, you get a lot more attention. Drinking with 70 to 80 people has certain risks that it has. [unclear speech] asked, “How much does a retreat at Synthesis cost?” And I believe I answered this. It was 1700 or is 1750 Euros. And what is a fair price to pay? Let’s go over that, for a 1-day or a weekend retreat.
0:55:38 PA: And so a fair price depends on a lot of factors. And it really depends on what value you’re looking for. Like I said, you can find 10-day ayahuasca retreats in the Amazon for 1500 US dollars. The food is gonna be basic, the accommodations are gonna be basic, but it will be quite inexpensive. On the other hand, you can find a week-long ayahuasca retreat, Rythmia for example in Costa Rica for $5000. There’s gonna be amazing accommodations, incredible food, like a massage, a number of other things, but it’s gonna come at a cost. So a fair price really depends on the specifications of what are offered for the retreat, and will depend on what you are comfortable with. Barbara asks, “How often do you do 7-day retreats, and what is the cost?” We just did that one to pilot it out. I don’t… We don’t have another 7-day retreat planned for Synthesis in particular. At that time, I believe it was around 4000 Euros for the 7-day retreat. We were looking at potentially doing a 5-day retreat though and we’ll provide further details on that as that comes up.
0:56:44 PA: Barbara also asked, “Do you recommend for or against spouses attending retreats together?” It really just depends on your preference. We have had quite a few spouses who have come together, we encourage them to sit separately during ceremonies, so they can focus on themselves and not be worried or concerned about their spouse. We’ve also had other people who have said, “I’ve come with my… ” Or, “I’m coming alone for the first time, but the next time my spouse might want to attend with me.” So both of these things happen, it’s really just up to you. I wouldn’t recommend one way or the other. There are pros and there are certain cons. Marty asks, “With a medical waiver clearance, does your center automatically exclude anyone who’s taking an antidepressant medication?” At this point we do Marty unfortunately. We’re working towards a point where we can accept these people with proper medical clearance. But just be… We’re a fairly new retreat center. We haven’t quite gotten to that point yet. But as soon as we do, we’ll let you know.
0:57:42 PA: Jamie asked, “Does the Synthesis fee include room and board? Yes. For Synthesis everything is included, all the meals, the transportation to and from the airport in Amsterdam or the central train station, the nights at the accommodation. And if you wanna check it out, I’d recommend again going to synthesisretreat.com. We have pictures of our retreat location. And it is stunning. It’s an old church that was built in 1928, that has been basically retrofitted into a modern-day wellness center, and it’s really quite nice. And then James asked, “Do you have access to individual guides in US cities that may offer personal guidance?” Unfortunately, James we can’t get into that here because a lot of the people who are guides are underground guides meaning they’re doing it illegally. However, I will tell you that ketamine treatment, ketamine assisted psychotherapy is becoming more and more a thing. In fact, I would encourage you to listen to a recent podcast that we published at Third Wave with Will Siu, S-I-U is his last name, he’s a psychiatrist, it was a live event we did for our new 3W notes Project in New York City, and we talked all about ketamine assisted psychotherapy.
0:58:50 PA: And so I think that would be a great thing to look into, in terms of those potentials. Charlie could you take some more of these? Alright looks like… Marissa, yes, we only offer truffles. Chucky, it is over the weekend, most of our retreats are over the weekend. I think we might have a couple of spots that are not, but almost all of them are over the weekend. Gary, “Are common prescription medications for minor physical issues not psychological… ” Oh you just… You changed that Char. “A barrier to being a participant?” Not necessarily Gary, I would say, if you’re interested, I would just say go ahead and apply. Oh yeah, we’re also, I forgot we’re gonna waive the application fee for all of you interested in attending Synthesis. Normally we have a 50 Euro application fee for Synthesis for all of you who want to apply that’s being waived right now.
0:59:45 PA: So this is a really good chance to just go ahead, get that application. And Gary for… Because it depends on the prescription med, for some it’s totally cool, for others it’s harder to know. High blood pressure, we’re like, we’re still not sure but it’s possible. Patricia asks, “I’m looking for an ayahuasca retreat and considering Rythmia ’cause it was recommended by friend, nervous about taking it, have never taken psychedelics.”
1:00:12 PA: Hi Patricia… It shouldn’t be a huge concern, I would say, heart rates, heart palpitations, that’s… In other words, you’re just concerned about having anxiety, it sounds like a little bit and that, you could have anxiety. Again, just be mindful if it is your first time doing psychedelics. Rythmia, you will be taken it with 60 to 70 other people. At a place like Soltara, there’s a lot fewer. So, I just for a lot of first-time users, I think having a nice curated experience is much better, but I wouldn’t worry too much about that Patricia. For participants in psychedelic retreats with children, how to talk to kids about psychedelics? Judy, I’m actually gonna refer you to a podcast called Psychedelic Parenting. It’s by a friend of mine, Jonathan Thompson, and I’d recommend you check it out. Psychedelic Parenting, because that podcast goes into a lot of these topics in terms of how to talk to kids about psychedelics and being a parent.
1:01:16 PA: I don’t, I’m not a parent, I’m only 28, I’m still just dating, and stuff, so I don’t really have any context for that, but that podcast Psychedelic Parenting would be a great resource for that purpose. Any other questions? We’re at about the hour mark. This has been a lot of fun. This has been a lot of fun, I’m so glad that we did this. I feel like I probably covered, there’s more that I could have covered, I’m sure, I don’t know what but if you do have any other questions, just shoot us an email. Like I said, go ahead, Charlie, if you could provide the link to the Synthesis page if people wanna sign up and register? The application fee is waived at the moment and like we talked about, if you decide to go on a Synthesis retreat, your decision to go on the Synthesis retreat will support our mission at Third Wave as well to continue do more webinars and education and content and events and all these things that around community and helping everyone to connect and find the others.
1:02:26 PA: There it is, synthesisretreat.com, Charlie just put the link in there. We have an application, it’s pretty extensive, it’s 25 to 30 minutes, but it really helps us to figure out and understand why you wanna attend, that would be useful. Jamie says, “I have ADD and I’ve had life-long issues with procrastination and not meeting my potential, is psilocybin appropriate for these issues?” Without going too deep into medical advice, from my understanding, part of the issue or problem with ADD is too much dopamine, which is an inability to be present in here, which is largely tied to seratonin. So psychedelics like psilocybin help to significantly increase seratonin and help to remain more mindful and present. So, in remaining mindful and present, through the psilocybin experience, I think that can help with procrastination because it’s just… Then the things that we need to do, just there’s a bit more of a flow to it, when we’re doing it, but that’s about all I can say on that.
1:03:36 PA: Burned asks, “What is the risk of experiencing a bad trip on a retreat with optimum set and setting?” So I think it’s good to clarify what we mean by a bad trip. Usually, when I think of a bad trip, I think of high levels of paranoidy… Sorry, high levels of… I tend to make up the words, high levels of paranoia and anxiety, a potential to hurt yourself or put yourself in serious danger, either physically or mentally. I think those are probably the two main risks of a bad trip. Now there’s a difference between a bad trip and what I would say a challenging experience. A challenging experience is sort of what I had at Synthesis a month ago or so, where I had a deep emotional cleanse, and basically cried for three hours, and that was challenging, it was not easy, but it was incredibly healing and helpful and I would not consider that to be a bad trip. And that was a really productive trip, it was really useful and important. So I think the risk of experiencing a bad trip where you could potentially hurt yourself, you have high levels of anxiety and paranoia on a retreat with optimum set and setting, there still is that risk, but it’s significantly reduced and diminished, significantly.
1:04:53 PA: Especially if you do the work from operation perspective, to start meditating, to remain present with the breath, ’cause that’s a lot about what psychedelic teach you. Justin says, “Where can we find the webinar for later use?” No worries, Justin, we’ll provide a link to it afterwards. Aaron says, “Are Synthesis and Soltara the only ones Third Wave would recommend?” At this point, yes, we’re, we need to basically vet, significantly vet each retreat center before we actually recommend it, so that’s the process that we’re going through. So Synthesis provides psilocybin, Soltara provides ayahuasca, we’re looking at potentially partnering with a 5-MeO one but that will be a few months out and then, but that will continue to for that to evolve as time goes along. Patricia asks, “Thank you for all the information and looking at Soltara, they don’t have medical staff at the retreat. Is this true? Would you recommend that because it is smaller groups versus the larger group setting, that as medical staff?” Charlie says they have medical staff on-site. Slow down, Charlie, can you provide a link, Charlie for Patricia, so she can see where that’s listed, if that’s on the website?
1:06:22 PA: But yeah, I mean Patricia, just personally, I always recommend smaller groups. The ideal, the optimal group setting I think is about 14 people for psychedelics. Anytime you go beyond that, you lose a lot of the container and the ability. So I would highly recommend a small group compared to a large group, especially for your first time, especially for your first time. Nick says, “Truffles versus mushrooms, any difference in effect?” Not really, they’re largely the same. Truffles cause a little bit more nausea, but that’s about it. Okay, questions are slowing down. Now I wanna wrap ’cause we have more and more people leaving and kinda wrapping up. So we’re gonna wrap up now, that’s the end of the webinar, how to choose the ideal psychedelic retreat. This has been recorded will provide a link to it as a recording and if you’re interested in attending a retreat, we highly encourage you to go to synthesisretreat.com and check out more details there. Thank you all for attending, thank you all for your presence and your attention, and showing up. It’s fun to do these webinars. It’s been a while since I’ve done one. We’ll continue to have more and we look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you all so much, really, really appreciate it.
