Episode 115 How Traditional Indigenous Healers & Holistic-Minded Health Experts Can Succeed Together: Interview with Caara Lovick

Apr 19, 2023

What are the mental health benefits of traditional indigenous medicine? How can these healing practices be integrated with holistic practices to care for your clients? 

MEET Caara Lovick

Caara Lovick serves as a healing facilitator and translator for a project called “Traditional Medicine” based out of Miami, FL. “Traditional Medicine ” is a unique project with the Q’ero community to connect their world-renowned Q’ero healers with people who want their services. Caara is also the host of a podcast called “Traditional Medicine Podcast with Caara Lovick,” which aims to educate and help people feel closer to these healing traditions. Caara has volunteered for various healers, including both Traditional Indigenous Amazonian and High Andean Healers of Peru, for over nine years. In addition, Caara builds community improvement projects in Miami, with a particular interest in developing worker-owned cooperative businesses.

Find out more at Traditional Medicine and connect with Caara on Instagram & Facebook

IN THIS PODCAST:

  • What is traditional indigenous medicine? 5:33
  • Who are the Q’ero? 10:53
  • What kind of issues can traditional medicine help? 13:10
  • How can you experience traditional indigenous healing? 17:02

What Is Traditional Indigenous Medicine?

  • Why do people have reservations about traditional indigenous medicine?
  • What are the limits of western medicine?
  • The importance of having support from both western medicine and traditional medicine
  • What is energetic vs. physical?

Who Are The Q’ero?

  • Amazonian healer vs. Q’ero
  • What are Coca readings?

What Kind Of Issues Can Traditional Medicine Help?

  • Recognizing energetic complications before they become physical complications
  • The importance of recognizing and acknowledging any discomforts that we feel
  • What is Kambo?

How Can You Experience Traditional Indigenous Healing?

  • The importance of getting to the root of your problem
  • What are the many High Andean Healing Modalities?
  • What is Ayahuasca and how is it different from Kambo?
  • What should mental health providers know before referring clients to traditional indigenous medicine?

Connect With Me

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Resources Mentioned And Useful Links:

Find out more at Traditional Medicine and connect with Caara on Instagram & Facebook

Transcript

Chris McDonald: Have you been curious about traditional indigenous medicine in Peru and the potential mental health benefits? Are you ready to learn about a different kind of healing for you and your clients and how you can support these practices? In today's episode, we'll be discussing what the benefits are from traditional indigenous medicine and how these healers and holistic therapists can succeed.

Let's jump right in. This is Holistic Counseling, the podcast for mental health therapists who want to deepen their knowledge of holistic modalities and build their practice with confidence. I'm your host, Chris McDonald, licensed therapist. I am so glad you're here for the journey.

Hey there, and welcome to today's episode of the Holistic Counseling Podcast. If you're like me, you may have heard about traditional indigenous medicine and plant medicine like ayahuasca. But are unsure how to support clients interested in these. Then those clients who wanna explore this form of medicine, you may have no clue, but that's okay.

I have today's guest is Cara Luk, and she's here to help us understand more about this type of alternative medicine. And how we can best support our clients. Cara serves as a healing facilitator and translator for the project called Traditional Medicine based OUTTA Miami. Cara is also hosted the podcast, traditional Medicine podcast with Cara Lubbock, which aims to educate and help people feel closer to these healing traditions.

I. A fun fact about her is she helped coach Josh Gates from Expedition Unknown with his first Ayahuasca ceremony in Peru for his special series on the afterlife. Welcome to the Holistic Counseling Podcast,

Caara Lovick: Cara. Hi Chris. How are you doing? Glad to be

Chris McDonald: here. Good. Yeah, so that must have been exciting to be on that show.

Caara Lovick: You know that you've gone way too far when you bump into Expeditions. You know what I mean? . Yes. Then I, I was onto something. I'm like, where am I that this is where you need to be. You know that, that's

Chris McDonald: super cool. That is so cool. Can you share more about yourself and your work?

Caara Lovick: Yeah, so I am a facilitator.

I volunteer for a very special project with the Kiro community in the high Andes. So they're world renowned healers who have been able to preserve their ancient knowledge, you know, since pre-Columbian time. So they're very, very special. They're like a anthropological like treasure that we have here on earth.

And so they've been able to do that by just staying high in the high Andes. Isolating because they were told by Mother Earth and Sacred Mountains that one day they would be needed and this knowledge would be needed in a very critical time in humanity. So they did as they were told, and waited for 500 years.

And, uh, yeah, so that's kind of a little bit about them. And I, I've also volunteered for Amazonian Healers. That's where I saw Josh Gates. I was doing facilitation, translation. I was also teaching English at the village. So I had a lot of. I've been out there quite some time. Yeah. And this has been for, for over five years, probably more.

Closer to six. I've been volunteering with traditional indigenous healers and then before that I've been volunteering with other kinds of healers just to get a feel for what is going on here.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. So it sounds like you already have a lot of knowledge on this and experiences.

Caara Lovick: Yeah, and I've, you know, I've started to also walk in these traditions, so I've been trained in the Amazonian healing tradition as well as the high Indian, so I'm.

I can help you out with, with figuring this whole thing out. I know it's a little wild sometimes. Yeah, yeah,

Chris McDonald: for sure. And this is a step outside of the traditional realm. I know you're using the word traditional medicine, but it's for

Caara Lovick: traditional therapy. I'll you back . Yes, yes. I'm like, no, we were here first.

No, no, no. Exactly. . This is a little bit

Chris McDonald: different, but Yeah. And, and I know the world has changed. I know we talked a little bit about that before we hit record and, and the need for more of these alternative, to me, this would be a w. Therapy as well. And we need more of these things cuz there's so much going on right now and so much mental health issues and crisis out there.

Caara Lovick: We, yeah, we're going through quite some time and yeah, like I had mentioned, you know, suicide rates have been on the rise for the last. Two decades, and health experts who study large populations say, you know what, it's not gonna get any better because we're not fixing the social environment that is causing this to happen.

And they have done some research into what was causing this. And it ends up being that the social environment we're in today is very different from the one that we've evolved in, which was the hunter gatherer band. And that was, we were hundreds of. Maybe even millions of years developing physiologically, psychologically, emotionally, and all this stuff.

And then comes agriculture and like farming and like domestication of animals. And there began something very different. We see hierarchical, uh, structures. We see, you know, these, these kinds of structures where there's one group that has power over another and then there's this disbalance and this opportunity for abuse to occur.

Um, this has really. A bad thing for us as humans. Yeah.

Chris McDonald: Oh, exactly. And I know we see it every day with mental health therapy and there's not even enough services out there, but not even enough access and opportunity for everyone. That's the other piece. Right. So this is a huge, huge

Caara Lovick: issue. Yeah, no, I was just gonna say that, yeah, the problems keep on coming and we're not growing this, these, you know, these services and yeah, this is a crisis we're going through.

It is a crisis, and

Chris McDonald: I always said that too, when Covid happened too. It's just like the mental health crisis of it. People didn't talk about it enough and address and, and I think it's still hitting us. We don't even know the long, long-term impacts. Yeah. That is, you know, I wonder, just thinking about all this, that, what are some people's reservations?

Getting into any of this more traditional medicine, what have you noticed from people?

Caara Lovick: Traditional indigenous medicines are very different from the world that we live in. We have a very, we we're really awesome in terms of focusing on the physical here in modern society. We hyperfocus on that and we are so comfy with that.

We're we like being in the shallow end, you know, of the water and traditional indigenous healers and their communities have. An entirely different world that includes physical, but goes beyond that into the energetics, into, I mean, it really goes out. It's a really complex framework. So when we are trying to, we see that these traditional indigenous healers are bringing about some incredible results, like for example, ayahuasca and one to four sessions, you can alleviate addiction or depression, very tough cases in just.

Session and everyone's like, what is this witchcraft? It's amazing. Yes, I know . And so we don't know because we, our framework does not include the energetic world. It doesn't include these areas. And so we don't know how to consolidate the two. So it is really hard for us to understand it. And also traditional indigenous healers aren't really.

Too concerned about the academic, uh, understanding and how to frame things for us to understand because they're too busy, you know, living life and healing people, and they're just happy, you know, they're very happy people. So it's, it is important for people like me to bridge that because that way we're not that way.

We know how to place it and understand it a little bit better. . So I think

Chris McDonald: there's a lot of fear with it too. And what is this? And let me just call my regular doctor to see what I can find. But I think a lot of people, I know you said the more severe cases that I think a lot of people get to that place where they realize that traditional US medicine where we are, it's just there has its limits.

There's only so much that it can do. Even mental health therapy. We have our limits too. Um, and I'm a mental health therapist. I'm not afraid to admit it, that sometimes there can be things that, that we don't have the tools yet that can help some of these more difficult

Caara Lovick: cases. But, you know, we're limited too because we can't Sure.

Provide the ongoing support that you guys can, and you Yeah. All have really understood ways to help change patterns in terms of behavior. You've learned how to, you know, breathing techniques, you've learned everything, you've mastered it. And we don't do that. We don't see people every week. We don't see our people every other week.

They still need that support. That support. Yeah. Because when they get back, there's been a big change. And yeah, we wanna continue to monitor the energetics cuz there's a whole other world that is happening that a lot of people don't understand. But when they come back, ideally both disciplines are running parallel and the mental health therapist is helping them have the tools they need to.

From where they currently are, cuz it's not where they were. A week ago, and it's kind of a big difference. Mm-hmm.

Chris McDonald: So that's a big jump too. I know you mentioned energetic world. Can you talk more about

Caara Lovick: what that means with, with traditional indigenous healers, the way that they've been able to produce the kind of results that they have?

There's a few reasons, but. The first one is understanding that humans, yes, the physical is something we can see and conventional medicine and biomedicine helps us with it. Like operations. You know, if I break my arm, I don't wanna go to a traditional indigenous healer, I wanna go to a doctor here that can help me with that broken arm.

But beyond that, the physical, uh, how they understand it is the tip of the iceberg in terms of what exists. So the physical is a very, it's the result of a lot of energetics that are beneath. Kind of orchestrating it to happen. So they study that blueprint and they try to see where some things can be improved or fixed, and then they change it.

But on top of that, to make things way weirder for people, they

Chris McDonald: work. It's okay. Here on the holistic counseling pack , we talk. So we're gonna

Caara Lovick: get kinds of. We're gonna be, we're gonna get really, really weird. So they work, they're in alliance with Mother Earth and sacred plants and sacred mountains because we may not.

Know it, but they're actually alive. They're alive. Just like how animal communicators talk to animals and they're, and everyone's like, whoa, what this is, this is real. Yeah. Well, on top of that, they go beyond that cuz they speak to sacred mountains. They speak, there's plants in the Amazon that are.

Incredibly evolved, uh, spiritual beings, and it's really incredible. I wouldn't have, honestly, I, I would've never believed any of this stuff had I not been there sitting with them. And had they not introduced me to these beings too, because otherwise I'd be like, There's, how can I, how would I know? But then they continued to, you know, the results kept on happening and I was observing it now through their lens, because they had shown me this, they had passed this wisdom onto me, and then I could see what they're talking about.

But otherwise, from our frame of work, we're just, you know, from our paradigm, we're looking there and we're like, It's a brew. It's, it's just, it's a chemical. That's what this is. It's not that , it's, it's much more than that.

Chris McDonald: I know you mentioned the, the Kiro. Can you talk more about that? I know you had an episode on your podcast about them too, just so people can get a better understanding of who they are and how they can help.

Caara Lovick: Yeah, the Kiro, uh, like I mentioned, they have been able to retain their pre-Columbian knowledge and the Amazonian healer and the kiro healer kind of existed in the same time. They were in the same kind of period where it was kind of the golden era of, of this kind of medicine, this kind of wisdom. And the, the Amazonian healer was able to connect to the plants, the sacred plants, cuz that's, it's the part of nature that was around.

But the kiro didn't have that. So they were connecting with the mountains and directly with Mother Earth. So the kiro are known as like the wisdom keepers and they kind of oversee everything. Nothing really kind of escapes them. So when we work with the Kiro, we, we have them look at the energetics because they're like, they're the ones that you want to have examined your.

And, uh, Amazonian healers do that well, but you have to drink ayahuasca. They have to drink ayahuasca. It's a process. But for the kiro, they just do coca readings and they have the same kind of result. And probably, actually way more than that. You

Chris McDonald: said coca readings, so

Caara Lovick: what are those? Yeah, Coca readings. So in both traditions, in the Amazonian tradition, the healer was trained by sacred plants, how to heal, how to do the things that they do.

And they have this alliance with sacred plants in the high Andes. They have built an alliance with mother. And the Sacred Mountains. And the Sacred Mountains have showed them how to work together, how to communicate together, and the Coca Readings is how this occurs. How this happens. The Coca plant has a very high frequency.

It's very, if you feel it and you're kind of an empath or anything, you're going to feel the power of that plant. There's a certain, uh, time where it has its power fully e eventually it loses it as it gets browner, but they have managed to figure out how they can be able to see very high kind of frequency messages and like to be able to see it all.

But the importance of the reading is that it's with cocoa. Coca has an energetic, it's not like a. It's not like tarot cards. Tarot cards are paper, but these cocas are, they have an energetic component to it. That's how they're able to ask questions. That's how they're able to see within the

Chris McDonald: field. Yeah. So what kind of issues can be helped with traditional

Caara Lovick: medicine?

Well, traditional indigenous healers, every time I have a problem or someone else has a problem, for example, I had a friend of mine who felt like they were having a heart attack. We went right to the. Immediately. And they ran some checks, uh, some, some tests, and they said, we don't find anything right away.

I'm checking with my traditional indigenous healers. And lo and behold, we found an energetic complication. If that energetic complication wouldn't have been tackled, then it would've eventually manifested into a physical complication. Okay, so anytime you have a discomfort, I would say, whether it's depression, whether it is anxiety, whether whatever it is, I had a car accident and I went to check to see what it was, because we understand that even the world around you is affected by your energetics.

So anytime something goes wrong, I am checking it. Anything can be checked, but I would. Anything that brings you discomfort, it would be a good thing to check to see if there's anything that can be done. So physical and emotional, physical, emotional career about spiritual money, family, everything.

Everything around us is affected by our energetics, and it actually goes beyond even mental health, even physical. It goes into the harmony of your families. It goes into relationships. Something that the kiro do that I. Really impressed with is that they do great work with couples and family units. And I'm like, but how is that possible?

Well, we're all connected, so in energetically, so they study what is happening with the energetics and sometimes there's complications within that that's causing, uh, this kind of disharmony. And they will apply certain techniques to fix that. Correct That. And then before you know it, people don't even, people aren't even fighting about what they were fighting about.

And it was wild to me because I thought, that's amazing. I thought you would need ayahuasca because some of it, it seemed like trauma. Right, because people hurt each other and then, you know, I'm like, but that probably maybe in your mind it had something that had was left behind and it wasn't the case for some of these things.

They were just not fighting anymore and they were not. They kind of got over those things and it was really amazing. Healing comes in so many

Chris McDonald: different ways,

Caara Lovick: doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Wow. That's, yeah. There's a large spectrum of different kinds of healing and it's like a library of things out there.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, so much more. I was looking at your website and I know there was something, I think it was called Combo, is that how you say it?

Caara Lovick: Km B. Yeah. Campbell. Mm-hmm. . What is that? Well, Campbell is one of the allies in the Amazon, so this is a frog spirit that lives in the Amazon, uh, kind of like ayahuasca and all those sacred plants, and it looks like a frog.

That's all we could see. There's secretion that the frog has that can be used for energetic, uh, work. and physical work cuz the, in that secretion, there's peptides and those peptides are kind of like, they're kind of like keys for your body. They're tr trying to unlock certain things and uh, they're really fantastic in terms of alleviating addiction and other things.

But I always, there's a lot of people that apply it without checking energetics. Don't do that. That's not what we do . And we always have am Mayas, check the energetics and then recommend what kind of healing. And they're very aware about Campbell. They're always trying to get me to do Campbell. They're like, Hey, that one we need to put it, put it in.

They didn't know what it was. The Kiro, they're like, condo, what is that? And, and they checked the cocoa. They're like, wow, this is a really good medicine. And then they got really excited in, in terms of incorporating it. But um, but that's kind of what Campbell is. Taught Kambu from, from a healer in the Amazon.

Really dear healer of mine. So how does

Chris McDonald: this work? Do you have to go to the mountain in Peru to get

Caara Lovick: the healing? No, luckily, . Um, you don't have to. No. I mean, there's certain cases, so what you would, there's different levels. You really want to make sure that you're, you're figuring out what's, what's the root of the problem because they might.

Immediately come, you know, for for certain cases. There's some cases that are stubborn, but they do a lot of remote work and they are incredible. The kiro, that's why I actually love them. Also. It's not invasive. It's not like ayahuasca where people have to experience things, they have to diet things. They have to stop taking medication.

You don't have to do that with high and healing traditions. A lot of people don't know about the high Indian healing traditions. Wow. And they're really. Incredible in that way. But we worked on relationships and, and worked on even anxiety, um, panic attacks. They're really, they're specialized. They specialize in anxiety too, and it's really incredible what they can do from a distance, but, If the case is a little more complicated, you would have to go.

And then we have Camou here. OU is kind of, it's not the same as Ayahuasca because it's not quite for trauma. Uh, ayahuasca is really incredible for trauma and depression. Cambo can do that depending on the complication. That's why it's important that you look at it. But Cambo is really for, uh, I think addiction.

There's certain kinds of health issues that it can. In terms of just helping your energetics, but that's, so there's a lot of medicines. It, it is really case by case. We look at things and then we decide what to do. Can you talk more about

Chris McDonald: Ayahuasca? Cause I only know a little bit from what I've heard.

Yeah. What is it and how

Caara Lovick: can it help? Well, ayahuasca, if anybody wants to take a look at some research that was done, Dr. Uh, Jordy Re. From Barcelona is a neuroscientist who was approved in the hospital of I, I think it's Sam Paul, to be able to do research. And they've been doing research for over 10 years, and what they found was that the Ayahuasca was activating different parts of the brain.

I think it was the neocortex, the. Ag doula and the Insular. Insular, that's what, yeah, that's what I wanted to say. But it, it, the combination of these activated region really facilitated resolving traumas, basically what they found, and it was really incredible that they were able to see that. But that's just, again, the tip of the iceberg is just what the, what physically we can see what we can.

but Ayahuasca does incredible things. I remember one time I was sitting in ceremony and we had a guest who had stomach pain every time she drank ayahuasca. And she was really upset cuz she wanted to see ayahuasca. She wanted all the pretty visions and she wanted to have this experience and that's why she came there.

And it was like, Session after session, that's what was happening. And I felt really bad about it. So I sat in ceremony and I decided to look into the issue myself. And I looked at her and her tummy, uh, her stomach area was, I could see like this darkness. And I'm like, no, why? And then I looked closer and I'm like, it's fertile soil.

And I was like, huh. And it looked like there was a plant that was going to, that was growing in her, in her stomach. And I said, what? And I went, uh, the next day to talk to her and I said, are you pregnant? She like, Huh? No, I don't think so. And I was like, really? Because I think that it's either preparing you for it or it's either happened already and I wasn't quite sure what it was.

But then after, in six months after, she's like, guess what? And I said, what? She said, I'm pregnant. And I was like, wow. Wow. So this plant was able to know what she needed six months ahead of time and began to prepare her body for that particular situation. So that's really cool. Yeah. Now this pla, there's a reason why it's a sacred plant.

There's definitely a reason why. Yeah. It's like a sacred intelligence. Exactly. Yeah. One day you're gonna have to meet Ayahuasca, Chris. Oh no, I haven't done it yet. . So you have. I have many times trying to many,

Chris McDonald: so, so what is it like, I know a lot of listeners are, are like me and prior, like what is it like when you go to an ayahuasca ceremony?

Caara Lovick: Oh my gosh. Okay, so here's, now, it depends who the healer is. It depends many things. Yes, everybody works with her, but, but it depends on your skill. It depends on what you're good at. You know, there's, there's factors, but where I went and where I tell people, I, I think you should go here. Always places I go.

I like to be the first one to try things out before anybody else, but this. Was very special. And when I went to drink, it was really weird because I would drink and then there would be a being that would be like, who are you? What are you doing here? I was like, what? I was like, uh, I'm me and I'm here looking for help.

You know, and it was a, it was a journey, but what was happening was Ayahuasca was trying to figure out what I needed and how to help me, and it was, It extended into a network of beings, actually, and she was trying to figure out what the heck mine, my case was really c really complicated. Really complicated because I had a generational complication.

It was a thing. It was a thing. It wasn't like trauma. It was something else. And yeah. But yeah, they, you, they'll explain. It's, you know what it is. It's kind of like dying. If you wanna know what dying is, people have talked about it, oh, I got to review my life and what I did and what I should have done, and all the, you know, I got to see the truth of things, you know, and then they come back in their body cuz they have like, maybe like a near death experience or something very, very similar to that.

So, yeah, I, I think it's, it's. I think it's that. I think that's a good explanation to what it is.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. Wow, that's very interesting. So what should mental h mental health providers know before they refer clients to any traditional indigenous medicine? Well,

Caara Lovick: I think a good idea would be to begin working with someone you trust.

and if you could find a team of people that you trust, then you really got something because then you know, you start to observe how the results come in. You know how, you know, once you get a rhythm here, then you really have something special. That would be the first thing I would say. Work with someone you trust, work with someone you think can help you and help your clients.

And then kind of just, you know, jump into the water with them and see how it goes. The second thing I, I think. People should know is that there's a lot of people that want to do, uh, integrational kind of integration medicine and supportive medicines, and I think it's great because we need you desperately.

However, I really, really feel that people need to talk to traditional indigenous healers and establish a team from that discipline before they take it upon themselves to know what needs to happen. We have to understand that these traditions are operating from a very different framework than ours, and we can't say truly that we're supporting it or we're helping people prepare.

If we don't understand that framework and that framework, I could tell you because it's as weird as this when you, when a client pays for an Ayahuasca retreat, The energetics begin that very day that they pay for it. It's a very different world, okay? You wanna monitor the energetics from that point on, and sometimes that client shouldn't really be drinking ayahuasca at that moment.

A better medicine is available for them, but they don't know that because they need to work with someone from these disciplines that can help guide them. And help provide them with some options that are really gonna get some results. And, and sooner than later, a lot of people go to ayahuasca retreats.

Sometimes they don't get what they need, and it's not the ayahuasca. There's medicines for everything. And sometimes people need to sit with you, Chris, for a little longer to really decide that they really wanna heal. Some people don't wanna. And it doesn't matter how much you drink, it will not. It will not do anything because healing is a process of really that person is going to birth their new chapter.

We're just there to help them. It's them. So to facilitate the process and we, that's what you and I do. We facilitate that birth. , that's all we do. If that person does not wanna give birth, there's nothing I could do about that. There's nothing you could do about that. Yeah. So sometimes they need to stay in, they need to stay in in, in therapy to really feel that bottom and say, you know what?

Time to try something new. And then that would be the perfect time to do it too. Or sometimes they need e energetic work before that. Yeah,

Chris McDonald: yeah. But I think that's true though. Sometimes even with mental health therapy, people think they wanna change, they wanna do something different. They don't really, so I could see that with other things too.

They think that they want to, but they're just not in that place

Caara Lovick: yet. I've had people like that and I don't know that cuz I'm not seeing right through them. But, uh, I had a case of somebody who, who swore they wanted to, he, they wanted to change, they do anything. And I said, cool. So whatever's going on must be some sort of complication.

Let's get to work. And they looked at this person and said, oh, this one's complicated. And I said, Why is this complicated? Because this person doesn't believe that they'll ever get better, and so they don't have faith in order to take those steps that they need and there's nothing we could do about it.

And this was like the first time. There's only been two times out of the entire two times. And I learned the importance of faith in those cases because that faith has an energetic function. and you have to have it in order to receive, whether it's therapy, whether it's traditional indigenous healers.

It's a real energetic asana, like a yoga thing. Mm-hmm. inside of you. And it is real . It's really real. Yeah. No,

Chris McDonald: I couldn't see that. Cause I, I see people with depression and part of what we do in therapy is the installation of hope. Cause if they don't have hope, then we're not gonna get anywhere. Yes. So it is starting with that, that they can get better.

But you're right, because I'm thinking about. A client I had that was not making progress no matter what we did. What interventions and it and it, I think it was one day I finally go, do you not believe you'll get better someday? He's like, no, I don't. I don't think I'll ever get better. So . So I couldn't override that.

So then we had to go in that direction to really look at that. How can we work on that hardcore belief and issue. So yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. Cause I think that's so true in therapy too. I think therapists might miss that sometimes. We gotta really examine those beliefs about getting better and that hopefulness

Caara Lovick: for the future.

What's kind of cool with working with the Kiro, for example, that that client could have been years in therapy, li not kind of lying to themselves, but when the Kiro caught them on their bs, so to speak, , they were like, they had to come to terms with it. They're like, oh, you see me? Oh. It's true. And then they're like, the first step is admitting, right?

You have to admit what's happening. Otherwise, how do you tackle that if you're in denial about it? But it helped them, it helped them kind of jump into that next stage, which was that, that acceptance. And I think that could be really helpful too. But, and now he's kind of, he ponders that on his, on his own.

I wish he was with you, but I don't have that. You know, we need that. That's where we need to collaborate because there's areas. He needs to go with you, Chris, and there's areas where he needs to come with us, and there's kind of this back and forth, uh, support that, that would be really ideal, I think. Yeah,

Chris McDonald: so, so it's almost like a dance to figure out, I guess, which.

Areas can be addressed in therapy and then where, what is beyond the realm of what we can provide.

Caara Lovick: And, and I would say, you know, monitoring symptoms is a great way. If people's symptoms are at a seven and above for a, a certain time and you feel like, okay, I've tried everything and it's not working, okay, well time to switch to plan.

You know, B here and. Monitor and continue to monitor. But when things get rough, we gotta do something, you know, we gotta bring out the big guns and that's kind of what we are, we're kind of the big guns to help out. . ,

Chris McDonald: yes, of course. But I love how you talk about like a treatment team and seeing it as a team approach.

And it's not like you're encroaching and trying to take work away from mental health therapists, that this is something where you can partner with other

Caara Lovick: providers. Yeah, we want, we want them to stay with you. We have a problem. We have a lot of clients that leave therapists. I, I, we had an addiction case not too long ago with someone who had really bad fentanyl addiction, and they went to, they went to centers, they went to addiction therapists, uh, they went to all sorts of stuff and then they left and they fell on our lab and we were able to resolve the, alleviate the a.

and we checked in on him for a month and the symptoms were low . And now we're like, okay, go on. Fly , fly back to your place. They're like, no, I, you know, I didn't really find the relief there, so why should I go back? And now they're just stuck on like motivational speakers. I'm like, Books, which is is better than nothing.

But I really want, we want them to go back to you cuz you guys provide a whole other dimension of support. So there is a fracture that happens when clients stay in these high levels of discomfort for too long and once they leave, it's going to be really hard to repair that. We don't want that kind of fracture between the mental health professionals and that discipline and clients because we need to make sure that they continue to trust that support and they.

Tend to trust it when they feel like these really tough things are not being resolved. That's when they go to, uh, the Amazon, that's when they jump ship and we wanna try to like, keep things together. That way we can monitor everything. That way we can make ensure excellent, right? Because. We can't ensure excellence when there's different things, you know,

Chris McDonald: Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense. I appreciate you sharing that cuz. Cause I could see, like if somebody goes for some of these, um, indigenous medicine and, and like you said, they're different people after, but to make, it's almost like a transition back to their lives, but they're different. So what does that look like and how does that feel and how do they navigate that?

Caara Lovick: Yeah, no, I mean we, we help after they have a massive change, we continue to offer energetics to continue moving them through phases cuz there's different phases, right? There's that crisis phase, and then there's that like development and growth phase, and that requires certain energetics to ensure that they continue to move forward.

However, yeah, they need those resources. They need that support. They need to meet with you once a week or twice a week so that they can work out this new mind frame that they have with someone who can actually provide some guidance in terms of that. But, Okay.

Chris McDonald: So what do you think is a takeaway that you could share with therapists today that you haven't mentioned that might be encouraging for them if they're not sure where to get

Caara Lovick: started?

Well, we're always happy to talk. Traditional medicine miami.com is where you can find us and you know, we, we have access to both disciplines, so we really kind of have it all covered. In terms of the, the Americas, I mean, there's a reason why Ayahuasca and these medicines have gotten. Notoriety and we're able to bring all of our resources, right?

We do translations, we take care of everything on our end of the discipline, and we make it really easy to bridge the two. So I would say, I don't know too many people that do what I do. That, that we do, we do things in a very interesting way. Um, but, but I would say, yeah, find someone, find the team, find the people that you feel and, and start to talk.

Start to collaborate on, on certain projects and you know, I think that's where we're really gonna see some movement in terms of what we're seeing, in terms of what we're offering.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. And we'll have your information in the show notes as well, so. Listeners so you can reach out to car if you have other questions.

But I thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Yeah, thanks for having me. This has been great. And so there you have it. So Cara shared a lot of those ways that you can collaborate with other, those who are working with traditional indigenous medicine and, and how you can get involved with that. But if you wanna join me and other holistic therapists who are as excited about deepening their knowledge of holistic modalities as you.

Come on over and join my Facebook group, the Holistic Counseling and Self-Care Group. In this group, you can ask those burning questions about how to integrate your modality into sessions, as well as any other questions that you might have and need support for. The link for the group will be in the show notes.

And again, this is Chris McDonald sending each one of you much light and love. Till next time, take care. Thanks for listening to the Holistic Counseling podcast. Ready to engage with other holistic counselors. Head on over to my Facebook group, the Holistic Counseling and Self-Care Group, where you'll be able to connect with other holistic counselors just like you.

You'll also gain invaluable resources on holistic practices daily, and connect with others in a fun drama-free environment. Remember to tune in next Wednesday for another episode.

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