[00:00:00] Pascal: Hi, welcome to One Degree Shifts. I'm your host, Pascal Tremblay, and I'm the co founder of Nektara.
And today I'm joined by the lovely and amazing Jennifer Tesler. She's the director of Alalaho, which is a retreat in the Netherlands. And honestly, one of the nicest names of a business I've ever heard. So I'd like to hear more, Jennifer, what that means.
And she's a integration guide and also a facilitator. And she's an avid meditator to say the least. She has spent over a thousand days in meditation retreat, which is exactly a thousand more than I have. So I'm curious to hear more about that. And she's dedicated to bringing wisdom and compassion in the world.
And in her own words to help facilitate the transformations so desperately needed in our aching world. She's also a beautiful writer. Hi, Jennifer.
[00:00:50] Jennifer: Hi, Pascale. Lovely being
[00:00:53] Pascal: Yeah, thanks for being here.
What does Alalahu mean again? I remember it being pretty cool So I'd like to share with the audience
[00:01:02] Jennifer: here. That's a great question to start with. So the word alalaho comes from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and it's a word that points to the nature of mind and in particular to that, the aspect of space and that capacity of the mind to basically hold the whole spectrum of human experience.
[00:01:27] Pascal: That's beautiful and that's counterintuitive to the world We live in which is the topic that we're going to talk about today is our addiction to quickness and speed and bigness Not allowing the time to unfold In a natural way, and wanting things to happen a bit faster than what divine timing might have for us.
And we're going to talk about that in terms of the personal journey of healing and transformation, but also in terms of as someone who. runs a retreat operation. How does that philosophy that you've learned from your Buddhist teachers and your meditation practice? How has that influenced the way you run your retreats in the business itself?
So I'm really excited to dive into that. Could you share a bit more about, urgency and the importance of moving slower because it is a social urgency. It's not just a personal urgency that we have for ourselves, but also in terms of the world itself, where it's going and how we've been doing things.
[00:02:29] Jennifer: It feels like such a big question and I think some, something that's been part of the A La Ho journey as an ongoing exploration, I wouldn't say Oh, we've got it sorted and we're moving really slowly and mindfully, it's something like, if I look at my everyday life, I still get caught up in feeling like in a bit of a hamster wheel and being a bit overwhelmed by just a number of things, messages, items on the to do list,
the very beginning of the project. And yeah, it's just part of the DNA is also that sense of just trusting, as you say, the kind of divine timing and course in some ways, like there is a certain level of pushing and planning and going for things. And there's always been that sense of okay, let's just trust, how things want to unfold and the time that it takes for them to unfold.
There's been different kinds of moments in. The history of Valhalla Hall, where we've, received advice, maybe to like push or, go bigger than where we, where we were at that point. And somehow, whether for better or for worse, and actually, I do trust that it's for the better.
That just hasn't worked, it's you just can't push beyond. What's right, so yeah we're very keen to attune to just what feels authentic aligned and yeah, in a gentle collaborative flow is the universe.
[00:03:55] Pascal: Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful.
And personally speaking, before you dove deep into meditation, were you caught up in that sort of social addiction to speed and too fast and too big?
[00:04:08] Jennifer: Not really. Mainly because I got into meditation way before I got into to do list. Yeah, I I felt in the cauldron kind of thing. As we would say in French, like I started getting into Buddhism and meditation when I was 16 and then really when I was 18 and when traveling and stuff.
So yeah, that was way before my working life as a entrepreneur. Yeah.
[00:04:31] Pascal: Yes, that's perfect. Cause I'm actually the opposite. I started and still, like you said earlier, I'm still following the pitfalls of this for sure on an everyday level, being caught up in the doingness of things, and I'm trying to make everything bigger and faster and things. And it was only until I would say. Last year or a few years before that, where I started dealing with an autoimmune disease and it was basically screaming at me to slow down. So I learned the hard way about slowness and the value of that.
And with Nectarra specifically, we always talk about, integration is a lifelong journey and with Alalavo, also really deeply caring about that sort of mentality and philosophies. It's the opposite of what we've been taught as children, oftentimes, unless we fall into the cauldron of Buddhism meditation early on, is that we need to go bigger and then faster.
And it reminds me a little bit of the jaguar archetype. And I started relating with that archetype a couple of years ago in ceremony and my original perspective of that archetype was like big, fast and strong and, just really quick and.
Over time that, that perspective has changed more to focus on the 98 percent of the time the jaguar is not really doing much of anything. It's just resting and chilling in a tree kind of thing. And so I'm interested to learn from you how meditation has influenced your perspective of speed and time in your work and your personal healing.
[00:06:01] Jennifer: I love that kind of a new perspective on the Jaguar archetype. That feels really juicy, actually.
[00:06:09] Pascal: Divinely take care of ourselves so we can show up in the world and in the doing world in a much better way. And a quick note on that is that you've influenced that because when you send an email to Jennifer, there's a little auto response thing that says something about prioritizing self care.
And I always love that. And it helps influence others into reminding ourselves to practice divine self care. So thanks for that.
[00:06:32] Jennifer: And yeah, to speak to that question of how meditation might have influenced, the way I work or the way we work at Alalajo, I guess maybe it's meant that the focus is on. Perhaps depth and longevity over speed and scale. It's not to say that we don't want to have an impact that's as big or as vast as possible.
Like of course we do, and actually, if you think about the kind of Buddhist path, in a way it feels like it is the most ambitious thing you can embark on. It's like getting enlightenment for the sake of all mother sentient beings. Like how much bigger, can it get?
Scale and impact is still important to us, but not at the expense of, sacrificing the debt and longevity and kind of stability or like deep rootedness of the work that that we do. So I would say that's maybe the main thing. And that's why I'm in partly also because I'm not sure I have the business skills at this point required to scale the business, but it's also it's just not something that interests me.
If it scales naturally, I'll be super happy. But what I am the whole team, want to focus on is like doing work with people in a way where we know it's long lasting, it's deep rooted and actually really accompanying people on, on, as you say, a lifelong journey.
[00:08:00] Pascal: Yes, and you speak about the, and I quote, the subtle power of not getting your mind blown off in terms of the peak experience and in terms of, I would say even from a personal healing perspective, how do you scale healing within yourself? And oftentimes we're wanting the big experience, we're wanting the big healing, we want the big sort of trauma resolved and things like that.
But really the subtlety of pausing as medicine and the subtlety of moving slowly through these really big. events in our lives and these big stages and states in our lives. There's a lot to be said about moving really slowly and I'm curious to hear what your experience has been on a with your own healing path in terms of moving slowly and what how that has enriched that, that journey for you.
[00:08:48] Jennifer: Something that I often share in the kind of integration chat that we have at the end of every retreat is this thing where. It feels like somehow at any given time in my life or like most times I just feel stuck and I think that's something that's shared by most people in life.
We just feel like just coming up against the same issues, just feel stuck being how we are, who we are, functioning the way we do, and yet if I look back a year ago, three years ago, five years ago, ten years ago, I do feel like I'm a different person in many ways. There is also a core that doesn't change and I'm not sure that It needs to change, but there is also a lot of evolution and growth.
And I think that speaks to that point of just the slow work is that the thing that happens and that are really deep are most of the time, quite unnoticeable. And I think both my meditation kind of path and also going through, years of psychotherapy training and personal psychotherapy has really open my eyes so to speak to that.
[00:09:56] Pascal: Yeah, and you mentioned there's parts of you that maybe don't need to be changed and I think that's very interesting and relationship to what you shared earlier around the holding of time. And I think for me, it talks about the trusting piece and the patience piece. And I'd love to hear more about that specific area of your journey with healing around patience and holding and accepting that there's parts of you that.
Maybe don't need to be changed. And for me personally, what I've experienced in my own healing journey is that whenever I would see something that I want to change that I had envisioned for myself, I would want to change all the parts and neglect holding the parts of me that perhaps don't need to be changed.
Maybe that's part of the healing process. It's just acceptance. Yes.
[00:10:52] Jennifer: it's something that It almost brings me back to this question. I'm like, what is healing? That's something that came up also on the returners retreat that we ran a few months ago And I what is it that we're actually trying to do, and it's like we're all in this kind of Modern contemporary culture of like personal growth and healing.
And yeah, sometimes I'm like what is it really that we're trying to do, that we're trying to achieve? And they can be such a yeah, almost obsessive focus that's really harmful, it's we're just living with this feeling that there's something wrong with us, that we need to fix ourselves, that we need to be other than what we are.
And sure. It's. It feels like we need to be able to hold paradoxes. We don't need to change. We are perfect. We are divine. Like we need to just accept who we are and we can change and we do need to keep working on ourselves. And I feel like both are true in different ways.
And, something that is always super rich for me and like creates this kind of friction that I didn't have to negotiate somehow resolve inside myself. And there's like Being in this kind of, let's say therapeutic world of personal growth, like the psychedelic retreats and all of that, and then being immersed in Tibetan Buddhism, spending a lot of time around Tibetan people, cool, how like such a different, yeah, just like cosmology, sense of self, sense of community, and again, they're on the Buddhist path, the people I'm talking about, I'm not saying all the Tibetans.
But, so it's they want to change, they believe in transformation, that's what the whole meditation path is about, but they also have such a relaxed relationship to their own neurosis. Sometimes I'm just like, so refreshing, there's just seems to be this acceptance, it's that's part of the human realm, it's like we're lost in some degree of confusions, bigger or lesser, and some degree of just having all weird little quirks, and.
Weird things about it, and then she's yeah, this person's just like that. And it's that's fine. Yeah, sometimes it's really, I find it quite refreshing.
[00:13:02] Pascal: I'd love to hear more about that. The differences between the way these see personal transformation or healing in your own experience. What has that looked like for the people you've spent time with?
[00:13:13] Jennifer: I'm around Tibetan people, but most of the practitioners in the Sangha are Westerners. I think even just these words, personal healing, I don't think that, I don't know the Tibetan translation, for that. It's just, It's so rooted in our own, philosophy, culture, transformation, in at least in the Tibetan Buddhist part, it isn't so personal, first of all, yeah, I think it's not quite as individualistic, perhaps as the way in which we approach a healing as Westerners.
And that's something maybe that kind of feels, to go back to a little bit like. This idea that it's not just about us as individuals getting better or feeling better or, it's not just about personal healing. It's about healing for the sake of, helping the world, become the kind of more beautiful world.
Our hearts know it's possible to use a Charles Eisenstein kind of phrase. Yeah, there's something about doing this work, doing the personal work, but being really aware of the global context in which we're doing what we do. And that's something that we always want to bring really to the fore in the retreats.
[00:14:32] Pascal: And that's so much of what the world needs, right? Reconnection to the collective and the connection to all things really. And I think we're in the Western world and I can just speak for myself that oftentimes we're trying to fill our cup with something else that eventually leads us back to seeking reconnection to all the things.
And I think that's such a core part of personal healing is reconnection .
How has that influenced the way you approach the retreat space and how you maybe hold ceremony or how you hold people to their preparation integration?
What's that look like for you in terms of the teachings of Buddha and how it's influenced the way you do these things?
I generally approach peak experiences, both In meditation retreats, but also with psychedelics, with that sort of,
[00:15:26] Jennifer: I don't like the word detachment because it's not about, detachment as like a disconnect, but it's more like a kind of spaciousness, in Buddhism, the idea of not grasping is very poor to the path and to the practice. And it's not to say that we need to push away, but we also not need to hold on to, and I would say like we always invite people to hold their experiences, whether that's the ceremony experience or anything that comes up during the retreat with that kind of spaciousness, where you can be in contact with your experiences. Again, it's not about being detached. So you are in contact, you are present, you are switched on, you're there.
And you're also aware of that kind of like biggest space that is actually not that personal, that's more transpersonal, like that kind of. Yeah, just the space of awareness that can hold everything without getting too caught up in it, without believing in the stories. Oh cool, that's a useful story, that's a healing story, that's a useful perspective.
And I don't need to solidify it and make it the ultimate truth and then identify with it and then just go boom, that sort of narrow mind again.
[00:16:38] Pascal: Is the God space, right? The silence, which is the language of God, they say,
Can hold and holds everything, even sometimes we don't realize it. And I think it speaks really well to the idea of pausing as medicine and giving spaciousness and listening.
And at the same time, and I want to just put that in there as well as the Jaguar also pounces when it's ready to pounce, when it's time to pounce, it does move forward and put fire into action. How do you relate to that part of the Jaguar in terms of.
Holding a very Buddhist perspective, the meditation, the pausing, and then also when you need to putting fire and into your actions. How do you navigate that sort of shift of state in relationship to your work?
[00:17:24] Jennifer: To be honest, I probably spend most of my waiting time pounding and I do, really pausing. I don't want to, pretend that I'm some kind of little
[00:17:34] Pascal: She's not levitating right now, everyone. I can't verify that because I can't see but
[00:17:39] Jennifer: No, yeah, not at all. But it's also, part of the Buddhist path let's say, the practice is in a way the kind of ultimate non action we even speak, in particular in the Dzogchen. That is The meditation is non meditation, the conduct is non conduct. So it's it's really this ultimate state of rest.
But the thing is, to get there, you do need to apply a hell of a lot of effort, and sometimes we spend a lot of retreats just like working super hard, just very like busy, like preparing rituals and things and offerings and whatever it is, like our teacher like keeps us very busy, almost squeezes us.
But it's through that action that we then, by some kind of mechanism, which I won't even try to put into words now, but can access or get glimpses of that space, that stillness, that meditation of non meditation. And so I guess to bring this back to daily life, like there's a sense of, it's fine, it's fine to put energy towards things, to make effort, to be disciplined, to be diligent.
It's two things. It's almost like I have to put it within the effort and the activity, like finding that point inside that is in the non effort, in the non activity. And that's always present. And also, and to go back to your points, about posing and meditation. And it is also really important to have moments where we do deliberately just stop, stop the noise, stop moving around, stop doing things.
And just come back to that point, that center, that stillness so that, yeah, when we're busy, we're just aware of it, it's like
Okay, training, training it quite deliberately in almost like a bit of a fabricated way, creating these moments where everything is quiet, everything is still so that I can feel my own in a stillness and then it's easier to find it even when things are manic.
[00:19:40] Pascal: Yeah, it's like having sacred pauses in the day, which is Atirathan had mentioned this to me before, the idea of secret pauses, and I've been practicing them in my life, and before this podcast, I was in the sauna back there, which is my place for secret pause in the day, just like everything is shut down, I can't hear anything, and it brings me back to the body right away, and then I forget all the noise and all this chatter that sort of happens when I'm in the doing mode sometimes.
I really like what you said about, attuning and training towards presence and pausing and giving ourselves spaciousness because we can bring that into our work and it's present when we train to it incrementally over time. And I mentioned this before and the beauty and Necessity of tiny, like tiny little things.
And this podcast is called One Degree Shift. So I really appreciate that idea. But it doesn't always have to be a big thing. You don't have to go on retreat for 45 days to, to feel this. You can apply this in everyday life. And it can take two minutes during a day just to break the cycle of thinking of doing and just.
Like you said, pause and come back to stillness, which sometimes in the past when I've been working super hard and I do the stillness practice, I'm like, I haven't been here in two weeks. And that's when I'm really like in the troves of like deep work and I'm not being conscious about it. Gosh, does that feel good when you go back to that place?
And I think it's very nourishing for us as doers. My friend, David, who I keep quoting on the podcast, cause he's full of really good quotes, but he keeps telling me, Pascal, remove the doer from the doing, and then you can become a prism from which God can flow through. And when he said that, I was like, wow, I've, that's pretty deep.
And what a beautiful lifelong practice , to work with that part of ourselves, which wants to hold, wants to own, wants to control, wants to move things in a way that doesn't always serve us. So I think these micro moments every day are really useful to bring us back to removing the doer in our lives.
And I can see that in your retreat space you're practicing that for yourself and also for the clients that you're serving, which means that for them it really invites them to that spaciousness as well, because they can entrain to your own nervous system. The spaces you create are I'm assuming very spacious and give a lot of time for people to process and be and in silence.
[00:22:12] Jennifer: Yeah, I love that quote by your friend. And yeah, that speaks a little bit, it's like another way of putting into words that sense of even in the effort, there's a part that's completely just an effortlessness. And yeah, I think one of the things that I love the most about the retreats, and I think people do as well and again, it's much tinier and much more settled than the psychedelic ceremony, but it's.
First of all, the fact that people don't have their phones, like we invite people to hand over their phones on the first day and then they get them back on the last day. So obviously that cuts out hell of a lot of noise and distraction really help people be more present, but also like at the start and at the end of every single activity and session that we do, we did start with a few minutes of just breathing, just making contact with the moment.
And at the end as well, it's just that sense of starting from space and then allowing things to dissolve back into space and just coming into presence. And it's so powerful what that does for people and to the field and just to the kind of container for the retreat. And literally, I think every single retreat, I'm like, this is so good, why don't I do this more, in my life?
And then I try and maintain it for a few days and then, yeah, the computer and emails and the phones take over more than I want them to. But it's really magical. And yeah, so most people are almost a bit like, oh, wow, it feels so good being present. So lovely.
[00:23:44] Pascal: What is this magical
[00:23:46] Jennifer: Yeah, totally.
Totally. That was more mind blowing than the psychedelic experience.
[00:23:52] Pascal: It's true, and I always tell my son Noah, it's all about how you're meeting the moment. And earlier you mentioned, we're not trying to scale and we're just trying to go deeper, share more about that philosophy.
[00:24:07] Jennifer: Yeah, sure. That's really, it feels like in a way, it's still very early days for A La Lajo in terms of really accompanying people long term in a super deep way. Of course, we have some integration. We also sometimes keep working on a one on one basis with some participants. But it's really like the main sort of thing I have in mind in terms of how I want to develop a la ho.
I imagine the next steps would be something like starting an online community and then providing more kind of integration activities. But I think even with the offering that we have now, there's always, from day one and even before it's we tell people, this is just the beginning of a journey.
You're, the journey doesn't end on day five of the retreat, like this is really planting a seed that will continue bearing fruits actually for days, weeks, months, years, maybe lifetimes to come. So that, that framing is there in everything that we do. And it was really interesting.
Like recently I was doing a piece of work with. Someone who basically helped me do a survey with all of our past participants. And it was so interesting because the way she asked the questions, what, when you decided to sign up for the retreat, what were you after? What were you trying to get?
Or what were you looking for? And actually, what did you actually get? And it was so interesting to see, yeah, in a way that the kind of gap, not in that people didn't get what they want, what they wanted. But it's almost like they, most people don't have a real, like in their bones understanding before the retreat of how big and deep a journey that will spark.
And, it's like as much as we try, to tell people, look, psychedelics are not a magic bullet. You don't change overnight. Even the most documentaries that you watch make it look like you will change overnight and be a different person, when you go home. There's a lot of expectation, there's a lot of, yeah, kind of magic bullets of mentality and we try to counter that, but it's really, it's just experience the job more than our words.
And yeah, people are really struck, in the months or years afterwards to seeing oh I had no idea how much of a deep journey this would be. Would start and they thought they came for one specific things But then that thing is connected to the whole web of who they are as a human in a kind of relational Ecosystems, it's like everything gets affected. Yeah.
[00:26:51] Pascal: Yeah, that speaks to the bigness of the experience, and the potential of the bigness of the experience in terms of lasting. And I love that you say lifetimes, cause that's true that these things can impact you for lifetimes. And it speaks to not just the sacredness of the experience and also how big it can be, but also that the work doesn't really want to scale.
And you shared to me that's not how Dharma works.
[00:27:16] Jennifer: Yeah, I guess it comes back to that point of kind of forcing going against the kind of Wisdom of the universe or yeah, the kind of the way things not even want to work, but just do work You I guess in the context of the psychedelic industry, I think it's been quite interesting watching, the last few years, the sort of like booming interest and then all these big kind of like investment and big companies trying to scale.
And I don't know, I'm also not really looking into it every day in so much detail, but just from where I stand is it feels like it, it doesn't really work, it's almost like. These medicines don't really allow that kind of almost like industrialization or, just massive scaling of things. Yeah, I feel like there's a kind of wisdom to this medicine that's just not allowing that. When I think of A La Ho, it's as I said before, if it scales, if it grows, wonderful, that means we're having even more of an impact. Wonderful, but I'm not going to push it.
And, for example, just like it feels, I think one of the things that I find most special about a la ho and that actually also came out of the surveys that people can see and feel is the team, the facilitation team. And the fact that we're all so close and so connected, like we've been working together for years.
We're like, a real kind of community and friends and love each other and love spending time together. Love working together. I like this such. Deep bonds and harmony within the team. And it's you can't scale that. You can't just get 20 more people on board and then just train them in six weeks and then they're like, okay, boom, you'll psychedelic facilitators and apply this formula.
It doesn't work like that. And also in terms of people training to become facilitators. I would say I've got mixed feelings really about all these kind of trainings that are emerging at the moment, because sometimes oh yeah, do this year long training and you'll be a psychedelic guide.
And so it takes years of inner work. You can't just fast, fast track these processes. So yeah, I guess that the scaling and the speeds, are connected to each other in that sense. So Yeah, it feels like there's just something about this work where you, there's no shortcuts, basically. And I think that limits the speed at which you can, can't scale.
[00:29:49] Pascal: yeah, absolutely. And we shared the same vision on that one. I think the, how do you scale the impact that this, I can color the space that this medicine can have in a way that's really deeply well held with reverence and the right supportive philosophies and people that are really well trained. Without compromising the potential of it. And I, I, we've talked to retreats every week and there's definitely a cultural and business hurdles towards doing that on a bigger level than what's currently available in terms of support infrastructure and training and all these things you mentioned as well.
And so the way I see it. Instead of scaling retreats to such a huge level of number of guests and things like that, it would be much better to have retreats like, but having more of them basically to support the man in the space as it unfolds organically and not forcing it. And I think it's a mix of like people really wanting to help and creating these businesses and these retreats and. And a mix of greed and maybe naivety around what it means to really hold good space for these medicines.
And I'm curious to hear from you what has been the biggest challenges for you in keeping things smaller and more intentional the way you have been, because you have maybe five or six up to eight, maybe retreats a year, not so much more than that.
[00:31:24] Jennifer: Last year we ran six retreats, but we started a little bit late in the year. And the plan for 2025 is probably to actually run, probably around 10 retreats. We actually, when we started and we were at the time, part of the UK psychedelic society, we've ran like sometimes two or three retreats a month, but it was just a different time.
We were the first ones and only ones doing it at the time. And then of course the market, the kind of ecosystem changed. So we had to reduce the number of retreats that we ran. To be honest, it doesn't feel challenging to keep it small. Of course it's challenging running a business, but It feels quite natural because of just probably just the team, it feels so nourishing actually, the fact that it's small, when I tune into it, like it's so lovely, like I know everyone who is part of the Alalaho kind of family.
So well, like I speak to them all the time, there's just that sense of very kind of human size community. So actually, if anything, it feels really nourishing. Of course, there's challenges of running a business and then finding the right financial model and making sure that. Everybody's paid well for their work and it feels sustainable and all the rest of it.
But yeah, overall, I think it, it's mostly really nourishing and really fulfilling. And I think, to go back to your point, cause I also realized I didn't really speak to the Dharma component, in your question around scaling. And I think probably I'd say that the sort of map or model I have for that and that kind of not looking to scale, like not forcing for it.
It's probably really connected to my Buddhist path and the community that I'm part of, because my teacher is, I would say, like truly one of the, yeah, just most amazing teachers that you might meet in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition today, in the sense that he was completely like brought up in Tibet, the kind of hardcore Just Vajrayana and yogic lineages, which is quite rare to find nowadays, because Yeah, most masters are now born in India and it's just a different time for Buddhism and the kind of practice.
And it's he's just never pushed to get more students, there's some Dharma centers and it's amazing, they have a more, an impact at a greater scale. They have like thousands of students, but he's always kept it quite small, never looked to get more students. But really, all his energy has gone into.
Really going deep with the students that he has. And it's like some of his oldest students, not in age, but like in number of years that they've been following him, who've been with him now for probably like more than 20 years. It's just a few years ago that he started allowing them to teach. And that's not to say that they didn't have anything to share with people before, but it's just like just making sure that they were deep enough in their practice.
That they could really share something in a safe, sound, deep, profound, authentic way with people. And I think the kind of mindset in, in the community is of course we'd love for more people to meet my teacher or meet the teachings I get in the practice. And maybe someday it will happen.
Maybe there'll be a boom and maybe not, maybe it will just always be a small community, but it doesn't matter because everybody is so committed and I think that's what. That's what has the most values. I think that's the model that I can have, and it's just that this trust that if we do the work in the right way with full, authenticity and depth, then it will follow the course that it needs to follow.
And, um, maybe just the last thought, this point about trainings, cause I also really don't want to look down on, the trainings that are emerging in the field and the fact that there's people who is like, really good intentions who are interested in this work for good reasons and want to help.
So it's it's great. And by all means, pursue this path if they feel right, but it's just this thing of doing it with this mindset of being a lifelong apprentice, not feeling like a piece of paper makes us qualified or, that's it. Like end of the line kind of thing. And it was brilliant, actually, we did a retreat, it was in July with, it was specifically for health practitioners in Australia who are now, getting their kind of license to deliver or prescribe psychedelic assisted therapy.
And it was brilliant, it was such a beautiful process. They've been doing a training in Australia, and Alalaho was providing the kind of experiential retreat. And I was so pleased because at the end of the retreat, everybody was basically just Whoa, like it takes so much to do this work and we're not really ready just cause we've done a year long training actually.
So it feels like the retreat, and the medicine did what I hoped it would do. It was a lot of wisdom. Yeah, it was super powerful.
[00:36:21] Pascal: it was beautiful. When you share about the, the team and the resistance to pushing for scale and, the connections you have with the facilitators and a family setting really after all the years we've been working together. And that's such a beautiful thing because to me, a retreat is a living organism.
Every single part of it speaks to the other parts and all the details of the organism affects the rest basically. And You know at the bottom of that Imagine it like a pyramid of all the little facets, starting with the founders, their intentions, the funding, the model, and everything that sort of flows from the top, starting with you as a director at the bottom of that pyramid is the journeyer is the person who's in that space, that the accumulation of all the other factors within the organism ends up influencing the experience that they have, even if it's maybe unseen or are imperceptible, it's going to be felt.
And I can imagine that because your intentions around paying attention and having the right people and having spent a lot of time with them and taking things slowly, I can imagine that being a participant in those retreats, you immediately feel that in the experience, the spaciousness, the feeling of feeling safer, the feeling of being held and nurtured in that space. How has that been for you in terms of creating these experiences and really having an eye to all the details? Because it really does take a lot of reverence and a lot of care to hold these experiences in a good way.
[00:37:58] Jennifer: That's where I feel, the kind of magic of teamwork, is in the sense that, of course, like now I'm the sole, like director of. CEO, whatever we wanna call it. Some kind of like running the show, so to speak. But I feel like I'm just a facilitator, in a way I'm just there facilitating all the people who are involved so that they, they bring their magic, they bring their skills, they bring their presence to the container.
Both, in terms of back office work. And then of course, like on the retreats themselves. Also, a la ho has come about as they're much the fruit of yeah, teamwork. There's been like lots of people involved who've poured like their life force and soul and heart and blood, sweat and tears and everything into this organization to make it what it is.
So yeah, it feels like it's, it feels like it's been teamwork all along and it continues to be and that's where I think the most important thing to us is just the. Integrity and intention of every single person involved with the organization in any way, big or small. And I think if we can ensure that, then things work out.
Things work out really well. And there's, yeah there's love and attention poured in all the channels that, that kind of need, love and attention.
[00:39:24] Pascal: Yes, when you put love into all the details, then it shows, in the overall, Experience of things in the, I can only imagine that it allows people to go deeper and allows them to have a deeper experience where you mentioned the survey earlier is that, maybe they were looking for the peak and then they got a whole lifelong journey of unfolding and integration after, which is much more valuable.
[00:39:48] Jennifer: Yeah, totally. And the, this is something I love about the work. I think the piece of feedback that we hear the most, like every single retreat from most participants is, yeah, that sense of wow, we thought that the psychedelic ceremony was going to be, the main thing, but actually everything else was just as important, if not more, and it's not even everything else in, in this diffuse way, but it's I think what touches people the most is the kind of.
Yeah. Quality that gets created, co created in the relational field between participants, but also between them and the team. And that's it feels like impossible to put into words, but I think that boils down to, yeah, just the integrity and the kind of heartfulness of all the team members.
And I think people are often, yeah, struck by one, so lovely people are so warm, so kind. And then it just invite every participant to actually just be, the kind of like warmest, loveliest, most open self. And it's so refreshing. And it's such a shock because it's just like also gives people that kind of stark contrast between actually how we live our lives a lot of the time, really guarded, really disconnected.
But actually that's just fun. It's like the, it feels like the greatest medicine of these retreats. Is the feeling of really soft humanness or humanity, that's actually where the healing is. I find more than in the ceremonies themselves.
[00:41:30] Pascal: absolutely. And that's mirrors my path really well, where first time I felt that I was, yeah, shocked and surprised. Whoa, what is this? And it feels awesome. And it changes your life because once you felt it once you do, you're always connected to it and you're going to be, I would say, attracting the same sort of energy around your relationships and the right people that connect with that and you're, I totally agree with you.
That's been the biggest medicine for me and my whole life was feeling that and what a joy and a treasure it is to remember because it's really about remembering that, right? I can imagine as someone who facilitates and curates and stewards these experiences, how blessed it is for you to be able to experience these.
What has been the biggest blessings for you and teachings that you've received from stewarding these Al Allahu experiences?
[00:42:27] Jennifer: Wow. That's such a huge question.
[00:42:31] Pascal: Do you have three hours to explain
[00:42:32] Jennifer: yeah, . I don't even know. I don't know if it's teachings that I could really put into words, although I'm sure I could. But it really boils down to that, to that medicine of just feeling so, so soft, so open and so connected.
And it's something we really often talk about in supervision. So we have team supervision after each retreat with senior transpersonal therapist, supervisor. And we often explore the fact that it's we've also been in a peak experience as a team, we don't take psychedelics on the retreat, but we've been immersed in this five day container of just with this kind of, boundary dissolution, like defenses melting, where we also get to be like lovely, best, most open selves.
And we also get the crash after the retreat and we also get the kind of come down and, it's we're on, on our, on a journey of our own through the retreat. And we often say that, at the end, it's just wow thank you to all the participants. Cause thanks to you, like we get to have this experience with you as well.
So yeah it's amazing medicine, something we often always comment on with the team, so we have these moments during the retreat where I'm just like, this is our work and we get to do this. This is part of our lives. Like we get to find ourselves in these incredibly beautiful bubbles and containers that feel just so full of goodness and like the best of humanity and we're just like, we're so lucky. It's such a blessing. So yeah, it feels like every retreat is a blessing and gives us a lot of energy, really. And there were times, there were times,
[00:44:17] Pascal: It is a blessing and a huge privilege, right? And And then you bring that into the world after that.
[00:44:23] Jennifer: Yeah. And there were times like in the A La Ho journey where things were really tough, like really hard, just, I guess the whole kind of entrepreneurship sort of ordeals. And really what kept us going was always that sense of but it's so good, when we're on retreat.
And when it's happening and then we hear from people and we feel people it's just it's so good It's so worth it. And let's just keep going. It's really been the gold of the fuel that kept Kept this organization going really the color life for
[00:44:55] Pascal: The truth has foundations. Why are we doing this? And that's the thing I, we come back to as well. I think Tara is like, when it gets tough, it's like, why are we doing this? And I had a chat with Elaine earlier. She was navigating something challenging. I was like, look at her in the eyes. I said, remember why we're doing this.
And all of a sudden, like things fall down and it's okay, I remember. Okay. We can. Go back to doing this with a lot of compassion and heart and it feels like you're also operating the same way. It's it's not always easy, especially for a retreat, fill out spaces and the marketing thing and the whole business stuff.
And we often meet ourselves in our own blindsides to around like growth and scale and wanting more or whatever. It's a very personal journey to do this, I find, and that's to me as a ceremony by itself is being an entrepreneur of what you can learn about yourself in the process.
[00:45:48] Jennifer: Yeah, totally that's yeah, there's been a bit of a running Joke, which has been funnier at times than others, but it feels like a la who's just been like, one kind of being psychedelic ceremony with all that entails, like very difficult, challenging patches. And also then the glory and the ecstasy of the kind of peak experiences and the goodness that comes from, yeah, keeping at it and going through the kind of darkness.
[00:46:22] Pascal: Yeah. When things go bad, you can just say the word a la ho, which is fun to say. A la ho, a la ho. Can make things a little bit lighter when you say a la ho.
[00:46:32] Jennifer: Actually, that's been, that's definitely been the thing, when things get tough or crazy or really good or whatever, it's like a la ho is a la ho. No choice.
[00:46:42] Pascal: Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. And the last question I have for you is I like to ask that to people sometimes. What's your vision for the space of the medicine, we call it industry or the community of medicine. What's the ideal vision or the ideal version of the future of the space in your mind?
[00:47:04] Jennifer: I'm not sure my mind has enough wisdom to to conjure up the vision of the perfect scenario.
[00:47:12] Pascal: What a wise take.
[00:47:13] Jennifer: Yeah, what a nice about, uh, I'm definitely with you. I, I do love that idea of, lots of small communities that really have that freedom and independence to operate with full, integrity.
I think there's something that feels really good about that. And it feels yeah, I'm almost wanting to see more of the kind of mycelium network, feels and I guess it's a bit seem to love.
The kind of world that we live in, but it feels like it still lacks a sense of community or connectedness, like between the organizations, like that kind of ecosystem and also for the people to, who come on retreat to then find communities, but real, like really feel like, okay, there's other people and we have got groups, we've got collectives and yeah, feeling connected in that sense, because sometimes, it's hard, and we've worn our participants for that.
It's it's going to be tough. Like you go back to your lives and it's you've had this experience of, in a way, the kind of ideal, a perfect community. And then you go back to your life and you're just like, I don't have that. And it's so sad. It's so heartbreaking. And then people go on a whole journey of finding communities where they can feel this again.
But yeah, it feels like that's what's really needed now. It's okay, not so much the focus on the peak, but the focus on community and connectedness in the long run.
[00:48:45] Pascal: Togetherness.
[00:48:48] Jennifer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:48:51] Pascal: Yeah, it's beautiful.
And I really want to attend a La Ho retreat at some point. So book a spot for me in the next few years, but I'd love to attend. It really feels. Super resonant and I think what you're doing is great work and really salute you for all the hard work you've been putting into it and also the way you've been doing it.
I think it's really meaningful and hopefully, this short podcast helped influence other people that are hosting sessions or thinking of doing it. There's a lot of really good threads of wisdom and how to do this work well in my humble opinion. So thank you for that. And thank you.
That's all I have to say. Thank you.
[00:49:31] Jennifer: Thanks a lot, Pascal. Yeah, it was a lovely conversation and I'm super honored to have had that invitation to speak with you and would love to have you on a retreat. Let me know when you're ready.
[00:49:43] Pascal: Yes. Thank you so much and be well.
[00:49:48] Jennifer: Thank you.
