Episode 153 – Carlos Tanner – Healing Trauma/PTSD – Plant Medicine, Ayahuasca

Ideas worth returning to

Quotes

Five substantial excerpts from the published transcript, lightly edited for clarity without changing their meaning.

1. “You can transform something you have treated as truth back into the realm of beliefs and ideas when it no longer serves you, as in the case of trauma. You can also take beliefs that are helpful and solidify them, replacing a damaging truth with a constructive one. To me, that is the essence of healing within the ayahuasca tradition.”

   From the conversation

2. “During the ceremony, I reinterpreted a situation from my past in a heightened state and was able to override my original interpretation. Something I had experienced as a fixed truth for decades returned to the realm of beliefs and ideas, where I could release it and replace it with a more accurate understanding that served me.”

   From the conversation

3. “Indigenous concepts such as demons belong to a spiritual paradigm through which people understand the world. Modern culture largely lacks that kind of spiritual framework. I do not think it is a coincidence that we have lost a shared spiritual paradigm while so many people experience depression and other forms of suffering.”

   From the conversation

4. “I now look at everything through consciousness. My philosophy, if you want to call it that, is that everything is made of consciousness. The energy of the universe is consciousness; every cell and every atom is consciousness. In this view, there is ultimately nothing but consciousness.”

   From the conversation

5. “A child’s smile still carries the quality of nature. When we understand ourselves as part of nature, we can bring that love to ourselves and feel it coming from the natural world. Nature holds us as it holds every tree, plant, and animal; that living energy permeates existence, even when our consciousness makes it difficult to perceive.”

   From the conversation