Best Practices to Incorporate Between Ayahuasca Retreats
Another question I often hear is: Ayahuasca is so powerful in ceremony, what do I do between retreats? How do I carry its teachings into my everyday life?
It’s a wise question. Ceremony is only the doorway. What happens after—the walking, the weaving, the integration—is where the medicine either takes root.
Integration As Daily Practice
The greatest gift we can give ourselves between retreats is to treat integration not as a checklist but as a living practice. Ceremony stirs the waters; daily life is where we learn to swim in them. The goal is not to recreate the visions but to embody the lessons they revealed.
Listen To The Body
Ayahuasca often works first through the body. Pay attention to your rhythms, rest, and nourishment. Keep diet simple when possible. Walk outside, stretch, move, breathe. The more attuned we are to the body, the easier it is to notice when fear, stress, or old patterns try to reassert themselves.
Protect Your Nervous System
Limit overstimulation. This doesn’t mean avoiding life, but it does mean choosing carefully what you consume—food, media, conversations. Create spaces of stillness each day, even if just a few minutes. Remember that the nervous system is the soil where integration grows; tend it with care.
Stay In Relationship
Ayahuasca is not just about us as individuals. It is about connection—with nature, with community, with spirit. Between retreats, stay in relationship with what grounds you: time outdoors, prayer, song, or circles of trusted companions. Keep giving thanks to the plants, even when you are not drinking them. Gratitude keeps the thread alive.
Journal & Reflect
Visions fade, but the lessons remain if we anchor them. Write after ceremonies, yes—but also keep journaling in the months between. Ask yourself regularly: What is the medicine teaching me now? How is life inviting me to practice what I learned? Reflection turns fleeting insights into steady wisdom.
Keep Learning Through Service
One of the most powerful ways to honor the medicine is to serve others. This doesn’t always mean grand gestures; sometimes it is simply being more present, more compassionate, more accountable. Service is reciprocity in action—giving back some of what we’ve been given.
Know That The Work Continues
Ayahuasca does not stop working when the ceremony ends. Dreams shift, synchronicities appear, emotions rise. Trust that this too is the medicine at work. Ask, “How is the medicine still with me today?”
“The best practices between retreats are the simplest ones: listen, rest, stay connected, act with love. Ceremony is a spark. Daily life is the fire we tend with every choice we make. When we live as though the medicine is still in us—because it is—each moment becomes part of the greater ceremony of our lives. ”