Episode 34: Sacha Gnesin On What It Takes To Bring A 360-Degree Turn In Your Life
Have you ever experienced a "Dark Night of the Soul" moment where you realized you wanted to change your entire life around? Our guest today shares her experience with choosing to do a 360-degree turn to create the life of her dreams. Sacha Gnesin is an integrative health and nutrition coach, occupational therapist, bio-hacker, and wellness and fitness expert. By successfully overcoming her eating disorder and ego, she found her passion for health and wellness that led to a happier life. Combining bio-hacking, plant and animal medicines, a whole lot of soul healing and trauma clearing, she found her truest self. Sacha created her business "Glow by Sacha" to help others with their health & nutrition. True health starts from within and that's where Sacha comes in: to make you glow from within.
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Sacha Gnesin On What It Takes To Bring A 360-Degree Turn In Your Life
Have you ever experienced a dark night of the soul moment where you realized you wanted to change your entire life around? Our guest shares her experience with choosing to do a 360-degree turn to now create the life of her dreams. We're going to know the amazing story of the transformation of our guest, Sacha Gnesin. She is an integrative health and nutrition coach, occupational therapist, biohacker, and wellness and fitness expert. She found her passion for health and wellness through her journey to lead a healthier and happier life.
After struggling with the eating disorder for twelve years, she no longer wanted to feel depleted, numb, and walking around in a haze, cut off from feeling and facing her shadows. She embarked on a spiritual journey seeking the help of healers, guides, shamans, and mentors. Combining biohacking, plant medicines, animal medicines, and a whole lot of soul healing and trauma clearing, she found her truest self. Sacha created her business Glow by Sacha to help others with their health and nutrition. True health starts from within and that's where Sacha comes in to make you glow from within. Welcome to the show, Sacha. How are you doing?
360-Degree Turn: The best conversations come from disagreements and people being at their most vulnerable.
Thank you for having me. I'm doing great. You make me sound fantastic.
You absolutely are and we're going to get into that story of how you got to the place where you are right now. To give the audience a little background, my girlfriend is friends with you and you guys share the same mentor. She said that you are somebody that I absolutely have to interview regarding the journey that you've been on for the last few years because it's been miraculous. You're a person that glows. The business that you create, Glow by Sacha, embraces who you are as a person. I'm excited to get into that. Let me ask you a question. What does living a limitless life mean to you, Sacha?
For me, living a limitless life is a life of growth. I spent so many years being afraid of any type of change. Now that I've stepped into this higher version of myself, being able to be curious, ask questions, grow, and trying new things that scare you but deep down, feel like the things that you need to do, that to me is living a limitless life.
You told me some of the things that you did in the conversation we had beforehand and it seems like you did everything to push yourself outside of your comfort zones. Let's get into your background a little bit. Tell us a little bit about your upbringing and then how you got to the place you are right now.
I am born and raised here in the US. I grew up in New Jersey. I have Iranian parents, so I am a first-generation immigrant from Iran. I come from Jewish religion and background. Growing up was beautiful. It was so full of culture, amazing foods, herbs, and taste. My mom emphasized home cooking and natural remedies. Growing up, there was always something in the house that can fix you or cure you. I always felt a little bit witchy, for lack of a better word. I grew up making potions in my kitchen and talking to the fairies and little people on the floor, outside, and in my dreams. I always had that bit of the intuitive pull in me.
Unfortunately, when I was a young teenager, the pressures of society came full force. I remember being so self-conscious when I was about 13 or 14 about how my body was changing and the things that I was feeling. There was an instant shame. It wasn't like, “Let me explore this.” It was bad. It was a negative thing. “Your body shouldn't change so much. You shouldn't gain weight. You should always look nice on the outside.” To me, growing up, my worth was based on what was on the outside and not so much on what was on the inside, despite having amazing loving, caring, and supportive parents. In my mind, I connected my self-worth to how I looked.
Fast forward, I go to college. I was studying occupational therapy, where I have my Master’s. I was studying in school and that's when my eating disorder began. I quickly figured out how easy it was to binge on my favorite foods and purge and get rid of them. I was like, “This is simple. I know other people are doing it. I can't be the only one.” It started super innocently. I remember getting to a point where I kept telling myself like, “Sacha, you need to stop this.” It was a purge. It felt like it was an addiction. My whole relationship was with my eating disorder. I talked about it now like it was my husband and that I had to divorce.
I had this raging eating disorder. Throughout college, it wasn't as apparent until after I graduated. I moved into the city and I had my own place. I was working a job that I enjoyed at the time. I was working in a nursing home with elderly patients, mostly like stroke victims, rehabbing from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and amputations. I loved being an OT there, but I was so much walking in a haze of this eating disorder. My whole life revolved around food, control, and anxiety. Underneath it all, it's all about the anxiety that you have that's not dealt with. I feel like that word is thrown around loosely a lot of times, but underlying low-grade anxiety should definitely be addressed at a younger age.
I spent so many years trapped in this cage. I felt like a caged bird. It wasn't until many years later, I was dating my now-husband. Even though I was technically recovered, however you want to take that word, I wasn't bingeing and purging but I was obsessive with working out. Making sure I got at least 1.5 hours and going hard in burning out my adrenals, eating the smallest amount of food, and super clean meals as possible. I would still get anxiety if we were going out to eat all the time. I was enjoying life and everything about it.
He called me out big time. That was probably the biggest wake-up call for me because here I was, I met the greatest, most supportive, loving, and caring guy who had zero shame and couldn't care less about what baggage I brought in, but I was so ashamed of myself. It almost makes me cry to talk about it sometimes but the amount of self-hatred that I had during that time was incredibly high. I realized, “If I don't start making changes, then this is all going to be gone. This beautiful life that I manifested can be gone in a moment.” I began seeking. I was going to a therapist, but it didn't cross me to go and seek the best eating disorder place or rehab facility. The first thing that came to me in my first download was like, “Go find a healer. You need an exorcism.” I turned around to Ryan and I was like, “I need an exorcism. I feel this dense, negative energy and I need it out of me.” That's where my healing journey began.
Let me ask you a question. When you got into the relationship of your dreams, were you still having the eating disorder or did you feel like you accomplished that or you overcame that and it got retriggered, or did you have it the whole time?
360-Degree Turn: Working through breath releases all of that shame and negative energy, and taking a breath in fills it back up with the positive.
It was there the whole time. It's such a wide range. Here's the thing, I don't want people reading this thinking that just because they're not bingeing and purging, they don't have a problem. I don't want it to be misconstrued that way. There's such a wide range. Yes, I wasn't self-harming my physical body at the time, but the thoughts that I had and the obsessive control that I needed to have over every piece of food that went in my body were probably worse. It was psychologically traumatizing. It never fully went away.
The psychological trauma that we do to ourselves causes cortisol to be produced and the chemicals inside of our body, so it's just as bad. You're creating poison from within because of what our thoughts are and where they lead us.
I will be the first person to say that I caused all the disease in my body, but not in a way that I'm shaming myself at all. It's super empowering because when you're going from doctor to doctor and specialist to specialist like I did for years and I still do, but I found a good team at this point. When you're going from so many doctors and specialists and you want an answer and no one can give you an answer, it's upsetting. When you come to the realization that your thoughts and your feelings in the way that you speak to yourself causes either harmony in your body or disease in your body, that's when you're like, “Now I can take the steps forward that I need to take.” It's so much more on the cellular level than it is eating bad foods and not exercising.
There are many options for the routes we can go when we have an issue. We could go the allopathic route and there are so many great benefits to that, then there's holistic and then there's spiritual and emotional. There are so many different avenues we can go. It's important to address all of those as we look for healing because one option is not going to do it for us many times. If people are just going to go one, the allopathic route, they take this medication or they see this person and they tell you, “You got to take this medication.”
All of a sudden, it causes other triggers in our bodies to get us out of balance, and then we're on another medication. If we're going down that train, then it's going to be hard to reroute and get back to the place where emotionally, we're working on ourselves and stuff like that. I love the fact that you knew that there were so much more underlying psychological, emotional, and spiritual parts of you that you wanted to work on. Let's get into that a little bit. How did you start that journey?
A little bit of backtrack on what you said, another thing that was a big realization for me was going the allopathic route. I did and I fully immersed in that, but because I wasn't addressing the energetics of it, it wasn't working. I love mixing Eastern and Western. There's a time and place for everything, but I exhausted all of my options going to the best doctors in New York City and not getting the answer. You're absolutely right. There isn't a one-size-fits-all. It's unique to the person.
I wanted to get into how you started that journey of working with healers or the exorcism that we talked about. Before we even go into that, as you reminded me, I want to go into a little bit about supportive relationships. I sometimes know when we're in a relationship, we are at our most vulnerable. If it's a healthy relationship, then we can share and we can communicate from the heart. Can you tell us a little insight into the type of conversation that you had with your husband at that time?
This was one of the most challenging things for me. I grew up where my feelings are brushed under the rug. Everything is fine and everything looks good on the outside. For me to express from the heart and be vulnerable, the part of expressing it wasn’t was making me nervous. I had no idea even how to communicate what I was feeling. I had to go back and relearn all of that on such a different level. I remember I was reading books and listening to podcasts and everything. At the end of it, it was so overwhelming that I completely lost it. I was super honest with it. It wasn't just one conversation.
We’re married for a few years and it's been over that time period. We both agree that the best conversations that we have come from our disagreements or from us seeing things from different viewpoints and also from me and him being at our most vulnerable and breaking it all down layer after layer and peeling it. A lot of times, our conversations would start as if something was stirring up in me. Sometimes, I wake up in the mornings and I don't feel my greatest or sometimes I wake up and I feel amazing, or whatever it may be. Being able to express those in a loving and beautiful way makes all the difference because you don't want to be barking at someone and coming at them. No one wants to listen to you when you're speaking like that and that was hard for me. I felt like I was a little child banging on her door so many times because I didn't know how to communicate.
I could circle back on this. I finished a twelve-week communication course about intuitive voice coaching. I work with Tracy Goodwin and also, I got referred to Joy Dushey, which is my and Kate’s mentor. Tracy talks about the energetics behind your voice and how to heal your voice intuitively instead of like, “Now sing the A chord.” It's not like that. It's what is going on and what are the masks behind your voice that you were taught at such a young age that prevents you from projecting your true self and your true voice. I learned a lot through that communication course but also having super vulnerable moments.
It's so important, too, when you have a partner that's able to sit in that vulnerability with you, be there, and be present. In so many cases in my relationships in the past, I've been triggered many times and I've had other people be triggered, so there wasn't the communication. There'd be arguments, and then there wouldn't be any understanding from it. People go from one argument to the next without moving forward.
When you find somebody who's willing to sit there with you, truly understand you, and share their feelings and you share your feelings, and then you both are like, “We might not agree on everything but I acknowledge the fact that you have these feelings and I love you for it.” You learn from that, and then you move on. The relationship that we all want is to have completely open communication when we're struggling with something or if we feel like we can improve upon something inside of that relationship.
It's such a beautiful thing to have someone. Not to say that you want to go to your partner for every little thing. You have to be mindful. This all ties back into loving yourself and respecting yourself because that's when you have the most clarity on, “What's appropriate for me to be bringing up?” Talking about the mundane or a little thing that annoys you throughout the day all the time, that's also not the right way to go. I always say that you don't have to speak everything, but speak beautifully and speak on the things that are from your heart. That's when you are able to cultivate and create a beautiful relationship together because it could lead to codependency a lot of times, depending on the person's dynamic.
The best work is done with ourselves, doing our best and putting our best self to the table. You decided you needed to have this spiritual exorcism and this spiritual progression, evolution in life. A lot of times going into that unknown is a scary thing. I was at the beach one time and I was looking at the water. There's an entire universe of life underneath that and there's so much going on underneath, but all we see is the surface of the water. The same thing can be said for the fish looking at this light in the sky and if they pop their head out, they see all this land and it's so much. When you go into the unknown, how do you begin and know where to start on your journey in terms of healing? How did you get there?
I love that analogy so much. It's brilliant. Mine started on Instagram, modern technology. I have been following Joy, who is the founder of the Joyful Approach. She's a beautiful healer. She’s my and Kate’s mentor. I remember following her on Instagram and always thought to myself, “When I have the time and the funds, I'm going to work with her.” I saw that she was putting on a women's circle in her healing space, so I timidly went there this one magical October afternoon. I sat in a group with five other women. I was the youngest one and I was terrified. My marriage is falling apart. My life is falling apart. I'm miserable at my job. Everything that's going on.
360-Degree Turn: Don't hold on to your expectations so tightly because you will have something that triggers you, and something awful will happen again.
I sat there and in her presence, I felt the most beautiful, loving support and no judgment, no shame. Everyone was so open and vulnerable. In my mind, I was like, “I don't want to sit in a group of all these women and complain about our lives.” It was the opposite of that. It was on such a soul level. All these women, including myself, wanted to be heard and wanted somewhere where they could freely express it. A lot of times, your friends understand, but you sometimes need strangers.
I sat in the circle and it was incredible, and then she kept offering these different programs. The first one started out like a six-week women's group. We would meet every Wednesday and we would have a different theme. That led to a nature bathing group. That one was super powerful where we would do breathwork every session. Her breathwork is three-part and it's very active. You're lying down and you're depleted of a lot of sensory. Your eyes are closed. She plays the most beautiful sound bath and also does a guided meditation.
The amount of emotion that came through in the first breathwork that I did at her Sangha was so powerful and I thought to myself, “If I can sit here, breathe, have all of this energy transmuted, and feel so light and clear afterwards, then I can't imagine what this is like to do on a consistent basis.” I wasn't meditating at the time. I would sit with Insight Timer for five minutes and call it meditation, but I had a hard time fighting my mind because of all the anxiety.
I started seeing Joy and that was months and months of doing this group work, and then she started a mentorship program with a group of girls called The Matrix. I had the blessing to be with this group of amazing, powerful young women. Some are fitness instructors, healers, akashic records readers, Reiki practitioners, pilots, and health coaches. The energy that we had and the ideas that were flowing, and then the guidance of Joy was something so special. All of these experiences layered and layered but in a different way from my past. It was these positive ions going through my body.
I felt like a sponge where every crevice was being filled and I was like, “I'm filling this with love. I'm filling this with communication. I'm feeling this with breathwork, crystals, Reiki, and nature.” All these amazing things that at the end of the day, most of them were free. I found that a good catalyst into my healing journey. I wasn't getting that exorcism, that raw spiritual transformation at the time, but it was serving its purpose in such an amazing way that still to this day, I reference back to. Every day of my life has changed because of it.
She opened up a one-on-one container for a few of us and I started working with her in that container. It was transformational. Doing one-on-one breathwork sessions with a healer can work wonders. The amount of energy you transmute, the downloads that come in, the way that you feel, and then the way that you see you're leading your life and your energy changes. My husband would tell me every week, “You're like a bright light. You're happier, healthier, you look better and feel better.” Everything started melting away. My autoimmune started getting less and less. I was having a lot of inflammation and going through some health things. Working with Joy was absolutely transformational. From there, there were different things that came up.
I truly believe breath is life. What I found through my breathwork and I'm sure yourself talking to Kate about all the work she's done is that we hold a lot of emotional grief in different parts of our body. Maybe it got stuck. Maybe somebody yelled at you and you froze at that moment and it went into your rib or something like that. Through the breathwork when we're fully oxygenating our bodies, we get into this almost like a trance, hypnotic state that's almost like psychedelic.
There's a term called holotropic breathing where it is a psychedelic state and every time I've done breathwork, it opens up so many channels in my body. I'm able to remember things from my past. Some things were sad or some things were happy. It made me emotional at the time but afterwards, whatever I was holding on to gets released. The more you do these things, it opens up so much more. We can be fully present to what's going on rather than these mechanisms where it triggers from our past.
I'm such a proponent of layering on the positive. By no means am I saying it's been an all-smooth uphill ride. I've had many times where I've had to face my shadow. I know a lot of people throw around like, “I'm doing shadow work.” I don't know people understand what shadow work is and how to do it, but it's the parts of you that you don't want to face like the icky sticky parts. When you're going about your day and the thought arises or emotion comes out or reaction happens, you're like, “That wasn't good luck.” Those are the shadows and they could be super subtle. For me, a lot of it was still having frustration.
I remember being on the phone with my mom or my dad, who are loving and caring and are like, “What's going on?” I would lash out and get annoyed at something or triggered at something. That was when I had to sit down and figure out, “Where is this coming from? Why is it arising? How am I going to heal it?” For me, I know a lot of people do a lot of inner child work, which is beautiful because a lot of these traumas happen during childhood, but for me, it was during adolescence. It went back to the shame of my body changing, the shame of me having feelings towards a man, and having sexual feelings being a woman. Embodying and embracing the wild feminine was not acceptable. It was like, “Stay small. Be quiet.”
All those things in traditional culture and upbringing, and this could be across any culture that you're taught as a girl and even some boys, too. It's not just for one gender or the other or across however you identify. I found that working through breath, was releasing all of that shame and negative energy, and then taking that breath in and filling it back up with the positive. It was a lot of work, but I feel like if you believe in it and you trust in it, then you can make magic happen.
The other cool part of your story is the mentorship but also the community that was built during that time. When you see other people who have similar stories of overcoming shame, struggle, and challenges through their life and you see them one by one every week, somebody is overcoming something and then the next person. Everybody lifts each other up. It's important in life if you want to overcome something or you want to achieve something, find people of those tribes and join in on that because there are so many people looking for that connection. Nowadays with the internet, it's so simple to find people that you connect with on so many levels. There's no excuse to feel like, “I'm all alone in this world,” because there are so many people out there.
I never realized how important it is to have your tribe. I always grew up with a group of good friends and things but never had that soul connection. It wasn't until I was in my 30s that I found that and it's such a beautiful thing to have. I moved to Austin and the handful of people that I became friends with and the relationship that we have is so beyond special. It's on a different plane. It's similar to the groups I had with Joy and Kate. It's such a beautiful thing to have. It's also nice when you're a rawist and realist and you are you. People love and accept that so much. Having a community is super powerful.
When you're resonating with your truest self, that's all you're going to attract. The same thing happened to me. I have a lot of friends growing up in high school and college. I love them to death but at the same time, there weren’t those deep conversations and all the things that mean stuff to me. It was more about drinking and partying. After I opened up my wellness center, the people that came into my life are my soul brothers and sisters. Through this podcast and through so many different things I've been doing is pushing myself and I expect it now every single time. Every day, I'm going to meet somebody that's going to be a life-changing relationship. I'm so happy because every day is an adventure.
Wellness center is a goal. We got to bring you down to Austin, too.
Let's do it. Om.life Austin. Let's move forward. In the next step in this healing journey, what did you expand yourself to?
Let's get into the plant and animal medicines. Shall we go there?
Yes.
I cannot go on in this podcast if I do not reference Ben Greenfield because he was the OG and the catalyst to my health and wellness. While I was still in my foggy days, horse blinders on, I would wake up every morning and I commute either at the gym working out or walking to work or back home, cooking dinner, or whatever was listening to his podcast. I found him fascinating. He would go to Peru and sit with these shamans, drink a ton of ayahuasca, and have these transformational experiences. The way that he would talk about working out, changing your body, balancing your hormones, and the effects of light and grounding. I could go on and on. Something resonated with me. When I listened to his ayahuasca podcast, I'm like, “This is for me. This needs to happen. How am I going to make it happen?” For years, it seemed super inaccessible. I’m like, “I'm a young, single chic in New York City. When am I going to go to Peru and sit for ten days with a shaman and do this work?”
It’s in the middle of the jungle.
I kept reading about it. I know this sounds so cheesy, but when they say she calls you, she really does. She would come into my dreams. I would dream about my experiences. Most days, I would think about, “What is my transformation? What my highest self would look like? How much healing can be done?” Finally, I had a dear friend of mine that I've known for years. She was doing a lot of ayahuasca and she was going to the Amazon and Peru. She mentioned that there were a few places in Costa Rica like Soltara and Rythmia, which are well-known hotels that have ayahuasca retreats. I know one does the Shipibo way and I'm not sure how Rythmia does. They are supposedly beautiful and healing.
Glow by Sacha Black Book
When I was about to sign up for one of them, I talked to my girlfriend and she's like, “I know you want to do this and I'm fully supportive, but you should go to my shaman in California.” I was like, “I could save a couple of dollars and then I could also save travel time. It was only from a Friday afternoon until Monday morning. This seems more accessible.” I also felt a little bit safer traveling. I ended up going to Costa Rica a week before with my husband. We went for New Year's and I stayed at this beautiful retreat-like place. It was the preparation that I needed. A lot was coming up there.
I was feeling all these old dense, negative feelings and energies. I wasn't feeling good in my body. I wasn't feeling good in my mind. It was all coming back down. That's the beauty of Mother Ayahuasca. She brings it all in so you could clear it all out. I was feeling awful during that trip, and then I shipped off to California. I go on this retreat and to say it was life-changing is such an understatement. You sit for two ayahuasca ceremonies, and then in between the two ceremonies, you sit for two Wachuma ceremonies which is San Pedro and that's a heart-opener. It's beautiful and masculine. It comes from a cactus plant and you drink the powder, which doesn't taste so good.
Not at all. It's like the cousin of peyote. It's a little bit of a longer journey if anyone doesn't know. It's balancing the masculine and the feminine. Ayahuasca is considered the grandmother and San Pedro are considered the grandfather. The grandfather is the sun energy. Ayahuasca is usually done at night in the darkness that opens up the third eye. The San Pedro opens up the heart, so it's balancing the spirit and the heart.
Also, to preface this, plant and animal medicines are not something to take lightly. I didn't just wake up one day and decided to go on a psychedelic journey route. It took years and years of thinking about it, contemplating, and researching. I researched a ton. I asked around and went to different places. It needs to call you to any place. Although there are a lot of places that offer ayahuasca ceremonies that you want to be wary of. Definitely do your research and ask from reputable sources before you embark on any type of plant or animal medicine.
Anyways, back to the ayahuasca. The first night, I'm having these visions and I'm in the sound bath. It was so exciting and I'm like, “I can't wait to see what she shows me.” I journeyed for almost 10.5 hours to 11 hours. Through it all, I was like, “What is going on? What is this?” I kept telling myself like, “Don't forget it. Keep remembering it.” I was trying to control my journey. It was a mishmash of weird visions, reels, and things. I was trying to purge and it was uncomfortable.
I came out of the first night so confused and I was like, “What did that all mean? I don't get it. I'm lost.” That's common. Usually, the first night is like that. That's the feeling that you get. The second night, that's when it all happened. She came to me not in the form of any visuals but in downloads. I sat with her. We had the most beautiful, intuitive conversation. I kept asking her, “Why did I go through what I went through? Why did I suffer for twelve years? It never felt like it was mine.” That was another big theme that came up.
Throughout the years, I never felt like the eating disorder belonged to me. It was an out-of-body experience. It was me looking at myself being like, “This is not you Sach. This is not your true essence. You need to get back to that.” During my ayahuasca trip, she kept telling me, “Silly Sacha. It was never yours,” over and over. She kept reminding me and showing me that it was all of this ancestral trauma and healing from generations before me that needed to be cleared. For so many years, the women were silenced and suffered in silence, had past lives, and things that needed to get cleared.
I cleared it all. I purged and I cried for hours and hours. I felt so much love and support from her. It was love from her, but it was really love from me because, at the end of the day, she is you, whether you're male, female, or whatever you identify with. The biggest lesson was that it was never mine and I can finally release it and let it go. There were many other things, beautiful moments and conversations, and things that happen. The people that I met and my shamans are my heart and soul.
When I left there, I had zero anxiety. I couldn't have anxiety if I tried. I know they call it the post-ayahuasca bliss moment. It's also important to know that when you go into any of these healing journeys, release your expectations and your emotions. Don't hold on to them so tightly because you will have something that triggers you and something awful is going to happen again. You will be triggered and you're going to respond in a way that you don't love again, but you're bounced back rate is so much faster. For me, I'm able to like snap myself out of it.
There was a major rainstorm one time and I had no Wi-Fi and I'm running here. Normally, it would ruin my day and I'm like, “Whatever.” It just slides off your shoulder. There were a lot of lessons that I learned in ayahuasca and it was such a beautiful journey. I ended up doing it again about three months later for different reasons, which maybe in another podcast, I'll get into once I fully integrate it. Another major lesson that I learned in my second round was the release of outcomes and expectations. Surrender was huge and that, we can go into more with my different experience.
Thank you for sharing that. It's so beautiful for you to open up your heart like that and let us know. One of the biggest takeaways for me when I did ayahuasca is that I was able to see inside my brain. I remember going into almost this huge library with multiple floors. Everything was shimmering gold. I saw that every single book was a thought that I had in my life and it was all being housed in this one place. I saw there were some thought patterns that were so unorganized. Everything was scrambled all over the place.
It showed me that when I created a formulation of thought back when I was younger, I kept doubling down on that to make sure that this was a cemented thought. I didn't realize I was carrying these thoughts with me. If I look at somebody who reminds me of somebody else, there's a judgment on that person or there's a judgment about this person or this thing or this experience. “I know how it is.” The way to live after that experience showed me that I'm so rigid in my thinking and the more I could live as like this light feather throughout life, then you don't carry a lot of the weight on you. You're able to just flow the wind and sea, which when you get into any experience, it's going to be the perfect experience for you.
When you talk about expectations, losing expectations of other people, losing your expectations of yourself, and being present. If you could carry that love and that lightness with you, then everything becomes magical. Nothing is a drag. Any challenges you go through in a business or moving or any of this stuff is an experience because we're here in an ayahuasca show for such a short amount of time but we're eternal beings. Laugh at any of the BS that happens in this life because it's this part of the journey and were infinite.
What a beautiful experience. What a beautiful story. It's powerful. Everyone thinks, “It's so serious all the time,” but it's not. If you sit down and look at it, you're like, “What am I doing? Where am I? What am I experiencing?” It's fascinating that you can sit down with a medicine that is, first of all, super safe and has been shown to physically heal you. That was another thing when I came out of ayahuasca, I did my lab work, so this is interesting. I did my lab work before and I did my lab work afterwards.
My levels of inflammation, markers, and hormone levels were all significantly better. Not only that, but I had a lot of digestive and gut issues that I still continue to work on but have healed tremendously through doing ayahuasca. I did Kambo, which is a type of animal medicine, which is supposed to be super healing and it is. I find that these are my medicines. Not to say that if I was in an emergency, I would say, “No, you're not taking me to the ER.” I will go to the doctor and I will do what I have to do.
In terms of maintenance and healing on an energetic level, this is what people should be trying. Ayahuasca has been used for thousands of years. They even give it to children. It's apparently even safe for pregnancy up until three months, not more. I connect with medicine. That's another part of it also. It’s trusting it so much. I trust in it more than I trust in anything. A lot of times after ayahuasca, the integration is difficult at times and I find that it's there for a purpose. It's there for you to work through it. You're not just going to wake up and be this transformed, enlightened being. It takes work.
It takes work beforehand, being accepting of it, keeping an open mind, and not trying to control it. I've been in situations where I've tried to control the medicine. It's going to kick your ass a little bit in a loving way, but it's going to show you, “It's not about control. It's about acceptance. This is what this life is about.” The other thing I'll say about ayahuasca is you want to make sure you did your research on where to do it. You want to do it in a safe place. You want to make sure that the shamans have the right intentions because like anything in life, there are shamans that don't have the right intention.
When you're working in that realm, when you go to the 4th Dimension, 5th Dimension, or whatever you want to call it, it's a different place from this physical reality and you want to make sure that you're in safe hands. There are many great ones out there. There are also many ones that are looking to take advantage of people. Something to keep in mind for everybody is to do your due diligence and get recommendations from people that you know.
360-Degree Turn: Your food should be whole and natural above everything. Plants and whole organic animal proteins should come first.
I find that the best way to go is finding someone that you trust and talking to them about it, their experience, and things like that.
Tell us a little bit about the San Pedro part of the journey. What did you take away? What was the biggest takeaway for you?
I've done it four times. The first two were heart-opening. I had a profound experience of that where I shed tears for hours and hours. This was the part where I purge and I just sat by myself. It was like these downloads would come to me and I would feel the sadness of my mother, grandmother, great grandmother, aunts, and cousins. Every female in my family, I felt their sadness, hardships, and difficulties. I was purging it for them. I was the vessel for them to remove it and transmute it. San Pedro also showed me how loving and open my heart is and how much love I'm not giving out to the world. That doesn't mean loving your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, parents, or friends. It means like, “How are you serving the collective? What are you putting out there?” The energy that you're putting out there eventually affects other people. “What am I doing?”
That was how a lot of Glow by Sacha started. We started changing a lot from being a health coaching service to more of spiritual service. San Pedro was beautiful. It let me feel all the feels. That's the most layman's term way of putting it. Letting it flow, not being ashamed of it, not being self-conscious about it at all, and embracing the flow. Honestly, sometimes we need a good cry. When was the last time you sat and cried, whether it's for a specific reason or to let it go? That's how I felt about San Pedro.
Like a car, it needs an oil change and it needs a new fluid. Our body needs that. We need to detox in every which way, through tears is important. If you haven't had a good cry in a while, give it a go. There's a crying yoga and then there's laughter yoga. There are so many different ways we can connect to different emotional states. They're all beautiful and they all help you.
I like to think that I've done a lot of them. I know there's a bunch more that I have not done, which I'll probably eventually get to at one point or another. There's no right or wrong. It's whatever you're feeling. I remember sitting down at my computer before I started going into all these practices and I Googled exorcism in NYC or exorcism near me in Google Maps. I found some people who did exorcisms, and then I was like, “This is a thing. I can find someone to help me transmute all of this dense energy that's not mine.” I didn't end up going to them but it made me realize there is something for everyone and there's no shame in it. It's what is going to heal you and make you feel better. As long as you're not physically or mentally harming yourself or hurting others, I don't think there's anything negative about these medicines, journeys, and different therapeutic approaches other than talk therapy.
When we spoke earlier, you said your psychedelic experiences through them, you experienced ego death. Can you tell us a little bit about what that means to you? Take us through the process of dying from your ego point of view.
I did a 5-MeO-DMT journey, also known as Bufo. It is from the secretions of the Sonoran Desert toad. This is probably one of the most powerful psychedelics like Iboga. When you first hear about or read about it, they're like, “It's the ego death. Your ego dies. You die and you come back to life.” I was like, “What's the point of that? I don’t get it.” This is a super powerful psychedelic. I highly recommend that you do not try it unless you've done others beforehand. It's a lot.
Another part of it is integration. With ayahuasca, usually, when you sit with a shaman or a group or a tribe, you go through the steps for integration afterward. Integration can last you a couple of days, weeks, months, a few years. It’s a personal journey. It's what you're making of this medicine, the lessons that you learned, how you're going to move it into your life, and things like that. Integrating it back into this 3D world that we live in. The reason why I did Bufo was, despite everything that I've done up until then, I felt my ego. Personally, the ego means the thoughts that I have daily, everything.
They say you over 44,000 thoughts per day. I didn't like all of them. I'm not here to do another psychedelic, to try to be this elevated human. I was looking towards the root cause and how I'm dealing with this on a day-to-day basis. I felt called to do Bufo. I was also getting a lot of signs from the universe. The two weeks before doing it, I would see at least one dead bird a day. I also did Kambo, which is another frog medicine. When I did that, there was a big eagle that came. I did it outdoors and the woman is wonderful. She was telling me that during my journey, a big eagle swooped down in her backyard. She never sees eagles. I realized, “That must be my spirit animal.” After that, I would see many dead birds.
The two weeks before I did Bufo, I would see dead birds. Not a hit by a car dead bird, it fell from the sky. I was like, “What does this mean?” I was like, “This is death and rebirth.” This is a sign. I did the Bufo and to say it was terrifying is an understatement. Also, it’s beautiful and transformative. You are shot into the next dimension of nothingness and everything at the same time. It is such an overwhelming feeling. For people who don't know, the excretions are made into a glass thing and you smoke it and you inhale it. You hold it until the shaman tells you. My brain exploded into a million pieces.
The sensation is overwhelming. To give a visual feeling, every sensory feeling on the most overload, the visions, the noise, the taste, the feeling were overwhelming. It’s almost intolerable that you can't do anything about it. You're on this journey. You realize how insignificant you are. At the same time, you realize how connected you are. That's where the ego death comes because I was no longer Sacha. There was no Sacha. There was no me. There was no you. There was no I. It was like thou, them or however you want to say it. It erased the I. There was no Sacha with the eating disorder, Sacha the occupational therapist, Sacha the health coach, Sacha the wife, daughter, or whatever. It was nothing. That was terrifying to let go of.
It only lasts a short time. It's about 15 to 30 minutes. When I came out of it, I was terrified. I felt stuck. The first words that came out of my mouth were, “I'm stuck.” Funny enough, I went back into my journals from my intentions before I did Bufo. I wrote, “I no longer want to feel stuck.” Those were the first words that came out of my mouth. I was like, “I feel stuck. I screwed up. I did this wrong. What am I going to do? I'm screwed up for life.” I had the most amazing two ladies, two shawoman. They gave me the medicine again for the second time. That was the complete ultimate surrender.
This was the same day?
It was right afterwards.
Bring me back in, coach.
I was like, “I don't know if I can handle this.” I knew I needed to get out of whatever dimension I was teetering in. That was ultimate surrender. You can talk about surrender all day long. Personally, on my journey, this was the ultimate letting go of my identity. Letting go of me. Letting go of everything that's ever held me down. Letting go of the shame, anything like that. While I'm still integrating my journey, it's been beautiful. It's been difficult at times. I ground a lot. I have a massive grounding practice every day and a lot of my self-care, which people misconstrue these days. A lot of my self-care is to ground. I'm an Earth sign but also an air sign. To me, grounding is probably the most effective way to reach that state without doing a psychedelic.
Thank you so much for sharing that. You came out of it. We were going to have a conversation and you're like, “I need a couple of days.”
This was supposed to be taped before. I was going through it that day. It's funny, I listened to Joe Rogan and Aubrey Marcus. I got to give another shout-out to Aubrey Marcus. He had a podcast that made me feel much more grounded in my journey. It's specific to the person. When you listen to too many other people, it can meddle in your journey. I found his to be beautiful because there was no cover. There was no mask. It was raw and real. That's what I want to put out into the universe. My raw and real journey was not like everyone else's. A lot of people feel this immense bliss, like a post-orgasmic journey. I was feeling none of that. I don't want to spread lies. It's difficult. It can be different.
This is probably a difficult question. When your ego, your being, whatever you consider yourself now exploded and expanded into million pieces, what were you or who were you, if you can even describe it at that moment?
I was a white light. That's my answer. Everything was a big white light. When I meditate, it's always a white light. When I try to connect with my spirit guides or with anything that I'm doing at that time, it's always a white light. Whenever I'm trying to transmute energy out, if I'm feeling a certain negative way, connect the core to the earth, put it through white light, and get rid of it. For me, it was light. It was like a God presence. I don't want to throw this around lightly. When I used to think of God, I would think of this old man with the cane on top of the mountain, commanding everyone, and taking care of all his children and Mother Earth and everything. What I'm realizing through doing Bufo is it is not a thing. It is a feeling. It is energy. It was the white light. You are part of that.
A lot of the higher people say, “At the end, you are God.” It’s such a mind-blowing thing to come to, which is another thing that I'm working on understanding. It was such a connectedness. Whether you want to think that you are that or you are part of that collective, that's how I felt. I was the white light. I am part of the collective. It's not just me. Letting that go and falling into the sensation of that was harrowing. When you're on the journey, you're not physically dying. It's what it is. It's the ego death. Your brain is exploding into a million pieces.
It’s powerful. One way to look at it is you are the white light. It takes some time for you to understand that you are the white light. Imagine the Big Bang happens. It's complete darkness everywhere. There's no life, nowhere. The Big Bang happens and you are the piece of that light. What are you going to see? All you're going to see is darkness because you are that light that's expanding. You're bringing life into that area or into that place.
A lot of people don't realize that without darkness, there wouldn't be light. Without light, there wouldn't be darkness. You can't go on these spiritual journeys and think, “I'm going to be the light for the rest of my life. I'm only going to do good, say good, feel good.” Absolutely not. You need your dark moment. You need that dark side. You need the dark side for you to discover your light. When people say, “Dark Night of the soul.” It's not one night of breaking down and crying on your bathroom floor. It's a process. It could come in waves. It can come in time. I like the comparison between the dark and the light.
It's necessary. We need to go through that darkness to uncover everything that is not us so we can reconnect with our truest selves. In my opinion, the only truth in this universe is love and light. That's it. Let's come back down to Earth. Now, that you've gone through all this amazing evolution and experiences to bring you where you are, how does that translate into your business? Tell us a little bit about what you do in your business and how you help others.
I founded Glow By Sacha, a little while back. It was before my psychedelic journeys and things like that. I was working as an occupational therapist. When COVID happened, I was working with autistic children and the New York City School System. After that, everything went remote. I was working remotely and my light dimmed. It was not a good time. I wasn't feeling the connection to my job anymore. I was struggling being present and all that stuff. When I created Glow by Sacha, I always had this connection with nutrition and wellness. I wanted to help others optimize their bodies and their minds.
I enrolled in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, IIN. I got my health coaching certificate. I then created a little health coaching practice. From there, it expanded into so much more than coaching people on the food that they put on their plates. I realize more than ever how individual someone is. I'll give you a good example. Think of broccoli. Broccoli is like the greatest food you can have. It's green. It's filled with Vitamin A and Vitamin C. It's good for you. Some people cannot digest broccoli and will cause harm to their body more than it will cause good, the same with kale.
I'm thinking to myself, as I'm coaching my initial clients and I'm telling them, “Put broccoli on your plate. Put this on your plate and put that. Eliminate this, eliminate that.” There is so much more to it than the food on your plate. What are your relationships like? What is your career like? What is your spirituality like? What are your movement and exercise like? Are you killing yourself at the gym for hours and burning your adrenals out and then shoving your body with a ton of protein or grabbing artificial-filled preservative snacks? Are you drinking on the weekends a whole time? What is going on in your everyday life? Glow by Sacha essentially is me being your health coach. I am your kitchen fairy. I am your number one fan. I'm there to root you on. I have been through probably any of it when it comes to diets and deprivation and starvation and rigidity. I'm here to show you that you do not need to do any of those to look and feel the way that you want to. That's how Glow by Sacha came to be.
I’m an INN grad, as well. What I love about it is it talks about how health is not just what you put in your body. It's the whole circle of life between your finances, relationships, your career, happiness, everything. I know that you go into that stuff with your clientele to make sure that we're balanced on every level. I appreciate the fact that you're going out there in the world and helping other people. Kate shared your Black Book. The book that you wrote. It's cool. Can you tell everybody a little bit about it?
The Black Book is a little funny. I love hummus. I'm Iranian Middle-Eastern. We put hummus on everything. I remember always eating it and feeling awful afterward. I was eating a popular brand of it. I remember going to the grocery store and I went to Whole Foods. There was a shelf of a ton of different hummuses. I'm looking at them. I'm like, “This one has citric acid in it, canola oil, safflower oil, Guar gum, sugars, and other things. I'm pretty sure when I go to my Israeli best friend's house and she makes hummus, it's chickpeas, lemon, salts, water, and maybe some tahini.”
That triggered something in me. I was like, “If hummus, which is a simple food is being contaminated with all of this nonsense, then what else is in our foods?” I became a vegetarian, then I was pescatarian, then I was vegan, then I was plant-based. I’ve tried all of it. Now, I'm me. To be honest, I don't eat meat. I don't discriminate against any food group or type or whatever the person wants to be. I always say your food should be whole and natural above everything. Plants and whole organic animal proteins should come first and fruits and vegetables and things. I went down this big rabbit hole of all the different foods, categorically, in the grocery store. I picked out my favorite ones.
Over the years, I compiled this massive list of food brands that are healthy and reputable. I called up companies. I spoke with the owners. I spoke with their third-party testing and things like that. I do go through the process with them to make sure that they are what they say they are. I put together this Black Book. Who doesn't want yummy ice cream? Whether you're plant-based or not, there are amazing vegan ice cream flavors and there are milk ones if that's what you want but just make sure where that dairy is coming from. Where is that meat coming from? Where is that fish source coming from? What are good baking brands, bread, and everything? There's nothing that I didn't miss in that book. It's evolving. It's going to be a subscription model soon where every month you pay and you get an updated version with different foods and recipes and things like that.
It's comprehensive and well thought out. There are so many options. Some cities won't have certain brands but then you have ten other options. I highly recommended it. I learned a lot from looking over that.
Thank you.
I want to thank you for coming on. This has been such an enlightening conversation. I love hearing people's journeys about going through some challenges, overcoming them, and then learning how to contribute that knowledge to other people. You're doing that. I appreciate you so much. To close it out, I want to ask you one last question. Why did you come here to Earth as Sacha? What did you want to experience?
I came to earth as Sacha to help even one person not have to struggle the way that I did and to know that they aren't alone. I can be open and honest with my journey, the ugly and beautiful. If anyone else is having those feelings or does have an eating disorder or whatever they're dealing with, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I'm also here to advocate. I have a strong connection with animals. Eventually, maybe later on down the line is to do a lot of work with helping animals. That's why I'm here.
Tell us how can we find more about you?
You can find me on Instagram. I am @GlowBySacha and I also have a website www.GlowBySacha.com where you can find my Black Book. It's also linked on my Instagram. I hope to stop by and say hi. I always love meeting people.
Please connect with Sacha. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Anand.
Important Links:
Joyful Approach - Instagram
@GlowBySacha - Instagram
@Anand.Life - Instagram
@OMLifeWellness - Instagram
@IamKateGriffith - Instagram
About Sacha Gnesin
Sacha is an integrative health & nutrition coach, occupational therapist, bio-hacker and wellness & fitness expert. She found her passion for health and wellness through her own journey to lead a healthier, happier life.
After struggling with an eating disorder for 12 years, she no longer wanted to feel depleted, numb & walking around in a haze, cut off from really feeling & facing her shadows. She embarked on a spiritual journey, seeking the help of healers, guides, shamans & mentors. Combining bio-hacking, plant and animal medicines, a whole lot of soul healing & trauma clearing, she found her truest self.
Sacha created her business “Glow by Sacha” to help others with their health & nutrition. True health starts from within & that’s where Sacha comes in; to make you glow from within.
